To understand why we have religion.

Evolutionary Success for most of nature is measured by the ability to have grandchildren. We humans, however, have gained the capacity to make our environment so toxic and complicated that the measure of our success has evolved to be our ability to have, or enable others to have, great great grandchildren.

Google tells us that, “a culture is a way of life of a group of people–the behaviors, beliefs, values, and symbols that they accept, generally without thinking about them, and that are passed along by communication and imitation from one generation to the next. Culture is symbolic communication.” Or, in my words, a culture is the unspoken language of a community. 

Despite the rhetoric, Americans have one culture. There is as much of a culture war happening in America as there are two political parties debating policy. There are, however, many different cultural dialects. Those who drink alcohol have a different cultural dialect from those who do not, but at the very core we are all American.

If Australians are the descendants of criminals who got caught, then Americans are the descendants of criminals who got away.

The American culture has been present from the beginning. It is a culture of immigrants running away from established shared responsibilities. It is a culture of brothers killing brothers in the Civil War. It is a culture of citizens turning into gamblers, rum runners, and gangsters in response to laws they disagree with. It is a culture that values money more than people or principle. Underneath it all, regardless of how we define ourselves or claim to be different, America has a Mafia culture.

To change this truth would require a sustained choice to build our lives around something other than a primal reflex. A sustained choice like an addict sustaining the choice to remain sober, or a married couple sustaining the choice to work together. It is the commonality of all religions; building communities around something other than primal reflexes.