September 20, 2021
Back when I was still a Christian, I listened to more than a few sermons that mentioned, in passing, the meaning of the word “religion” in Latin.
I was always taught it meant “to reread” or “to read again.” Years after deconverting, I discovered it doesn’t mean that at all.
The word “religion” comes from the Latin verb religare, which means “to bind” or “to hold back.”
I’m aware that even today there’s a lot of debate on the true meaning of the word “religion.” Even some people who were never religious will argue that it doesn’t actually mean “to bind” or “to hold back.”
But use your intuition. Which meaning makes the most sense to you knowing what you know now?
Hell, even when I was a Christian I didn’t fully understand why “religion” was the word chosen when all it meant was “to reread.” The pastors always taught that it meant rereading the Bible was good, but at that time in my life I reread my college textbooks several times over. I also reread some fiction books that I really liked. Neither of those things were a religion.
Anyway, another reason why the meaning “to bind” or “to hold back” makes much more sense to me is because it demonstrates the true purpose of religion in the first place: to control. Long ago, the institution of religion was put into place as one of many ways to control the masses. And it worked spectacularly.
You can even go further with this meaning of the word “religion.” You don’t necessarily need a supernatural deity to have a religion. That might seem strange since supernatural deities have always been closely associated with religion. Christians have Jesus, Muslims have Allah, and so on.
But all you need to have a religion is something—anything—that holds you back. In that sense, a religion can be almost anything if you allow it to be.
- Imagine someone obsessed with earning and stockpiling a huge amount of money. They work all day, every day on acquiring more and more digits in their bank account to the detriment of their health, family, and relationships. For this person, money is his religion.
- Imagine someone whose hobby of video games gets way out of hand. They play video games sixteen hours a day, every day to the point where they can’t keep a job and never see their friends. For this person, video games are his religion.
- Imagine someone who, instead of taking personal responsibility for their lives, adamantly believes that some new politician will, when finally elected, fix everything that’s wrong with his country. This person spends all his time volunteering for this politician’s campaigns, posting about his political leanings on social media, and forms all his own opinions based on what this politician says—all while declining to invest in his own self to be the change he wants to see in the world. For this person, his politics has become his religion.
Does this mean I think money, video games, and politics are bad? No. But as usual, a certain level of moderation is key. If these things, or an array of other potential examples, start dominating huge swaths of your time to the detriment of other important areas in your life, then yes, in my opinion you’ve found yourself trapped in yet another religion.
What sucks is that recently Deconverted Men are often the most likely to get caught up in these things that are less-commonly considered religions. They think that just because there’s no supernatural deity involved, or that some ideology, belief, or social movement is completely compatible with atheism and science then it can’t possibly be a religion. Unfortunately that isn’t true. It can very well be a religion for you if you allow it to be—if it holds you back.
This goes back to the idea of deconstructing everything in your life, not just your old fundamentalist religion. When you deconstruct everything, then you’re better equipped to keep everything in its proper perspective and not let it influence your life too much. It allows you to engage in things with reasonable moderation without going overboard to your own detriment.