Art looks to the ideal.

Religion tries to make the ideal something more than it is. To the point that Western monotheism assumes the ideal as absolute.

Which is nonsense. Truth, beauty, platonic forms are ideals. The codes, creeds, heroes, narratives at the gravitational center of every cult or culture are ideals.

The universal, on the other hand, is the elemental. The essence from which we rise, not an ideal from which we fell.

It's not complicated, but it just doesn't seem obvious enough. Too many people have built their lives around their ideals as universal and when questioned, only yell louder.

Just having to wait until the world comes crashing down and no stairway to heaven arrives to save them.