ON FAITH AND FANATICISM

Imagine one cool evening while you are meditating, you hear a strange voice telling you to leave everything and everyone to embark on a journey to an unknown land. The voice promises that you would be wealthy beyond measure in this land. How would you respond to the demands of the voice?

I would certainly check into the nearest psychiatric ward to get my head evaluated. People with schizophrenia hear voices and hallucinate, so that would be my first explanation for hearing voices. However, I am Christian, and hearing voices is one of the ways most of the Prophets in the Bible heard from God. So I would be spooked by a benevolent voice.

As crazy as it might sound, many people (including yourself) have acted on impulses that they cannot rationalize. In the event it leads to something positive, we attribute that to be one of life's many anomalies. However, there are instances where some of the heinous crimes against humans have been committed based on voices—a divine calling. This is why I am skeptical of fanatics and cult leaders as they are driven by their need for meaning/purpose.

As a young teenager, purpose was a big theme in my life. I wanted to know where I existed and my role in the grand scheme of things, but as I got older, that question became less important. I am glad to be here on Earth, and that suffices. Yes, I believe in God and the tenets of my Christian faith, but I do not have any desire to justify my reason for being here. Being here is good enough, and most things just become apparent as you age.

Still on the topic of faith and fanaticism, I have been watching The 3 Body Problem series. In the series, a Chinese physicist, Ye Wenje, is contacted by a terrestrial being and she promises to help them take over Earth in her bid to make the world a better place. She starts a cult and garners support from believers. They perpetuate heinous crimes in their attempt to prepare for their alien visits.

What I found eerie in this series was how they referred to this alien lifeform as ‘Lord’. It had so many similarities to my faith, and I did not like that, mainly because it shows how dangerous fanaticism can be to people and the world in general.

If I heard a divine voice today telling me to murder people in the name of God, would I do it? My answer is ‘no’, but there is no way to prove it. The data available suggests otherwise. The fact that people have killed in the name of their country, religion, or race suggests that I am not any different. We are all susceptible to the things we believe and value.

In my practice of faith, I tend to ask a lot of questions. It may be tagged as ungodly, but I do not believe I serve an all-knowing being that is anti-dialogue. I know faith requires a lot of trust, but I am not willing to trust anything blindly. Yes, there are things about my faith that I do not question, and that is because it does not have any impact on the people around me.

One of the major tenets of Christianity is that one should love their neighbor as much as they love themselves. Apostle John even went further to say that a person cannot claim to love God if they don't see and treat the people around them poorly.

Currently, we live in a world where people value ideologies more than people and are willing to go to extreme lengths to uphold those ideas, which I consider to be dangerous. I understand our species can be problematic, but we've done so much good for ourselves and the planet, and we are making efforts to right our wrongs. I am willing to give humanity a chance. How about you?