Loss of Faith - The Loss

 God was in my world, the farthest I look into my past. My parents were not fastidious about religion. I do not remember they ever talked to me about religious doctrines. They were not aware of these in their own religion. Their religion centred around celebrating major festivals as a cultural event. On these days house was cleaned a bit more assiduously. My mother prepared special dishes, specific for each festival. I eagerly awaited them. On some of these days she told us parables. I heard them year after year and knew every word. But I still looked forward to the evening when she would wear a special sari meant for these occasions, dress us up, sit with us on the floor, savouries arrayed around as offerings to the gods, and narrate the story. My mother had her hands full with household chores. A little spare time she salvaged from these cares she spent with books. She prayed only on the days of festivals.

We had some framed pictures of gods arranged on a shelf. My father would light a lamp here every evening. He would then fold his hands, close his eyes and mumble some prayer. This, I learnt, as I grew up, was not from any scripture. It was a mix of a popular aarti and my father’s invocation of God in his vernacular. I found the words would change often. Perhaps my father had not memorised a single sacred hymn. I do not know that he ever read any religious book. His evening prayers never extended beyond five minutes. My parents did not go to temples regularly. A visit was usually a social occasion, a healthy way of spending an idle evening.

This was the religion I obtained from my parents, as I unconsciously imbibed their many other ways of living: keeping the house clean and in order from my mother, thrifty habits from my father. And this was religion for me till I finished college. I never thought deeply about God. God’s existence was a truth like the fact that I was an Indian, a child of my parents, and a Hindu. It never occurred to me that such self-evident truths could entertain arguments for and against them.

I first heard these conflicting views in college. Some of my colleagues were arguing with a professor, after the lecture. The middle-aged, soft-spoken professor, debonair of bearing, was much liked by the students, because of his informal teaching style, and his endearing penchant for mystifying simple concepts of his subject and thus endow them with a vague, distant character. This lent him a unique intellectual air. I found the topic of discussion that day, frivolous and inane; Is there some power that governs the world? Is it possible to know why human body and mind function in a way they do? My colleagues were sceptic – a word I learned only much later. Professor was not sure that there is not strong evidence of something that governs human affairs. The subtle irony in the situation – a postgraduate in Human Physiology, the branch of biology that deals with the functions and activities of life, i.e., the physical and the chemical phenomena involved, arguing for the role of supernatural in the functioning of our bodies – escaped me then. I was by then aware of the terms, theist and atheist, but this was my first brush with a specimen of two, in a friendly argument. I was not impressed.

My religious beliefs, till I was well past teens, can be summed up thus. There is a God who created the universe and everything in it, alive or dead. God is actively involved in the affairs of humans. It rewards good and punishes evil. Its attention can be invoked through honest and sincere prayers. if an omniscient God found the pleas genuine, these might be granted. I must hurry to add that I never tried to take stock of my beliefs then. The preceding view is how I imagine the boy who went by my name forty years ago, might have stated his opinion on the subject. Now I understand that these were just a mish-mash of cultural heritage, memes, as I would call them now. Neither the donor, nor the recipient of these ideas ever tried to examine them critically.

There came a time when the simple joys of childhood and the anxious but pleasant experiences of adolescence appeared to have receded far. Dullness in life sapped it of all its vigour. And for long, hope of better future remained just that. Examination of past did not suggest why things were happening in a particular manner. Unknowingly, I began to ponder ‘why and how’ questions of our fate. I had no clue where to look for answers. My quest was not stirred by a thirst for knowledge. I wanted succour from a distress that seemed unbearable.

My half-hearted, ill-directed, and ignorant search did not beget me the light I had sought, but it had an unexpected outcome. I began to doubt the all-knowing attitude of religion. I also learned that science cannot answer all the questions about life; questions that are vital in our day-to-day affairs. I veered towards the idea that science is good at answering the ‘how’ questions and ‘why’ is the domain of religion. I did not know it then, but I had just tasted the heady wine of scepticism. It directed and defined my pursuit as I unhurriedly, and almost imperceptibly, went about acquiring a belief system, based on confirmable evidence, discarding speculative conjunctions on the way. The process was so exhilarating that it became an end in itself.

