Can religions help us in today’s world?

Question from the Internet:

“Do you believe that the role of the church in modern society has come to an end?”

I think sooner, or later humanity will start facing this issue. To be fair to religions, they are “mostly preaching” about the right things (acceptance and love of others), and they provide efficient psychological support for people who fear death.

But when we look at the last over 2000 years, religions totally failed to provide a practical working moral framework for society; they all broke into self-serving fractions due to the inherently selfish and egoistic nature driving all of us — and which nature religions are not able to correct.

Finally, the greatest crimes in human history were committed in the name of religion, supported and led by the revered leaders of those religions committing the crimes.

Religions do not have the method to recognize and correct our inherently self-serving, exploitative and individualistic nature. They label it a “sin” and try to suppress or erase it, which is impossible.

The self-serving, self-justifying ego — which makes calculations only for the sake of the self at the expense of others — is our actual matter or engine that cannot be suppressed or erased. Instead, we need to recognize this driving force in us; we need to recognize that it is harmful in its original form, and then we need to learn how we can harness and channel the all-powerful ego for collective, positive and constructive purposes and goals.

And for that — especially in our generation where our ego has reached its maximum intensity and, as a result, we are facing very realistic and total self-destruction — we need a purposeful and practical method that can help us learn to control and harness our egos in a way that we can fully utilize its force but only for each other’s sake.