CAN FAITH IN GOD BECOME INSULT TO GOD?: Schizophrenia: a side effect of religion

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Introduction

Faith in God is considered to be one of the highest and noblest attributes of man. But the irony is that practices of faith most often become too mechanical, ritualistic and legalistic and hence turn out into insults to God. If you watch faith-practices very closely, alertly and with a free mind, you will realize that very often the so called believers, in the name of worshipping and glorifying their God or gods, are actually dishonouring and denigrating their God or gods. As you keep reading this book you will be more and more convinced that many religious beliefs, prayers, religious rituals, parts of many sacred books, religious vows, pilgrimages and many other religious practices implicitly depict God as an egoistic, insecure, sadistic, revengeful tyrant who can be pleased, appeased and manipulated by prayers, gifts, penances and various religious rituals – but all in the name of praising, honouring and glorifying God.

The truth is that religion has now become a cause for schizophrenia, especially among the educated and scientific minded people. An educated religious person may behave quite rationally and scientifically in his work place, but the moment he enters into a place of worship to participate in a religious ritual, he becomes totally irrational and behaves like a zombie. His religious life has absolutely no connection or synchronicity with the rest of his life. He lives the life of a split personality due to the endless intellectual contradictions involved in his religious faith. The root meaning of the word ‘religion’ having a Latin etymology is: ‘binding together’ or ‘making something whole’. But the present beliefs and practices of religion only creates splits in one’s personality. A person split within himself is dangerous to himself and to the society.

This book attempts to analyze and diagnose the causes, the reasons and the circumstances that have led to the above mentioned tragic situation. This book is not, in anyway, intended to hurt the religious sentiments of any person. It is solely intended to awaken, enlighten and make one’s life more authentic, holistic and meaningful, instead of being something mechanical, schizophrenic and guided by greed, irrational fears and superstitions. But at the same time, every person should accept the fact that a person might exhibit irritation and annoyance if he has been woken up from sweet dreams or sound sleep; that a child might throw up tantrums if his lolly-pop has been taken away from his mouth; that a person may feel cheated and depressed if what he has been safeguarding as a precious diamond for years was proved to be a mere glaze-stone. Similarly, a person may feel angry, shocked, hurt, dejected and fearful if he realizes that all the religious beliefs and rituals which, he thought, were giving him ultimate meaning, satisfaction and support to his life from his childhood have suddenly collapsed as mere dreams and false consolations created by years of religious conditionings. If such a thing happens to you after reading this book, be happy and remember that it is only a painful but necessary part of a learning process for the growth and transformation of your person. A surgery may cause severe pain and discomfort, but it may be absolutely necessary to treat a deadly disease. Please, remember that even spiritual leaders and reformers like Jesus Christ, Gautam Buddha, Socrates, Lao Tzu, Kabir, etc. also shocked and offended the religious and moral sentiments of the people of their times.

What are my credentials to write this book? Until the age of around 30, I was a pious, religious and church going Christian. As a teenager and even as a college student I used to go for ‘Holy Mass’ at least three days a week and receive Holy Communion. Even as a college-hosteller, I used to give up daily part of any dish that I liked most as a practice of penance and mortification. After the pre-degree course in a college, I joined the ‘Society of Jesus’ to become a Jesuit priest. I have been a ‘Jesuit-under-formation’ for 12 years and hence I have a strong foundation in Philosophy, Psychology and Religion. As a high school and college student and especially as a Jesuit trainee I have read many religious and philosophical books. During my philosophical and theological training as a Jesuit, I have had endless discussions with professors and other students and reflected deeply on matters of faith and religion, and finally decided to leave the Society of Jesus as I found the whole Christian faith and rituals irrational and meaningless to me. After leaving the Society of Jesus, I worked as a Physics teacher in a Jesuit senior secondary school in Delhi till I retired.

Now I am 66 years old. All these years I have been continuously reflecting and listening to my own and others’ experiences on the whole phenomenon of religion and faith and I have become more and more convinced of my findings which I have tried to explain in this book. I consider myself extremely lucky to have been able to look into religion and faith very closely and keenly, both from inside and outside of religion and faith, and this book is the result of that close look.

Though I am against all religions and all beliefs, this book is mainly a critical analysis of the Christian faith, rituals and practices, as my own personal and firsthand experience is about Christianity. But I would strongly advise and recommend to believers of other religions also to subject their own beliefs and rituals to critical and rational analysis and rigorous and courageous questionings so that their lives too may become more alive, wholesome, meaningful and authentic, though the process may be proved painful initially.

My best wishes to all the believers and I dedicate this book to them and I hope they will benefit from this book.

