Can you perfect yourself as you wish in a religious manner?
I believe virtue is pure and there is only one tool to achieve virtue in/through us: love of virtue is that tool. So practicing virtue is not going to be effective..that approach tends to give us the thought we earned our virtue (like we own it and they didnt). The result of that is a legalism where we rule over others due to our greater virtue. IMO, Jesus came to overthrow that type of hypocritical arrogance in rulers which corrupted their love for virtue and others then say their hypocrisy, not a love for virtue. So I believe the only way to perfect yourself is to find virtue both perfectly pure and immensely beautiful so we become attracted to is (a passionate desire for it.falling in love with virtue*). Once that is the case, we do not need to practice or try anything..we will be filled with our love of virtue and virtue will radiate out from us. As I said, if we do not take that path, we are likely to become arrogant bullies with law in one hand and a our ego as a hammer in the others. There is no virtue in a person with that thought and behavior. Hope this helps. *: I believe there are three of us, inside of us: a loud, emotional and vocal DNA-driven survive, thrive, reproduce ego (I, me, my, mine).this is often a fear-mongering, defensive, arrogant and lying voice. a quiet seed of a beautiful, altruistic, virtue-driven hero/heroinethis is always an honest and truthful voice. a naive, curious, adventurous child chooser that can select either 1 or 2 (or a mix of both if choosing very wisely). I believe the purpose in life is for #3 to increase in wisdom and virtue. And with that increasing understanding, spend more time listening to and following #2 while paying less and less attention to (disciplining) #1. I hope this helps.