”Religion, however, has to do not only with the need for consolation and healing in the face of perishing and suffering but also with the overflowing sense of wonder at the fact that anything exists at all. In this respect religion has its origin in a sense of grateful surprise at the mystery of being. At some level, all conscious beings, including those who call themselves irreligious, experience the shock that anything exists at all. We humans, however, have devised countless ways to avoid acknowledging the mystery of it all, today perhaps more than ever. In most eras of human history, nevertheless, responsiveness to the gift of existence has manifested itself in an instinct to worship a hidden and indestructible source of all being. This religious inclination has come to expression in symbols, analogies, metaphors, rituals, myths, and theologies. These obscure modes of communication point allegedly to an indestructible and transcendent dimension of being from which we came, toward which we are destined, and in whose ambience we find both moral guidance and a meaning for our lives.”
– John F. Haught, The New Cosmic Story