Yes, religion is still very relevant in today’s modern world. Even though science and technology have advanced greatly, religion continues to play an important role in helping people live peacefully, morally, and with purpose.

Firstly, religion provides moral guidance. It teaches values such as honesty, kindness, forgiveness, and helping others. These values are essential for building a respectful and caring society. When people follow such teachings, it becomes easier to live in harmony with one another.

Secondly, religion gives people a sense of faith and hope, especially during difficult times. It helps many find comfort and meaning in life’s challenges, offering spiritual strength and emotional peace.

Furthermore, religion encourages respect for others, no matter their background. Many religions promote love, unity, and compassion, which are important for creating a peaceful world.

Lastly, religion helps people feel spiritually satisfied. It connects individuals to something greater than themselves and reminds them of the importance of being grateful, humble, and faithful.

In conclusion, religion remains an important part of modern life. It supports peace, moral living, mutual respect, and a deeper sense of faith — all of which are crucial in our fast-changing and often stressful world.

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Religion still holds relevance in the modern world for many, offering a sense of community, purpose, and moral guidance. However, its role is evolving, with some people finding meaning through secular or personal philosophies.

Dear friends,

Interesting discussion here, I agree with most of what has been said, I'd like to add another dimension though: I think another way that religion is really relevant today is that it still helps to create a sense of community among people, something which alternatives don't succeed in, in the degree that religion does. Of course, this has a negative side (social psychology may have something to say about this) as the sense of community also creates boundaries and out-groups, something which is unfortunately used by people to stir up hatred.

Best Wishes,

Haris

I would suggest that religion may or may not be relevant in today's world, depending on how one defines both science and religion. Science may be defined as the study of total reality and religion may be defined as myth or legend, suitable maybe for entertainment, but of no other value, in which case it is largely irrelevant. Or science may be defined as the study of quanta, the tiniest physically measurable units of matter/energy and religion as the study of qualia, the individual experiences perceived by consciousness. in which case it is supremely relevant.

Religion, in the wirds of Martin Luther King Jr., gives widom, while science give knowledge. Wisdom equips you with control; knowledge gives you access to power.

However, it is very unlikely to construct a temper of tolerance about religion, especially, from the lens of Karl Max: "religion is the opium of the masses".

The binary of these opinions lures the debate into a signifier and signified rational gumption.

The existence of religion should not be negotiated as the signified moral index and social risk of the human race...

Dear friends,

Interesting posts! Dear William Mayor , I would hesitate to call religion a field of study, even of qualia - one may study religion, but I think the purpose of religion is not the same as that of for example chemistry or physics. Granted, they may both provide origins-stories, however I feel (note, feel, not rationally argue) that religion is more about 'how to live' whereas physics is about 'understanding the world'. Maybe psychology is the discipline which brings the two questions closer.

Dear Ohiomero Jabal Ojeiu , I wonder if there have ever been any societies without any sort of 'opium for the masses' - for example I'd classify Netflix as a modern opium of the masses, Instagram another one. I guess these may be dual use weapons, in the sense that one may either just consume them and waste their time, or use them to learn in the same way as a sociologist or psychologist would learn from people's expression and behaviour.

Best Wishes,

Haris

Thank you dear scholar @William Mayor.

Its fascinating to read through your comments and find instagram and other social media platforms are regenerated as a kind of opium.

However, the philisophy of instagram as an opium strikes the debate that social media platforms are tools for global networking and communication.

While this sounds like a paradox in a philosiphical debate, religion, when reduced to a tool, sits astride on psychology to emante that posture of an opium consumed in large doses...

Ohiomero Jabal Ojeiu, I fully agree that when religion is reduced to a tool, as politics likes to do, it becomes much like an opioid, dulling the senses. This is noticeable true for me in my home religion of Christianity. But when religion is allowed free rein, it is a tool for exploring the aspects of reality that the physical sciences cannot examine. Humans are quantum beings, just as our universe is a quantum universe. Limiting it to its materialistic values creates a convenient model to work with, but as such it is, and will forever remain, just a model, not reality. Unbound religion allows for the human experience, in all forms, to learn about the universe in total, especially in its quantum features which a materialistic approach cannot truly know.

