A pragmatic definition for the religious need

I think this definition of the spiritual need or insight in humans is about as good as any I've come across. For some it is not based on reason and for many it is not even about experience.

But the inner need of believing that this world of nature is a sign of something more spiritual and eternal than itself is just as strong and authoritative in those who feel it, as the inner need of uniform laws of causation ever can be in a professionally scientific head.

~ William James, the Will to Believe