Author

Chapter 1

Prayer

Prayer is an essential aspect of all religious faiths. A believer makes prayers of petition to God when he feels helpless and thinks that he needs God’s help. But objectively speaking, man need not pray if God does not exist, as there is nobody to listen to or answer to his prayers. Again, man need not pray if God is all-knowing, all-loving, all-compassionate, all-powerful and absolute freedom, as God knows man’s needs better and even before man himself knows. As per man’s belief, man cannot give any new information to God about anything happening anywhere in the universe through prayers, as God knows everything, past, present and future, and even the innermost secret thoughts and desires of man. Who are we, human beings, to tell God what to do and what not to do, when, where, how and how much? What do we know compared to the infinite wisdom and knowledge of God? Where do we stand compared to the infinite love, mercy, compassion and forgiveness of God? Asking God to do something this way or that way is sheer arrogance, ignorance and lack of trust in God. Since God is absolute wisdom and absolute freedom, nobody can even influence or manipulate or prevail on God to do something this way or that way by crying and begging to God or by praising and thanking God or by asking for his mercy and forgiveness or by doing acts of penance and renunciation or by giving gifts, various allurements and gratifications to God. Anyway, there is no need to do all these in order to influence God, as he already knows the real needs and desires of man and he is already infinitely loving, kind, merciful and forgiving. We can never make God more loving, more aware, more concerned, more caring or more sympathetic than He already is, by our prayers or rituals.

If you think that God may not do something unless you pray for it, it would amount to insulting God’s wisdom and love and accusing God of being revengeful, egoistic, insecure and attention- seeking. In short, a true believer has no scope or justification at all to pray to God. But still almost all believers all over the world repeatedly pray to God several times a day. Why? We will take up this matter in detail later in the same chapter.

One needs to pray only if there is a God who is all-powerful, but not loving and compassionate at all, but on the contrary very insecure, egoistic, sadistic, autocratic and pathologically craving for attention, flattery, sycophancy and other forms of self-gratification. To obtain a favour from such a God, a believer should, not only offer prayers of praise, thanksgiving, repentance and petition, but also offer to God flowers, fruits, sweets, incense, lighted candles, cereals, broken coconuts, ghee, milk, etc. and do pujas, yagnas and all kinds of rituals, and make pilgrimages to various holy places and generously donate money and gold to deities and to places of worship. To please and appease gods, a devotee has not only to sing and dance but also fast and do all kinds of acts of renunciation, penance, self-torture and offer all kinds of allurements.

If we look at the whole thing from another angle and apply the ‘converse theorem’, we will have to admit that a believer who does the above mentioned things to obtain a favour from God, is admitting and declaring implicitly that God is actually unloving, egoistic, sadistic, insecure and pathologically hungry for attention and flattery. Otherwise, why do the believers do such things meant to praise, flatter, please, appease and gratify God? Therefore, let us honestly and courageously answer the following questions: Who is insulting and denigrating God – a believer or a non-believer? Can faith in God become indirectly insult to God? Which is better – being skeptical about the existence of God or claiming to believe in God and at the same time behave in such a way as to insult God by portraying him as an egoistic, insecure, sadistic, tyrant?

Now that we have clarified under what condition only one needs to pray to God, let us take up some concrete examples of prayer and discuss their implications and consequences one by one:

1. Consider the following example of a student of Class XII who is preparing himself for his final examination. The student himself, his parents, relatives and friends will be praying for him to God so that he does well in the examination and passes the examination with distinction. They will be praying for him before, during and after the examinations until the results are announced. Besides prayers, they may also do various pujas, rituals, offerings of flowers and fruits to God or gods, take vows to do things like fasting, lighting candles in front of statues of gods or saints, breaking coconuts in temples, feeding the poor, going for pilgrimages, donating money to churches or temples etc. depending on their religions.

