After seeing the movie The Promise about the Armenians being, let’s say, pushed out, of Turkey, driving home, a bit bummed out, it became really clear to me what religion is for, what role if fulfills in human beings, why it’s so pervasive in all cultures and through the ages.
It’s five main reasons: i) it is for people to justify fighting each other, and taking the other’s resources; ii) use it as a reason for nation building and for defending the nation; and iii) for keeping order in society so you know you’ll either get punishment or revenge for either doing, or being done wrong; iv) for easing the brutal reality, pain of living and then, dying, vanishing; and v) for easing the pain, for comping with very painful things that happen in life. So, the first three reasons show us that religion is both a unifier and a divider. When you take out these three reasons – basically, doing away with so-called organized religion, then you are left with so-called Spirituality – that’s why spiritual people are normally not affiliated with a religion (which is always affiliated with a nation or a race), because they don’t have the nationalistic view and don’t have the us versus them attitude.
As for me, well I understand all this, but I’m a man of the Renaissance, and now a 21st Century human – just an atheist, or some kind of a Taoist – whatever that means 🙂
I think some of these thoughts are a bit of a common threat, albeit, not-in-yo-face, that runs through my song lyrics.