In one of the greatest childhood movies of our time, Shrek, directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson, there is a scene infamously portrayed by Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy. They play two characters – a giant, smelly, green ogre named Shrek and an idiotic yet surprisingly wise donkey, who never stops talking, named Donkey – who hilariously bicker about the complexity of ogres. Shrek insists that there is a lot more to ogres than meets the eye. When Donkey asks for an example, Shrek famously picks up an onion from the field they are walking through and states, “Layers. Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. Onions have layers. You get it? We both have layers.” The bickering only escalates when Donkey exclaims that not everybody likes onions, but cake has layers and everybody likes cake.
Well, religion cannot be like cake because not everybody likes religion, but religion can be compared to that onion that Shrek picked up in the field. Some people like religion, some people love religion, others have no preference on religion, and a number of people hate the very notion of religion. What really should be focused on, however, is that similar to an onion, religion has many layers, and as you strip away these layers you will go deeper and deeper into the core and look at what really matters. There are different types, sizes, and shapes of onions, but when you peel off the layers of skin and chop off the ends, what you are left with is simply just an onion. Similarly, with religion, on the outside they are not all on the same page when it comes to what each religion believes about God, the soul, the afterlife, or ultimate human destiny. However, when those layers are peeled off and stripped away, the true motivations behind religion are revealed. Religion is driven by fear; it is founded on the fear of the unknown, the fear of being alone, and the fear of no direction.
It is not in human nature to just blindly accept that we exist for no rhyme or reason. It is not in our emotional capabilities to simply live our lives without knowing how we got to where we are today and what our purpose in life is. Religion serves to give humans an answer to our questions. Where do we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going? J. Anderson Thomson, member of the Virginia Psychoanalytic Society, accurately describes several unknowns which religion seeks to address. “Religion’s power derives from its ability to utilize these mental mechanisms designed for other tasks: our attachment to parental figures, our wish for help in distress, submission to authority, our sensitivity to hierarchies, our love of kin, and our inclination to see human-like intention as the explanation for any unknown” (22). The fear that drives humans to find answers to these questions is what unites all religions. It is the answers that different people choose to accept that cause religions to all appear different, when the reality is that all religions were founded for the same reason: to block out the fundamental truth humans all fear – they don’t know the answers to their questions and probably never will.
When a six-year-old asks their mother, “Where do babies come from…,” more often than not their mother will break out the ongoing tale of the stork, and the brave mothers will brace themselves for the birds and the bees talk. Eventually, a child’s curiosity grows bigger and bigger with each passing day, and matters intensify when they go to school and learn about science and religion. Eventually they’ll stumble upon two answers: 1) the Big Bang theory and 2) a deity is responsible for our creation and development. More than half of the people living in the United States today believe that God created heaven and earth 6,000 years ago. However, only 46 percent of people living in the United States subscribe to the notion of the Big Bang (Roppolo). The other percentages of Americans believe in varying theories. Examples include, but are not limited to, the theories of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism. Buddhism and Hinduism are similar in the sense that they both believe the universe to be a constant cycle of life, death, and rebirth. Taoism considers the origin of the universe to derive from a universal egg filled with chaos, cracking open after 18,000 years (Lilmnstr). Taoism likes to answer the age-old question of what came first, the chicken or the egg!
While each explanation has its points, each one also has its flaws. Certain religions such as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam believe that a singular God is responsible for creating heaven, earth, and mankind. This way of thinking asks its followers to put a huge amount of faith in the existence of a supreme being. Other modern day religions, or progressive followers of traditional religions, credit a more scientific approach to our creation. They believe in the Big Bang where at some moment all of space was contained in a single point, which is considered the beginning of the universe, and Darwin’s theory of Evolutionism that humans evolved from a single cell organism (Anderson 24). These theories may appear to be proven through science, but there are still unanswered questions. Where did this single point that all of space was contained in come from, and if the universe is constantly growing, where is it growing into – does it ever end? Many have come to accept that there may not be just one answer to where the world comes from. Christians have adopted the Big Bang theory and have suggested that the world did in fact come from a single point that is growing continuously, and that in God’s world, time is slower and that one day, including the one day God took to create humans, could have possibly lasted the 18,000 years it took mankind to evolve from single-celled organisms (Religious Groups’ Views on Evolution). Everyone seems to have different answers as to how the world was created. Even different followers of the same religion have different answers. No matter who is asked, the answer will always be different and the only common denominator is the question that is being asked and the fear of not knowing the unknown: Where did the world come from?
