Dylan Stoll | Copy Editor
Featured image courtesy of Jasmine Wiradharma, Comics Editor
Ever since humanity became conscious of the world around us, we desperately grasped for a sense of ourselves, and our relationship with nature. When our predecessors first watched in awe as bolts of lightning tore the sky in half, or when massive chunks of inflamed magma exploded from the depths of mountains, we couldn’t help but ask, “why?”
By our very nature, we are programmed to search for patterns, and to decipher the strange world around us into a coherent story that can give us a sense of direction.
I can only imagine how primordial people viewed the world 100,000 years ago. Without any sense of anything, the common knowledge that we take for granted every day, our ancient predecessors were probably terrified most of the time.
Personally, this is how I think religion came into existence—to combat the anxiety and fear associated with being a conscious, self-aware creature—but that does not make religion any less spiritual in its origin.
If we’re speaking in terms of two different planes of existence, or heaven and Earth, for example, anything of a spiritual nature, that is to say, from heaven, would manifest itself in the physical world by physical means.
If a god, or god-like entity wanted to make itself known without interfering in any way, how better to manifest that physically than to birth the idea of a god—a protector of sorts in the face of the brutality of nature—within the mind of man through fear of that very same nature?
The whole experience of man could be some great theatrical analogy, a lengthy attempt by a god to communicate through nature and science its own existence. Humanity may very well be the egg from which gods hatch, and without a sense of ourselves or our future, how are we to achieve that level of being?
Friedrich Nietzsche, a German philosopher from the late 1800s, believed that humanity would become aware of their potential as ‘supermen,’ and achieve the greatness that they can through what he called ‘the death of god.’ I’m not certain that the complete removal of the idea of god is necessary for that to be achieved, but I do believe that humanity is capable of attaining god, or god-like proportions, through scientific pursuits given enough time.
But without a foundation built on spirituality and religion, our very first attempts at understanding ourselves and the incredible world around us, we probably would have never left the comfort of our caves, never crossed the frigid Bering Land Bridge, and certainly never reached the stars like we have today.
Having a belief system gave humanity the support it needed during times of great peril, and for that reason among others, we owe the religions of the world a debt of gratitude.
