Thank you for sharing your "journey thus far". The journey of a questor, dissatisfied with the black or white of easy answers but seeking the diversities all around.* I was lucky in that I never had a negative religious experience. I'm sad for those that do. Agnostic at present. Raised Methodist, only because it was the only not-Catholic church in our tiny town. Loved it. Basic message: Do good and be good because it's good. No Hell, Jesus was a nice guy and God could easily substitute for Universe or anything else necessary. Everything was metaphorical more or less, at least my take of it. Loved Joseph Campbell, Power of Myth as a teenager and read "I'm ok/you're ok" and "Scripts people live" because they were on the back of the toilet growing up and I read them while bored. Travelled through bits of Bahai, Unitarian Universalist, Quaker, Episcopal, a few others, very nearly becoming Roman Catholic because of a data entry job I had at a catholic university (and the priests in training seemed like cool people), ended up going Eastern Orthodox for 5-6 years. Taught myself a little Russian, got DEEP into theology, Desert Monks, stayed in a monastery for a short time, loved the epicurean lifestyle and the singing. Then 10 years of Science obsession along with learning business, marketing, stuff.* Now 43, searching still for meaning of life stuff, exploring systems that are compatible with my way of thinking, which seems to lean towards Systems thinking. Found compatible philosophy/theory of mind (Embodied cognition family), and JUST found compatible psychology yesterday (Method of Levels - Perceptual Control Theory - just finished a book on it a few minutes ago.. first book I've read cover-to-cover in years). Quite agnostic in that "I don't know". I know I don't like people trying to control other people. but I do like people learning self-control and self-awareness. I have no problem with reasonable, civil people. Most religions have something really good at their core that's beneficial and for that, I'm glad they exist. Secular systems have yet to effectively replace the kinds of kinships and support that comes easily with religious groups, although I'm sure there's some successes that can prove me wrong and I hope their are. I love the uniqueness and richness of life and the people in it and the Universe we live in. Thank you for sharing your story and for inspiring me to write a little bit of mine as well.