Why Religion? Why Not Religion?

It strikes me that one of the essential parts of being human is that we want that which we cannot or do not have.

There are times in life when we deem this proper, and appropriate.  Let's say, times like when we're parents and we see our kids, or any kids, and we think (or direct) that they shouldn't be able to have everything they want (even if we get them everything we think they should have), not if they're going to grow up and be healthy.

And there are times, mostly when it comes to our own desires, where we think we deserve that which we desire.  Like a promotion, a raise, or the right to cut off a line that is unfairly long. Or recognition, or respect.  

The things we all agree we should all have get enshrined as rights.

And enter religion.  For most of us in the western world, we're halfway secular, or we have unfavorable views of religion--as in, we would never say, at a party, what cool missionary retreat we had planned (unless of course, you would say this, and if you would, this post isn't really for you--sorry!).

I think we have those unfavorable views only because our religion, whichever one we were endowed with (born into), is one that we didn't have to work too hard to have access to, but instead, one that, perhaps, saturated the air around us as we developed.

I know I had at least 10 churches in my town of about 3000 not three hours from NYC.

And yet I didn't attend any of them.  I'm mostly too lazy to seriously consider God.  I generally feel that if there's a God, we don't need to have knowledge of it to live a good life.  In other words, we can figure out what a good life is for ourselves, and what our limitations are, on our own.  Of course, figuring out the limitations is half the battle, and definitely constricts.  That said, perhaps when we realize our own realizations fully, we've realized our own potential, too, in the sense that we have a deeper understanding of our size relative to that enigma of the world around us.

Anyway, religion is a communal structure for understanding that which we cannot have, and, in part, attaining it--or talking about attaining it.  That's my main point.  Sorry for the ramble.  In religion we have a culture that has expanded upon, in a kind of legal form of interpretation, with all the entailed jargon and specialized vocabulary you might expect, the ungraspable point of our existence: that it will end--and it promises us something more.   Even if that something more doesn't exist, religion shadows how we conceptualize and talk about that thing.  And maybe more importantly, it provides guidance for our rights in our current lives; that is, the story it tells about that which is beyond our lives impacts how we should be.  What we should have.  How we should live (associate with, feel about ourselves, about others, and about issues).  It tells us how to sublimate the want to have what we don't have.

It promises enlightenment in restriction.