Faith

In regard to the previous post on God and Religion, my brother put forward an important point to think about. Human beings need to put faith in something to give them strength in their days of misery. Something which would make them believe that time will change and their turn will come soon. Something, which can tell them that, if they have done the right work they shall be rewarded. Something that would make them believe that sun will rise tomorrow for the good. What is harm in it? I certainly don’t object it but I wonder what if that object to put faith in or on be that person itself? I wonder how much difference it would create for a person at a psychological level. Of course the rest of the world would change drastically.

While I was a kid I didn’t knew about things much but I knew that there was something in the dark. My mother would fear that if I go in there some insect might bite me and I would get hurt. But kids are impish and curious. So to prevent me from going there she would instead say that devil lives in the dark. Now am scared, devil’s incredibly powerful how can I fight it? I simply can’t and so I don’t go in the dark anymore. But this devil starts to scare me even at night. I can’t go to piss at night; I can’t come out to look for stars, I can’t go on the roof alone and so on. Where ever there is dark, I would feel unsafe, insecure and fearful. I ask mother to help me out and then she tells me to pray! All of a sudden I am chanting and singing songs for this god. What a relief to that kid would it be!
Then next morning I go to school and I read moral sciences. I learn that god is a good man, he created this world, he punishes those who commit evil, those who don’t respect elders so on and so forth.

Everyday I would wake up and think of these two powerful images-the god and the devil. To fight the devil I need to please god and put my faith in him that he will save me. So I do everything that I can to make this object happier. And in response to my faith this god for certain and 100 percent of times saved me from devil (of course later I found out that there was and is no devil and hence no god) Now imagine how hard would it become for a person, who has known these objects from his childhood, to live without them. He would feel so much betrayed, lost and confused. Of course he has never seen any god or devil but wouldn’t it be devastating to find out that something he put so much faith in never actually was there to save him from whatever may come along. Certainly it would be. This psychology in people is much more a reason than anything else for the existence of god even in the 21st century, even in the age of science and technology.

Going back to the story of mother I wonder what if she had rather told me that I can fight the devil, that I am also incredibly powerful to stand up to him. What if the text books would have told me from the beginning that science created this world and that it is my conscience which makes me feel guilty when I commit sin or do something I shouldn’t have and so for well being I must conduct in a certain way. Wouldn’t it replace god? Wouldn’t it make every person incredibly powerful? Wouldn’t it wipe out religions and all the dirt with it?

Now since a long time I have believed that even if there is no god or devil but if millions of people start putting faith in something, even an object, it automatically becomes that much powerful. People put faith in Nelson Mandela, see what he has done. People put faith in Adolf Hitler, look what he has done. I may simply say one is god and other devil. But this is not what it actually is.
The game is whatever you start putting faith in becomes power. I just question why not empower yourself? And when we start to realize that we can, I believe it is the first step towards awakening.