"Religion"

I was raised Christian, became Atheist then Agnostic in my early teens. Started searching for a new religion by the time I was 17, found Taoism and Zen and got hooked and about a year ago I got really interested in Native American Shamanism. However I have taken a break from my non stop reading and religious practice the past couple months. It kills me now to realize that all the pitfalls that Christianity has that pushed me away from it, all of these other religions also have. They were new to me and exciting for a little while but Buddhists are just as corrupt as any other religion. Just one small example is the fact that Siddhartha Gautama told his disciples to never worship any representation of him, because he was not a god but merely a man who had reached enlightenment, just as anyone else could do, yet how many times have you seen statues of the Buddha? Originally Buddhism had no gods, but in order to convert Hindus to this new religion they had to incorporate some of their Gods into the mythology. So the original vision of the religion was destroyed, just as easily as Jesus' original message was corrupted. It kills me to see how people in this age can still follow ideally as religious leaders make ridiculous claims and create false idols to worship. These men who lived over two millennia ago were incredible teachers, intelligent speakers, and very wise, but all they were, were men, nothing more nothing less. You can accomplish that exact same status they did if you put your mind to it. I can without a single doubt in my mind say that every single religion out there that I know of is completely wrong, but I cannot say that the person who started it was wrong. Jesus may have spoke complete truths and given us the exact way to reach the afterlife, but how am I supposed to know if that truth was translated correctly to me 2000 years later? Do I dismiss an entire religion because the people running it now are complete morons? No, what I do is dig deeper. Find out more about the original form of the religion and how it was taught in the beginning, because there is more to gain from it in that way. Then the things that don’t relate to my life, like the Taoists search for immortality, I write of as the thinking of people who lived in a more primitive time. Maybe relate their searches to something more modern and create my own theories. Religion isn’t a concrete thing, it isn’t so cut and dry 10 commandments follow them or go to hell. The world is filled with 6 billion different versions of what reality is, you cant just think that one set of rules can apply to everyone. You have to amend them to fit to your life style. So if one religion has something that appeals to you, but overall it doesn’t fit, then just take that one aspect and apply it to your life. You do this with all religions, philosophies, sciences, etc, and you create your own path to travel your life on properly. I think this might be the 5th time I’ve written this in the past few years.... but I always lose it somehow. Once it was a very extended 4 page essay for English class, this is the uber trimmed down version, but you get the idea.