Religion is culture

Religion is culture. It is the art we use to set our place in the universe, literally to bind ourselves together. Art is about emotion. Emotion is how we weigh memory. Without emotion we do not remember. We destroy culture, especially our own, at our peril.

I am a metaphysical naturalist. I believe, have faith, we are all just stuff. That we are, consciousness included, the emergent temporary result of infinite randomness. That the supernatural is, literally, fiction.

But fiction, an art, matters. Religion, being the original superset, the Big Bang, of all art and science, matters. Remember that the universe is fundamentally incalculable. Unknowable. Ultimately it can only be discovered. And yet we have to live here. So we tell ourselves stories. Make pictures. Sing songs. Achieve rough consensus and make running code. Believe things that must be true when we have no proof. Have faith.