Is Rastafarianism A Proper Religion?

My daughter asked: Is Rastafarianism a proper religion? Although I could guess what she meant, I told her to clarify: What do you mean by 'proper religion'? Something like Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, she said. Oh, I see. Briefly, I set it into perspective for her. There's no such thing as a 'proper' religion. A religion is a religion, whether it is Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Sangoism, Mormonism or Rastafarianism. No hierarchy whatsoever. All religions are spawns of the imagination, figments of fear, delusion, ignorance, or straight-out battiness - or the throwup of phantasmagoria as in the case of Peyote Religion.
I don't think worshipping an Emperor of Ethiopia who was clearly bemused by it all is more ridiculous than the worship of a wraithlike ahistorical figure called Jesus who, in the stories written about him, was somewhat confused whether he was the 'son of man' or the 'son of God.' Nor will I use the attributive 'proper' to describe a religion whose followers take as holy writ a pieced-together chapbook of ancient tales, injunctions and diktats, all said to be spoken by an unbodied voice to a man under a rock or dune in Arabia. Although some Buddhists take themselves too seriously, the religion itself stresses maya - illusion -and it does not rejoice in blowing the sweet-sour raspberry of heaven and hell or bloviating about a draconian singular god.
If you grew up in Africa in the 1970s and 80s, you would - or might - go through a phase of Rasta consciousness. There was Bob Marley, of course, helming the 'Zion train' of dreadlocked Reggae-making Jamaicans who popularised and proselytised Rastafarianism. There was cannabis, the main constituent of Rasta eucharist, oodles of it. Impressionably enough, under the influence of this 'herb', I tried to listen and stomp to Peter Tosh's 'Legalise It' and 'Bush Doctor' while sporting scrubby unconvincing dreadlocks. Something I never quite understood was the deification of Haile Selassie, the late Emperor of Ethiopia. While recognising the Jamaicans' connection with Africa, I thought there was something off-beam about them making a god out of an Ethiopian monarch. Considered the scion of Solomon, he was also believed to be their King of kings, Lion of Judah. I remember asking myself: even if Selassie was all of these things, how are my Jamaican brothers and sisters connected to Judah or King Solomon? You see, there is an overlap between my deconstruction of Rastafarianism and rejection of Christianity. I could see some parallels between Selassie and Jesus - or between those who made both out as gods of some sort. There is the same mass delusion. Same hero-worship. Same idolatry. Same aggrandisement and over-identification with a father figure. Same embrace of absurdity and unreason.
In a recent post by a Facebook friend about the absurdity of God-belief, I commented that 'I can't get my head around the idea of God and religion.' Someone replied, 'Bro, smoke some weed.' I couldn't help but chuckle to myself. Sadly, I am now teetotal when it comes to pot-smoking. But then, having grown older and mellower, I think it might indeed work. If I dosed myself up with Fela Kuti-size rolls of skunk, I might, like Amerindians stoned out on peyote, begin to hear the call from God, see Moses and his burning bush, David, Solomon, Elijah. I might even glimpse Haile Selassie.