Why we believe in God

Religious belief is closely associated with traumatising events because it is by these events that we feel a deeper desire to relate with the divine. Many people turn to religion when confronted with a life defining moment like personal loss, critical illness, violence or death. Personally i was raised catholic and always took my religion as true because it is what i was brought up to believe like everyone else. However as i left my school setting and entered the real world, I never took my religious beliefs too seriously, only went to church on occasion and hardly prayed though i thought of myself as a good person. In my thinking as long as i performed good deeds and did not cause any trouble, God had no reason to judge me. However most religions teach that we should adhere to their beliefs, rituals and practices in order to be saved in addition to following their strict moral code. According to christianity doing good deeds is not enough because we are all guilty before a holy God from our original sin and therefore we need the church to lead us to our salvation. I never really took this doctrine seriously because i saw it as a means of the church to maintain control.

It was not until last month that i got an experience that made me question my loyalty to my religion. I have two handsome boys that i absolutely adore, one is five and another seven. They can be very cheeky boys but quite sweet at the same time. I have not enforced my religious beliefs upon them because i would like them to develop their own moral compass however i have tried to teach them the basics of morality. Things such as do unto others as you would have them do unto you, always share with the needy and try to be a decent and responsible person whenever you can. I always took these as secular common sense moral codes that do not require reference to a book such as the bible for validation.

The boys mother takes them to school in the morning but i always make it a point to pick them up in the afternoon. The school is not too far however we live near a ghetto and so i have to walk them home for safety. There was only one crossing point and as soon as we reached it both my sons stopped so i could hold their hands and we cross together.

On one occasion the boys were rushing ahead of me and so i had to hurry to catch up before we reached the crossing. I passed my younger son hesitating to take his hand as i always did because i wanted him to feel more independent. As i approached the older boy who was waiting for me at the crossing i saw a car coming down the hill at the corner of my eye. I briefly mumbled at him to wait to cross but as i turned back to search for the hand of my younger son, i heard the screeching brakes of the car.

People had started to gather around and i carefully circled behind the car to see what was going on. I saw my 5 year old son helplessly lying on the ground motionless and for that brief moment my heart sunk. The only thought that run through my mind was that i had lost my son whom i loved dearly and it was all my fault. The car was moving too fast and he was so small that i knew he couldnt make it. I had heard many stories of fatal accidents from this very road but i had never imagined it could happen to me.

I quickly rushed to lift my frail boy off the ground, to my relief he let out a small cry eventhough he was not yet out of danger. He could hardly move any part of his body and i knew that even if he survived he may be physically or mentally incapacitated. It was at this moment that i knew i had to remain calm according to my meditation and stoic teachings in order to perform the most logical action. The people who were gathered around told me to move quickly and go to the nearest hospital but i would not leave without my other son. I yelled out to him and as soon as we were both in the car of the person who knocked my son, we begun driving to the nearest hospital.

It felt like it took an eternity for us to reach because there was traffic jam everywhere. There were two other women in the car besides the male driver and they were all saying their silent prayers. All i could keep asking in a panic was why, why did my son who had walked on that particular route for almost a year choose to run across the road by himself on this particular occasion. The ladies had no answers for me except that it was the work of the devil and with Gods grace he would be saved.

In such moments all i could do is focus on what has to be done and not be aware of the situation because i knew i could not handle the stress. Its in moments like this that you also begin to question your very commitment to your religion and think twice, what if you were wrong. What if God is punishing you for not being a devout christian and saying your prayers everyday. What if being a good person was never enough and now God is punishing you by taking one son away.

When we finally reached the hospital and my son was put on the hospital table, his dirty clothes were all removed to reveal his injuries. He had afew bruises on his knees, his head and his arm that did not look deep. However my fear was that there could be internal injuries that are not visible externally. The doctor checked him out and asked him afew questions, to my relief he was able to respond with a weak voice. There did not appear to be any major damage but the doctor recommended to run more tests.

The tests revealed no internal concussion, no broken bones and no deep tissue damage. My baby was lucky to be alive and after patching his woulds up and giving him pain killers and antibiotics he was ready to go back home that very night. The following day though he was able to stand he was unable to walk but slowly but surely regained his mobility as his wounds healed.

