X = GOD??

Since this is my first ever blog, I decided to write on one topic which never bores me to talk about and though I think a lot about it, in the end it is always a mystery. In mathematics, while solving an equation, the unknown or the result we want to achieve is taken to be “X”. It is the unsolved equation of god which poses as a mystery to all of us.

To start with, let’s forget the normal process of a child being born, taught by parents, teachers as to what to do and what to believe. Let us assume there is a new human being coming into existence in the world with a fresh, open & totally un-influenced mind. As soon as he enters he is given two options by the society. You can either believe in God and be a theist or be a non-believer and be an atheist. But if he does say he wants to be a theist, he has to choose between mono-theism or polytheism. If he chooses monotheism, he can either believe in inclusive or exclusive mono-theism or if he decides to choose polytheism, the confusion of choices spreads further into hard polytheism or soft polytheism or Henotheism or Monolatry or Kathenotheism or Pantheism or Deism. Now imagine yourself to be this person, what would be your choice? Most likely the choice would be to choose atheism and put a big full stop to all other further confusions.

But since, we do not have that luxury now, since our minds have been shaped and influenced by too many things the term god means a lot more to us than what it may actually mean.

Does god actually exist? If you ask a staunch believer, say, a person like me, the answer would be a ‘yes’ without a thought. If you ask a non-believer, the answer would not be a straight no. instead most of these people start explaining their “theories” about the comic concept called god. But not many of us actually think about it with an open mind.

How was this idea formed? There are too many theories on this. Easiest to understand and the most primitive theory is the early man’s worship of the natural elements which slowly started developing into complex religious beliefs, deities, etc…. But books like Chariots Of The Gods give us more insights as to what might have happened. The author says when the earth came into existence there may have been a superior civilization existing in a different planet, the beings of which visited the earth. The primitive earth-man might have spotted these guys who obviously with their gadgets and rockets and ability to fly, made the earth-man gaze in awe! Consequently, when they disappeared into the sky to their home planet, the earth-man still struck by wonder, started worshipping these visitors as “Gods”. Interesting concept isn’t it.

Now let’s take the argument of the scientist, most of whom are non-believers. They have a valid point actually. When civilization first began, man did not know what the sun was actually. They worshipped it as a god. With the advancement in science we found out that the great sun god is nothing but just another star in the universe. Indian mythology holds that stars in the sky represent the “Devas” of the heaven. This must have been the belief long before the birth of Galileo Galilei. Now that we know they are just stars scattered around, there’s nothing mysterious about the stars. Same way, they say, it’s just a matter of time before we figure out what is the starting point of everything, or what we call the god! Fine… nice idea. Anyways, even if you guys really figure out, what you call as “X” and I call as “God”, would keep doing his duty of protecting us all!