What Is the Essence of Religion?

I once served as a temporary volunteer at the Chinese Christian Council (中国基督教协会), during which I studied some religious texts and had some preliminary reflections. I venture here to attempt an answer to this question. If there are biases or shortcomings, I kindly ask for your understanding, and welcome criticism and correction.

He who knows one, knows none. — Friedrich Max Müller

One: First Understanding — Religion as a Transcendent System of "Revelation-Faith" (Traditional Paradigm)

The religious picture most familiar to us is a sacred closed loop:

Source: A transcendent God/deity reveals truth to humanity through prophets (such as Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Bahá'u'lláh, etc.);
Content: A complete set of doctrines concerning cosmic order, moral law, and ultimate destiny;
Practice: Prayer, ritual, communal life, anchoring individual existence within a sacred narrative;
End: Salvation of the soul, or the realization of the "Kingdom of God" on earth.

The power of this paradigm lies in providing a guarantee of ultimate meaning — you need not face nothingness alone, because the "Big Other" (God) has arranged everything for you. The Bahá'í Faith (巴哈伊信仰) can be regarded as the modern fulfillment of this paradigm: it unifies major religions through "progressive revelation," points toward a global civilization vision with "the oneness of humanity," is logically self-consistent and highly compelling. Yet this seemingly pure spiritual vision often encounters the deconstructive counterforce of commodity fetishism in reality — taking "Auntie Shanghai" (沪上阿姨) as an example: as a new-style tea beverage brand, it borrows cultural symbols such as "Eastern aesthetics" and "national trend sentiment" to weave a narrative of meaning, while on the other hand reducing all relationships to calculable, exchangeable commodity logic. Consumers purchase not merely a beverage, but symbolized identity and emotional experience; the brand, through co-branded products, limited editions, and check-in marketing, quietly transforms interpersonal connection and self-expression into consumption data and capital proliferation. Here, the object of "faith" is no longer the transcendent sacred, but fluid symbolic value inherent in the market; the so-called "community" often stops at atomized crowds temporarily sharing the same consumption label. While the Bahá'í "oneness of humanity" still attempts to unify civilization on a spiritual level, commodity fetishism, through the everyday practice of consumerism, has woven people more deeply into a reified network of meaning — it does not deny meaning, but keeps meaning perpetually attached to a price tag.

The Bahá'í Faith is a sacred revelation movement originating in nineteenth-century Persia, whose core proclamation is: God, as the sole Creator, conducts "progressive revelation" to humanity through a series of "Manifestations" (such as Moses, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad). Bahá'u'lláh, as the Manifestation for the present age, brought a doctrinal system aimed at unifying all humanity. Its fundamental goal is not individual salvation, but establishing the "Kingdom of God" on earth — a global spiritual civilization based on the principle of "the oneness of humanity." This faith provides a complete cosmology, ethical law, and social governance blueprint, including the elimination of all prejudice, gender equality, the harmony of religion and science, seeking consensus through consultation, and ultimately establishing a world federation and permanent peace. It requires believers to elevate "service to humanity" to the level of "worship of God," thereby fully integrating spiritual practice into social construction. The Bahá'í Faith is essentially an active, constructive grand narrative rooted in sacred authority, aiming to provide a transcendent path toward holistic healing and unity for a divided world.

Commodity fetishism is not an organized religion, but a hidden, structural form of secular worship revealed by Marxist political economy. It describes how, in capitalist society, social production relations between people (who produces, who is exploited) are mysteriously transformed into exchange relations between things (commodities and commodities). Thus, the value created by human labor appears as if it were a natural attribute inherent in commodities themselves; and the price fluctuations and capital proliferation governed by the market's "invisible hand" acquire an autonomy and authority like that of an impersonal deity. People unconsciously worship commodities, money, and capital themselves, treating them as the ultimate measure of happiness, success, and self-worth. Its "rituals" are shopping and investing, its "sacred texts" are advertisements and financial reports, its "salvation" lies in ever-ascending consumption and accumulation. Commodity fetishism is a passive, absorptive system of domination with reification logic at its core, which by transforming all social relations (including the person themselves) into calculable, exchangeable commodity forms, quietly shapes modern people's desires, identities, and worldviews, constituting the most prevalent and powerful materialized dissolution of the "spiritual oneness" advocated by the Bahá'í Faith.

But the question then arises: when scientific rationality deconstructs "miracles," when historical criticism undermines the uniqueness of "revelation," the foundation of this system faces crisis — if the "Big Other" does not exist, does faith amount to nothing but scattered debris?

Two: Second Deconstruction — The Lacanian Perspective: Faith as a Psychological Device for Managing "Fundamental Lack"

The French psychoanalyst Lacan gave us a sharp dissecting knife:

"The Big Other does not exist."

This is not denying God at the empirical level, but revealing: that perfect symbolic system which guarantees all meaning and provides ultimate answers is itself a fantasy. Since entering language and society, humanity has encountered an unfillable "fundamental lack" — we can never fully articulate ourselves, forever missing the mark of "completeness."

