The Spiritual Signal to Noise Ratio of Life

Let's represent life on a metric of amplitude over frequency regarding the existentially emotional experience of it and the identity to it thereby.

"Noise" is the part of the signal that exceeds the bounds of "acceptable" ranges of amplitude for "functional" signal transmission and reception for a given recipient.

So a mild noise issue would look something like:

Where the green is within threshold bounds and the red is out of bounds.

An "ideal" signal would look like:

Where all is within the acceptable range, and transmission is accomplished at the lowest possible amplitude needed to require the transmission; essentially, super efficient.

(We'll call this Buddha-like; or any such figure which has attained some kind of tranquility in a culture's mythology.)

Signal out of bounds is itself not entirely a problem; however with a high rate of frequency of going out of bounds - then it is a problem.

Where signal is out of bounds, the recipient is incapable of translating that portion of the signal into its relevant channel (the "green" area).

This acceptable range is variable depending on the transmitter and receiver's capacities; different transmitters and receivers are capable of different thresholds.

When a signal goes out of bounds, there is an after-the-fact (meaning after reception by the recipient) system in place for attempting to regulate the issue: referred to as an Automatic Gain Controller (AGC).

Essentially, when too loud, turn down input (Amplitude). When too soft, turn up input (Amplitude).

An AGC is artificial in the sense that it is not an adjustment of the signal itself, but the reception of it.

As an example of such, In Neuro-psychology, a variety of medications exist which boost or inhibit neuro-transmissions or chemical responses (the most famous self-medicated variation of this is marijuana, which acts as an inhibitor to synaptic relays by piling up fatty tissue around the synapses).

In an ideal world, the signal broadcast itself would be adjusted so that it met within range of the recipient's channel capacity, but it can be rather difficult to accomplish a societal shift to effectively adjust such existential signal regulation for a mass on a mean; considering subjectivity (though monastic societies are an example of controlling the signal itself).

This leaves either an AGC approach, or a redefinition of the recipient's channel capacity.

In the former, periodic adjustment modules are needed (for instance, meditation, church services, retreats, etc...) [essentially, respite, buffers, capture effect {creating a second equally amplified transmission while reducing attention to the first}, or noise cancellation {creating a second equally amplified transmission with an inverse phase of the first}], while in the latter (increasing capacity) an overhaul of the existential identity of the individual and their identity of reality is needed (dogma, theology, "world-view", or other existential identifications of "how life is"...essentially) to change the perception of the incoming signal which was previously carrying existentially emotional amplitudes beyond their capacity for "channeling" into translatable and tangibly relatable information (essentially, changing perspective so to widen their tolerance or acceptance).

Ergo, my take on religion is essentially: "noise" control.

The above specifies to emotion; which is a very large sensory system in human beings and runs in rates of amplitude and frequency.
Adrenaline during perceived danger, for example, is a massive emotional response that raps heavily upon the system.
The "stress" upon the system for someone living daily with the possibility of death is racketing.

On the flip-side, if you are from a society of general accommodation and relative luxury, then your religion may focus on provoking exhilaration, rather than inhibiting it.

Other systems that have been used encourage exhilaration in means of rivaling dystopian impressions of ones society; "providing joy", as some call it, rather than inhibiting a given set of emotional sensations, or boosting others in their absence.

In America, secular (meaning, regardless of theological roots) adoption of a variety of meditation systems into religious practices is growing as more people continue to take part in these practices outside of their religious settings and find them effective in providing a moment of calm or respite in a society that is currently on overdrive for activity of any given individual within any given day.

Japan cites the same, and is now strongly investigating employing secular (same meaning as previous use) meditation facilities on mass more than is currently present as their own university research has shown to them that their people respond by lowering suicide rates (a pretty substantial issue currently) in districts where such are established and individuals quickly draw to these locations regularly after the work day before heading home to "reset", as it were.

