The founding myth of a society such as the US-American one is simple and as follows: Work hard or even harder to get rich — that way proving to all and God that you are favourable to God. Since the rich are God’s favourites.
That value is probably the most damaging and destroying one ever to be posed throughout the history of mankind:
All is fair — that is any means to that end: becoming rich — is good and even fair in God’s eyes.
Religion in general is one way of posing understandable values and rules for a society to live by.
It also fulfils the human need for transcendence, so the philosopher Fromm tells us.
When we are lucky, those rules are not just about limiting everything to a bare minimum — but about the real health and joy human life has to offer:
Combining heart, soul and body in ways that make you smile, like yourself — and thus enable you to like others (more).
And interact with a sense of community so the welfare of all is at the back of people’s minds.