At root it's kind of like this, you were right about God but it's not really about religion or religious people in the West. It's about looking for identity wit

At root it's kind of like this, you were right about God but it's not really about religion or religious people in the West. It's about looking for identity within and choosing something versus having something chosen for you. We name ourselves. Now we can choose our identity to be anything and even physical and biological reality is less important than our choices. We are told to find ourselves, fulfilment, belonging and direction within ourselves. A person can choose their religion now, they can label themselves according to what they believe in. For many in the West religion is a kind of loose political or ideological club. For many, religion and identity is found and chosen from within. "it's the real me", "I have found the meaning in my life by this chosen identity". But it has not been this way forever, and in other (non-Western) parts of the world it's still another way. The other way is to have your identity defined from above or outside you. For most people who we were, our identities were defined according to our position, where we lived, what our father did, what the culture was. Your father named you. To be "real" you would behave according to what identity had been given to you. Ultimately God is above everything and with regard to identities, symbolically represents this top down giving of a meaning of life. I guess it's making the hole bigger than trying to fill it with something else. Edits: a) I suppose that some older religious people who were "born into it" might be more towards identity-from-outside. b) It would work with non religious people in identity-from-outside cultures. Stereotypical examples: a farmer in rural China, a salaryman in Japan or a peasant in 17th Century Germany. Or a culture where children are encouraged to "do their best" with what they have at hand vs "find themselves" with things they might discover.