Everyone is Religious (even atheists)

Everyone is religious.  Believe it or not, even the secular humanist is religious.  Even the atheist is religious!  So what is a religion and what does it mean to be religious?  Am I playing with the word making it mean whatever I want?  Far from it! The word religion comes from the Latin word religare which means “to bind”.  To bind to what?  Religion is what we are bound to as a way of life, a belief system, or a set of values that requires faith.  Another way to understand it comes from another Latin word, religio, which is part of the etymology of the word religion, and it means “obligation, bond, reverence”.  Religion then involves reverence to what is believed to be true and of the utmost importance, that is, an end in itself.  The religious beliefs mean that it is one's obligation to serve that end, and religion acts as a bond that unites one to that end.  Thirdly, in the Thomistic sense, religion can be understood as a virtue, a moral virtue ordered towards the justice owed to that which is worshiped. In other words, when we worship something, regardless of what it is, there is a right and a wrong way to go about it and therefore there are virtuous and vicious ways of acting.

With these three complementary ways of understanding what religion is, it is easy to see that religion is the glue that binds one to a purpose, to a history, to what is worshiped, to a goal in life, to others who share the same religion, to various obligations, and to a way of life that supports all of these things.  In simpler terms, religion is rooted in the following three items, or it could be said practicing a religion binds us to these three things:

• An origin story which tells us where we came from and why the world is the way it is, what is good, what is evil, and why each is the way it is.
• A goal in life to which we are all called to aim at which will relieve us of what is evil and bring about what is good.
• A way of of life held in common with fellow believers informed by the origin story and guided by the final goal in life.

Now, the atheist may say that he does not have faith, and the secular humanist may claim that they only believe those things that are rationally presented according to the standards of natural science.  Consequently, they may claim that they are not religious at all, that they make no religious claims whatsoever, and that they do not need faith to live.

Yet even the atheist makes a claim about God, whether they are an atheist who claims that there is no God or an atheist who (idiotically) claims they lack a belief or have no belief about God, and that claim is that one can live as if God does not exist.  Even the irreligious secular humanist makes a religious claim: that religion is private and has no place in the public sphere.

Further, believe it or not, the common belief system of those who hold to an atheism are bound to (in various degrees) a common origin story, goal in life, and way of life.  The common origin story is the naturalistic story of cosmological, planetary, geological, and biological evolution.  Although the goal in life varies for atheists, it is informed by evolution (preservation of the species, biological self fulfillment and pleasure/hedonism, propagation of the right people, population control, etc.) and excludes eternity.  The way of life for atheists also varies, but again, it is informed by evolution in the same way just mentioned and it excludes an objective moral code true for everyone everywhere.

Finally, it should be mentioned that atheism ultimately rests on blind faith in the claims of scientists. After all, the Big Bang, evolution, and millions (never mind billions) of years have never been observed by any human being. These theories are models based on unjustified metaphysical assumptions that contradict first principles. To believe in them is to truly have blind faith!

However, the evolutionary religion is a weak glue that has little binding power, especially when compared to other religions.  In fact, rather than being a glue, it is actually more appropriate to liken it to an acid.  Think on how many have justified the killing of others through eugenics, a pseudoscience impossible without evolutionary assumptions.  Whether of a different race, class, or “fitness”, how many have been killed with the evolutionary thinking that they are a hindrance to our evolutionary progress?  For what are the tools of evolution itself but death, deformity and chaos?  Out of the chaos of random mutations and the desire to survive comes the natural selection of the more fit which only means the death of the deformed and less fit.  If evolution is the guiding principle of all life, of all the universe, than what is it for man, unhindered by God in this belief system, to encourage our own evolutionary progress through eugenics? We ultimately become like what we worship.

The acid of evolution divides mankind, dissolves our humanity, makes some murderers, some less human, and some more human.  Evolution eats away at anything innately human in our nature, by turning us into “intelligent apes” who are the first species on earth able to plan out their own evolutionary progress through euthanasia, sterilization, social planning experiments, experimentation on fellow “apes”, organ harvesters, and baby murderers.  

Although many Catholics don’t seem to realize it, their religion is diametrically opposed to evolution in every way.  When you consider that a sketch of Catholicism according to the definition of religion above:

• Origins: special creation in which all of creation was good and perfect until sin entered the world through the temptation by the devil.  After which, death and suffering enter the world. God then promises to save us if we choose to believe and follow His commands.  God is all loving, forbids evil actions contrary to the Ten Commandments, and is a perfectly just judge who will hold everyone accountable for anything and everything that they do.
• Goal: our goal in life is to get to heaven to be happy with God Whom, by definition, is the greatest possible.
• Way of Life: to live a sacramental life (participate in the sacraments), to live according to the commandments of God to love Him and love one’s neighbor for His sake, to pray daily, to perform works of mercy and charity according to the moral order and grow in holiness in a spiritual war against the world, the flesh, and the devil.

A Catholic is bound to these things and more, and if Catholics would actually believe the Church, believe the words of Jesus and put them into action, Catholics would bring about such great good in the world that one could hardly imagine how good it would actually be! Especially when compared to the state of things today.

Slightly different than evolution when you look at it like that…….