Rabbi Noa Kushner argues in her new book, Pretend You Believe: How to Enter Religion, that we need religion not to improve our lives or cultivate ethics, but for the sake of God and to enter into a relationship with the divine.
She explicitly rejects the label of self-help, contending that viewing religion as a tool for personal betterment or ethical improvement is a “consumer mentality” that diminishes its ultimacy. Instead, she invites skeptics to engage in a “thought experiment” by pretending to believe in God to discover the tradition’s perspective, which emphasizes humility, service, and the broader call to justice beyond individual needs.
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Source: Times of Israel