Who is in Charge?

When it comes to trying to work out the rules of life, you might expect religions to help. But I have just given up on reading a book (called Home Deus by Yuval Noah Harari) in which the author dismisses religions on the grounds that they teach fatalism.

It is true that many adherents to various religions believe in ‘Divine Judgment’ or ‘the will of God’. You know which religions I refer to.

And yet I would argue that this belief is due to, at best a neglectful misunderstanding of scripture and, at worst a willful misunderstanding of scripture. Because, if you are the type of person who likes to sit on the sidelines and watch the football match rather than play football, this is a view that fits your attitude to life. The car will not start in the morning as you leave for work, because ‘God has willed it’, not because you neglect your car. Or on a larger scale, the sea opens and the Israelite s escape the Egyptian army, because God has the power of miracles.

To me, this view of life denies one’s own power and responsibility. It has given permission for the ‘blame culture’ of today.

This ‘blame culture’ view, also means that an individual does not have to take responsibility for their actions. At it most extreme manifestation it gives permission for the horror committed by terrorists in the name of God. Even disciplined armies fight wars with ‘God on our side’. The fact that both sides claim this right is a contradiction ignored, perhaps because it would make war and sacrifice a nonsense, such as in the first World War.

I have to wonder what are the priests and those who preach within religions thinking? Perhaps two hundred years ago the ‘fire and brimstone’ and ‘you will go to hell’ threats were of a time when understanding in the sciences, arts and humanities, was not as sophisticated as today. Which implies that the ‘you don’t have to take responsibility because God is in charge’, philosophy is still preached. Even when people ask why good people are murdered or run over by a bus, (how could a benign God have allowed this to happen?) the priests reply is an empty echo of  the dogma they learned in the seminary.

In between the philosophical positions of ‘the will of God’ and ‘the freewill of man’ is a belief in ‘fate’.

I once asked a work colleague, whose daughter was born severely disabled and whose plight was the centre of a charity, how he handled such a situation. His reply was two words; ‘shit happens’. Whether this referred to his daughter or to his family life or both was unclear but what was clear was a ‘fatalistic’ view.

In this philosophy, no person or external power is to blame for anything. It’s a way of life explored by the dice man in the novel of the same name. The dice man sets out to make all his important decisions by throwing a die. Whatever the result, good or bad, moral or immoral, he did it. But fatalists walk with the same crutches as those who attribute causes and consequences to Divine influence. The crutches of ‘nothing to do with me.’

The more realistic answer, in my view, is the opposite. Everything that happens is ‘to do with me’. We have been given free will and as a result are in charge and fully responsible for our actions. I believe this because I am able and willing to take responsibility for my actions and able to learn from my mistakes. In my view this is the only way (and the gift to humanity) to learn and eliminate the karma with which we are born.

In this way my thinking is different from those religions that preach of a hell awaiting sinners. I think we are already in hell because that is what the world is to many, even or especially today. Heaven is not a place for eternal retirement playing x to the power n rounds of golf. Heaven is here on earth in every moment of time, when we use our freewill to see it.

Free will is a wonderful gift when used wisely. In it’s most powerful manifestation it gives human beings the power of miracles. Jim cured himself of cancer and Joy refused to get on the plane that would later crash. These are not people being crushed by a vengeful God or an indifferent fate; they are the autonomous creations of God.

Everything is up for negotiation in life, even when and how we are going to die. That is how the Zen Masters of the past have predicted the exact time and day of their death and written to their pupils informing them.

Time to get a grip.