Once we lose a sense of inherent value, we have lost all hope of encountering true value, much less the Holy. Even religious people, if they do not pray, will normally regress to an exchange-value reading of religion. It is no longer about the Great Mystery, mystic union, and transformation, but merely social order and control. Moral codes and priesthoods are enlisted for the sake of enforcement and some measure of civility. For many, if not most, Western Christians, it is basically a crime-and-punishment scenario, instead of the grace-and-mercy world that Jesus proclaims.