I read only fiction those days. I didn’t know any books that dealt with the stuff I was interested in and also addressed ignorant readers like me. Web and internet had yet not arrived in my world. Bookshops and libraries, the only source of knowledge, were few. They clubbed all books dealing with belief under the section of philosophy or spiritualism. This neglected corner in the premise had some musty, ponderous volumes of old books, laden in dust and rarely taken out. Most dealt with theology or Indian philosophy, i.e., a string of similar named books on Vedas, Upanishads, Geeta, and Mahabharata. I bought, borrowed, and browsed a few. All were written in a stuffy and obscure prose. They made me run to my fiction, which I had abandoned with some effort. Few people read books and almost none the kind I was looking for. I never heard anyone discussing belief or the lack of it, in an intelligent social discourse. If they ever spotted me with one such book, they would scorn me mercilessly, invoking my young years to convince me of my folly.

Over the years, I desultorily read a few books, off and on, which vaguely dealt with the question of belief or referred to it in passing. My knowledge of the subject remained extensively moth-eaten, but my doubts about God deepened.

I was still not convinced about the non-existence of God. I did not think I was an atheist. Around this time, I discovered the word agnostic. I thought this aptly described my state – a person who is not committed to believing either the existence or the nonexistence of God. I now understand that agnosticism can only be a temporary state of mind, when a person searches for the right questions and their answers. But agnosticism as a permanent creed is fence-sitting - apprehension in confronting the truth and laziness to submit to the industry these queries demand. It is an euphemism for escapist attitude. For there is enough evidence in the world today to firm up your mind this or that way.

And then I stumbled on a popular book on science meant for laypersons like me. It was written in an exceptionally humorous style laced with endearing irreverence. Bottom fell out of my world. I had read what goes for science in school. I had read medicine for graduation and postgraduation. I now realised I knew nothing about science. I had merely memorised many complex formulae, laws of physics, intricate theorems, a vast body of facts on human body and its various maladies. But I did not know what science is? Why should one read science? How it differs from other methods of acquiring knowledge about our world? Science for me had been a means to earn a respectable livelihood. It was not a path to arrive at knowledge.

I read the book mesmerised. I fervidly scoured its bibliography. Internet had just entered our lives. I eagerly searched the web for the books I had shortlisted. I found some. They were even better. They quenched my thirst a little but hugely whetted the appetite in newer directions. Bibliography of each book spawned a clutch of new discoveries. I would open a new book with a wildly palpitating heart and read it in a trance. Soon I would be madly pouring over its bibliography. This cycle went on for two decades and continues still.

Books were on varied subjects: Classical physics, Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Astrophysics, Evolution of life, Anthropology, Genetics, Evolutionary and Cognitive psychology, evolution of language, human nature, Behavioural economics, history and philosophy of science, science and philosophy of religion, etc. 

My jaw dropping to the ground and my eyes popping out of my head, I read about the incredible reach of human intellect and discovered again my deep ignorance. Many books were written by the scientists who had discovered these truths. They were recognised masters in their fields. Many were Noble laureates. I wondered at their clear thinking and their simple, lucid, yet elegant prose. They explained the esoteric topics in a marvellously accessible prose that even a novice like me could understand with a little effort.

As I read along, I was so enraptured by the stories being told, that the existence of God and its involvement in the human condition was not even remotely on my mind. I was wholly, absolutely, and passionately engrossed with the subject I was reading at the moment. Each book opened up a novel world of understanding. I only rued the inordinate time I had wasted before discovering this treasure. And gradually, unbeknownst to me, my doubts – even the ones I was not explicitly aware of – dissolved in this decades’ old journey. Crevices of my mind were cleared of the debris that had accumulated over the years. Thinking felt like cycling once the bike has been cleaned and oiled after many months.

With a gasp I realised that now I did not need crutches of any supernatural force to know why the world – including humans – is the way it is. Pierre-Simon Laplace, the eighteenth-century French mathematician and astrophysicist, was asked by Napoleon, why his works on celestial mechanics make no mention of God. ‘I have no need of this hypothesis,’ he replied.

Loosing few lofty notions, I had gained a universe.

 

 

P.S. Queries about life and universe concern every branch of extant knowledge. Man has laboured for more than two millennia to build this corpus, which grows every day. In two decades, I have fleetingly glimpsed its vast range; one of the most glorious achievements of human mind. The journey has been a source of much pleasure for me. When I began this essay, I had in mind to recollect and state, as concisely and clearly as I am capable of, some milestones in mankind’s arduous search for truth; Facts that I found an unassailable argument for rejecting the hand of a supernatural force in the affairs of universe. My intention was to once again experience the joys, this discovery brought my way in the past. But as it is wont to happen in the hands of a novice writer, introduction threatened to obscure the main body. I was left with no option but to severe the two. This is the first half of the essay that was thus, accidentally bisected.