Most people who are religious fit their religious activities into their ongoing life commitments. The adaptation may be minor or extensive, but responsibilities other than religion typically take precedence. This makes perfectly good practical sense. Everything has its place.

When you look at the persons and messages of those who were formative figures in the major religions of the world, however, these characters were not normal, practical or compromising. Their orientations were radically at odds with the values of a conventional life.

Abraham, Jesus, Buddha, Mohammad, major prophets, gurus, and sages could be identified as fanatics. Their basic messages are demanding and extreme. Nobody in their right everyday mind would think of religious obedience as leading to the killing of a son, of hating father, mother ... even one's own life, of extensive periods of fasting, ascetic practices and poverty, of genuinely loving one's abuser, or concluding that one's very self and the world are empty or illusory.

There is a stereotype of the religious life that includes the desirable things from a secular life put under the umbrella of spirituality. The sacred place (church, temple, synagogue, mosque, gurdwara) functions as a site for a minisociety that serves the interests of everyone who joins.

These aspects of “;a desirable life”; are, however, problematic for the seminal figures in the history of religion. Religion for them is an intensely consequential affair calling for a decisive break with commonality and a transformation of basic motivations and worldview.

A story in the Daoist writings of Zhuangzi dramatically illustrates this. You “;smash up limbs and body, drive out perception and intellect, cast off form, and do away with understanding.”; Stated differently, it is the whole “;heart, mind, soul, and spirit”; and “;new birth”; kind of commitment. All the ordinarily important things suffer drastic alteration by a religious reorientation.

This is a fascinating disparity. It means the attractive social aspects of a religion today are distractions that provide counterfeit gratification. “;Feeling good”; won't cut it. Neither will “;Doing good.”;

Perhaps it is like many professions where, if you want to do art (carpentry, tennis, surgery, and so forth), casual efforts have low-quality results. Participating as a spectator can entertain, engross, even inspire, but it is still outside the field of play. Doing religion is an even more demanding profession.

Religions offer themselves as an ultimate way to remedy human deficiencies that cannot otherwise be remedied. Whether from physical, psychological, circumstantial, moral, to essential matters of life and death, we are encouraged to think of ourselves as needful, as victims of illusion, greed, self-indulgence, arrogance, and so on. Each religion has its own narrative regarding human inadequacy as well as its promise to provide what humans ultimately desire—peace, understanding, love, happiness, and such.

In response to human deficiencies, many religions have developed an easy way and a hard way. Most religious practitioners are aware of both, but operate with a recognition that the high requirements of the hard way are simply beyond the reasonable limits of ordinary life. Hence, a division between laypersons and dedicated specialists comes about.

The supposedly easier religious way involves faith and dependency. Let the “;other power”; (directly or through mediators) do its work. Develop a disposition of receptivity and trust for transformation to take place.

Both approaches believe that some power or reality is ultimately reliable and efficacious. Although nobody is disqualified, both also agree that in order to be effective, religion is life consuming, a fundamental sacrifice, a “;great death,”; requiring deep and comprehensive earnestness that alters the meaning of self and everything. Compromises miss the boat.

Whether a religion focuses attention on the concrete or the transcendent, loving kindness or austere enterprise, is exclusive or inclusive, fully now or future oriented, it really does not appear on the map or in the guidebook of conventionally successful life options.

Maybe this is good and right. The truly religious are actually like aliens. Maybe reality and success are actually alien affairs. Religions may be a big mistake, even as they address individual, social, and environmental ills. But misunderstanding the high and rigorous expectations of their founders is also a big mistake.