The Goldilocks Principle of Religion

"Feel The Force"

It is often overlooked in passing thought, but the normal human being recognizes a person or thing by its emotional attachment and provocation as well as by the more obvious senses and facilities. This case is made quite a bit more observable in a neurological condition called Capgras syndrome, which findings now suggest a missing connection between the fusiform gyrus and the amygdala; effectively severing the link between the identity of a familiar person's face and the associated emotional consequence (significance signals) that the person expects to feel when seeing that person's face. As a result, the individual afflicted with this syndrome can be absolutely convinced that even their most close family members are body doubles, and will rationalize various means that this could have been accomplished – usually involving ranges of paranoia, understandably. In subjective Capgras syndrome (as it is sometimes referred to) the individual is affected in such a manner where this emotional facial recognition disconnection is of their own face. As a result, they tend to declare some form of explanation as to how they are present, but not actually alive or living in “this world”.

"I've Got A Bad Feeling About This..."

The point of the above examples is that emotional attachment is principle in our hold on reality. Once it slips from our brain, we immediately cease to believe quite as readily in what we observe as what we recall it to have been previously, for it lacks the emotional connection we normally function with.

So it stands observable that we do not define our acceptance of reality based solely on explicitly rational propositions to ourselves. We do not make a “pre-flight checklist” to each day of our life. Instead, we intuitively feel an emotional response that we recognize implicitly and accept this as reality based on the dormancy of our emotional response.
That is to say, it is the normal noise we expect to hear. It is much akin to the simple process of how alien the world would be if we woke up one day and there were no people anywhere and no sounds that people cause by their massive existence. As long as we hear this racket of people and societal noise (or whichever environment a person regularly resides in), we accept normality.

The individual generally feels a sense of discord or accord within their own emotional standing prior to what will eventually alter or affirm their spiritual or religious standing.

This metaphor is much the way our emotional connection to reality functions. As long as the emotional racket continues as usual, we accept the world as it is; continually, and reliably as real.
However, when something feels not quite right with reality around us, we attempt to place our conceptual finger upon it in similar sensation to a forgotten item on a grocery list. A vague impression standing just out of reach of our conscious grasp, thereby generating a sensation of unidentified absence of an implicitly expected filler.
In part, this is what the average person will employ when feeling that another person close to them is different in some manner due to the implicit impression of the person feeling different. It may be a lie the individual is holding, an embarrassment, a root of depression, that the person is newly in love, knows of a secret surprise that will entertain, or other similar subtleties (or in neurological cases, a neurological change in ourselves, but our neurology doesn't tend to readily postulate this possibility to our own thought). Regardless of the specific cause, it is the emotional sensation due to several, and typically subtle, physical cues which implies a change in the relationship of reality; something is different in the way a part of reality feels emotionally.

With regards to spirituality of humanity, which can present into a religious format, the constitution taking place is quite likely much the same. It follows that if it is the case neurologically with us in one respect of in-processing reality in regards to identity, that such is quite possibly the case in regards to other formats of in-processing reality in regards to identity.
The difference with respect to spirituality or religion is that the identity of what we are discussing has shifted to an identity of existence itself and the relationship with it that we have ontologically.

For some people, there is no such emotional relationship with reality in this manner and to this day we are not truly certain what the variances at play are that consequently permit one human body and brain to require this emotional connection with reality ontologically or not. Here, I will focus on those who connect emotionally to reality ontologically, as this appears to be the larger extent of the current and long standing population of the human race (though it would be prudent to take a hard look at those that do not, as comparing the anomaly to the average tends to teach us far more about how the human brain and body works than does examining the average individuals by themselves).

"Picking" The Relationship of Reality

I previously mentioned the production above in, “Feeling Existence”, but here I want to address how exactly selection may be taking place. By selection, I am referring to how an individual, so invested with earnest spiritual or religious adherence, chooses their spiritual or religious choice of adherence.
Here, adherence is being loosely used to refer to a sensation which does not create emotional conflict within the individual, and therefore permitted by the individual to continue being agreeable.

Essentially, how do people pick their spirituality or their religion?

