I was born in the south to two old school/take the kids to sunday school religious parents and generally speaking lived in a region of the country where it was considered socially taboo/unacceptable not to be religious or involved in religion. When you are a kid in that environment its kind of hard to come into religion on your own terms rather than out of coercion. I don't feel like I ever got to choose to be religious as a kid.

I sort of became a buddhist as an adult and rejected christianity. It seems to me that of all the religions Buddhism is the one thats the least overtly judgmental and punitive. I don't know. I don't even know that I've believed that God, any God, would save me from anything which seems to be a central tenet of most religions.

What do you think about religion? what if any was your religious upbringing like? Is religion sort of a cultural "with or against us" pillar of where you live?

Religions were intended to assist people with cognitive development and moral integrity. Buddhism is more a philosophy than religion. "Religiousness" is more important than "religion"; it doesn't matter which philosophy/cultural morality one chooses, but one was more likely to succeed in the past if they were church members. This was due to the social structure (power structure) that defined most feudalistic societies. "Truthfulness" is more valuable to the individual than "truth"; therefore the focus on scientific materialism and support for the physical world has distracted people from spiritual study and introspection.

In a new world a person is more reliant on their own means for development and this leaves people vulnerable to conflicting messages and corruption. The world has changed, although most have no sense for history-- so, because history was written to satisfy the power hierarchy which has broken down due to is own corruptive weight, people have not developed a broader and more questioning stance towards the doctrines of science as they do for the doctrines of religion.

When the smoke clears, a new world will be exposed. Not many can see it, in the present moment. Slick sales and marketing concepts have robbed people of their personal connection to clarity and introspection. Most feel a meaninglessness and vulnerability because they have not developed into free-minded sovereign individuals-- and group structure has little to gain in teaching people how to free themselves, spiritually. Spiritual development has become an undesirable dissident to the controlled marketplace of corporate influence; thus funding has not gone towards spiritual enrichment, but into market development via the educational system (degree factories).

i'm wearing a cross cause i think ghosts are trying to get me

The cross is a symbol of balance; the deceptive spirits in the real world want you to develop into an unbalanced conformist. A balanced person has less to fear. The ghosts are teaching you to face your otherworldly fears so that you can recognize those same dead spirits in living people-- and thus not be fooled by false intentions.

i thought they were trying to possess me