From page 80 ANE

"The underlying emotion that governs all the activity of the ego is fear. The fear of being nobody, the fear of nonexistence, the fear of death."

Ernest Becker (Denial of Death 1974) and Otto Rank (Will Therapy (1929-31), Psychology and the Soul (1930) and Art and Artist (1932) showed that the function of culture is to create institutions that provide solace against the feeling (not thought) that we are vulnerable animals that will indeed die.

The defining characteristic of any religion is that it provides a promise of "immortality" in one way or another. It also creates heros, masters, gurus that embody the promise. That promise becomes an unconscious absolute that tends to be defended.

Confronting the fact of our impending death with courage and seeing this one life as even more precious and priviledged may be the solution to finally getting rid of absolutist ideology.

Are we in danger of creating another religion?