religion - 4 - purpose to life

Perhaps the most important role that is played by religion is that it gives people something to live for.

What is the one thing that a man needs to justify his life? It is called a purpose. Everything that man does, he seeks purpose. That is the one unifying ideal, purpose of everything and purpose for everything.

I will illustrate this with a line of thought that scares the hell and heavens out of me. It is about what life is without a single unifying purpose.

However, his birth is the net result of the relationship between two people, a woman and a man. Out of the billions of combinations that are possible between the egg of the woman and the sperms of the man, the birth of a specific individual is just one. It is like saying that my birth is the net outcome of a system whose individual probability is one in a billion. Does my birth have a purpose?

As and when I grow up, I listen to different people in life. During the first ten years, I listen to my parents, then I listen to friends and then to colleagues. Their inputs go a long way in deciding what I want.

Once I am near the age of thirty, I get married and have a family. The next few decades are spent in making life better for that family of mine of which I too am a part. Then my kids grow up and leave the house and I am left to live a life whose goal now is just to wait for death.

When I have such a life, I know that there is only one life that I have and therefore I shall live it to maximize my comfort and my happiness, even if it is at the expense of others. However, as evolution says, that is not necessarily the best way to live.

In fact even in economics, what I lived was the Adam Smith model where the best for a group is what is best for the individuals forming the group. However, the better way for life is the John Nash model, where the best for a group is what is best for the individuals and the group as a whole. Religion provides that group as a whole.

Religion tells me that there is something after this life. It is called hell and heaven, it is called rebirth. It gives me what Hinduism called Karma - the net purpose behind every action, the net remainder of every action.

When there is something that tells me that life is not restricted to this life alone, I finally have a purpose. Even though that purpose may elude me in this life, I know that whatever I have now is the result of what happened in previous births and what is going to happen next is the result of what I do with this life. It also provides moral persuasion, therefore enabling what is best for the human species.

Religion provides the purpose that man seeks, the reason to live life. For without religion, if you go along my line of thought, there is no difference between you living until the age of seventy and dying, and dying right at this very instant, for in such a life, the only truth is death. It is a negative system. Religion removes the negativity as a goal and in that place gives heaven, hell and the system of rebirth. This new system gives man what he perceives to be a bigger picture. When there is life beyond death, life is at last provided a meaning. He shall live his life towards that goal and find the purpose he seeks in that goal.

This is the fourth and probably the most important role – providing the purpose one seeks in life.