I like syncretic religions so much, because they go"oh yeah, your guys are probably there too, and hey, that guy is a lot like our guy, I bet they’re the same guy".  It just seems so much nicer to go “Yeah your guy is there too” than “your guy isn’t real, ONLY MY GUY IS REAL" 

I mean like seriously, the kid who insists everyone else’s imaginary friends aren’t real and that only their imaginary friend is real is a douche lord, similarly movement atheists often kinda get “NO ONE’S IMAGINARY FRIENDS ARE REAL” and like they, like the “only my imaginary friend is real” kid, are kind of missing the point.  Maybe I’m talking out of my ass but like I feel like religions that are like “yeah this other religion’s cosmology is wildly different and in fact contradictory to my religion’s cosmology, but it’s probably also true” has a kind of understanding of what I guess I understand as what religion is useful for which is like providing a kind of framework for looking at the world, and like it’s not like there’s only one useful framework and like it seems like it’s from a more functional and less hyper literal understanding of things.  Like weirdly religion isn’t just natural and ethical philosophy, it can incorporate those things, but there’s other stuff.