One for the future

          There is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties. The tendency in [humans] to imagine that natural objects and agencies are animated by spiritual or living essences, is perhaps illustrated by .My dog [which] was lying on the lawn during a hot and still day; but at a little distance a slight breeze occasionally moved an open parasol . . . every time that the parasol slightly moved, the dog growled fiercely and barked. He must [unconsciously have felt] that movement without any apparent cause indicated the presence of some strange living agent. – Charles Darwin, the Descent of Man

As I was scouring my mental space for possible beginning of my presumptuous blog, I stumbled upon this ingenious explanation by Charles Darwin to sum up religion as simple as possible. Before you jump on the high wagon and start dishing out curses, I implore you to hold your horses for few minutes and open up your mind of reasoning for a while. Religion is a touch subject in current scenario and I assure you I am not going to poke the bear and let it maul me.

 Ever since time immemorial, humans have believed in the notion of Supreme Being and it has evolved gradually ever since and now it has almost reached its saturation point. There are no exact origins of modern day religion, but only practises, rituals to confirm its existence. Religion is in a way, a birth child of evolutionary biology and ironically modern day literature and religious text have all but dismissed science or evolution. Imagination and Language are major components of modern day religion.  Sacred texts and Religious scriptures does not even mention of the word religion and it was coined only around 16th century. I am not trying to be contumelious against religion or its teachings and certainly not showing off about facts and history. World we are living in right now is not conducive for expressive ideas or experimental thoughts; rather it is becoming more impatient and conformed. Problem is not the religion itself but rather the lack of evolution of it. 

Men have evolved over vast period, achieved great things there are to achieve, and still strives for more. Truth of the matter is religion has failed to evolve substantially and left us torn between the past and the future. Stories that once awed us does not thrill us anymore; the myths that once kept us on the straight and narrow does not do the trick anymore. We are not afraid of the bogeyman that once frightened us because we see far greater evil in our everyday lives and we have become immune. As like everything, religion of the old has served its purpose and it is time to pave way for the new. If anything, evolution has taught us that adaptation is the ultimate form of survival and I can safely bet that these numbers will reduce drastically in future in favour of more sustainable religion.

There are an estimated 10,000 distinct religions worldwide, but about 84% of the world's population is affiliated with one of the five largest religion groups, namely Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism or forms of folk religion.

Presumptuously, many would have labelled and vehemently casted me aside as an ‘Atheist’, non-believer, sinner and so on by now but truth is further far from that.  For long time I gladly accepted the notion but time and understanding has given me a different perspective. Though atheism has, superficial similarities with religion I would not classify it as a religion as such but I could not just accept the notion that active lack of belief in gods would automatically qualify you as an atheist.  I admire atheists for their beliefs and inquisitive mind of logic and reasoning but then again atheism is pretty young compared to religion and provides the necessary counter argument whenever necessary to challenge the beliefs of the old. I remember an incident while back that made me realise that there is more to it than that meets the eye. This is not revelation of any sorts, rather acceptance of tiny margins of possibility.

‘Every day when I leave my home my mom would ask me to stand in front of the god and spend few minutes praying and every time without fail I would come up with sarcastic reply ignoring her and making fun of her request. It’s part of my daily ritual [No pun intended] but my mom would never stop saying it no matter how wittier my reply or how sarcastic I sound so I decided one day to bow to her wishes and pretended to pray. Before leaving, I asked her ‘What good can I expect to happen today?’  In addition, she simply said ‘May be nothing bad will happen day’.  Few minutes later, something happened that would have ruined my peace of mind forever even though it was not a mistake of mine; I almost hit a small child who appeared out of nowhere. Kind of mistake people don’t get to come back from easily’

I have not become a theist overnight nor had a grace of god to guide me in my path. Most I spend that day was a minute checking that the little girl was ok and waited until her father came along to give her a scolding after which he took her away. I am still pretty much the same and I still have not prayed after that day nor am I going to start now (It is my own way of thought experiment). Good and bad things are part and parcels of life.  People may interpret it in differently but my takeaway from the incident is similar to Schrodinger cat thought experiment (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat). I could not possible guess what could have happened if I had not prayed (pretended to pray). It can be true or not true but I could not know just like there is no way of knowing if the cat is dead or alive. In alternate reality, she might be injured but I could not possibly know that, as I am not privy to that information. It is actually a conundrum and quantum indeterminacy without any way of knowing what might have happened. As Sherlock would put it ’Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth’. Truth is I am in the unknown and I am not going to spend time and energy looking into it. ‘Unknown’ or ‘Uncertainty’ does not prove anything nor does it disprove anything as well.

To my surprise, agnosticism is prevalent throughout history in the works of philosophers and even religious text. I do not want to conform myself to a particular sect of beliefs and follow it for the rest of my lives just because I do not have answers; instead I am going to open myself for possibilities and if that means choosing weaker form of ‘atheism’ i.e. ‘Agnosticism’ so be it. Being an agnostic lets you question both a theist and an atheist without any bias. It is not a lame excuse for lack of inquisitive mind nor a weak choice but rather humble acceptance of the unknown. When you open your mind for unknown, possibilities are endless and far-reaching.

Agnosticism is the view that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable.^[1][2][3] Another definition provided is the view that "human reason is incapable of providing sufficient rational grounds to justify either the belief that God exists or the belief that God does not exist"