Is Religion Important To You?

laitman_567_04Opinion (Steven Reiss, The Ohio State University): “Religion is not just about fear of death. Religion couldn’t achieve mass acceptance if it only fulfilled one or two basic desires. …)

“People are attracted to religion because it provides believers the opportunity to satisfy all their basic desires over and over again. You can’t boil religion down to one essence….

“We all share the same 16 goals, but what makes us different is how much we value each one …

“How much an individual values each of those 16 desires corresponds closely to what he or she likes and dislikes about religion. …

“Religion has to appeal to both introverts and extroverts. For extroverts, religion offers festivals and teaches that God blesses fellowship. For introverts, religion encourages meditation and private retreats and teaches that God blesses solitude. …

“Religion attracts all kinds, including peacemakers and those who want a vengeful God. …

“Religion competes with secular society to meet those 16 needs and can gain or lose popularity based on how well people believe it does compared to secular society. …

“In 16 Strivings for God, I discuss a mystical personality type – the kind of person who would likely find value and meaning in mystical experiences and would be attracted to religion for that reason.  …

“We can test that and find out if there really is a mystical personality type. …

“I’m not trying to answer theological questions about the existence or nature of God. What I’m trying to answer is the nature of why people embrace religion and God.”

My Comment: As I always keep on saying, the foundation of human nature is egoism, the desire to fulfill oneself, to come to material and psychological satisfaction. Its demands become greater than normal existence can offer to a person.

There must be a versatile psychological wholeness that religion always provides. But material and psychological desires grow, both quantitatively and qualitatively, towards the discovery of the meaning of life.

In the past, this was partially satisfied by the sciences; today the demand and the need to attain the meaning of life has moved beyond science, and science recognizes the inconsistency in this.

Suffering forces us to search for a solution to the question about the meaning of life, about the meaning of enduring suffering, and, here, against all the sciences, religions, methods, philosophies, only the wisdom of Kabbalah appears in the final run towards the finish line, not just providing the answer for a person, but revealing the upper world and introducing him to a new existence.
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Related Material:
What Do People Need God For?
Religion Is A System Of Relations With The Creator
Once Again About Religion…

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