Archive for August, 2009

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A second event, more recent, brought home to me the fact that all events are generally explained in one of a few ways: (1) a game of chance, (2) a series of pre-ordained events, (3) logical steps which led to a logical conclusion. However, the results of such events (whether fortunate or unfortunate) can defy any such explanation.

We can blame a mysterious ‘luck factor’ for the result – this effectively means we can only control so much of our own actions (for e.g. “Life is 99% effort, 1% luck” and so on). Alternatively we can explain it as the demonstration of a Higher Power, which also in a way curtails the limits of our own actions.

I tend to side with the former explanation. My logic runs thus: if my best efforts are put in,there is a high chance that luck favors me. Now, how is this different from believing in God? All too often, not getting what we want means we automatically deem ourselves undeserving. Or we conclude we didn’t ‘do enough for God’. And at this point I get pissed off, as I see this as escapism – you don’t want to take responsibility for your actions (or inactions). Conversely, getting what we want is attributed to God, and not enough credit is given to what we have personally done – a different kind of escapism. Not having an entity to blame it on seems to prevent this sort of escapism.

After this last event (yes, this so-called ‘event’ was not a good thing – and no, I don’t want to go into details right now), things have gotten murky. Luck favored me in one way, but not to the extent that the event did not happen at all. To my knowledge, I did everything I was supposed to do. It is not the first time that such an event has happened. In the earlier event, I could see a clear link between my own actions and the result. I can’t now. All I can see is that my so-called ‘luck factor’ has favored me in similar ways in both situations. Which somehow goes against the spirit of my rationalization.

It would be amazing to say that this last event has changed my life, more so when I take it in conjunction with what I realized during avani avittam this year. But I hate doing things the easy way. I really want start believing in God completely, forget all the ‘Higher-Power-is-only-possible’ crap, and somehow rediscover my latent faith. I can’t rationalize this course of action easily though. It seems as though I am trying to believe something just because I got lucky twice. Like I’m condoning every cliche in the book by letting one event change my life.

Starting from blind faith, I explored to the best of my ability what it really meant to me. It meant I rationally chose the path of agnosticism – I want to now rationally find a way to theism.

p.s. It is possible that all my arguments are not perfect, and I know they can seem hypocritical to a fault. It is possible I have not analyzed/presented this as best possible. Indulgence and understanding is appreciated, and debate is encouraged.

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