I published an essay arguing we need new religion for the AI age. It got destroyed philosophically, so I read Rorty's *Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity* to engage seriously with the critiques. His framework seemed promising—religious forms are contingent, solidarity through literature, no foundations needed.

Then I volunteered in Jerusalem and met a man tortured for a year in Israeli prison. His son couldn't recognize him in the photo. Something cracked open in my chest. Not rage—fierce protective love. Then grief. Then, impossibly, that love extended to Israeli families on October 7th. My body didn't ask permission. The boundary just dissolved.

That experience taught me: Rorty was half-right. Religious forms ARE contingent inventions. But the needs religion addresses are NOT contingent—they're discoverable through observing what bodies actually require when facing collective trauma.

I identify five concrete functions only religion provides at scale:
1. Collective containers for overwhelming emotion
2. Body-mind integration through practice  
3. Holding particular love + universal compassion simultaneously (wave-particle duality)
4. Transforming suffering into sustained action
5. Processing collective trauma communally across generations

The essay engages with Rorty's pragmatism in depth, uses phenomenological method for the Jerusalem experience, identifies five specific gaps in post-religious frameworks, and outlines requirements for new religion: transparent about construction, works through body-mind not just intellect, maintains wave-particle duality structurally.

Full essay is 6,200 words. Happy to discuss the philosophical arguments, phenomenological methodology, or the concrete requirements for what comes next.

Note: I used AI assistance for editing and structure, but all ideas, arguments, and the lived experience are my own.