in ancient times, there were many good people who preached virtue, faith, and kindness. jesus preached loving thy neighbor and turning the other cheek. the buddha preached peacefulness towards all creatures and letting go of attachments. jesus, buddha, mohammed, confucious, moses: all of them preached values of virtue and compassion as parts of their faiths.
but modern society is empty of those things. religious people today are more often hypocrites rather than truely virtuous.
the christians of today use their faith as an excuse to be bigoted and racist and nationalistic, forgetting about the loving thy neighbor and turning the other cheek. muslim groups like the taliban forget that god is supposed to be the most merciful. the buddhists of myanmar who commited genocide forgot about the peacefulness they are supposed to have. the government of china has seemingly forgot taoism, and instead turning toward a mix of capitalistic things and authoritarian rules, often commiting crimes against religious people in the process. hindus have commited crimes against muslims for simply being there. modern jews in israel commit genocide against palestine. and while shinto seems to be fairly pure now, there was that period of time when it wa forcibly separated from buddhism despite them having been freely blended in a unique way that basically defined japan for centuries.
and the religions created today seem to be empty from the very start. scientology is basically a scam for money, having no actual virtue teachings. and the mormons, while they do have some virtue teachings, still have less than the older faiths did, and instead fill the space with racist teachings and americacentrism.
the age of true faiths has ended. the age of materialistic hypocritical money-grabbers that claim to be religious has sadly begun.
and some (not all) of the atheists of today throw the baby out with the bathwater. the hypocritical nature of modern religious people should obviously be rejected, but why reject things like the theology, the moral code, the mysticism, the rituals, and the virtue teachings? if you decided that your old faith was not for you, that is perfectly fine. but you should look at other faiths before you decide to reject everything. not every faith will be like your old one. but if you do decide that none of the faiths are for you, than it is fine to become an atheist, as long as you do not attack or bash religion or religious people.
agnosticism is also a good option: simply not knowing whether or not there is a god rather than actively denying the possibility. agnostics are humble, and being humble is a virtue in itself.
or you could even pave your own path. after all, if nobody ever created anything, there would be nothing today. you are not trapped into a box.
of course, some people simply never had a religion in the first place, and that is perfectly fine. as long as they do not become the reddit anti-theist types, then it is perfectly fine to be an atheist simply because you never had a religion in the first place.
the point here is, modern faith is empty. there are 3 main parts of a religion, each of these 3 parts has a surface part and a deeper part.
the 3 main parts are the theology, the practices, and the moral code.
the surface theology is the basic stuff: how many gods are there? are there angels? who are the main figures and/or prophets of the religion?
the deeper theology are things like philosophy and mysticism. philosophy including the meaning of life, the reasons for our existance, etc, and the mysticism can include things like angelogy and demonology.
the surface practices include things like going to religious places, celebrating festivals, wearing religious symbols, and performing simple ritual things.
the deeper practices include prayer and meditation with actual meaning behind it, as well as doing any of the surface practices while having the true meaning of them in mind. it also include more mysticism, such as religious magic and such, as well as doing anything that you do for the purpose of fullfilling a religious ideal.
the surface morals are the “what is forbidden?” type things. things such as a muslim not eating pork, or a christian not having sex before marriage.
the deeper morals are the “what virtues should i have?” things. things like giving to charity, or helping a neighbor, or being a pacifist.
modern religion has all 3 parts, but only the surface parts of the parts, lacking the deeper parts. a religion lacking the deeper parts can be considered empty, unless the gaps are filled by cultural things and/or by syncretism.
modern theology is only concerned with the basic beliefs. it needs you to believe in their god or gods and only their god or gods. modern theology leaves no room for deeper interpretive stuff such as philosophy and mysticism, as any deviation from the norm is considered bad.
modern practices only care about the surface and ignore meaning. they will go to church, but will not care about what is being taught there. modern people will seldom pray or do rituals, and will only give the bare minimum of charity. a religion can lack deeper parts of practices and still be good, but when those deeper parts are only being rejected because they are “too hard” or “too expensive”, that is bad.
modern morals only care about things like “halloween is the devil!” or “eating pork is dirty!” rather than caring about being charitable, kind, peaceful, etc. hypocrisy is way more common than it should be.
it is important for every non-culture-bound religion to have the deeper parts of the faith, or else hypocritical belief that you are better than others for wearing a religious symbol will arise. however, cultural religions, such as shinto or judaism, can get away with losing depth without falling into hypocrisy, because cultural values will fill in any gaps left by loss of deeper religious values.
the REAL important part is the 2 universal values. every person, whether religious or not, need to have.
the first value is acceptance. acceptance is the avoidance of bigotry. you must accept other people, you must not be racist or sexist, you must not hate people for being of a different faith or culture, and you must not hurt others for being different.
the second value is integrity, the avoidance of hypocrisy. you must fully follow your faith rather than cherry picking. it is fine to choose the spirit of it over the letter, but it is never ok to reject both the letter and the spirit of a value or rule of your faith simply because you dislike it or it is too inconvient.
the lack of these 2 values is what causes all bad things done by religious people. the salem witch trials and the rohingya genocide were a lack of acceptance. the modern christians that will never give to charity but will claim to be perfect christians are a lack of integrity. trump is lacking both values: he is bigoted towards muslims, black people, gay people, and immigrants, showing a lack of acceptance, and he cannot even name one verse of the bible while claiming to be religious, showing a lack of integrity.
my goal is a return to what every religion actually preached: kindness, compassion, peace. and that will be through the sweetest light.
the sweetest light is not a religion. in fact, a big rule is not to abandon your old religion in favor of the sweetest light, because the sweetest light is about every religion, and is for every religion. this is a philosophy and a school of mysticism, not a religion in itself. your modern day lacks deeper parts and only has a surface? then i will offer some deeper parts with no surface.