Let us divide the prayers and the various rituals performed for the student into two categories – one: those done before and during the examinations and two: those done after the examinations. When people pray and perform various rituals before and during the examinations, what do they expect God to do? Their answers will be something like the following: They expect God to give the student grace and blessings so that he is able to concentrate well and study and prepare himself well for the examinations; remain healthy, free from even minor ailments, worries and anxieties; remember all the answers well and write them neatly and correctly and complete them well in time. Their desires and concerns are quite legitimate. But we should look for answers to a few more questions: Do they think that God will be partial and hence he may give special graces and blessings to the student just because they prayed to God with faith and thus God will interfere with the result of the examination? Do they think that God will give him extra help just because they prayed with faith, even if the student has not studied seriously and sincerely? Do they think that God will work some miracles and reveal the questions to the student before the examination? Do they think that if they do not pray, God may not give his graces and blessings to the student even if he has studied hard, sincerely, regularly and systematically throughout the year? Do they think that if they do not pray, God may even take revenge and do something to spoil his examination? Do they think that God will neither help nor do any harm if they do not pray, but definitely will help the student if they do pray? Do they think that God’s help depends on the degree, intensity and frequency with which they beg and pray to God and on the amount and intensity of penances, sacrifices and rituals they perform? Are the so-called believers mentioned above actually glorifying God or denigrating God? For a student, what is the best way of honouring and glorifying God? Is it not by serious, regular, scientific and systematic hard work and study? The very law of existence is that a man should attain success by his own hard work and merit. Will God break his own law by helping a student just because he prayed to God with faith? If faith in God has more priority over merit, hard work and talent of a student as far as his results are concerned, how is it then different from the favouritism shown by politicians to their sycophants? If God helps a student just because he prayed to God with faith, will it not be similar to partiality, corruption, bribery and favouritism shown on the basis of recommendations or influence and will it not destroy merit, talents, spirit of hard work and excellence of students and thus constitute an unjust practice? Should a loving and just God, interfere with the performance or result of a student instead of leaving it to the merit of each student? Should a loving, caring and just God not be happy to help an earnest and hardworking student even without anyone praying to God for help? It does not require much spirituality or religiousness to understand that the above mentioned believers were praying mechanically, merely out of habit due to fear and greed and that they really did not know or love or respect God.

I have heard a story. A person wanted to make a chicken curry. He cut the chicken into many pieces of required size. He then arranged all the ingredients necessary to make a chicken curry as per a standard recipe and prepared some gravy out of them as per proper procedure. He then mixed the chicken pieces and the gravy together and put the whole content in a container, covered it with a lid and placed the container on a lighted burner for further cooking. He then prayed to God as follows: Almighty God and heavenly Father, I praise you, worship you and adore you. Thank you for all the gifts you have showered on me in the past. I beg you to forgive all my sins. Now, I humbly request and beg you to turn the contents of the container into a tasty chicken curry. I pray this through Christ our Lord. After the required amount of time, he opened the lid, stirred the contents and tasted the curry. It had turned into a tasty chicken curry. He was very much thrilled and excited and thanked God thus: I thank you almighty God and loving Father for hearing the prayers of this humble servant and turning the contents of this container into a tasty chicken curry. I, humbly express my heartfelt gratitude to you, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Now consider a few points: If somebody tries to make a chicken curry following all the proper procedures correctly, it will definitely become a chicken curry and not a fish curry or an egg curry. There is absolutely no need to pray to God for this. Not only that, praying to God for this will be an insult to God as the believer thinks that God has nothing better to do than supervising the cooking of a chicken curry. The taste of any food depends on the way you make it and not on your prayers. If it depended on prayers, anybody could have become an expert cook. Similarly, whether you are a student, teacher, doctor, engineer, manager, businessman or a farmer, if you do your work and duties with proper planning and foresight, following all procedures intelligently and scientifically, in the best way possible, you will get the best result possible. You do not need to pray to God as you are already following the rules supposedly put by God in nature. Do you think that God will take revenge if you do not pray to God? If you think so, it is an insult to God.

Let us now discuss the implications of praying for the student mentioned above after the examinations are over and after the student has submitted his or her answer scripts to the concerned authority. What do they expect God to do, now that the answer papers are with the evaluators? Do they expect God to work miracles and make all the wrong answers right? Do they expect God to influence the evaluators so that they give more marks to the student than he or she deserves? Do they think that if they do not pray, God may change the right answers into wrong answers or make the evaluator give less marks than the student deserves? If their answers to the above questions are in the negative, why do they still pray to God? What do they actually want God to do after the examination is over? Some will say that they pray so that God may make the examiner evaluate all the answer scripts honestly and fairly. But an honest and fair evaluation will help only those students who have answered correctly. Can God ever allow or make an examiner evaluate an answer unfairly even if no one prays to God? Whether people pray or not, God, being just, fair and loving, should make sure that every student gets exactly the same marks he or she deserves, though it does not happen in reality. Prayer should not make any difference to God at all. But, the believers would say that God respects the freedom of man and hence he will not interfere with the freedom of an even unjust and unfair examiner. But God should also respect the freedom and right of a helpless student to get a fair evaluation of his or her answer sheets as well. Should God respect only the freedom of a rapist rather than the freedom and self-respect of a woman who is raped? Should God respect only the freedom of a terrorist to kill hundreds of innocent people and destroy properties worth millions of rupees? If a citizen comes to know of a terrorist plot to explode bombs in a populated area, should he not do everything in his power to inform the authorities concerned and to prevent the bomb explosion? Should he say that he does not want to inform the authorities as he does not want to interfere with the freedom of the terrorists? If God will not interfere with the freedom of the examiner, what is the use of praying to God anyway, after the examination is over? If God will interfere with the freedom of the examiner, that will take away man’s freedom and responsibility. This contradiction will disappear only if there is no God as presented by the believers. A believer is therefore condemned to live a schizophrenic life.

