PRIDE IS THE REWARD FOR BEING RELIGIOUS
Religion offers many deceptive, intoxicating rewards. In addition to the long-term, but false, expectations of going to heaven, practicing religion has many short-term rewards that religion conveys to men who practice the right kind of religion in the right way: Praise, respect, glory, honor, titles, belonging, acceptance etc. The Bible calls these rewards the praise of men.

STUDY TIPS: See Praise of Men, Making a Name for Yourself, and Religious Pride.

In addition to rewards that come from other religionists, and the false sense of being spiritually wealthy, there are fleshly, emotional, internal, rewards of stimulation that religious people enjoy when they sing, dance and worship with coreligionists. Together, these are the emotional, fleshly drivers that intoxicate religionists and sustain and perpetuate the world of religion. Together, these comprise lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life that are the essence of the world of religion. 

All these benefits accrue to people who choose to obey religious laws and traditions created by men. Looking at pride in particular, the benefits can be summarized in the following list:

And religious leaders have these extra rewards:

These rewards meet very basic needs that affirm and validate us as humans. Unless we find these rewards in religion or work or family or someplace else, we would be depressed, alone and without a sense of purpose for our lives. While all these rewards are very normal and well-accepted in all religions, God has a very different view of these earthly rewards. He considers it all to be self-righteousness that is based on works of the flesh.

The Bible symbolically refers to pride as the strong drink (i.e. wine) of religion that has intoxicated Old/First Covenant religionists (i.e. Jews and Christians) from Bible story days to the present. In a contemporary figure of speech, pride is the “kool aid” that people drink when they blindly join a movement of some kind because of peer pressure.

Pride is the intoxicating wine of Judaism and Christianity, but it also applies to any religion. This intoxication is what enables cults of all kinds, including Judaism and Christianity, to attract followers and incite them to do all manner of things that they would not do on their own initiative.

STUDY TIP: Also see RELIGIONS ARE CULTS for discussion of cults in the context of toxic religion. See the following links for research on why people join cults.

One thing we learn from these links is that people who are raised in cults or join cults are not all weak, weird, stupid people. They are, however, otherwise normal people who find that a cult satisfies needs that are common to everyone.

The reward (i.e. pride) of participation in religion and its rituals lifts religionists out of the routine boredom of everyday life and give them a sense of connection to “something greater” than themselves and gives them hope for the future. Religious people think that they will attain to “something greater” when they go to heaven and live for eternity with God. Until then, they have their religion and their religious friends to sustain them. They have drunk deeply of the teaching of religion and become intoxicated with it.