[Dustin]

Originally Posted by truthseeker1111

I was raised religious, but came to realize in adolescence that other children are raised in other faiths / belief systems , and the fact that I was handed down my tradition doesn't automatically mean it's true.

Hello, ya it was the same for me, was raised Mormon but no idea now, just figuring things out through finding bits of information that at times are drawn to me and having experiences and conducting experiments – mostly though seeking via intuition.

Originally Posted by truthseeker1111

So I want to know which religion / belief system / world-view is true, if any. My natural instinct is to look into the various belief systems in the world. But Wikipedia tells me there are more than 4,000 religions in the world! And I'm guessing that doesn't necessarily include the non-theistic belief systems.

Just to clarify what I mean by "true"... I think that all world-views have truth in them - eg all religions properly practiced can give a person peace and harmony with others and happiness.

That's a lot of religions. Without looking into it further I would agree with you that all of them would have truth to them. Obviously just seek your own path but to help sort though them here's a short bit I know. As far as I know Vedic teachings are very accurate and are among the oldest still around; I've heard that the Vedas where written during the last Golden age, a period of enlightenment. As far as I know most eastern teachings, other than perhaps (I haven't studied this stuff) Buddhist and Zen originating teachings, came from the Vedas. Dr Hawkins was once asked about the difference between eastern teachings and Christianity and he said that Christianity was focused on reaching heaven and eastern teaching where about enlightenment. I all depends on what you want, reaching heaven isn't the end all in realization. And that is all I know about the roots of religion – lol. Oh ya one other thing is the first division of Christianity happened at the very beginning, Jesus is said to have thought in the Gnostic way and the Catholic is said to be an alteration created by the governing body at the time – you'd have to do the research since I haven't looked into that greatly but Napolean is a person that you'd be looking into.

Originally Posted by truthseeker1111

But which one or ones, if any, are historically and ontologically correct.

I don't know, I think there is more than one original path. (a lot of gurus throughout more recent history and even other people of this forum have abilities that my old Mormon religion would have only mentioned as historical referances or things that only happened to profits.) If you'd really like to figure that part of the question out I would start with a religious historian to identify the original paths which would greatly limit the number of religion you'd have to learn about. After that I would briefly check each of them out then find great depth of info from someone who experiences the teachings first hand, explore the ones that feel intuitively right. And I suppose once you found the path then you could follow the path of that religion as history has caused it to evolve to see which division or original point is best – seems like a lot of work though.

Originally Posted by truthseeker1111

Which one is not just a bunch of myths, but is historically factual, and (even more importantly) which one(s)' portrayal of reality is commensurate with the way reality really is?

“the way reality really is” is a tricky statement because I'm not entirely sure what you mean, peoples views of reality are belief systems same as religion. If you want a religion that is focused on the world and how it works and nothing beyond that then seek science; if you want a religion that is focused on the world as it is but also believes in a different place for death then seek Christianity; if you want a religion that well tell you that the world is an illusion and that life beyond this world is only slightly less of an illusion then follow the path of enlightenment through which ever way you want.

Originally Posted by truthseeker1111

So my question is - how to approach all this, and how to proceed?

(and if ultimately the truth is inaccessible to me, I'd like to at least get the best understanding of reality that I can).

Thanks!

Not sure how you should proceed but asking the question was a good start, I'm sure you'll get something out of asking the question. What I can tell you though is how it worked for me. I was Mormon though our practice of it was on and a lot of off. I've always had unusual experiences throughout life and they always seemed to back what I believed. In my early 20's I got a little bored with life being too simplistic and easy so I gave into imagination and explored ideas that I would have otherwise dismissed. These new ideas lead to new experiences that conformed them. This all continued for a few years, greatly expanding what I thought possible until one day an experience blew apart everything I knew because it confirmed that my beliefs where creating the experiences that I used to test and define my understanding of things and so for sometime after that it was difficult to proceed, to figure things out and at the same time I couldn't put faith in anything I have previously believed because all of my beliefs had been rooted in experiences. As of now, still figuring it out but it's going well; I no longer seek belief systems but try to identify underlying principles of existence which when I understand all of that then I can either proceed in the direction of learning various applications such as astral travel or manifesting or I can go into studying religious books with a better understanding of it so that weakness in religions well stand out.