There’s an old anecdote I return to whenever someone tries to drag me into a religious debate.

A judge presides over a divorce hearing. He asks the husband: “What is the reason for your divorce?”

The husband replies: “We are unable to settle a religious dispute.”

The judge, puzzled: “About what?”

The wife, saddened, answers: “He no longer regards me as a goddess.”

The joke usually lightens the mood of my interlocutor and offers a graceful exit from an uncomfortable conversation. But beneath the humor lies a serious principle — one I’ve come to live by:

Whatever you worship, and are prepared to sacrifice for, can be called your religion.

Not necessarily to kill for — though history shows that happens too. Defend it at a cost. Organize your life around. Refuse to betray, even when doing so would be easier — or more rational.

Let me explain.

Most people think religion means gods, scriptures, temples, and rituals. But those are forms, not the substance. The substance is simpler and more revealing: What holds your highest loyalty? What, if taken away, would make your life feel meaningless? What are you willing to suffer or fight for?

Let us apply this lens more broadly.

1. If you worship money and are willing to steal, exploit, or sacrifice relationships for it — your religion is Capitalism or Wealth (or more precisely, Mammon).
2. If you believe in equal distribution of wealth regardless of merit, and would enforce that through revolution or violence — your religion is Communism.
3. If you pray to a deity and reject all others — your religion Christianity, Islam, or another tradition.
4. If you elevate nature above economic growth, and see the planet as sacred — your religion is Environmentalism.
5. If you would die for your nation, its history, and its identity — your religion is Nationalism.
6. If you align so strongly with a political party that you would sacrifice truth or friendship – your religion is Tribalism.

The list goes on.

Science can be a religion too, if its current consensus is treated as unquestionable dogma. Fitness can be a religion, if your body becomes your temple and the gym your cathedral.

Even parenting can be a religion, if your children’s happiness is above all else, even at the expense of own.

And here is where my own story begins.

In a previous article (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam share common DNA), I claimed that I am not a religious person. I may have been mistaken. It turns out, I too have something to bow to.

Why this reframing matters

Calling these “religions” isn’t just wordplay. It does three practical things:

1. It exposes your real priorities. You can say you believe in God, but if you never sacrifice anything for that belief — if your time, money, and anger all go toward a political career or personal enrichment — then your operational religion is not what you claim.
2. It defuses religious superiority. The devout Christian or Muslim who mocks atheists might themselves be worshipping status, or nation, or consumerism. No one lives without an altar and most of us have more than one.
3. It invites choice. Once you see that everyone has a religion, you can ask: Is mine chosen consciously? And more importantly: Does it make me better or worse, more loving or more afraid?

Some of these are beautiful. Some are destructive.

So, the fundamental question about religion is not whether "Is there a God?" but "What do you actually bow to?"

Because everyone bows to something.

Even the atheist who sacrifices sleep, health, and relationships for a life of learning or abundance has a form of faith – he worships the success. The progressive who severs family ties over ideology practices a kind of moral absolutism. The nationalist who would die for a flag but neglects his own neighbor has found his god as well.

Calling these "religions" isn't metaphor. It's a diagnostic tool. Ask yourself: What do you instinctively defend when criticized? What do you feel guilty about neglecting? What would you refuse to betray, even at great cost?

Answer honestly, and you'll have named your actual religion — regardless of what you check on a census form.

And the truth is that you can’t genuinely choose whether to have a religion or not.

All you can do is realize which one is yours and embrace it consciously or live it unconsciously.

As promised, here’s my religion.

I sincerely believe my wife is a goddess and our children are angels, regardless whether anyone else agrees or not.

My religion harms no one; it gives my life meaning and direction, it makes me happy and accomplished.

In that sense, in matters of faith I am a believer in Family.

It may be the oldest religion of all — one that has coexisted with every other system of belief and quietly outlasted most of them.

One final confession: I am not without sin. From time to time, I stray into Science.

Hope she’ll forgive me – she’s a loving goddess after all.