Difficulty in letting go of Christianity

I can't say I know what it's like to be a part of a specific religion, but maybe my insight from the opposite end of the spectrum might be of interest.

I was raised "catholic", I put it in quotes because really all it meant was that as a child, whenever I was afraid of something, my family would use God and heaven to calm my fears. For example, thunderstorms, I would be terrified of being struck by lightning, my mom or my grandfather would say "don't worry, if God wants to take you, he'll take you when it's time". For some reason, that always calmed me down. It took the fear of the unknown away and replaced it with a sense of security in the idea that everything is determined, and I can't change it, so why worry?

Now, that's pretty much the extent of my religious belief growing up. As I got older, I started learning more about...well...everything in life. The more I became able to plug "fear holes" with knowledge instead of religion, the less I relied on religious ideas to soothe my fears.

I've never felt like I needed to belong to any religion. In fact, most of my life I've felt sorry for people who don't seem to understand that a life without religion is completely possible, and in my eyes at least, favorable for not only the individual but for the human race as a whole. There wouldn't be war in the middle east without religion. Things like that.

Once I broke through and experienced ego death for the first time, my ideas radically changed. I couldn't explain it but the "oneness" and connection to the "source" I felt while on trips completely removed my fear of death, and made me truly understand where I think religion may have come from. It seems perfectly logical to me that all religions initially come from the psychedelic experience. The interpretations of the experience are colored by the cultural context in which they occurred, and thus we have the same story for every religion, with some cultural differences.

But all religions seem to come from the same source. It's all the same thing. The same story, the same myths, the same ideologies for the most part. The only difference between them is their development in relation to the culture of the region where their followers lived.

For example, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all essentially the same religion. They're just 3 different versions that were created, one after another, and modified to fit the cultural and historical context of the time, like remakes of classic movies with a contemporary twist to sell it to "today's youth".

If you have a need for religion, you should absolutely pursue it if it's the only thing that fills the "holes" inside you. But don't worry too much about which one you follow. They're all the same, just culturally divergent.

I will say though...church and religion are two completely different things to me. Church is a place where people use religion to extract resources from you - time, money, or whatever else the church needs. They're very good at using guilt to keep you chained. This is why I disapprove of most organized religion. It's predatory in a way, especially Christianity in North America. That said, I've never once felt like a Buddhist temple was in it for the money. If there's any religion that seems to only be about the beliefs, it's Buddhism. I don't think you should feel any guilt over which version of the "God Story" you choose to follow. Either way, if you believe in a divine creator, and the divine creator is real, they will know and understand your choice.

/r/Psychonaut Thread