My Relationship with God

Kunwar Digvijay

Like almost all the people in the world, I was ingested with the idea of the almighty from a very young age; like almost all the people in the world, I accepted that idea. I did not question its authenticity; I did not question its legitimacy, I did not even understand it completely—I just accepted it, for whatever it was, for whatever it could turn out to be.

Now when I’m 26, I look back and think about what would have happened if I had accepted all the ideas without questioning? I was brought up in a so-called upper caste family, and up to the initial years of my adolescence, I struggled with the idea of casteism, finally extracting myself out of its cobwebs. My mind was in a state of constant conflict, and questions came about swarming in like an army of infinite marshals. Of course, my education played an important part, but what about those who continued to be entwined in the same cobwebs despite being in the same school and living through the same social system? Perhaps free will and common sense are two attributes that should be treated with little importance; I say little because by and large the impressionable minds of young children are moulded as per the prevalent social norms that render a certain advantage to the rich and the powerful, God being one of them.

As I grew older, my relationship with science strengthened, and my relationship with God began to suffer inexplicably. The idea that an omnipotent being is the controller of the universe started to make very little sense to me. There are obvious scientific arguments that dismiss the theory of God, but I won’t go there for the simple reason that at no point in the near future could our global population be exposed to such scientific temperament. For me, the argument is simple—why should we accept any idea without thinking about it? The same trait led the nazis to accept antisemitism; it led to the acceptance of slavery, of racism, of casteism and much, much more. Acceptance without questioning is clearly self-destructive for humankind. Evolution has given us an immense gift—the gift of posing questions. But it is also the responsibility of the adults to give children a chance before imposing religion on them; the same goes for a lot of social norms if not all. If you break the knee-caps of an infant, it’ll walk with a crutch for the rest of its life.