Human difference is something that can either unite or separate them. The latter is one of mankind’s biggest fears. Humans have survived extinction through the centuries, not through survival of the fittest but by surviving as a community. This sense of community is how religions answer the question: Why are we here? Religions promote community and give us a reason to want a community. Our purpose here is to form connections with people, to support and encourage others, to help them get where they need to be. Several religions, whether they believe in the soul’s existence in another world like Christianity, Islam and Judaism, or in reincarnation like many forms of Hinduism and Buddhism, believe that one’s status in the afterlife is a reward or punishment for their conduct during life (Prothero). The reward or punishment is usually based on actions that are predetermined through each religion’s text, and are constantly evolving to modern times.
Religion serves to tell mankind how they should live their lives, and provides instructions on how they should interact with each other. A major part of religion has to do with ethics and morality mostly. Most major and even minor religions promote compassion and kindness toward others, despite the fact that such compassion is not always perfectly realized in practice (Schiffman). Jesus is often credited for the golden rule in the New Testament: “And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise,” (Hall). However, Confucius stated almost 500 years before Jesus, “What you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others.” Confucius believed that the purpose of life is to fulfill one’s role in society with propriety, honor, and loyalty (Hall). As well, Buddha proclaimed, “Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful,” around the same time as Confucius (Hall). Different religions outline different rules that will determine where their life will end up and what will happen in the afterlife. No matter what the path, religion still serves to answer the simple question of why people are here in order to alleviate the fear of being alone.
Various religions lay out guidelines for life in order to remedy human curiosity regarding the outcome of life. A basic human fear is the fear of having no direction. Generally, most people will feel uncomfortable going anywhere without having a destination. There are moments written about in books and scripted in movies that can only be described as a spontaneous decision to escape reality that is inspired by an existential crisis. Whether the reason to escape their reality is because they lost their job, are going through a breakup, lost a loved one, or even just lost their faith, people have a tendency to purposely lose their way in hope of happening upon a new path. Some people may go on a road trip to nowhere, and some may move to another city to start over, but many people have turned and will continue to turn to religion for answers. Humans need direction and purpose and without it they are lost and left in quicksand grasping at a rope that isn’t there.
When deciding on a path, some modern religions allow people to make their own choices when deciding their life course and where they will end up. An extreme example of this is consumer capitalism, what many sociologists consider to be a new modern day religion, because “it serves the satisfaction of just the same sorrows, pains, and anxieties that were once answered by traditional religions.” In this way of thinking, human direction is fostered by a primal desire to be selfish and to center our life on materialistic objects such as financial gains (Deutschmann 33). With consumer capitalism, human life is a game of risk and reward and whatever happens, happens. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam allow a wider net of human decision as well, in the sense that people are allowed to make their own decisions and choose where they end up, whether it be Heaven or Hell or the other equivalents.
Other religions take a different path, and claim that there is only one destination, and human destiny cannot be beat. In other religions such as Buddhism, Buddha upholds the idea that the one true purpose of life is to achieve Nirvana and that until it is realized people will be reincarnated time and time again. Human direction is to travel an endless journey through these different lifetimes. Buddha explains life and death as a continuous path, “Life is a journey. / Death is a return to earth. /The universe is like an inn. / The passing years are like dust,” (Grousset 153). No matter the path a person takes, eventually they will end up in Nirvana. Other religions such as Confucianism and Hinduism believe in destiny and karma, where essentially your direction in life cannot be escaped. Religion answers one of the most basic human questions: Where are we going? As a result religion feeds off the human fear of no direction.
On the outside, religions all seem drastically different from each other, but at the same time so are the people who follow these religions. However, aren’t people inherently the same, too? Do they not all have the same biological makeup, the same needs, the same desires? Do they not all exist on the same planet together? The same concept is true for religions, for Shrek, for Donkey, and even for you and me. Nothing in the whole universe is black and white, and it never will be. There is more than one side to everything. That is why people exist in a three- dimensional world. The human mind is a complex work of nature that is light-years away from being fully understood, but at the same time is basic enough to comprehend that the most essential human emotion that drives us all is fear. People fear the unknown, people fear being alone, and people fear not having direction. People are all looking to push away the fear by searching for the truth. While everyone finds different answers, the common denominator remains the same: everyone is asking a question. Perhaps if more people understood and accepted this one radical truth there would be less destruction, less violence, and less hate in this very small world they were all put in.
Works Cited
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Grousset, René. The Rise and Splendour of the Chinese Empire. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1992. Print.
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Michael Roppolo. “Americans Not Confident Big Bang or Evolution is Real.” CBS News 21 Apr. 2014: n. pag. CBS News. Web. 8 Dec. 2014. <http://www.cbsnews.com/news/americans-big-bang-evolution-ap-poll/>.
Prothero, Stephen. “True or False: The Major Religions Are Essentially Alike.” Newsweek 23 June 2007: n. pag. Web. 8 Dec. 2014. <http://www.newsweek.com/true-or-false-major-religions-are-essentially-alike-102223>.
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Shrek. Dir. Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jensen. DreamWorks Pictures, 2001. Film.
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A look inside 