Listening to a program about the Jehovah's Witnesses was interesting and showed up how religion is very different from philosophy. To compare the Tao with religion is a bit unfair, because the Tao is a philosophy, but not western philosophy.
The religions have a banner to which to flock, rules to obey. These are often rigid, and can be right or wrong, depending from which position a person is viewing them. The Tao is not like that, it has a centre, and the centre is the self, each individuals self. Knowing the self by investigation is so important in the philosophy of the Tao. If you know yourself it is with love for all other things that you can move out from that position and embrace the world and all it contains.
The hub of life is the self, the being that uses the body as transport. Moving out from that centre, all the being touches and imagines is done with love, and an acceptance of all things right to also be the centre of life. When a Taoist mentions god, it is the god of the whole, everything that is and could be and is imagined. Everything from the centre, self, to the outer reaches of the universe, life in its entirety, which is also death, destruction and disease.
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