Being Religious: Working at Self-Maintenance and Self-Transformation

We see religion in the things people treat as crucial to what they are and to what they aspire to become, things that make the biggest difference in how people feel about themselves. They may be social aspects or personal (behavioral or characterological) aspects of the self. The things people are militant about, the practices in regard to which they are most scrupulous, and the things about themselves that distress them are indicators of where their religious concerns lie, whatever the subject matter. People work to maintain themselves as they want to see themselves and as they want others to see them; they seek ways to repair damage to their selves. They seek also to transform themselves so as to escape present unhappy definitions of self and to achieve ideal states of being. What needs to be changed may be perceived as aspects of personal self, as attitudes other people have toward otherwise unchangeable aspects of self, or as the entire socio-political system in which people feel trapped. The process by which people manage successfully to transform themselves includes social cooperation, including the formation of groups to provide mutual reinforcement.