It is okay to be irrational

This is more of a monologue and has to be one, you cannot talk of your faith without talking about yourself. Before I discuss the place of “absence of reason” in human life, I would like to discuss my own battles with faith.

I was born in a family that practices Jainism. Jainism is an ancient orient transtheistic religion, originated in India, and is based on the principle of nonviolence. Transtheism generally refers to the fact that it does not believe in a single, supreme God or multiple gods in the way that traditional polytheistic religions do; instead, Jains believe that the potential for godliness exists within every soul, allowing them to achieve liberation through their own actions.

With the general principle behind the religion out of the way, there was an internal split of the broader community into two main sections called the Shvetambaras and the Digambaras. Regardless of the split, the principles and scriptures of both sections remained unaltered, significant changes occurred only in the religious practices followed.

I was brought up to follow the traditions and practices of Digambaras but as a kid really early on I was forced to question the practices, not the principles, of idol worship through a number of rituals that seemed to me a pure waste of energy and resources. I moved towards a more agnostic approach to “my God”, it was believing that there exists some entity that controls the opportunities that come my way and people that I meet. Being Agnostic is being open to the idea that god exists(Knowing it cannot be reasoned) without committing to the moral obligations that form foundations of a religion like Jainism. We could mark this as a “loss of religious ethics.”

Moving forward, Learning about Darwin’s Theory of evolution and getting fascinated by the scientific method – that states empirical evidence as the only justification for any idea, led me to disregard the existence of any deities. This marks a loss of faith. I no longer was able to believe in what now was irrational.

During this period, I came to think of religious communities as a herd, blind of reason, following leaders and scriptures without questioning any ideas individually, more like overgrown cults who would take extremist actions against their own principles if it meant saving the community. Terror attacks by various islamic groups and mob attacks by Hindu extremists in India made me want to dissociate myself from anything that related me to a religious community. Even if my religion was based on the principle of non-violence.

Consequently, this led to me starting to look down upon all those who are theist or associate themselves to any religious community. This developed in abscence of conscious effort and was very subtle but was still there. To be clear, when I say look down I mean that I refrained from considering their opinions on rational matters rather than subjecting them to disrespect. I considered the practice of any religion an “unreasonable” act under the conditions of scientific evidence, dogmatism within communities, wasteful practices, and extremism.

Existentialism has taught me otherwise, and here is the point that I was building to till now, there are certain truths that you figure out yourself for yourself. Rationalism, although great, doesn’t help you navigate your life. Faith and ethics are essentially subjective truths you figure for yourself in an universe which does not guarantee your protection, does not give your life meaning or differentiate between right and wrong.

Religion, for many, fulfills the gap left by the meaningless universe in our minds by invoking faith and setting standard morals for you to live an ethical life. Faith is the absence of reason, you don’t have faith in something because it is a reasonable thing to do but quite the opposite, you have faith because despite what your reason tells you, you need it.

– is a latin phrase which was first said during the middle ages, “I believe because it is irrational”. Science doesn’t tell you everything about the world; it cannot disprove the existence of the afterlife or measure what people propose cannot be seen or measured – soul. Ideas like these are not to be tackled with reason but felt and subjectively analysed and be left to faith.

Conclusion: Was I wrong to look down on religious communities for their acts that wasted resources, promoted dogma and extremism? No, absolutely not! Was I naïve in looking down on religious principles? Yes, religious principles and ideas are a guide to an individual lifestyle. It is still condemnable when everybody “believes in” the same things without having any deeper feeling about it. If you are an atheist like me held back by reason, I appeal to you to approach the idea of faith in anything absurd with the greatest passion and sincerity as a mortal who lives once with mystical ideas that cannot be disproved or proved.