IF THERE WERE NO RELIGION and SPIRITUALITY.

When we think about the journey of human development on Earth, a huge and important question comes to our mind: “If religion and spirituality did not exist, what would we be today?” This question is a valuable way to understand the world in a deeper way by comparing human existence with the pre-spiritual era before religion and the moral era we have reached after religion, based on historical, psychological, sociological, and social data.

We understand that religion and spirituality are the roof and walls of today’s civilization. 90% of the first high-level centers of education, science, and medicine in history were founded by great religious institutions such as monasteries, madrasas, churches, and Vedic centers.

For example, the world’s first universities, such as those at Al-Qarawiyyin, Bologna, Paris, and Oxford, were born directly out of the spiritual and religious quest for knowledge; evidence suggests that without religion, the world’s literacy revolution would have been delayed by hundreds of years.

Similarly, the role of religion in the philanthropic and humanitarian economy is incalculable. Today, more than $500 billion in global spending each year on charity, hunger relief, refugee aid, and health care is largely driven by religious organizations.

Without religion, the systematic care for the poor and needy would have been lost to the greed of the market among peoples. Today, more than 84% of the world’s total population, regardless of where they are in the world, are affiliated with a particular religion or spiritual framework, a huge figure that proves that religion is the cornerstone of human social existence.

Without religion and spirituality, the concept of human rights, the voice of compassion, the balance of justice, and the moral high ground we see today would not exist. Religion is the anchor of conscience that has lifted humanity out of its animal nature and placed it on the highway of history with dignity and morality.