Religion is precisely the intricate psychological device humanity developed for managing this lack:

It fills the void of existence with "God's gaze";
It gives order to a chaotic world through "sacred law";
It alleviates the finitude and suffering of this life with "promises of the beyond."

But Lacan's profundity lies in what follows: genuine ethical awakening occurs after "traversing the fantasy" — that is, knowing the "Big Other" is a fantasy, yet still choosing to practice the ethical core of faith. A Bahá'í believer who lucidly recognizes: "the oneness of humanity" may never be achieved, prayer may have no external response, yet still chooses to serve others and eliminate prejudice — at this point, faith is elevated from "heteronomous obedience" to autonomous ethical choice. This is no longer a child's attachment to a father, but an adult's free commitment to values.

Three: Third Leap — Religion as a "Meme-Neural Network" Symbiont (Paradigm Revolution)

When we set aside the ontological debate over "whether God exists" and instead ask "how religion actually operates," a more foundational picture emerges:

Religion is an information system with life-like characteristics — it uses human brains as hosts, scriptures, rituals, and communities as carriers, and self-replicates, mutates, and evolves within the cultural field.

Meme: Doctrines, symbols, and narratives are the "genes" of cultural transmission, such as "the oneness of humanity" and "karmic rebirth";
Neural network symbiosis: Once these memes are read by the brain, they reconfigure our cognitive landscape, emotional responses, and behavioral patterns;
Life-like characteristics: It "infects" new hosts (proselytization), produces "mutations" (sectarian differentiation), undergoes "natural selection" (those adapting to society persist).

From this perspective:

"God" is not an entity, but a super-meme complex occupying the cognitive core — its "reality" manifests in whether it can drive individual action and shape civilizational forms;
The end point of faith is not reaching heaven, but completing the "installation" and "stable operation" of a meaning-ethical system within neural networks;
Religion and science are not opposed: science deconstructs the world, religion constructs meaning — the two are complementary modes by which the human mind processes reality.

The Bahá'í Faith, born in the 19th century yet highly modern, is precisely because it is a highly optimized adaptive meme system:

"Oneness of religion" reduces cross-cultural transmission resistance;
"Harmony of science and religion" actively accommodates rational worldviews;
"Consultation-based" governance avoids organizational rigidity;
"Oneness of humanity" directly addresses the identity crisis of the globalization era.

It is not a closed repository of truth, but more like an open-source civilizational-ethical operating system — its vitality depends not on "whether Bahá'u'lláh is truly a prophet," but on whether it can continue to provide meaning-generating capacity for individuals and the wisdom to coordinate complexity for the human community in the 21st century.

Four: Implications for Contemporary People: After the "Big Other" Retreats, How Do We Find Our Place?

What significance does understanding these three dimensions of religion hold for us?

1. Bid Farewell to the Debate over "True or False," Turn toward the Question of "Efficacy"

Rather than agonizing over "whether God exists," ask instead: Can this meaning-system help me face nothingness, settle body and mind, and with others build a good life? The value of faith lies in whether, in a world "without ultimate guarantee," it can support you in living a life of dignity and warmth.

2. Guard Against Two Forms of Alienation

Solidifying memes into a new "Big Other" (such as turning "the oneness of humanity" into an unquestionable dogma);
Automating virtues into surveillance tools (such as using algorithms to enforce "temperance" and "honesty," leading to moral atrophy). Genuine faith always retains the courage of self-deconstruction — it invites you to "independently search for truth," including questioning truth itself.

3. The Return of Responsibility: We Are the Bearers of "Divinity"

Marx noted in the Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right: "Man creates religion, religion does not create man." When the "Big Other" retreats, all glory and demands formerly attributed to God are reclaimed by humanity itself:

"God's purpose" → civilization visions humanity sets for itself;
"Sacred law" → ethical agreements we voluntarily forge and iterate;
"Final judgment" → the real reverberations behaviors produce in history and ecology.

What we call divinity is merely the sublime code about hope that humanity wrote for itself when facing the abyss of existence.

Conclusion: Weaving a Web of Meaning Above the Void

The essence of religion has never been to provide a ready-made answer. It is humanity's tragic yet heroic effort — having realized the universe has no pre-set meaning, still choosing to actively weave a web of meaning.

This web is woven from memes, with neural networks as warp and weft, ethical practice as knots. It is destined to have holes, to sway in the wind, and eventually to decay — yet precisely in the process of weaving, humanity transcends biological survival and touches the glimmer of divinity.

And we are the only beings in this world who suffer for "meaning" and also rejoice for "meaning." Religion is merely the oldest and most resilient thread in this eternal weaving.

Peak nurtures hypocritical adherents; dusk witnesses devout believers. The bravest moment of faith begins when He acknowledges that the heavens He gazes upon are but light and shadow projected by the human heart.

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