We all have an innate capacity, even need, for spiritual and religious thought. If we look at young children, even those with no religious background, we see this. As children begin to explore, and try to make sense of the world around them, they are as likely to develop spiritual or metaphysical ideas about how and why things work as they are to develop physical/logical reasoning. Often they are more likely to choose metaphysical ideas over mundane physical ones. It is inherent in out nature.

This can also be shown in our development as a culture. Man developed spiritual/metaphysical theories about the universe around him long before more 'scientific' ideas emerged. Even today in our enlightened world of technology many of the current theories in theoretical physics engender an air of mysticism and even magical thought.

Jung said that our capacity for religious thought was one of the deepest rooted and most powerful aspects of the psyche. He even argued that it was the most important catalyst in our development. Few things hold as much psychic energy as our faith. Even our scientific theorems are meaningless unless we believe them to be true. Our every thought, idea, and action is molded by our belief system.

Jung also postulated the idea of universal archetypes. Basic ideas that are inherent in every culture and every individual. This is the reason why dream imagery from far and divergent cultures share common symbolism. That is what led Jung to postulate the archetypes and develop his ideas of a collective unconscious. A common link between all of man kind, from which these arch typical ideas and symbols spring.

We all have within us an inherent set of common ideas about the universe expressed symbolically by our subconscious. Cultural and individual interpretation color and shade the arch typical truths, but at their base they all share the same origin. I would take this a step further and say that our religious ideas also all share a common origin.

Jung studied all of the world religions and philosophical systems as he built his knowledge of the symbolism of the archetypes. He found, as with dream imagery, religions share many symbols and ideas even from far divergent cultures. On their face our modern religions seem to be widely varied in their beliefs. Much of this is caused by our own cultural prejudice and our dogmatic beliefs that our religion is the only true religion. Even among different sects of the same religion we can see this

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