Why do we even need religion or spirituality? After all, these days science can explain almost every phenomena of our daily lives including something as central to our lives as love between men and women, parents and children.
The mysteries of love and romance have often been explained by the saying that “love is blind” – and thus, many would agree, marriage is “an institution for the blind”! In fact, it has been scientifically proven that love is much more a matter of chemicals and hormones in the human body. When we “fall in love” we actually love not the other person, but how that person makes us feel – all of which is dictated by the hormonal response we have to that person.
Is marriage therefore really just a uniting of two sets of hormones?
Weddings are one of the times in peoples’ lives when religious ceremony becomes important, because despite this clinical explanation, we feel there is much more to our feelings than cold fact. And we want a spiritual experience to commemorate our commitment and union to our partner. The religious ceremony adds meaning to the experience.
Similarly, at times of great sadness in our lives, we turn to religion to help ease the pain of the loss of a loved one, or some other crisis. A funeral service helps us to bid farewell to the deceased and to get some perspective on and add meaning to his or her life and our own.
No matter whether religion is important at other times in our lives, there will almost certainly be a time when it is a cause for joy or a help in soothing mental pain.
The mysteries of love and romance have often been explained by the saying that “love is blind” – and thus, many would agree, marriage is “an institution for the blind”! In fact, it has been scientifically proven that love is much more a matter of chemicals and hormones in the human body. When we “fall in love” we actually love not the other person, but how that person makes us feel – all of which is dictated by the hormonal response we have to that person.
Is marriage therefore really just a uniting of two sets of hormones?
Weddings are one of the times in peoples’ lives when religious ceremony becomes important, because despite this clinical explanation, we feel there is much more to our feelings than cold fact. And we want a spiritual experience to commemorate our commitment and union to our partner. The religious ceremony adds meaning to the experience.
Similarly, at times of great sadness in our lives, we turn to religion to help ease the pain of the loss of a loved one, or some other crisis. A funeral service helps us to bid farewell to the deceased and to get some perspective on and add meaning to his or her life and our own.
No matter whether religion is important at other times in our lives, there will almost certainly be a time when it is a cause for joy or a help in soothing mental pain.