Missed Opportunity

What if we still had natural religion, i.e. religion based on the things we see and experience in the world around us instead of supernatural religions promising us incredible invisible worlds elsewhere that we'll experience by dying?

What if religion still told us about real life and was honest about humanity instead of being a drug to comfort, pacify, and paralyze the broken to stop their wave of destruction? Religion could inspire greatness and innocence, but now is used to restrain human potential and excellence under the guise of salvation.

I say to the world: your harmony is mine. Whatever time you choose is the right time, neither too late nor too early. I say to Nature: Whatever the change of your seasons brings me is like the fall of ripe fruit. All things are born from you, exist in you and return to you.

- Aurelius

Imagine natural religion as serving a community's rebalancing. Sermons would be interesting, relevant, and about the natural world. They would be thoughtful but plainly within someone's experience and understanding. Whatever errors and progress one was subjected to would be remedied by reestablishing the connection to life that had been temporarily severed.

In these examples, Schopenhauer tells us a parable about human life, and though not inspiring bliss, it is honest and does not require supernatural characters and faith in unknown worlds. Aurelius follows with advice about how to properly understand death and cease fear of it.

Schopenhauer:

Aurelius:

Every attempt to avoid and cheat nature is assured certain failure. Religion eventually topples from too much unreality just like every other ideology.