Have you ever fired a projectile or tried to put a ball in any sort of goal? Have you ever aimed at something and then worked to get closer and closer to being able to hit it?
Aiming is a very deep experience. Humans have never been particularly fast or particularly strong. But no other creature can aim like we do. Aiming is the skill that humans have evolved to feed and defend ourselves. And because of the centrality of that skill in our evolution, aiming plays a pivotal role in our psychology.
And some people call that worship.
To aim at a particular thing is to try to hit that particular goal, but to aim your life is much bigger and more abstract. And whatever you aim your whole life at, that is what you worship.
It’s easy to not think about what you aim your life at, but it’s impossible to aim at nothing. That’s why religion has evolved all around the world, because people do better when they choose something deliberately to aim their lives at. And the most successful religions tend to be the ones that articulate the best target.
As religion falls apart in the western world, we find ourselves worshipping lesser and lesser gods. First, we start to worship a god made in our own image, perhaps a bearded man in the sky who might give us some of the things we want and forgive us so we don’t feel so bad when we make mistakes. Then, perhaps, Mother Earth, the provider of everything awesome and beautiful in life.
Finally, money, sex, and drugs. If you don’t actively choose where to point your life, the default is to worship money or sex. And when things aren’t going well, to fall into worship for anything that makes the pain a little more manageable.
We have the opportunity to set our sights higher, to aim at something better. And for those of us who aren’t perfect, it might be worth investigating what millions of people who lived lives better than ours were aiming at.
At the end of the day, I am in no position to tell anyone to believe anything. What happens when you die? Who is God? I don’t know. What I do know is that you are aiming your life at something right now. And if you’re not careful, you could find yourself becoming very good at hitting a very bad target.