2. Let us discuss a similar topic from the field of sports . In the 2012 London Olympics, after a series of selection and elimination processes two sports persons reached the finals in boxing. Let us assume for convenience that one person was from India and the other from the U.S.A. The whole world was eagerly waiting for the final result. The finals were to be telecast live on television all over the world. Both the finalists, their family members, relatives, friends and fans had great hopes, ambitions and expectations about a victory. A win was going to be a great honour and prestige for the participants, their fans and countrymen and hence the stakes were very high for both the participants.

Both the finalists, their relatives, friends, fans, people in India and America were earnestly praying to God for the victory of their favourite finalist. What will a just and loving God, an impartial judge and Father of all human beings do in such a situation? What did the believers expect God to do? Did they expect God to influence the umpire to take an unfair decision? Did they expect God to suddenly enhance the energy, vigour and concentration of one finalist? If God did that, it would have amounted to ‘doping’ which was illegal; the only difference here would have been that ‘doping’ done by God could not have been detected or proved scientifically. Did they expect God to suddenly make one finalist get physically tired or hurt, distracted and diffident so that he lost the spirit of fighting? Whatever that God would do, in order to facilitate the victory of one finalist, would have been totally unfair.

Then why do people still pray to God for the victory of one or the other? Any person, who loves God, respects the fairness and impartiality of God and understands the predicament of God cannot and will not pray to God for a favour in such a situation. If anyone prays to God, it will definitely be an insult to God as he or she expects God to be partial. Winning or losing a competition has nothing to do with the faith of the participants or their relatives or fans in God. It has only to do with the talents and merit of the participants which again depends mostly on their systematic, scientific and regular practice and hard work. It will be an insult to God to imply, even remotely, that God may take revenge if one does not pray to God. The same is the case with all competitions, whether in Olympics, Commonwealth games, various singing or dance competitions in various television channels and so on. We often see the participants of various competitions on T.V. channels, their relatives and fans praying to God or appealing to the audience or spectators to pray to God for the victory of their favourite participant or teams. All expect the human umpires and judges to be absolutely impartial; but the irony is that the believers want their gods to be partial towards their own favourite team or participants, as what gods do cannot be detected or proved by anybody! When cricket teams of India and Pakistan reached the finals of World Cup in 2010, prayers and yagnas were performed all over India and Pakistan for the success of the respective team. God must have been in a real dilemma as to what to do! During a T.V show known as ‘You Can also Become a Millionaire’ a lady participant got emotional and said that she was fully convinced that God exists as she got selected to the hot seat. According to her own reasoning all those who were not selected should conclude that God does not exist. It is a fact that among the applicants, the number of people who were not selected to the hot seat were far greater than the number of people who were actually selected.

It is unambiguously clear that millions of believers pray to God daily just mechanically, unaware of the implications of what they are doing, purely out of habit nurtured from childhood and conditioned by parents and religions. In other words, unknowingly, they are only insulting their gods they worship. Before a person seeks a favour or a recommendation from senior politician or a bureaucrat, he will think twice about its implications and consequences. But a person praying to God does not think at all due to the following reasons: first of all he is taught that praying to God is an act of faith and love of God and hence it is a favour to God and to his neighbor and an act of virtue for himself. Secondly, he can ask anything to God without any risk or responsibility as it is up to God to decide whether what one prays for is good or bad for him and whether God should act upon his prayer or not. Thirdly, his prayer is purely mechanical and a habit.

3. Suppose your wife is ill and is admitted to a hospital . First of all, you cannot give this information to God as God knows everything – the past, the present and the future. You know that you love your wife very much. As a religious person, you also believe that God loves your wife more than you love her. Your love for her may be very deep, but it is always imperfect as it is adulterated with some selfishness, possessiveness, authoritativeness etc. and a human being can never know another human being fully well – not even one’s spouse. But God’s love is all-knowing, absolutely pure, self-less and infinite. Now, if you really trust in God and have total faith in God, will you be able to pray to God to make your wife well. If you do that, will it not be an act of arrogance and self-righteousness as it shows that you know better and that you are more concerned about your wife than God is? Imagine God asking you, "Who are you to tell me what I should do in the case