Religious affilition, what do you believe?

[Frosted]

I'm one of those "spiritual not religious" type of people.....No, not the New Agey kind that refers to stuff like "ascended masters", or "angels" or "spirit guides" etc. Rather than subscribing to a Diety or giving a human type of personality to energy, I pretty just chill out much like "Dudeism" (hahaha! That's a brilliant website!) and Taoism. However, I respect those of any religion that follow the premise of their religion instead of their interpretation of it (insert Westboro church reference here). I meditate, practice Tai Chi and Qigong (which a Christian once told me is work of the devil because I am not meditating on the word of God but rather on my breath.....what????), do Reiki, like drum circles, and other seemingly "New Age" type of stuff, but many "over the top" New Agers tend to look down on me and other "DudeTaoists" because we're apparently not as "spiritually advanced" as they are. Well, to those people I tend to say the same thing I say to my martial arts classes.... "perception of self (skill) and actual skill are two different things....I can put on a black belt and do one kick really hard and see one good result, but it doesn't make me a Black Belt. Get your Ego out of it and stop thinking you know everything".

The problem with these new age thingies is it's all quite vain really. They're also not without their own dogma i.e. you have to do this and that and be like this and that or you're not advanced spritually. Terrible. You're as spiritually advanced as you need to be at the present time. There's a lot of dogma coming into paganism. I'm not a pagan btw or any other religion. I believe that we're all on a spiritual path - blindly groping our way through life....because...and no matter what anybody else tells you - we know nothing. Anybody that says yes, it's this and that has clearly crawled up their own backside.

[Darwin]

Anybody that says yes, it's this and that has clearly crawled up their own backside.

Or somewhat more alarmingly, someone else's true-believer backside. Either way it stinks.