A defense of religion

Each comes to the well for their own reasons, but be sure each that has come to the well has come for a reason.

Everyone has a religion, though they are not necessarily the same as each others since they are unique to our experience, but we all have one. It's the accumulation of the superstitions accumulated by our fairytales and bedtime stories we were told growing up. Long ago these faerie tales were the history of the Tribe, Clann, and Nation. They were replete with tales of its great heroes and their wondrous deeds. In the modern age they have mythologized into less recognizable forms. For instance, when you look at the moon, what do you see? Technically speaking you see sunlight reflected off of a rocky near earth satellite in near earth orbit. When we relax the rigidity of our scientifically oriented perception our imaginations begin to come alive and play (with all sorts of associations). We talk of the man in the moon, or the spinstress woman weaving the threads for the cloak of old father time, Or we discuss it's consistency in terms of green cheese with a giant mouse nibbling away at it ceaselessly. All of theses are the result of an imaginative interpretation of the universe. We did not come to this world full of science and rigor, but our imaginations were our first perception. It was our imaginations that gave us the "what ifs" of the world and spurred the invention of all major advancement humanity has ever seen. Without imagination mechanism is just math, it is the philosophy behind physics, and the backbone of the atomic theory (indeed all scientific discovery). When we imagine a better world, and invent creations based on those imaginings we improve the world for the future. When that same imaginative impulse is applied to an idealized past we call it religion ("Doing as was done before" is the same as "Tried tested and true"). Knowledge is the result of imaginative thinking and its proofs, indeed imagination is what drives the world forward. Aleister Crowley once said "Visualisation is the key to the occult", Visualisation is one of many forms of imagination. I believe Einstein was onto something when he said "Imagination is more important than knowledge", knowledge sits and gives us proofs to back our imaginative assumptions, imagination is our common drive forward.

Peace and love are the tones of universal harmony, and in that harmonic lay its order.

There needs to be an alternative to the rat race that does not require the abstainer to become a burden on their society. Thus there is great benefit in religious epicurean societies such as Bardo-Druidic colleges or monasteries.

There is something to be said for the cumulative benefits of habitual practice