I wish I could be part of a religion, but my conscience just won’t allow me to. My rationalist mode of thinking means that I find it almost impossible to accept something on blind faith. Why would you believe in one religion without evidence, when there are hundreds of other religions that have just as much of a basis in fact?
But more importantly, I find that the vast majority of religious teachings conflict drastically with my own moral and political views. This especially applies to matters of human sexuality. I’m a firm believer in the right to free sexual expression, including masturbation and pre-marital sex. But most religions, especially the Abrahamic ones, teach people to keep their natural urges bottled up inside. That’s an incredibly unhealthy mindset, in my opinion. And don’t get me started on how the Bible talks about homosexuality: let’s just say that, as a bisexual person, I do not like being referred to as an “abomination”.
As someone who was raised in a fundamentalist Christian cult, experienced a crisis of faith which led to agnosticism, and has since come to identify as perennialist (with various & sundry adjectives), I find this perspective both familiar and alien. That’s what makes it so difficult for me to discuss religion/spirituality with people who haven’t walked a similar path.
All I can really suggest is don’t presume inerrantist/exclusivist forms of religion are “true” religion. Seek out the perspectives of theological progressives. Since my background’s Christian, that’s the perspective I’m most familiar with. I highly recommend checking out The Bible for Normal People and Homebrewed Christianity podcasts, and Marcus Borg’s books Reading the Bible Again for the First Time and The God We Never Knew. I’m also a fan of the Let’s Talk Religion YouTube channel; he covers various religious perspectives, though has an especial fondness for Sufism.