Skeptics and disappointments in life
A recent event in my life highlighted yet another role of religion in an individual's life, i.e. the satisfaction/distraction it provides in times of a personal loss or emotional distress. When one loses loved ones, no matter how reasonable one is, if the loss catches you unprepared, it is emotion that gets hold of you first and doesn't let reason prevail, not for a while at least. And if you can't share your grief with anyone else, it gets worse. That's where you realize the support system that religion provides, the easy way out, where you find solace in the belief that everything happening is by design and someone up there is making it all happen with your best interests in mind. But for skeptics theres no such solace on sleepless nights no prayers/incantations to resort to, anything at all to distract you, it really gets tough. Reason eventually starts the remedying process, telling you that life should go on, for disappointments that dont kill you, only make you stronger :).
Important lesson learned, skeptics/agnostics should have really understanding partners or at any rate excellent friends around them, to see them through the lows in their life. Though theres another glitch too, what if one's a bit self contained and doesn't want to share the loss with even the closest friends.
Don't know if the above babble makes any sense to anyone else, or it just comes across as incoherent babble, but then the blog is titled rambler's reflections :P. Anyways cause this blog is as much of a diary to me as a blog, doesn't really matter if its not intelligible to the rest of the world. Though I have a feeling at least some people would be able to relate to it, would love to hear their views on this.
posted by Noorali Surani at 8:24 PM
3 Comments:
well, you raise an interesting point. However, I don't think one has to be religious to believe that death or misfortunes can happen. I think skeptics understand the inconsistencies and challenges of life as well, however, they dont stop at saying "well, it was a part of God's greater plan". Skeptics most probably try to reason out certain situations like death for example. It could be possible that the skeptic truly believes that the 89 year old woman who died of a heart attack was meant to die cause 89 years of eating nihari eventually will kill you of heart disease.
But sure, I agree that Skeptics have a much harder time coming to terms with misfortunes cause to them, "It's a part of God's greater plan" is not good enough.
Shobha skeptics are reasonable ppl by definition, cause they dare to doubt, give up certainty for eternal uncertainty. But personal losses really shake you up, for a while they just wont allow reason to prevail. And you feel that maybe I will let my emotions subside a bit before I let reason loose. But all the while its always at the back of your head, whether you are working or going out with friends or whatever. It does eventually get better and therein starts this phase of oscillating transitions from moments of certainty to moments of weakness. And thats when you start doubting if you were ever reasonable or were just fooling yourself :). But it gets better and in moments of certainty you start telling yourself, see I can get over it. And then during moments of weakness you know overcoming it will take everything you have got. its kind of interesting the funny mental games you are playing with yourself :D
noorali i thinking just 'doubting' does not make one 'reasonable'. doubting is important but only as a jump to the next step. if one doubts and does'nt try to bridge the gap then one should not obsess over the confusion.
at the same time one should also not become complacent.
so being a skeptic is important for everyone.
for me i have found God.
one important thing: if one is playing mental games with oneself then something is not right. one should not be doing that. you are afterall your own best friend.
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