Religion is a complicated subject where systems of beliefs intend to guide actions, morals, and worldviews. While some might indulge in the concept of supernatural beings (e.g. gods, spirits), the use of spiritual figureheads is not a necessity, nor do they have to be the main focus.

The main purpose of modern religion is to serve as an outlet to calm the masses and spiritually lift people up with 'hope' when they suffer in dark, desperate times (e.g. death, disaster, tragedy), while also offering one explanation of the world and providing a sense of belonging or a way of life. Otherwise, humanity would most likely be dealing with existential crises, mass panic, unrest, and other unpleasant thoughts.

Historically, there have been long, philosophical discussions on the 'concept' of God¹⁾ and 'existence' of God within the usual monotheistic religions. Generally speaking, there's like 4–5 positions on the subject matter, detailed below. You could easily extend this list if you want to be really specific, or wish to include polytheistic religions, but let's start with the basic concepts first.

From here, we can start diving into the relationship between 'faith' and 'reason', an argument that has existed long before the general public slowly gained the ability to read religious scriptures. You have the fideist approach of 'faith' being above or independent from 'reason', then you find natural theology which attempts to bring logic and 'reason' into 'faith'.²⁾ This is why people say leap of faith, by the way.

“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”
– Karl Marx

The relationship between religion and politics is a controversial one, especially considering how religion would be weaponized by the state to keep the general public in order. For instance, you have cases where people would actually be tried in court if they refused to fall in line or said something that was considered heresy at the time, such as the Galileo affair over the belief in heliocentrism.

In a way, religion can ironically become a source of harm and suffering, especially once it becomes distorted, because harmful political policies can hypothetically strengthen its base and force people to use religion to cope. It also doesn't help that politicians will attach themselves to a religion, despite being mere charlatans who pretend to be religious for easy votes, so you'd then have to ask: can this cycle end, and will it?

Many have proposed a separation of church and state (e.g. state atheism), which allows religion to exit the superstructure and false consciousness. However, this must be done gradually, as rushing can be counterintuitive unless you intend to replace it with an idealist cult of personality. In the end, the masses is what truly drives history, so time will tell.

This section has a vague list of religions with some level of notability. Please note that some religions are not necessarially 'religions' in the traditional sense, being more nuanced as a philosophy or way of life, but I'm forced to categorize them as such since it's the category that most people are familiar with. Also, I am not that into religion either, so I do apologize for the incredibly narrow scope of this list.

• In the past, people would tie religion to morality and ethics, thus why people would freak out about Godlessness, but the concepts of secular morality and secular ethics have slowly risen over the years, which has allowed people to finally separate morality and ethics from the idea of religion.
  • Nowadays, people are much less religious, but this shouldn't come off as this huge surprise if you ever hung around the internet for an extended period of time.
  • What's up with religion and war anyways? How do you get all these theatrics about religious morals and religious ethics, then ignite several religious wars? How exactly do people justify this?
• During the colonial era, it's usually believed that the proselytization process would come around once the natives began to fold their local beliefs into said religion, incidentally letting it permeate.
• When you find yourself on the verge of death, it's often believed that your mind would attempt to reach out to either: your mother, a guardian figure, or some idea of God which brings us back here.
• I think I was introduced to the Epicurean paradox on the internet at a young age, and I'm honestly not sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. The internet in the 2000s were a weird time.
• An issue with natural theology is that some arguments end up implicating that multiple Gods exist, and does not help anybody trying to proselytize people towards any specific monotheistic religion.

• The End