Now one month later my son is completely healed and able to run and play again. He only had one week of missing school and the joy in his eyes from when he took the first step towards his healing reminded me of the first time he learnt to walk when he was only a year old. I kissed and hugged my son like i had never done before and for the first time i told him i love him. This traumatic event brought us closer together and has taught me never to take my fatherly duties for granted. Everywhere we go i now always have one eye on my son and my hand never leaves his.

Given the circumstances, the chances of his survival were extremely low so the fact that he made it without a scratch still perplexes me. I feel an overwhelming desire to feel gratitude for someone or something because from the moment i made the decision not to hold his hand i lost my son. I lost him because his life was nolonger in my hands, his life was in Gods hands. He was now all alone facing the brutal real world i had struggled to protect him from and there was nothing i could do. My wife being equally spiritual couldn't agree more that he was saved by God's grace and her regular prayers. That next sunday i made it a point to go to church to thank God for what he had done and pray for my sons good health.

Why is it in the face of adversity that we remember our religious beliefs. And if there truly is no God then who is it that we are being thankful to. The atheist will say that my son survived by a stroke of luck, a fluke and that i should not think much of it but be more careful next time. But still i cannot shake off the certain intuition that there is a power greater than me that saved my son. Call it God, call it the universe, call it the quantum energy field, whatever you call it there must have been something that intervened at that life defining moment.

It was not the first time that i had had a persons life in my hands, the last time several years ago it was my brother who was critically ill. Unfortunately he did not make it on the way to hospital so i knew very well how real death could be. For my son the odds of him surviving a collision with a moving car a couple of meters away while running were much lower. I have seen people who have been knocked and run over who are older and much stronger than my son.

The two women in the car were convinced in the standard christian belief of good and evil working against each other. The devil being the one that causes the evil forces whereas God being the one that causes the good forces to occur. In their christian world view the accident was a battle between evil and good where the bad circumstances were caused by the devil whereas the good circumstances were caused by God. The bad forces are like the temptation that told me not to hold my sons hand, the voice in his head that told him he was big enough to cross by himself, the fact that there happened to be a moving car at that very moment he chose to cross. The good forces are the fact that it was a small car that knocked him with well functioning brakes, the driver was sober and alert to brake in time, there were humps just before the car reached him that slowed it down, he had a backpack and a sweater that cushioned the impact and the person was kind enough to give us a ride.

Though i know there are invisible forces at work, this dichotomous worldview of christianity of good against evil does not appear concincing. It seems like an attempt to neatly categorise random events happening in the world in a way we can easily understand and find blame. Sometimes bad things just happen, period. The forces that cause good are guided by the same natural laws as the forces that cause evil. The Daoists believe that yin and yang are both opposing forces of nature and therefore have to work together in harmony in order to maintain balance. Therefore there is no good and evil, only balance and imbalance. The forces that caused the accident to happen could have very well been acting with good intentions, for me to wake up towards my responsibilities as a father and avoid a greater catastrophe in the future.

The Hindus and Buddhists believe in the law of karma which says that everything that happens to us is as a result of our own actions in the past. Good actions create good karma like saving money in a bank while bad actions create bad karma like spending money. When in time of crisis, whether you are saved or destroyed depends on how much money you have left in your karmic account.

I did my best to teach my son how to be a good person, how to be responsible and mature, i try to be good to people and help those in need. Sometimes i falter and deny God, sometimes i scorn my own child or spunk him when he is too naughty, sometimes I get angry and make mistakes. Perhaps what happened to him has something to do with this. We all live immersed in a universal field of energy, perhaps what we put into it is what comes back to us. My brother lost his life because he was a habitual drinker who did not attend to his health, perhaps this was his karma, God rest his soul.

Looking at this from the lens of the early christians, they too were confronted by traumatic events. In a world where they knew very little about science, how could they explain the calamities that befell them, a ravaging storm, a dry spell, a fatal plague, an attack by a predator, a devastating war. They faced the same ego death experiences that i had, followed by humbling feelings of gratitude or anger towards some higher force that predetermined the events. Whatever the outcome of the traumatic event, the result is always the same, increasing spirituality.

If the event resulted in them walking away with minor injuries like my son then they felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude and love towards the force that saved them. If the event resulted in permanent injury that rendered them disabled for life, they felt gratitude to the force that let them live and prayed for it to fully heal them. If the event was catastrophic and resulted in death then they turned to the force to find comfort and blamed themselves for not having enough faith in it. Now repeat above, replacing the force with God.

God may not exist but man can never be truly free of his inner nature to believe in him.