From a early age, I lost belief in what is conventionally known as "God". Because nothing I saw pointed to the existence of an All-Loving, All-Knowing, All-Powerful, Fair-minded Higher Entity. In fact, there was plenty of evidence to the contrary.
I made no secret of this. And that is sometimes a mistake because it opens you up to targeted advertising by well-meaning people who, with tender empathy and patient understanding, try to lead you out of darkness. Unfortunately for them, I am not an easy target. And I don't know who is more traumatized after such conversion attempts.
Having patiently listened to many sermons though, here's a counter-sermon of mine that theists have an obligation to listen to. Turnabout is fair play.
Humans, I have observed, are great rationalizers. Most of our religious urges begin from our attempts to rationalize things that we have dim hope of understanding with any clarity. It is comforting to believe that there is a big plan. It is comforting to believe that things will all work out in the end. It is far less comforting to accept that we live in a probabilistic and chaotic universe where the future is a complex outcome of our present and past actions with a unsettlingly hefty dose of randomness thrown in.
Take an example. An airplane crashes, killing all 300 people on board.
To see how the rationlization starts, lets go down the line.
You start with a Christian. Why did that happen? Why did 300 innocent people die? Maybe every one of those people are paying for their sins, he says. There were several infants on board, what was their sin, you ask. They sinned in their past lives, the Hindu pipes up. Have you seen a past life, Mr. Hindu? And why did they get away with what they did in that past life? Wasn't God paying attention? Justice delayed and all that.
Better a bad explanation than no explanation at all, I suppose.
But do you know what causes me the most disquiet? This also counts among the most difficult thing for an apologist to rationalize away. I vainly search for an explanation when I see a child who is congenitally handicapped to the point of being condemned to live a harrowing life of sub-normalcy. This is what happens to those with severe Down's Syndrome, for example. A child who will, throughout his life, look upon the rest of humanity with a wistful eye.
Pray tell. What notion of sin or what theory of free will, would you dredge up to explain the condition of this child? A human who is irrevocably and royally screwed, so to speak, from the moment of his birth.
What comfort do you have to offer him? What theological explanation for his condition? What philosophical band-aid do you have handy?
I once asked a religious friend of mine this very thing once, but only after he had badgered me to the point of impatience. He had this explanation. Yes, he is suffering. But his Suffering is noble. Because he will, one day, get a chance to stand in front of God and tell Him about his Suffering. And ask him about his Suffering. And thus will he be redeemed.
Let me get this straight.
What you're telling the poor bastard is this, in effect: Yes, you will have a miserable, godawful life. All through your life, you will be pissed on, ridiculed and belittled. You will be, variously, (a) an object of sympathy or, (b) a target of derision, depending on the mood of your tormentors, and believe me, there will be many.
Better a bad explanation than no explanation at all, I suppose.
But do you know what causes me the most disquiet? This also counts among the most difficult thing for an apologist to rationalize away. I vainly search for an explanation when I see a child who is congenitally handicapped to the point of being condemned to live a harrowing life of sub-normalcy. This is what happens to those with severe Down's Syndrome, for example. A child who will, throughout his life, look upon the rest of humanity with a wistful eye.
Pray tell. What notion of sin or what theory of free will, would you dredge up to explain the condition of this child? A human who is irrevocably and royally screwed, so to speak, from the moment of his birth.
What comfort do you have to offer him? What theological explanation for his condition? What philosophical band-aid do you have handy?
I once asked a religious friend of mine this very thing once, but only after he had badgered me to the point of impatience. He had this explanation. Yes, he is suffering. But his Suffering is noble. Because he will, one day, get a chance to stand in front of God and tell Him about his Suffering. And ask him about his Suffering. And thus will he be redeemed.
Let me get this straight.
What you're telling the poor bastard is this, in effect: Yes, you will have a miserable, godawful life. All through your life, you will be pissed on, ridiculed and belittled. You will be, variously, (a) an object of sympathy or, (b) a target of derision, depending on the mood of your tormentors, and believe me, there will be many.
But then, and here's the good part, you will die. And then--are you still getting this--you will have your chance to go ask this Perfect, All-Knowing Supreme Entity who apparently fucked up while creating you exactly how One Such As Him could have made such a total screw-up during the process of creation of a human life. So just wait patiently to die. Then you will be redeemed.
And the poor bastard is supposed to draw comfort from that?
