What is the role of Religion in the modern world?
Nietzsche said ‘God is dead’ but I must question his conviction as to whether God can ever truly be killed? Because despite the murderous intent which lingers in our minds and causes us to behave in self-destructive ways, God remains omnipresent. The Eternal Refuge. We return because it is in the nature He placed within us. Although we often do not see it. Due to social demands. Due to education. Due to time. Due to our selves. But when all those are thrown in disarray, we can only look down at our blood-soaked hands and within at who we truly are. When we gaze at the abyss, there is darkness and more darkness and for many only impenetrable darkness for eons which traverse infinitely; psychic disequilibrium is the natural result. But for most of us, there is strength, there is hope, there is fortitude and there is a promise. To be better and live better. To honor our families and honor our ancestral legacies. To believe in something better than the ideals we have so easily consumed and transmute these convictions in spite of all else. To be reminded that we have sacred properties which belong only to Him. As the Qur’an tells us “Truly to God we do belong, and truly to God we shall return (2: 156).”
Embedded below are lectures and videos I have worked on through the course of my career which seek to academically quantify how religiosity can positively (and negatively) impact the psychological, social and behavioral health of our species. Peer-reviewed citations are linked in each video description.
Poem from rumi
First man appeared in the class of inorganic things, Next he passed there from into that of plants.For years he lived as one of the plants, Remembering naught of his inorganic state so different;
And when he passed from the vegetive to the animal state, He had no remembrance of his state as a plant, Except the inclination he felt to the world of plants, Especially at the time of spring and sweet flowers.
Like the inclination of infants towards their mothers, Which know not the cause of their inclination to the breast…
Again the great Creator, as you know, Drew man out of the animal into the human state. Thus man passed from one order of nature to another, Till he became wise and knowing and strong as he is now.
Of his first souls he has now no remembrance. And he will be again changed from his present soul.
William James
It seems probable that in spite of all that “science” may do to the contrary, men will continue to pray to the end of time, unless their mental nature changes in a manner which nothing we know should lead us to expect. The impulse to pray is a necessary consequence of the fact that whilst the innermost of the empirical selves of a man is a Self of the social sort, it yet can find its only adequate Socius [its “great companion”] in an ideal world ….. most men, either continually or occasionally, carry a reference to it in their breast. The humblest outcast on this earth can feel himself to be real and valid by means of this higher recognition. And, on the other hand, for most of us, a world with no such inner refuge when the outer social self failed and dropped from us would be the abyss of horror. I say “for most of us”, because it is probable that individuals differ a good deal in the degree in which they are haunted by this sense of an ideal spectator. It is a much more essential part of the consciousness of some men than of others. Those who have the most of it are possibly the most religious men. But I am sure that even those who say they are altogether without it deceive themselves, and really have it in some degree.
Wang Yang-Ming
When the heart is free from the obscuration of selfish desires, it is the embodiment of the Principle of Heaven, which requires not an iota added from the outside.
When this heart, which has become completely identical with the Principle of Heaven, is applied and arises to serve parents, there is filial piety;
When it arises to serve the ruler, there is loyalty;
When it rises to deal with friends or to govern the people, there are faithfulness and humanity.
The main thing is for the heart to make an effort to get rid of selfish human desires and preserve the Principle of Heaven.
“The Bedouins say ‘we have believed.’ Say, ‘you have not yet believed, say instead, we have submitted’, for faith has not yet entered your hearts. And if you obey Allah and His Messenger, He will not deprive you from your deeds of anything. Indeed, Allah is Forgiving & Merciful.” (49:14)