What is your religion?

Avivism.

This is a picture of my friend AL.

Also Pictured: CM, EH, AH, RR

I am technically Roman Catholic and a Protestant since I was baptized in an interfaith ceremony with a Presbyterian minister, befitting perhaps my disagreeing ancestry. I was bounced back and forth between the two churches of my parents, and I made a point to read a lot on my own to decide for myself what was the metaphysical truth when I went into perfectionism mode, because the two dogmas I was raised with certainly weren't agreeing with each other (and yes, even participate in all kinds of religious observances of different faiths for all of you snoodish book-hating experientialists out there). In addition I adopted some of the tenants of Buddhist philosophy, and then to a much more dominant extent Scientific Humanism. Throughout every ethical system seems to run The Golden Rule, Compassion, Forgiveness, Sacrifice, Mindfulness, Flooding, Generosity, Self-Improvement, Thankfulness, Charity, etc. which I would maintain are necessary universals in a society for getting along best with others... except the flooding. Also each faith system leaves room for a lot of bad stuff, it is very possible in my opinion to be a good person without observing any faith.

On one hand

•I believe that the existence of god is not provable through philosophical argument and

•I believe that the existence of god is not provable through and first person experiences of miracles or visions (though scientific validation of some of the events of the Bible is coming along, talking donkeys and any of the hundreds of searchable biblical contradictions or mistranslations appropriated into theology still present major problems)

and on the other

•I believe that all world religions provide their members with inclusive social benefits and

•I believe that other non-observant communities may currently lack those same social benefits

Neo-atheists want to destroy religion entirely (which I can often sympathize with) but to replace the benefits as the Communists did not only to create a tide of superstition will be a massive amount of work in my opinion, because religions add paths to a better life and meaning in some cases even as they create annoying fundamentalists, virulent anti-intellectualism, xenophobia, and largely unneeded conflict (including the Baha'i and Sufis). Mythologies and spiritual music can be beautiful, wisdom can be imparted over idiots (as in "A Man for All Seasons"), fun holidays hearkening back to the stone age, storytelling,