Religion and Myth

The most profound philosophical question is "what is reality?"

But this is a question which is not posed by religion. The human being, in his life of struggle, attempts to bring some kind of help into play, and this is the birth of primitive religion. In its primal form, religion is a 'calling out' for aid, for assistance through comfort. Religion is psychic comfort. Its power in the mental life of humans has held sway over the entire course of our history, and even further into the dim recesses of pre-history.

What is the most basic thing about religion? It is an attempt to control Nature through  supplication to spiritual beings- beings imagined to inhabit our world and our lives.  Religion develops to a way of explaining things also. Of course it is utterly nonscientific. But religion always, in all times and places, constitutes the culmination of long traditions, and in its own way explains the world by story telling. The stories inform the person who subscribes -  of answers to many of the serious questions of life. "How did we get here, and how should we behave?" But this faith can never pose the most profound question- because that question, once posed, is the end of religion.

Thus the masses of humanity never ask the most profound question. People are too busy with the struggle for survival, and in the context of such a struggle, the question is silly. It can be said, the mind of a given person- that is reality- whether it is true or not- and an entire universe exists in a single mind. This mental universe is the essence of religion- an ultimate reality which cannot be pierced by any truth.

There is no real conversation between science and religion.

Kalinzskii