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Are human beings wired to believe in the supernatural or God as a recent article in Reader’s Digest would have us believe?
Are those who question faith and promote rational thinking a tiny minority… flotsam that evolution threw up?!
I do get a spiritual high from nature – is it the same elevating effect believers experience with “God”?
From my observation, faith is emotional – and emotions can certainly blind one to reason.
But organized religion also fulfils a deep need in many people. It can be a support system, an anchor stable and deep in a world of change… societies where relationships are as fickle as fashion – and as shortlived; workplaces where technology and skills become obsolete in the span of a year, and demand changes in attitudes, behavior, values and skill sets at the drop of a hat. Adapt – or be swallowed, chewed and spat out by change…
The danger, however, lies with using the concept of “God” as a crutch. I also find some use “God” as a prop (for effect), or even a screen to hide behind.
© Sosha Srinivasan
A former colleague, who also happens to be a good friend, has been diagnosed with end stage renal disease and is currently undergoing dialysis. Arul is quiet, thoughtful and kind. A postgraduate in Social Work, he is passionate about the environment, especially issues pertaining to wildlife. He is only 38 years old. He is also very brave. Whatever may be his inner doubts, he does not indulge in self-pity. He faces the situation with a matter-of-fact-attitude which is simply admirable. He has never asked, “Why me?” and, in fact, tries to comfort colleagues who get upset seeing his plight.
Situations like this – I have faced something similar before when a niece passed away at age three after being treated for leukemia for a year – threaten to tip me off the fence right into the atheist camp. And the Chaos Theory leaves the realm of abstract thought and begins to look very real: It truly seems like the random rules the world. The existence of an all-knowing, benevolent God is just not compatible with the suffering and cruelty I see in the world around me.
If there is indeed a power greater than us pitiful humans, it is not “God” but Mother Nature – we will never be able to control her manifestations, wind or wave, earthquake or tsunami. The older forms of religion – nature worship which Western religious dogma (read Christian) labels “heathen” or “pagan”, seem to have had the right idea all along – treat Mother Earth with respect. Modern man has not been doing that and now we pay the price in terms of global warming and high levels of pollution in every form. We are poisoning Earth, our home, and ourselves…
© Sosha Srinivasan
I just finished reading Erich Segal’s “Acts of Faith” a few days ago. Unputdownable. I recommended it to my son who finished it in one afternoon and pronounced it “Gripping!”
While on the subject of religion, I must confess that I am an inveterate fence sitter – an agnostic. Though born into a Christian family, I’ve always questioned blind, religious doctrine (though not, admittedly always out loud) since about age 10, perhaps earlier. I didn’t like what I saw of the Church – the hypocrisy, the politics, the worship of Mammon. As a result I was never a practicing Christian and stopped attending in my teens.
I did read up on the various world religions and found Buddhist teachings most attractive. Buddha never really talked of God per se but of striving for balance in the various aspects of life. Very appealing to my tottering high-wire act! But when the question of committment arose, I backed off. Why? Because I believe that groups, especially reigious and ethnic ones, are the cause of the majority of the conflict historically the world over – a direct result of the “us versus them syndrome”. Man does absolutely horrendous things to his fellow human beings when part of a group (that’s “mob psychology” in psychiatric parlance for you) that he wouldn’t have the gumption to do alone.
And so I remain a fence sitter, or a high wire artist if you like – at times an uncomfortable position as you can imagine – but the view is great!
© Sosha Srinivasan
This is with reference to Hari Nair’s comment on my post, The Original Fold.
I have always believed names like Kuriakos, Paulos and Markos, which are almost exclusive to the Jacobite division of the Syrian Christian community, are of Greek origin. (Yes, there are three divisions – the Marthomites, the Jacobites and the CSI (Church of South India) – but that’s another long story of politics in religion). I think the Syrian Orthodox Church and the Greek Orthodox Church were/ are closely linked historically, and thus the crossover names. Anyone out there who can confirm this?
The Jacobite Church, by the way, still conducts its services in archaic Syraic, while the other two do so in Malayalam and sometimes English. Parishioners belonging to the three divisions do intermarry, so it is not an uncrossable schism.
© Sosha Srinivasan
Morten mailed asking about the reference to Syrian Christians from Kerala in my second post, wondering if I was of Syrian descent.
We supposedly are. My dad once was mistaken for a Turk. I have variously been taken for an Armenian, an Arab and a Parsi – descendants of a group that migrated to India from Iran.
Legend has it that soon after the ascension of Christ, St Thomas or “Doubting” Thomas sailed to Kerala with a loyal band of disciples. There, he converted seven Brahmin families after performing a “miracle” and these families intermarried with his followers. Their descendants are known as the Syrian Christians. St Thomas then travelled overland to the city I now live in, Chennai (formerly Madras), where he was “martyred”.
I am definitely not recounting this in order to propagate notions of racial superiority of differences. Kerala is miniature melting pot with Arab, Jewish, Portuguese and even Armenian influences. As far as I’m concerned this is a 2 millenia-old legend with spotty proof at best. There is definitely nothing such as a “pure race”, though many racist groups would like us believe otherwise.
I made the reference in my post only because it was a fact. John and I do belong to the same “community” and our families met socially on a very regular basis.
When I married my husband, who happens to be a Tamil Brahmin, an uncle of mine remarked, “So you have gone back to the original fold, have you?” – a reference to the ostensible Brahmin conversion by St Thomas.
Look back even further to 4000 years ago when the Aryans migrated to India from Central Asia – the Hindu religion and the caste sytem (at the “top” of which sit the Brahmin or priest class) are direct offshoots of Aryan culture. It then follows that my hubby’s ancestors were from Central Asia and mine purportedly from neighboring West Asia.
A few years ago I followed the timeline back even further when I watched a rivetting program called “The Journey of Man” on National Geographic Channel hosted by Prof Spencer Wells.
In a nutshell, based on extensive genetic testing worldwide, it says humankind came out of Africa a mere 60,000 years ago. All of us on earth are descended from a small group of Bushmen. The different races evolved as a result of gradual physical adaptation to local climatic conditions in diverse geographic areas.
It makes so much sense. Our differences are, in truth, only skin deep and we are all members of the same family. Every reader of this post is is a distant cousin of mine – several thousand times removed, as the Brits put it! We are all siblings under the skin and there is only one “original fold”.
I strongly believe Dr Wells’ program should be translated into every language possible and screened globally for every “ethnic” group, village, or community as I feel it is a feeling of “otherness” that is at the root of most conflict world wide.
Genetic testing is still going on and you may get yourself tested if you wish to find out which route out your ancestors took!
Check it out at the Genographic Project page on the NatGeo site.
© Sosha Srinivasan
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