What is at the Heart of it?

Why do we have religion?

What is at the heart of it?

Is it just a result of being sentient, thinking beings?  That we are conscious, able to remember the past, and anticipate the future?

Is it an attempt to explain the things we do not understand?  Sometimes the cold scientific answers are not enough.  We strive to have a greater understanding, a way of making sense of things. Thousands of years ago, if you had no scientific knowledge of thunder and lightning, wasn't it easier to think of it as the result of activities from a God or Gods?

Is it a way to explain what happens after we die?  Unlike many other animals, we were aware that it was coming.  What did it mean?  How could one just disappear forever?  Something must happen, and religion was a way to answer that and help you face the terrors of the inevitable.

Is it a way to make oneself feel special in relation to the mass of humanity?  You and your friends know the truth and the light and the way, and you would make it while others who didn't understand or accept the rituals would not.  Some might revel in the exclusivity of their club.  Others might make it their mission to convert others to what they believed as being your only chance to be "saved".

Is it a way of feeling more spiritually in tune with nature and the environment? Does it lead to a realization that we are just part of a greater whole?  That we become more a part of everything as we calm and contemplate, revive our interrelatedness as we meditate, and learn to inhabit the quiet spaces?

Is it a means for others to control us?  For one group to restrict, dominate, and exploit another group?  Does the dominant group seek to make their interpretation of religion the "official " one and condemn those who do not follow?  Do the advocated practices serve the interests of the controlling group?

Is it a social club?  A group designed to give us comfort, to provide emotional and material support in times of need?  To come together in song and love?  In a world where you increasingly cannot count on so many, does it lend the assistance and caring you need to keep going?

Is it about your own personal weaknesses, and needing the threat of eternal damnation to keep your behavior under control?

Is it about giving hope to the disadvantaged and oppressed?  That there is a sense of justice, and that one day, like it was for the Jews coming out of Egypt, that there will come a day of liberation and jubilation?

Is it about ethics and morality, shaping the world to make things better for all?  Is it about reflecting your love for a deity by showing your love for everyone?  That it is more important to improve things here than to worry about the afterlife? That how you treat others is at the core?

What is the answer?

What is at the heart of it?

That's a tough one, and something to think about.  I don't have a definitive answer.  It's probably not one thing.  It's probably a number of these things blended together.

And maybe they represent growth, stages in our understanding and use of religion.

I would like to think so.  And hopefully, we can work towards that last one - love your god(s), and primarily doing so by loving your neighbor, and by that love, improving the world for everyone.

Amen.