Objective reality vs. subjective reality / the validity of religion

I think all humans fall prey to at least three levels of ego.

The first is between us and other humans. This is the one that we are the most familiar with. We all are selfish, and there is nothing we can do about it. It is so easy to think that we are the center of the universe, that every child has to be conditioned at a young age to not think this way. "Remember there are other people here!" or "Stop being rude to everyone else" is something we are told often growing up. Heck, even empathy is selfish, because we only treat others the way that WE would want to be treated, and hence are projecting ourselves and our own ego onto the other person.

The second is between us and other forms of life on this planet. Why is the death of an animal any less meaningful than my own death? A bulldozer excavates some soil, and an entire colony of ants is unknowingly eradicated in the blink of an eye, no one cares. We consume, we rest, we expel waste, we reproduce just like everything else. What nerve do we have then to be expected to be treated differently? Why are human lives more valued? Right now a blade of grass was probably crushed by something somewhere stepping on it. A living organism just died. Oh well, life moves on.

The last is between us and all other matter in the universe. I am made from the same tiny blocks that make up everything else. It is so easy to think I must be something else, something special, but I'm no different than the mass of atoms littered throughout this universe. Whatever I am or am made of, it is here forever. The little parts that make up me might have belonged to a T-rex years ago, and might end up becoming a spaceship years later, or perhaps part of a sun that will sustain billions of organisms on some other planet, or perhaps even a candy wrapper that will end up buried in a landfill for many years. Trees get cut down and turned into paper, and nobody sheds a tear. Yet when a person dies and is recycled into the vast infiniteness of the universe, people are devastated.

So it is very easy to assume that everything is meaningless. And maybe it is. But for whatever "I" am at the moment that is not a good answer. "I" needs a meaning. "I" needs a purpose. We can estimate the nature of objective reality, but no human will ever experience objective reality. Anything and everything we are capable of experiencing is subjective, for it depends on the subject experiencing it. So we are bound to this carnal method of thinking inherently. Maybe we should learn to embrace our subjective reality then instead. The one with a meaning. The one with a purpose. I don't believe in religion, but I do. Religion exposes our flaws as human beings as nothing else ever has. It shows us what we need in our subjective realities to remain in a desirable state we call happiness.

One such necessity is self-esteem. Hinduism says there is God in everybody. Buddhism says everyone is capable of being a buddha. Christianity says everyone is a child of god. In all these religions, we are told that some ideal of perfection and power resides in all of us. Our subjective realities need to accomodate to that. Another thing is that we all just need some damn thing to do with a goal in sight. Hinduism says to carry out your dharma or duty effortlessly and you will reincarnate to a higher being. Buddhism says to follow the Eightfold path and you will achieve enlightenment. Christianity says to be compassionate and do other things, and you will be saved from your sins come Judgement Day and get in to heaven (I'm not too well-versed with Christianity but I assume this to be true).

Sure religions may seem like fairy tales and whatnot, but no matter what, if you are a human being, you need certain needs satisfied, and subscribing to a religion as your perception of subjective reality usually covers your bases well. The main problem comes when people take whatever their subjective reality is and call it the objective reality and force it down other people's throats, but I won't get into that.

So life is meaningless, but is it actually? Assuming something is meaningless is assigning it a meaning. Life isn't meaningful or meaningless. Life just is. We hate that definition. It offers no closure. But it's as true as we can get to explaining it. While we are alive though, everything has a meaning. And the beauty is that since there is no true meaning, we can have it be whatever we want it to.