By the way, you keep talking about superstition and imaginary friends whenever the subject of religion comes up. ;-D I find that a bit odd. It's not the main thing that I think about when I think of religion.

The things I mainly think of in regards to religion are working on one's own moral sense, on management of one's consciousness, focusing on the purpose of one's own life, achieving some level of self-discipline and some sense of responsibility toward oneself and others, improving oneself...that sort of thing.

Yes, you can work on all that stuff outside of religion too.

Of course! It's the foundation of life.

You WILL work with it regardless of whether you're religious or not...and that's exactly why religion is concerned with it, because what religion is really concerned about is answering (or at least attempting to answer) the greatest questions of existence, such as "What is my life really about? And what's the best way of handling it? And what are my responsibilities? And how can I find happiness and self-respect?"

None of this requires believing in imaginary friends or adopting superstitions. Does a Buddhist believe in imaginary friends? No. He believes in an ongoing process of learning, self-discipline, and the development of greater awareness as he evolves, hopefully toward a better overall state of consciousness. Seems to me that that is the primary original purpose of the higher teachings of prophets in most, if not all, the major religions. It certainly is the main thrust of what Jesus was talking about.

I can't help it that the bishops, bureaucrats, rule-makers, and bean counters took over the religious heirarchy as soon as the original prophet who got the ball rolling was conveniently dead and out of the way....

That's what tends to happen, I'm afraid. And it happens in politics and science too. The bureaucrats, rule-makers, and bean counters take over. And it doesn't take them very long to do it.