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[av_heading heading=’Religion and human existence’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY SONIA D. DAQUILA
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THE MONTH of January is always an anticipation of a big event in Manila, “The Feast of the Black Nazarene.” It is an overwhelming display of faith of the Filipinos who are willing to sacrifice, willing to be hurt or hurt other people or even to die because of their strong conviction or devotion.
There are many reasons why people want to participate in this celebration: to ask for blessings, for realization of dreams and wishes, to be healed or for thanksgiving. There have always been casualties and injuries, yet, the tradition lives on.
Sociologically, we witness culture. Our culture serves as an intangible thread that binds us together as a people, making us distinct from other peoples of the world. Our unique ways of doing things, our beliefs, religion, language, history, sentiments, folkways and mores have made Filipinos, “Filipinos.”
The celebration of the Feast of the Black Nazarene is always an intense manifestation of the Filipinos’ spirituality and religiosity. But who invented religion?
There are two points of view on the universality of religion: first, people have strong psychological needs to satisfy; and, second, there is reality that transcends the physical world which some people experienced and responded to, while others did not, but believe it, just the same.
Sigmund Freud, the father of psychology, describes religion as a universal neurosis (a cosmic projection of love and fear relationship with our parents). Political thinker Karl Marx declared, “Man makes religion. Religion does not make man…religion is the heart of the heartless world, the soul of the soulless environment and the sigh of the oppressed creatures…religion is the opium of the people.”
Whenever I travel by plane or by boat, I always choose the seat by the window to see the borderless ocean and the boundlessness of the sky. I am always amused when flying thousands of feet on an airplane and see structures and creatures resembling small dots below. Indeed, we are just tiny specks in the universe, and at times, we are lost in its vastness.
Travel always reminds me of man’s journey in life. One may try to explain things and phenomena within him and around him empirically through science and technology. He may attempt to explain the physical end of human life. He may search the philosophical meaning of his own existence. He works hard in pursuit of happiness. He assigns to mysteries and miracles events beyond his comprehension. He turns to religion in his attempt to understand the meaning of his existence and of his God, and in his hopelessness.
Religion enables us to recognize moral values and to make ethical choices. Carried to the extreme, however, it creates in us paranoid tendencies towards punishment, death, purgatory and hell. Sometimes, it creates a semblance of taking “medicine” with placebo effects. Sometimes, it can render us neurotic or psychotic. Since religion is founded on faith, not all phenomena can or need to be proven empirically. In your own religious practices, are you more of being religious or spiritual or both? (delsocorrodaquila@gmail.com/PN)
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