[thechat] Religious dependance

[Madhu Menon]

At 10:30 PM 16-01-03, aardvark wrote:
>and here's my take... you have god... you put faith and trust in god,
>and in turn god grants you opportunities and even rewards... i just
>cut out the middle man... i put faith and trust in me, and give
>myself opportunities and rewards... i *prefer* to rely on myself,
>except when i do truly need the help of others...

aardvark speaks for me too.

Much of my life has been spent trying to prove the "no man is an island"
proverb wrong. ;)

For some people, their faith makes them stronger, more capable of dealing
with life's vagaries. If it works for them, great. For instance, when you
are going through a tough time in your life and you find the inner strength
to deal with it, you can believe that God gave you the strength, or simply
that you had it in you. But as long as you find that strength, it's cool, I
guess.

>it's also hard to understand for a particular kind of mindset... for
>people who are used to doing for themselves, who have learned to
>question everything, who value logic and reason, those are hard
>things to understand...

True. I *can't* understand it, but I'm tolerant of it, as long as they
don't preach it to me. My first instinct is to question everything and look
for holes. In my world, trust, respect, and belief has to be earned, not
demanded.

My parents are devout Hindus - very religious. My brother and I are
atheists. My father donates money to plenty of temples and has served
several terms on the board of the local temple. When I was a kid, I too was
religious, buying into all the stories of Hindu mythology with its numerous
gods. As a kid, I asked too many questions, but was content with the
"that's the way God works" explanation for many of them. When I got older
(about 14 or so), I started to trust my own powers of reasoning and logic.
I remembered the times when my father (as honest and straightforward a
person as I know) was going through a rough patch in his business and on
the advice of priests, offered prayers and made donations to several
temples. I noticed how despite the prayers, nothing changed for a couple of
years. Ultimately, he persevered and found his footing again. That did it
for me. I could no longer find any reason to believe in an entity that
worked in such "mysterious ways". I instead started believing in myself.

My folks don't understand my ways. My father believes that I'm just going
through my "young rebel" phase and I'll mellow out as I get older. My
mother recently asked me what I'd do for strength when facing a personal
crisis. When I told her I'd find it within me, she couldn't understand it.
I guess I'll have to live with that.

Madhu

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Madhu Menon
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