Volume 1, Issue 1
Published: December 19, 2025
How our purpose-hungry minds keep remaking “religion” in new clothes. Religion doesn’t cause societies to be what they are. It mostly reflects how people already think and feel, then packages that into a workable operating model for large groups. The hidden motor is our built-in teleological habit - reading purpose and intention into everything. Unless we consciously shift from teleology (“what is it for”?) to causality (“what cause it”?) we’ll keep rebuilding religion-like systems, under banners like science, liberalism, nationalism, parties, brands. Change the underlying conditions and the thought-mode, and the institutions will change with them.
Religion, Teleology, Causality, Purpose, Society, Ideology, Nationalism, Secularism, Human Cognition
Erez Ashkenazi, Independent Researcher, Israel.
Ashkenazi, E. (2025). Religion Is a Mirror, Teleology Is the Lamp. Journal of Arts and Humanities, 1(1), 01-04.