Why Are We Religious?
The Religious Impulse


SYNOPSIS:

   We human beings are often categorized by religion.
This assumes that all of us have some religious affiliation.
And most of us do.
Only a minority of people anywhere on Earth claim no religion.

    Why is religion such a wide-spread phenomenon?
Why do so many human beings have religious beliefs?
And what happens to people who abandon their childhood religion?
Many of them become Unitarian Universalists,
perhaps because of the religious impulse
coupled with the intellectual honesty that prevents them
from embracing any of the traditional religions on Earth.

OUTLINE:

1.  THE DESIRE TO KNOW AS ONE ROOT OF THE RELIGIOUS IMPULSE.

2.  SOCIAL STRUCTURE AS A ROOT OF RELIGION.

3.  WHAT HAPPENS TO THE RELIGIOUS IMPULSE
            WHEN THE OLD CONTENTS OF RELIGIONS ARE ABANDONED?




 Why Are We Religious?
The Religious Impulse

by James Leonard Park


1.  THE DESIRE TO KNOW AS ONE ROOT OF THE RELIGIOUS IMPULSE.


    All children want to know "WHY?"
When they see or hear about something around them,
they want to know what it is and why it works the way it does.
Why is the world the way we find it?
Where did human beings come from?
What will happen to us after we die?
Why should we behave one way rather than another?

    Some of these questions are now what we would call science.
The natural sciences attempt to answer our questions
about the origin and operation of the universe.

    Questions concerning how to organize our time on Earth
have been answered in many practical ways.
These have arisen from the necessity of surviving
before we can even have enough leisure time to ask other questions.
How much of each day of a human life
has been devoted to the sheer necessities of survival?
Probably our ancestors of millions of years ago
could do little else except strive to survive.
They needed to get some food each day or they would starve to death.
They needed to find shelter from the elements.

    But once they were able to obtain the necessities of life,
they found their minds turning to questions about deeper matters.
And some of these mysteries might be called religious questions.




2.  SOCIAL STRUCTURE AS A ROOT OF RELIGION.

    Human beings have always existed in organized groups.
We were born into small family groups,
which were held together by their survival-needs.
And somewhat larger tribal groups were needed
for protection from other tribes,
which were not always friendly and helpful.

    Often the social structures of tribal life had ritual components,
which we might easily classify as religious elements
when we look at them today.

    Many of the major transitions of human life
birth, mating, sickness, & death
have been included in the practices of the developed religions.
When something important is happening in any human life,
those events are brought to the fore in religious contexts.
Even as developed a religion as Unitarian Universalism
has its ritual of joys and concerns,
where members share the major changes of their lives
and their major worries.

    Sometimes the religious organizations of any community
form the basic social structure:
People identify themselves as parts of one religious group or another.
Some places on the Earth are dominated by only one religion.
And sometimes these religions are incorporated into the government.
The ultimate authority might reside in the religious leaders.

    In countries built on immigration from other places on the Earth,
often several religions exist side-by-side.
Such countries usually tolerate all forms of religious belief and practice.
And the ethnic origins of each segment of the population
might be tied to a certain religious identity.
For example, Irish people are expected to be Roman Catholic.
In fact, some of them were so identified with Irish Catholicism
that they would not attend a Roman Catholic Church
with different ethnic roots, for example an Italian Catholic Church.

    Unitarian Universalism is special among the American religions
in that it does not have any specific ethnic base.
People of all religious backgrounds and ethnic identities
have migrated to this relatively new religion on the Earth.




3.  WHAT HAPPENS TO THE RELIGIOUS IMPULSE
     WHEN THE OLD CONTENTS OF RELIGIONS ARE ABANDONED?


    Because Unitarian Universalism has no established creed,
it has changed its content and emphases over the years.
It used to be a religion focused around God and salvation,
but such beliefs have largely faded away
by the beginning of the 21st century.

    However, we might still be dealing with the religious impulse,
even tho we have given up
most of the religious beliefs of former generations.
When we are asked about our religious affiliation,
we can say that we are Unitarian Universalists.
But for people who know nothing about our movement,
this provides no new information.

    Sometimes social or political commitments
have become the center of our religious movement.
When this happens, practical achievements can be cataloged.
And the next political or social change becomes a new focus.
For example, abolishing slavery was a social commitment
of some earlier generations of Unitarians and Universalists.
But now that slavery no longer exists in the USA,
that same social-justice impulse has moved on
to other issues related to discrimination and oppression.

    Because social issues are so much more obvious and concrete
than typically religious or spiritual concerns,
sometimes Unitarian Universalism becomes identified with social justice.
But even when justice is the overt focus,
there might be some spiritual impetus behind that commitment.
We can certainly join with all others who are committed to the same goals,
even if these others have a different religious orientation
or are completely secular in their outlook.

    Many people join the Unitarian Universalist movement
because they were deeply dissatisfied with their religion of origin.
They found that they still want to have a religion of some sort
even tho they no longer affirm most of their beliefs from childhood.
Is this the religious impulse at work?
And should Unitarian Universalism address more deeply
the ultimate religious questions?



Created May 7, 2010 ; Revised 4-29-2011; 7-7-2011; 10-23-2011; 12-2-2011;
5-11-2012; 8-15-2012; 5-9-2013; 9-18-2014; 7-30-2015; 11-19-2016; 1-16-2020; 11-4-2020;



AUTHOR:


    James Park has been a religious person most of his life.
And his beliefs continue to evolve.
His most recent book related to religion is called:
Spirituality without Gods:
Developing Our Capacities of Spirit:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/aws-website-jamesleonardpark---freelibrary-3puxk/SWG.html

    He has written five other books on spiritual matters,
all of which are reviewed in the Existential Spirituality Bibliography,
which also includes other books in the same school of thought.

    Here are three other secular sermons closely related:

THE NEXT ONE THOUSAND YEARS
OF SPIRITUAL PROGRESS:
The future of Unitarian Universalism


Why I Am a Unitarian Universalist

Asking Ultimate Questions




Go to other on-line essays by James Park,
organized into 10 subject-areas.


Go to the UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISM page.


Go to the beginning of this website
James Leonard Park—Free Library