The religiosity of Man

I am a religious man, but at the same time, I am a man of science, of thought, of investigation, a
teacher, an adult and a philosopher. More often than not whenever I'm involved in a
conversation and it leads to the religious realm, people are surprised when I say that I'm a
Catholic and at the same time support many things they consider to be against whatever
religious set I chose.
In my experience, humble at most, I can say that humans are contradictory, and that makes us
really interesting, we are capable of saying something and then acting in a whole different way a
few blocks down the street, so it amuses me profoundly when they say I am contradictory when
I say I'm a Catholic, and at the same time say I think the big bang" seems very logical, orsay I
believe the Tyrannosaurus Rex was one scary dino.
Though, perhaps apart from politics, people tend to be very lenient with opinions, when you talk
about religion they tend to take you awfully serious, and try to disprove whatever your beliefs
are, almost as if they were following a secret agenda. To those people I often say that every
religion (and with this I broadly end up involving some zealot political movements) consists of
basically two sets of issues they revolve around, on one hand they all have a set of myths and
on the other a set of rules. The myths serving as the backbone of the religion, granting all the
historical characteristics of a people, and the rules functioning as the particular behavioral
pattern the group of people follow.
Myths are either more interesting or less interesting, for example, the story of a god who could
turn water into wine seems really interesting (I'm talking about Bacchus by the way), whereas a
myth about one who would not allow you to eat bacon doesn't sound as interesting. So you
pretty much end up either liking a story or not, and I say well I like the myth of this God who
turned himself into a man and was willing to sacrifice himself for everyone, because I'm not that
much into a hammer wielding God of thunder who can vanquish dark elves. And I tend to
emphasize, I" a lot, because Thor is in no way worse, as a story, than Jesus. And as we're
talking about myths, well were talking about narratives and languages, not much else.
Then after I've made my point about myths I say, well then the rituals, and behavioral patterns
are also more or less a matter of choice. I don't enjoy ritual sacrifices to old gods of the depth, it
really isn't my thing. Agreed that as a Venezuelan I was raised in a Judeochristian society,
where all ethical boundaries were in one way or another related to whatever the Christian Bible
says it's fine, but, reminding myself of the Golden Rule, or Kants categorical imperative, if the
world all shared the same behavior I was taught to have I think we would have very peaceful
loving and interesting place: I don't rob, I don't kill, I am very pro environmentalist, and tolerant
of others. But that's me and what I like and think, just a simple belief, and opinion and nothing
more.

But then, and this is where things in the conversation tend to go awry, that just makes religion a
choice and I can't really uphold that. Though I like what I believe, and believe that what I like is
good, I am not saying there is ONLY choice when talking about religion. There is a whole
incomprehensible world of experiences, that are so personal and unshareable and profound that
they lie in the realm of the illogical.
Soren Kierkegaard said that once we discover what the truly spiritual experience is, we know,
without knowledge, what is right and what is wrong, what we want in the future and what we
dream for of the past. But it does not comply with a discourse, it does not comply with a rule or a
story, it complies with my private life and the secret world of my noumenoi. My inner self beyond
the word I can share with anybody else.
As my arguments stand, religion is in part a logical choice and in part an illogical anti-choice,
filled with a conundrum that you must either accept, or simply reject, but by rejecting it, you run
the risk of being a zealot or a bigot, like many religious people who are incapable of accepting
others.