What in the world has made religion such a fixed and compelling part of human existence?
In my experience, people are religious for one or more of the following reasons:
- Birth: They are born into it, and thus are indoctrinated to believe and obey at a very young age by their parents, extended family, and surrounding communities.
- Tribalism/Community: Â Animals often survive and thrive in packs or tribes. Â American psychologist Harry Harlow once wrote, “A lone monkey is a dead monkey.” Â As a group we can more easily fight off predators, distribute work, and make advancements than we can alone. ” Religions often provide the social and moral framework for tribes/communities to thrive.
- Death: People fear death, and religions usually assuage this existential fear by promising their members a glorious afterlife once they die.
- Meaning and Purpose: People do better when their lives have a sense of meaning and purpose. Â Religions provide many with a sense of meaning and purpose.
- Spirituality and Inspiration: Let’s face it.  Life can often be difficult, painful, and tedious.  Religion (at its best) excels at making people feel inspired and uplifted – whether through music, sermons, or service projects. Also, certain teachings (like God and Jesus know and love you) can help people feel hopeful, unconditionally loved, and accepted – when life feels cruel and rejecting.
- Identity: People seem to fare better when they “know who they are.” Â Religions provide identity to their members.
- Morality and Wisdom: Life provides so many options and dangers, such that people can easily make a mess of their lives. Â Religions provide a moral structure and a set of stories/life lessons that can help to simplify and guide choices, often leading to longer, healthier lives.
- Fear/Answers/Explanations: Did I mention that life can be difficult, painful and tedious?  It can also be uncertain, terrifying, and violent.  These realities often lead humans to feel scared and insecure about the present and future.  Historically, religions have stepped up to provide explanations for the unknown, or for the more difficult elements of life.  “Q: How did the earth come into existence? A: Well, God created it of course, and you are His special child. Time to be more faithful!” “Q: Why are there floods, earthquakes, famine, holocausts, and birth defects? A: Don’t worry.  These all happen for a reason.  God is in control, and He sends them all in His wisdom, to teach us lessons.  Or to test us.  Time to become more faithful!”
- Simplification/Order/Security: Most of us desire freedom, but life provides so many options that such freedom can become overly complex, and even paralyzing. Religion can help to dramatically simplify life’s decisions – by telling you what to think/believe, how to behave, and by providing order and structure. Ultimately, this can create a feeling of security in one’s life.
- Certainty/Being “Chosen”: It can feel absolutely wonderful to both “know everything” (removal of cognitive dissonance), and to feel as if you are one of God’s “chosen” children.
What would you change/add/remove? Please share comments below!
I have seen people unsuccesful in their worldy lives excell in their church responsibilities. For them I think this is a huge drive to practice their religion. Otherwise your list sums it up perfectly!
Did you see President Carter’s essay about why he left religion?
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/losing-my-religion-for-equality-20090714-dk0v.html
There is a saying, taken from the Bible verse and made more apt: “Train up a child and he CANNOT depart from it. He can never get away from it”.
Dan Dennett says it well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWrpt7CXp74
Dear John,
You are correct, my religion is a compelling part of my existence. I feel fortunate that my grandmother introduced me to the Episcopal church. Here are my answers to your questions.
1. Children may be born to church-going parents, or their parents might discover the church and bring the family, or they might find the church as adults. In any case, the only “indoctrination” they receive is to learn about God’s saving acts, as experienced and written in the Bible by those who have gone before, that they are loved just as they are, no matter who they are or what they might have done, and that they have a responsibility to do God’s work in the world.
2. We can accomplish more as a community than as well-meaning individuals.
3. Death is a natural part of life. Some people hope that they will see their loved ones in the hereafter, but it is not specifically taught. For Jesus, “eternal life” meant life in God’s kingdom here on earth.
4. My church inspires questions, not answers. Meaning and purpose come for me from thinking about what I learn, talking with other Christians, and applying it to my life.
5. The sermons at the church I attend now are intellectual and challenging. The music is beautiful. We are in Berkeley near the Episcopal seminary and have many advantages. However, I have been to many Episcopal churches that were not so fortunate (including the small mission of St. John’s in Logan), and we still had the ancient liturgy and each other. We support those in our community and outside the community who find life difficult, painful, or tedious.
6. My identity as I have learned in the many years I’ve gone to church is that I am made in God’s image.
7. I don’t know that our church simplifies choices or that Episcopalians are any more moral than other people. Certainly most of us are trying, but we are human. It is not a moralistic church with a code of behavior.
8. God is not in control of nature or birth defects and doesn’t test us.
9. My church does not tell me what to think/believe or how to behave, except for the understanding that we must show God’s love to the world.
10. Everyone is one of God’s chosen children, not just the people in my church. We don’t “know everything”; if anything, we come away from church on Sundays with challenging questions.
Like it or not, the mere fact that humans are sentient beings who live and interact with other sentient beings socially without immediately degenerating into absolute chaos, means there are an underlying set of fundamental principles that describe (“govern�) how such beings behave and how they interact with each other. This is exactly analogous to the underlying set of principles (including but not limited to quantum mechanics and general relativity) that describe/govern how the physical universe operates. If one knew all the “equations†of these principles, one could derive a solution that optimizes the workings of the society and of the individual sentient beings themselves. I think religious teachings or doctrines, or other systems such as secular humanism for example, provide a partial set of solutions to those equations, possibly discovered though trial and error over time, or maybe handed to us by more advanced beings we might call deity. We often label them moral values or ethics. Maybe the most important variable, or value, is joy, and a solution that maximizes this for the largest number of people could be considered to be a better solution than one that doesn’t do as good a job at that.
The existence of these underlying principles being the case, humans, being sentient, will intrinsically seek to understand them throughout history time and time again. And they will also individually and collectively, be drawn to the most optimal solutions (since this optimizes both their own joy as well as the “better†functioning of the society they live in). Religions have been excellent at both offering decent or really good solutions, and more importantly implementing them among the individuals as well as the society—i.e., “teaching†or preaching these values/doctrine/principles/whatever-you-want-to-call-them. We don’t really have a good replacement yet; who or what is going to do the teaching? The government? The schools? Some organization that society sets up? How does a society come up with a complete enough set that everyone in the society will generally agree upon? Religions do this and have done it throughout human history, even if the humans running the religion have corrupted it at times—seems to be a common tendency. And by a complete enough set, I mean that it has to include what might be called higher-order solutions or teachings too (things that would inculcate more humans to attain to the highest levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy, for example, or from a religious point of view, things like altruism, loving or forgiving your enemies as well as your friends, doing good for no other reason than because that is what your nature has become—things that are much harder than lower-order, but still good, teachings like “not lying†or “being kind†or “sharing†or “do unto others…†that schools and societies for example teach even if there is no church or religion around teaching these).
What’s missing is the best REASON of all: Because it is real, and facing reality is a healthy thing. However, if it is made up, it seems unhealthy to believe in it for convenience sake, which is what all of these unreasonable reasons seem to offer. “Head in the sand security.”
All good points John. Unless I missed it, I would add that many long for / hope for / wish for a benevolent, supernatural power outside themselves to transform / transport / animate them in favorable ways. Some may actually experience it; some may remain perpetually frustrated in a hope of realizing it; some figure they will yet obtain it well into the future; some resign themselves to never obtaining it; and some may delude themselves or may be tricked by others into thinking they have experienced it when they really haven’t. Regardless, it is a hope or quest shared by many.
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