What's the use of religion?

Increasingly, I have been drawn to the American pragmatist tradition exemplified in William James. He asked of anything: what is its "cash value"? By that he meant what are its uses? What does it accomplish? His was a principled pragmatism and he meant "What are its uses for good?" When he considered religion, it too was subject to the question: "What does religion accomplish for good?" He immediately discounts metaphysical questions such as, "How many angels can stand on the head of a pin?" Its answer is immaterial, however many angels are decided upon. The answer accomplishes nothing for good. Does the answer change anything in the real world, the world of human interactions? If not, then why bother with the question. I suppose much religious speculation is of that kind. Is God One or One in Three and Three in One, and if Three in One what are the relationships between the Three to each other and the Three to the One? Does your answer change anything? Does it affect issues in the world in which we live? 

It might seem that James had no use for religion. To the contrary, he thought religion had many uses in giving a sense of personal worth and purpose, in producing real changes in the world for good. If your view that God is love produced in you a love for other people, then all to the good. If your religious view of humanity is that "all have fallen short" and such a view gives to you an empathy for the shortcomings of others, and hence a sympathy with their faults, then some good has been effected in the world.

But religion is not merely either nonsensical metaphysical theorizing or wholly good; religion can also be used to create much unhappiness, and in some cases real evil in the world. Religion is a very mixed bag. Over the last week the news carried stories of two Shiite mosques bombed in Afghanistan with scores of worshippers killed. The murderers were inspired by their religious ideology, the view that only their religion is the correct one. In the UK, Tory MP David Amess was knifed to death. The police consider the murder terrorism inspired by a militant version of Islam. When religion claims to hold absolute truth at the expense of all other truth claims all manner of awful things are justified. Sadly, the evidence of that dark side of religion is frequent.

I've been tempted from time to time to frame myself as "spiritual but not religious, (SBNR)" in order to escape the fallout of religion's excesses and silliness. SBNR seems to frame religion as something bad and spirituality as something good. But what would I be claiming? To say "I am spiritual but not religious" might just be a way of saying "I have no religious practices,"  or "I'm not connected to any religion."  

Spiritual but nor religious is not true for me. If religion is understood as belonging to a tradition of spiritual practice with its sacred texts, rituals, and historical understandings, then I am both spiritual and religious. But being religious has many "ouch" moments.

Perhaps, it is best to frame religion not as a claim to absolute truth but rather as a metaphor pointing us toward truth. Religion's excesses occur when any religion thinks too highly of itself. The practices of religion, likewise, might be seen as varied ways of connecting to and developing humanity's essential spirituality. And that might be what people want when they say "spiritual but not religious"—a way of nurturing that essential human "of-itself" quality that is impossible to put into words.

All of us are spiritual, though it is hard to say exactly what that means. Spirituality seems to be an unidentifiable something at the heart of being human: a connectedness to the cosmos, a sense of eternity, the "oceanic feeling," love, authenticity, awareness of something-more-than-ourselves. Perhaps, Tillich's understanding of spirituality as having some sense of ultimate concern gets close to it, though even that is suggestive and imaginative rather than descriptive.

It seems to me that religion—at its best—through its practices, rituals and traditions is an attempt to reach for that elusive quality of human being. Religion is not the "thing-itself" but a sign pointing beyond. Our troubles start when we mistake religion for spirituality.

Returning to William James and his pragmatic approach, what is the use of religion, what is its "cash value"? Religion gives us necessary tools—stories, traditions, practices, rituals—that help work with the grain of the universe. That works for the good.

Practice well,

+Andy