reason and live as a human being

One is free to hold any conception of anything. What I hold about being human: I am/was a human for whom there was a way to reason/live as a human being and this way was an alternative to how religious people (all who identified as being this or that religion and conceptualized religion as giving one an identity, whatever else they may have said about religion) reasoned and lived. And if you are here interested in what I say, then I say this: religious people, almost inevitably, will insist that their cultural/religious way of thinking/living are the human way to live/reason and your human way of reasoning/living is wrong and defective whenever it does not fall in line with their way of reasoning. They cannot bear the thought that human reasoning is real and can and should decide between what is true and what is not. They must resort to relativism: they resort to the position (which they are free to do) that reason cannot arbitrate objectively between what makes sense and what does not. They must see reason as ultimately misleading and lacking because that is what justifies, in their mind, the religious way of thinking/living they have chosen. Such people are relativists – they relativize truth. They see evil or misguided anything that departs from or challenges their way of reasoning and living (and especially living!). They have attached their wellbeing to religion and culture, not to truths of human reason. Human reason, to them, is a fiction. It is “western”, “modern”, “greek”, “egotistical” and so on. In their world, religion sets them free (from what, i dont know!), and makes them feel comfortable and gives them a sense of belonging and meaning, not truths of human reason. In that world, you can gain plenty of friends and goodwill if you are willing to abandon human reason (and, in my world, your humanity). Make the bargain if you must or if you want. But if you ask me, dont make that bargain! All religion and all religious thought is culturally-determined reasoning. The thought and living that is not culturally-determined is the life lived/suggested by human reason. Such a human life (in my world) is possible within any culture that allows freedom to each person to think/live as they choose. Cultural proposals (what something should mean, what one should think or do) are always a background condition, a set of claims, with which human thought engages but the temptation to surrender human reason, from fear and blackmail, to culture is for me, a klling of the reasoning human soul. Look for universal truths of human reason (expect them to exist!) and live by those truths so much as you find. All kinds of religious reasoning parades as (and fails to be) universal human reasoning and if you abadon your committment to truth and decide to become an advocate or apologist for any given religion, you will hurt and oppress your soul (again, from my point of view). One is free to hold any conception of anything.