Unfortunately, politicians and physical scientists all too often fear unbound religion and seek to restrain it and use it only as an opioid, and far too many people are content with that as it drowns their fears.

Religion remains highly relevant in today’s world, with about 84% of people globally identifying with a faith. It provides individuals and communities with a sense of meaning, purpose, and belonging, helping to build social bonds and mutual support. Research shows that religious involvement can improve both mental and physical health, offering comfort in difficult times and promoting healthy behaviors. While some societies are becoming more secular, religion continues to address important questions about life, morality, and human values. It also plays a foundational role in many humanitarian and social justice movements. In regions like Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, religion is especially influential, while in more secular countries, its relevance is debated but still recognized by many. Overall, as long as people seek meaning and connection, religion will continue to be a significant and influential force in the world.

Less and less, thank God!

Religions (dogma, sects, priestly castes, quarrels and fanaticisms) must be replaced by true and genuine spirituality (seeking the supreme Reality without prejudices and a priori).

Religion will always be relevant to the world as it offers peace, tolerance and brotherhood to people. You can't think of a better world without peace.

Thank you

Dear Tommaso Iorco ,

mind explaining a bit more how genuine spirituality may develop without a story, something which will inevitably lead to dogma, sects and priestly castes, if successful? Also, mind explaining how there can be spirituality without thinking about the a priori? Would it be purely based on experience? But then, isn't religion in part about what cannot be experienced easily?

Best Wishes,

Haris

I was not speaking about spirituality of the past, which obviously needed a religious apparatus (with all the inconveniences that followed it), but of the spirituality of the present and of the future, which must be based "purely" on experience, as you said. When we directly contact the true roots and sources of the spiritual aspiration, we find that we carry within ourselves the "story" (to quote you again) of humanity's past inner development, and from that awareness we can go farther. There is nothing more to explain — one has to feel and know it by himself. But let's be clear: I am not at all referring (of course) to the "new-age" movements and similar naive simplisms.

well said dear Tommaso Iorco - though i think there may be the problems i mentioned above would arise if people tried to communicate that spirituality to each other and they don't do it well, particularly if they try to do it 'rationally' and not just talk from the heart to each other. what do you think?

Best Wishes,

Haris

Dear Haris Shekeris, I agree with you. Spirituality is far above rationality. In fact, it is the realm of the suprarational. And, in this realm, the heart has much more chance than the mind, provided it doesn't fall into sentimentality. It must be the inmost heart, where divinity itself resides.

Haris Shekeris and Tommaso Iorcco, might I point out a simple error in logic within this discussion? There seems to be an assumption that spirituality today is somehow different from spirituality in the past, and there simply is absolutely no evidence that such is true. Rather there is an overabundance of evidence that spirituality remains as it has always been.

Likewise, there is no evidence that general human nature is any different today than it has always been. We direct our natures in different paths perhaps, but that is all.

In today's Western world at least, there is an emphasis on "a scientific worldview", which tends to exclude the spiritual, thus people turn to religion, which is a codified understanding of the spiritual, capable of still leading to the spiritual but tending to avoid the emphasis on the discipline necessary. But religion remains something founded on the spiritual experiences of real people as culturally expressed, and far too often mixed with politics.

But science is discovering some truths about spirituality. It appears that most, if not all, humans are capable of accessing the spiritual, just as most, if not all, are capable of dribbling a basketball. But equally true is that most will never achieve the highest levels in either basketball or spirituality. Spirituality is clearly NOT supernatural, paranormal yes, that is outside what is currently accepted as normal, but then for much of history, electricity likewise qualified as paranormal. Old English has a term for the spiritual that we still use today, just not in connection to the spiritual and that is "weird" or historically "the weird".

Based on the studies conducted at Princeton in their Engineering Anomalies Research Study (PEARS) and other ongoing studies, it appears that spirituality somehow includes the ability to influence electro-magnetism via thought alone and that it transcends physical and temporal boundaries. That is to say that distance between the influencer and the intended target does not matter, whether in physical distance or temporal, either before or after.

So, until humans cease to respect those with profound abilities in spiritual matters, and cease to desire to learn more, and to codify the teachings so that they are available after the master is gone or is distant from the learners, religion and spirituality cannot be separated, and religion will end up stagnating spirituality.