A Quranic Journal

Quran 45:22:

And God created the heavens and the earth for truth and for each soul to be recompensed for what it has done, and they will not be wronged.

This verse gets at one of the central beliefs of religion, that there is a larger purpose to the universe and specifically a moral purpose, that there is something greater than what we see and for which reason it matters whether we do good or wrong. I think that most people feel this to some degree or want it to be true, and that our human consciousness is at its core an ability to imagine what we can't see and what may not exist yet, or not in a form we can recognize, and so our minds naturally seek out this level of meaning. However, many people today don't identify this search for meaning with religion or with God. To me, this kind of belief is an expression of hope and not an example of mental weakness as some atheists argue. Whatever you believe, these are deep issues worth thinking about and grappling with and which humans are uniquely able to do.