Excerpts: Religion

1.3.0

Religion

RELIGION • Usefulness • Altars • Ritual

1.3.1 Religion

Religion, (that is, “proper religion,”) combines our curiosity for well-grounded truths about the nature and purpose of EXISTENCE with the urge to creatively define our highest aspirations. It expresses tangible facts through idealized, fundamentally “artistic” forms that we subjectively interpret as being “spiritual.”

1.3.2 Usefulness

At its best, RELIGION is a substitute vocabulary by which to discuss our direct, derivational relationship to the energetic, unnamable “essence” of EXISTENCE. It uses allegory and personification to render clinical descriptors as if they were proper nouns.

1.3.3 Altars

Effective religions, regardless of their dissimilar forms, invoke, materially and ceremonially, the unimpeachable source of our universal origin.

Ineffective religions fail by misconstruing arbitrary articles of faith as objective TRUTH; thus their positive qualities, if any, are distinct from their dogma.

1.3.4 Ritual

Religious ceremonies that are orchestrated for reinforcement of positive behavior patterns, redefine the ordinary act of “living” as a purposeful means by which to develop our humanity; and associate our perspectives and deeds with their probable consequences in the real world.