Sometimes, mercifully, those who have a particularly debilitating handicap are not sufficiently aware of it. A child with severe Down's Syndrome may not internalize the pain of the condition. But sometimes, just for the heck of it and to add variety, the Great Architect from up above gives a person a severe handicap and also simultaneously gives him the blessing of full awareness of it. Step right up folks, because this is always fun to watch!
Yes, it is fun to watch the incessant agony of a person who must bear an unwanted cross all his life. Have you seen the movie The Elephant Man? If you have, do you remember when the severely deformed Joseph Merrick, while being teased mercilessly on the streets of London, screams at his tormentors, "I ... am ... not ... an ... animal! I am a human being! I am a man!"
Joseph Merrick had Proteus Syndrome, an incurable and horrific congenital condition. Did you feel his pain? Can you imagine what it must be like to be a Joseph Merrick? With an unremitting lifelong condition that you are agonizingly aware of but can do nothing about?
Do not, with a clear conscience, talk to me about an all-Loving God. Just fucking don't.
Postscript and Warning: I don't want to indulge in sensation-mongering. But if you have the stomach for it, do look at the pictures by following the link below. This is what a person with Proteus Syndrome looks like. Take a look. And then tell me that there is a God.
http://www.proteus-syndrome.org.uk/psf_photos.html
4 comments:
Hi Sougata,
This topic is another of my hobby horses. Everywhere I look, I see rampant stupidity in the name of 'God' and religion. Sample this dialogue from Con-Air:
Wounded prisoner who is probably dying:"I don't know what is happenin man. I can't believe there is a Gawd. I get the feeling there ain't no Gawd.
Nicholas Cage : "I'll show you there is a Gawd".
What a tiresome bunch. And I mean all the 'God'-believers of this world. A tiresome movie as well.
Rob,
First of all, welcome back. I have been following, not without a little concern, your "angst-y" posts on your own blog.
Trust me, I know what you are talking about. I cannot see entirely through your eyes of course, but I have a fair idea. Believe you me, I do.
In fact, I had thought of posting a comment on your last post talking about a technique that I call "constructive escapism" :-) to deal with just such situations. It's something that works for me, but not always well, and will likely not work in all cases. But I thought, what the heck, let me throw it in there and see what hatches.
But I thought it to be too presumptuous of me at the last moment and stopped myself.
Second, you raise some interesting points regarding this post. And I want to discuss at length some of the issues. But, keeping the space and formatting constraints of this comment box in view, would you mind terribly if I abstracted your comment in a new post and discussed some of your points in that post? I hate to do this in this "Usenet" fashion, and will try my best to fit my response into this comment space if you have any objections to a new post.
Interesting 'conversation'..
I believe that there is a power greater than myself. Not my wife, though in a fish bowl exercise, the conclusions can be highly debated.
Humans are great rationalizers! Infact, were it not for rationalizing, I suspect there would have been no momentum towards finding the 'truth'.. The bottom line is what we don't know, we rationalize. Call it randomness or some large mpp governing the madness, it's a personal call. I do agree with Rob. One option is to allow for the possibility. Afterall, randomness or premeditation, we are what we are and as long as my belief stops where the other person's nose begins, what's the harm?
And while you are at it.. what do you tell a person who is born with Downs Syndrome? "Cheer up pal and deal with it because you are victim of Heizenberg's uncertainity Theory?" Assuming that there is a more humane way to say that and that it will want to motivate him to look forward to life instead of looking for the path of least resistance...
In any case, whether or not there is really a god is another debate.. I think your experiences and thoughts in this post are more one of how faith is expressed rather than the faith itself. My personal take on this is that you cannot confuse God with religion.. Religion was created by Man as a rationalization exercise and hence that's precisely what it is. God on the other hand is everyone's own personal view of things they cannot control or influence and I believe very fundamentally different for different people.
Ofcourse, we could all be wrong and we probably are..
Balajee,
My wife is definitely a greater power than I, since I can only get away with what she can't see. And since she would be simultaneously the speaker, facilitator and observer in a fishbowl exercise, I doubt there will be little room for debate on this.
I am not sure if rationalization necessarily means "search for truth". Sometimes it can mean quite the opposite. It can mean that you rationalize what you don't know, comfort yourself with a bad explanation, and stop looking.
Theories of divinity often stem from specious, casuistic rationalization. I have an interesting example of such misguided rationalization that I will post in a later post. Watch this space.
And no, there is no harm caused if you rein in your beliefs and spare the other person's nose. But often, this sort of restraint is sorely missing in most people. This is something I will discuss a little in my response to Rob.
I will get to the said response, in typically sleep-deprived fashion, late at night.
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