“The predisposition to religious belief is the most complex and powerful force in the human mind and in all probability an ineradicable part of human nature” – Edward O. Wilson
For one, we humans are cursed with the intelligence to question our own existence. Yet, we aren’t blessed with enough of this gift to grapple effectively with our existential questions. This leaves our species with a terrifying abyss of unanswered questions, that for years, we have filled with faith. As Wilson later puts “We’d rather believe than know”.
Many great minds have broken down the origin of religion and I simply do not obtain the required level of insight to add anything new to this discussion. This post will instead focus on my mental shift from seeing religion as a plague that cripples an individual’s ability to see reality, to a more lenient view that while it’s not for everyone, there is a time and place for such practices.
A brief bit for context: I was raised in a household that was adamantly anti-religious. My father routinely labeled it as a scam designed to manipulate its followers. He had far more experience with it than I, as he spent the first 16 years or so of his life as a follower. I trusted his judgment. It is only now, as I explore it for the first time on my own, that I question his broad strokes statements.
The story of how I got there isn’t important. The first 15 minutes of the college ministry group at my local church were quite frankly shocking. The group started by singing together proudly. Some even reached their hands to the sky as if they thought god was looking down on them at that very moment. It may seem silly, but I felt weirdly out of place.
The following sermon was no different. I couldn’t help but think to myself that these people were deluding themselves. Following rules with no meaning simply because they are told to do so. It was only after a significant amount of reflection and a number of conversations with the others there that I began to see the value of it all.
When I stripped away the lens I had been passed down from my father, it became clear that these people were not very different from myself. At a core, we were all searching for purpose. As Fredrich Nietzsche is quoted as saying, “Man would sooner have the void for his purpose than be void of purpose.” How could I blame them for attempting to fill this void?
I still had a number of questions. The main ones focusing on how one is able to submit to the authority of god and follow the rules that accompany this submission. “How do you balance the enjoyment of life with these rules that you’ve been asked to follow?” I questioned a friend I had made.
His answer actually made quite a bit of sense. Although his explanation was worded a little differently, I interpreted that he didn’t see it as a loss but more of a trade off. He had found so much purpose in his following of the faith, that giving up smoking, drinking, and sex was a small price to pay. Many probably already understood this concept but to me it was foreign.
But still, it begs the question, why can’t you have both? Why can’t you follow your faith and enjoy the surface level pleasures that faith prohibits (in excess they are clearly destructive, but rather fun when shared with the appropriate people)? I have difficulty following rules that are just rules for rules sake.
Perhaps I don’t have an answer to this yet. My friend described the idea that without some level of sacrifice, he felt his commitment to god was simply too weak. For him, the purpose comes from following what he sees as god’s word.
This lead me to the view shift. While for people that have a life philosophy that is based on attempting to understand reality, religion seems to be a useless distraction, for those that simply wish to fill the purpose void without too much energy, religion is an easy solution.
How you or I feel about this frankly doesn’t matter. A common objection to this is that the purpose found in religion is fake or phony. That is because they don’t see god as existing, the purpose found should crumble. If you don’t believe in god, you likely fall in the group that sees humans as a product of evolution, simply another species floating through space on our green rock. If this is to be true, then there is no such thing as purpose to begin with (apart from passing along our genes, which is a boring answer). We are a happy accident in a benevolent universe. There is no such thing as true purpose. Some find it in a trade or profession. Others find it in the people around them. On the universal scale, none of it matters, so who are we to judge where people find life satisfaction and purpose?
It’s important to see ourselves as what we truly are. Intelligent apes trying to satisfy our biological hardware. How one does that is up to them.