Firstly, it goes back to what I expressed in, “Feeling Existence”, in recognizing that spirituality and religion, at their base, are identifications layered over the top of existence so to relate with existence ontologically.
It appears possible, then, to be akin to how we pick our identity of any part of reality.
How a Capgras sufferer, “picks”, that the person in front of them is not who they claim to be.
As such, this spiritual or religious picking will often, by this hypothesis' propositions, be influenced by a strong familial connection to similarly shared identities of reality.
This is propositioned because a family will teach, implicitly and explicitly, the emotional relationships of living to the individual; how to feel about life, and the general ideologies attached to relating to how to feel about life.

Humans pick their spirituality by a sensation of lacking discord emotionally when participating in the concepts or rituals of the given spirituality or religion

As such, the individual will move forward in their growth with an understanding of normality to their emotional constitution of reality based on what has been experienced and what has been shown to them by those closest to them in their trust; commonly those of the most trust will be a family.
This does not appear to be a solid state, obviously, as many eventually choose to no longer be spiritual or religious in manners of their familial raising; however, the manners in which this was achieved are the same which fall in line with the hypothesis.

Generally speaking, most people arrive at their rational reasons for why they hold to their spiritual or religious standing a posteriori and not a priori. Meaning, it is by reflection that most have their reasons which they can explain in words for their spiritual or religious standings.
The explicit conclusions were not the primary means of determining that they did or did not adhere to a given spiritual or religious standing.

Instead, the individual generally feels a sense of discord or accord within their own emotional standing prior to what will eventually alter or affirm their spiritual or religious standing.
There is no singular specific standing in most peoples accounts as to what started the sensation; it simply began.

Meanwhile, the standard of almost every religious or spiritual standing in existence today for why the given spiritual or religious perspective is valid or true (which is just a means of stating worthy of investment – that one's investment is not futile) is based largely on sensations of calmness: in some respect or another.
Essentially, what this can be said to be a claim of is that the individual is stating that because their spiritual or religious concept does not feel conflicted within their emotional sense of existence ontologically, it is therefore a valid manner of interacting with and relating to reality on an ontological level of understanding.
This is as much real to the individual as it is for the individual to claim that being nice to another person is a good moral choice, or perhaps they are the opposite type of individual claiming that beating others to the prize is the good moral choice; in either case, the individual is making such a claim primarily based on emotional evidence of accord and discord being balanced within their understanding of human relationships.

Blind Faith?

These concepts may seem a stretch, but when we think of how we humans relate inductively and implicitly for most of our interpersonal relationships, and that if spirituality and religion are dominantly a motive from the interest of our biology to have identifiable relationships with states of existences, then stating a further mark that the adoption of a spiritual or religious adherence is more of finding the hole that our particular shape of peg fits into rather than a malformed peg that is jammed intrusively into the one and only existing hole appears as more the possibility than not.
In observation, it appears far more that humans pick their spirituality by a sensation of lacking discord emotionally when participating in the concepts or rituals of the given spirituality or religion, than it is that anyone of us sets out on the average to be explicitly governed by one type of spirituality or religion.

This does not mean, however, that a person without strong spiritual or religious impulses is somehow broken. It means that their brain most likely has a radically different methodology of relating to and addressing existence and reality as an ontological relationship. And as such, as I mentioned previously, such individuals should be of interest in comparing the neurological differences between them and the average individual who largely feels some form of, at least vague, sense of spiritual or religious relationship to their existences.

Yet the concept stands relatively reasonable in postulation; that given other observations in how we work, it is rather sensible to expect for spirituality and religion to be biological capacities of the human body and brain to create identities for relationships, and are of the largest caliber of relationship identities possible: existence itself.

As such, it can be understood that spiritual and religious adherence's are not necessarily acceptances of, "blind faith", but instead adherence's of, "emotional identity".
"Reason", in the strict sense of the term, would have little aid in the core and basic foundations of what is or is not keeping a person party to a given spiritual or religious adherence any further than it would have to offer a person's basic and core foundations of "who" (what kind of person) they identify a given person as.
Reason can help in a long and slow process, but it will never be as compelling to the individual's sensory and brain as their emotional accord or discord ringing significance alarms or satisfactions in their brain through the simple process of emotion.

With such in mind, If a spiritual or religious proposition attempts to declare itself as being right, then it is immediately errant.
For spirituality and religion isn't fundamentally about being right. It is fundamentally about feeling right.