By Prescilla Agnes
From quite early in my childhood onwards, I have had an intense interest in religion. I have spent a very large portion of my life so far being ‘religious’ in some sense— in fact, trying out several religions, one after another, with varying degrees of commitment. When I look back on it all now, I suppose this had much to do with seeking a cure to a very deep trauma caused by religion itself—by a fear-driven doctrine that I took to be true simply because it was contained in a supposedly ‘holy’ book and which made my life miserable to the point when I thought I might soon lose my sanity. It is only relatively recently that I came to understand that not only did I not need religion at all but also that I needed to come out of religion altogether (although this does not mean that I became an atheist, for one can—as I now myself do—believe that there is a Supreme Mind behind the universe without identifying with any religion).
The reason for my coming out of religion was perhaps the realization that religion as such is simply a human construct (which does not mean that I don’t recognize the fact that there can be truths and goodness in various religions). This meant to me that none of the religions has actually been ‘sent by God’. Now, for many years I was given to believe that there must be one (and only one!) religion that God had specifically ordained for humankind to follow (while assuming that the rest were manmade or corrupted forms of the one supposedly ‘God-ordained’ religion). I spent years seeking to arrive at this one religion, in the process of which I moved through a number of religions. In each religion that I came to experiment with in this way, sooner or later I came face-to-face with beliefs and/or practices that it ordained that I found deeply problematic on ethical and/or logical grounds. For me, this ruled them out as being ‘the one true religion sent by God’ and made it amply clear that they were simply human concoctions. Then, finally, after discovering that all the religions that I had experimented with were in this way manmade and, extrapolating from this experience of mine to suppose that all the rest of them must also be the same, I came to the firm conclusion that religion as such is manmade and that the ‘one true religion from God’ that I was so desperately seeking simply did not exist. I had, for many decades, been a victim of a mere myth.
For around half a century or so, religion played a central role in my life. It determined much of my existence for me, from personal beliefs and practices to how I related to the family I was born into and the wider society, from how I spent my time and money to my social engagements and even my academic and career choices. Perhaps I wouldn’t be wrong if I said that, overall, religion was the single most important factor in shaping my life during this period. But now I have shed religion altogether, being firmly non-religious and not identifying in any way with any religion and determined that I shall remain this way till the very end.
Given the fact that I’ve spent almost all my life so far not just being religious but also taking religion very seriously and that now I’m out of religion altogether, do I think that my life do far has been a complete waste? Do I deeply regret having spent many years devoted to a system of belief that I am now completely done with? Am I wallowing in self-pity, thinking that I’ve ruined my life, agonizing that I’ve made a giant mess of it all by all the time and energy that I spent on a cause I no longer believe in?
Not really. Of course, I do recognize now that I had made some very foolish decisions related to belief system-choices and behaviour and I’m wistfully aware that had I not done so, my life would likely have taken a very different course. But although I feel that if I were to be able to go back in time I would never take those same decisions, I’m not suffering from severely debilitating remorse. Perhaps the most important reason for this that with the benefit of hindsight, I can now see that my long journey in the realm of religion (several religions, actually) and my coming out of it has a positive side to it also. For one thing, this journey has provided me a deep insider’s understanding of a diverse range of religions that, taken together, command the allegiance (in theory, if not in practice) of hundreds of millions of people—in fact, of probably the vast majority of humankind today. By experiencing these religions personally I have received an experiential (as opposed to mere theoretical or academic) knowledge of the principal worldviews of a huge chunk of humans from across the world. Now, isn’t that something valuable just in itself? Simply because I hopped from one religion to another till, finally, I realized I needed to stop hopping and quit the exercise altogether, I was able to gain a deep empirically-based understanding of major aspects of several of the world’s most widely-held belief-systems. Now, that’s quite an admirable accomplishment, isn’t it?
This knowledge is not valuable merely for its own sake. Rather, I can (and, when I can, often do) use this knowledge to help people realise that they don’t need to (and shouldn’t) suffer the debilitation caused by unwholesome religious beliefs and practices simply because they have been programmed to believe that these are God-ordained on account of being a part of the religion they identify with. By sharing my insights based on my own experience of religion, I can enable them to understand that these beliefs and practices (like their religion as a whole) are actually a human construct, and not ‘ordained by God’ (as they have been made to believe), and that, therefore. they can safely abandon them without fearing the Divine wrath that they think will be unleashed upon them for non-compliance. In this way, liberated from such beliefs and practices, hopefully they can lead happier and more fulfilled lives. Isn’t this something good that I can do based on the valuable insight--of religion being a human construct and not God-ordained—that I myself gained as a result of my many years of being religious and then ceasing to be so? I think so.
Given the host of very unwholesome beliefs and practices that millions upon millions of people all across the world uphold, abide by and champion simply because these are a part of their religion, which they have been made to believe is divinely-ordained, there is definitely something positive I can contribute, drawing on my knowledge, born from long years in the realm of religion, of religions being simply a human construct—by telling others that they can abandon these debilitating beliefs and practices, for these have not been ordained by a divine being whose wrath they need to fear for doing so. Being the invention of mere mortals like themselves, they can safely cease to abide by them and thereby save themselves (and others, too) from their unwholesome consequences. In this way, I suppose at least some good can come out of my ‘wasted’ years!
Comments