I am reading a new book these days – The God Delusion – by Richard Dawkins. This is the first atheistic book I have read.. and now it has inspired me to read a similar analytical theistic book. I am searching for one…
For most people, the concept of God or the idea of God is introduced in their childhoods. It is something they start believing in because of the teachings of their parents and teachers, and the whole collective awareness of the community around them. Every person, some day in his/her life has faced doubts about his belief in God. It is interesting to see how each one of us gets over it.
I started investigating this from a different perspective. It is, after all, a perspective and how you defend that perspective because I do not believe anybody has SEEN God yet.
So my perspective is this: God exists. I think for anybody who has studied Astronomy in enough detail, it is so easy to appreciate God. One can go infinitesimally backwards in time and there comes a time when everything seems horrendously weird to imagine. One could theorize, speculate as much as he wants, but the scale of this Universe is way too huge, to say the least. We can explore questions such as why is the Universe expanding, what is the speed, what will happen to it, etc. But WHY is their such an immeasurably huge void, how did that come into existence. I think the cosmic proportions are way beyond the scope of any human exploration for centuries to come – unless some miraculous discovery gives us a breakthrough. Anyway, coming back to my perspective about God..
Try this.., why do we think that the world as we see around us is all there is to it. Think of a colony of ants. Ants, for all practical purposes can be thought to be living in a 2-Dimensional world.. well, almost. Now let’s say, one day you took some time away from your busy schedule and decided to observe them.. from above.. from a 3rd dimension. You throw some stones at them, some of them get killed or hurt, you help some with food, you play with some. From their point of view, things are happening to them – maybe randomly at first. Then you start killing every other ant which is going in a certain direction, now they see a pattern. Suddenly you get bored and don’t kill the ant who was to die next. That ant suddenly feels special. Let’s say an Ant is not finding any food anywhere, and has given up. Now you place some nice donut right in front of it. Hope you get my drift here..
Now think as if you are the Ant……. and who is You?
What makes humans to never be like those Ants? Nothing, if we keep some of that ego aside, that is! Humans have intelligence, and so does every living being with varying degree. In a 2-D world, an Amoeba maybe like an Ant and an Ant maybe like a human being in terms of intelligence. In a 3-D world, we sure are the crème de la crème! But why stop there? There may indeed be a 4-D world, or a 5-D world…
God, I believe, is in a different dimension altogether.. The strange things in the Universe are probably our perceptions from our lower-Dimensional world.
Now having said this, I do think God, who is above all the dimensions, created this Universe and set the whole thing rolling. But I don’t think he personally built every creature in it. This is more like creating the raw materials, processes and laws, and then letting the whole shebang take its own course. The reason I say this is because of the randomness of things at this level even though there is some order at the macro-level.
Popular belief has always portrayed Him as someone who is helping, punishing, guiding, hand holding insignificant creatures like us. But I think this is like belittling Him to an infinitesimal extent. Sure, like in my analogy of a human with a colony of ants, he may take some interest in this colony once in a while. But that’s about it. So that leaves Religion to be really a man-made concept that has nothing to do with God. According to me, in the pre-historic times, people were geographically divided. So each group set up guiding principles for good behavior for itself. But surely, there can be only ONE God if we think honestly.
So where does that leave us? I believe, we do have some piece of the creator in ourselves. When we prey or do good deeds, we are investing in ourselves by believing in our goodness. That helps in what we do, and causes good things to happen. And if they don’t, it is no fault of God – so no point asking Him as to why you did not get rewarded even after you behaved so magnificently. Someone gets more, someone gets less and God is not the one who is discriminating here. He told you to go live your life in the world that got created out of his first creation. I think God, as has been perceived by everybody is like a “personal God” – this concept leads to confusion, dissatisfaction and frustration. Great souls of our race have told us time and again, to not look to God to get something.
Now if any atheist asks me to prove that God exists, I am still not sure how to defend myself… And I sure do think that he won’t be able to defend his atheism either.. it’s just one ant trying to prove to the other ant that Man exists or doesn’t exist, but who has not been seen or felt by either of them in totality…..