I used to not like religion but I’ve slowly grown to appreciate it. Weirdly.

I was raised Roman Catholic, went to church every Sunday until 15-16, was an alter boy.

Started learning more about the crimes the church had committed over the centuries in pursuit of power and wealth. So I became immensely disillusioned with the entire idea.

At 28, the other day I was watching a newish movie about an Indian boy who grows up serving the wealthy but eventually becomes the leader of a gang himself.

During the movie he had a trip back to his home village and he would make these gestures, touching different body parts in pattern symbolized a prayer in the way that a Christian would cross themselves.

It opened my eyes to the reality of it all, back before transportation we had horses, if you could afford one. Other wise you were walking for whatever you needed.

Walking would take days if you needed to get from one village or another, think about how long it takes to walk 20 miles, now imagine you’re carrying stuff. You won’t want to make that trip very often.

Which leads you to you not leaving your close knit community for extended periods, which would start to create a subculture to its main culture just because it’s isolated due to time and distance.

This is where paganism would come in, you would create “gods” to make sense of the natural world around you, that’s why Hinduism has so many gods - it’s basically paganism in its truest form.

It made me realize that religion isn’t what it’s described as, it’s in it’s true form a community. That’s it. A bunch of people believing in a common thing that brings them together.

Modern religion has disguised that into this grand mystical purpose.

It’s sad because at its core religion is beautiful, since it’s the best example of humans coming together to try and understand the world around them.