Why I'm Buddhist
I was raised within the Christian liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church. I studied to become an “alter-boy” to assist the priest in conducting mass and performing other rituals. I was taught to have faith in a loving, forgiving, all-powerful invisible being called “god” who watched over all things and all people. I was taught that this imaginary “god” had impregnated a woman through “immaculate conception” resulting in the birth of baby Jesus - the son of “god.” I was told that our “god” was the "one and only true god” - all other religions and belief systems, even other Christian-based churches, were either misguided, bad, evil, corrupt, or blasphemous and it was sinful to attend non-Catholic church services.
By the time I was twelve, I felt Catholicism to be fundamentally flawed, riddled with contradictions. Everything revolved around the principle of guilt - just being born you were stained with “original sin” and where a loving all-powerful “god” allowed harmful/bad things to happen to kind, loving people. I became disillusioned after witnessing the hypocrisy of members of our congregation faithfully attending church, all the while committing egregious acts against family and community. I realized that strict belief in Catholic liturgy precluded belief in any branch of scientific study that contradicted biblical teachings (e.g., evolution, astronomy, anthropology, archeology—anything questioning that Earth and the Universe is older that ~6,000 years.
After discarding Catholicism after being expelled from bible study class for asking “disrupting” questions, I began exploring other belief systems not based upon contradictory teachings, and blind, unquestioning faith in, and supplication to, an imaginary being and a bunch of guys in fancy robes.
In 1969, while stationed in Vietnam, I gained firsthand experience of Buddhism and began reading the teachings of the Buddha and discovered his teachings provide a rational, objective path for living one’s life based in reality, free of blind faith and belief in an all-seeing, omnipotent, invisible, imaginary being. It doesn’t include guilt as a motivator and does not consider the Buddha to be a god or a divine being. The word ‘Buddha’ is a just a title 
that means ‘One who is awake’ — in the sense of having ‘woken up to reality." The Buddha was simply a mortal man named Siddhartha Gautama, born in Nepal, who became awakened to a fundamental truth of existence. It is his teaching of this truth for which the Buddha is respected and honored. And all of the different statues and figures representing the Buddha are only to be used as symbols for honoring the Buddha's teachings.
The Buddha taught that the fundamental truth of existence is that we all live in constant dissatisfaction with something in our life due to expectations and attachment to present emotions, people, objects, or circumstances which we desire were different than they currently are in any given moment.
I offer below and upper right menu links on this web site and other links to topics concerning engaged Buddhism, meditation, Buddha’s fundamental teachings, and other resources where you can learn, investigate, and develop a deeper understanding about Buddhism's history and how it is practiced around the world. I hope you find this information informative and beneficial.
Caveat Lector (reader beware)! Please note — there are many web sites and other sources asserting knowledge of Buddhism, proclaiming that "this quote" or "that saying" or “this idea” is attributable to the Buddha — however many of these sources mislead, misquote, rephrase with broad editorial license, or are outright false or bogus. As with many things introduced into Western culture, Buddhism has been hijacked by capitalism and is exploiting Buddhism in many ways: the Buddha's name, its meanings, its symbols, ideology, and teachings - all for profit. One very glaring area is in greeting cards and trinkets with sayings and quotes falsely attributed to the Buddha. The majority of these short sayings and quotes were simply not said by Buddha. I’ve included a link to a site named Fake Buddha Quotes, which is dedicated to exposing quotes and sayings erroneously attributed to the Buddha. Also, I caution you to not rely on any single source for information on Buddhism (including this website).
References and resources