There are two basic religious impulses. One is for control and the other is to lose it. Most religious expressions of modern times are to subordinate the other and elevate the chosen ones. Marx believed that "religion is the opiate" of the masses because our lives were so terrible that only the promises of a better world after you die could get us through this one. Nietzsche wrote that the Judeo-Christian tradition was a reactionary revenge narrative in which those on the bottom got to fantasized about being on top. Freud thought of religion as a kind of illusion about a perfect father figure who would make everything right. And Emile Durkheim taught that religion was to create a shared sense of identity that would hold together a society. But the mystic seeks a different sort of religious experience altogether. She seeks the wonder and awe of the transcendent or the sublime. A further analysis of the religious impulses behind Gobekli Tepe may help to clarify what we seek when we seek the liminal, uncertain, and dangerous.

Trying Too Hard