HUMANITY SHALL FIND RECOURSE IN ITSELF – IT HAS ALWAYS DONE.

By Brian Nzomo

“How do you deal with the glaring meaninglessness of life?” I am asked every time. “Certainly, it would be plausible for anyone to embrace religion to find meaning even when its foundations seem to be delusive and farcical!”

I am constantly reminded that religion is a placating little lie that we reprise over and over, appending its importance till we can solidly believe it to be the cradle of mankind’s exhortation, consolation, explanation and inspiration. And that in its performance of these roles of human stability, it gleans its exigency if not its verisimilitude.

The explanation role of religion is arguably growing narrower and narrower. The explosion of science exposed a myriad of mythical beliefs to be nothing but wishful stories that bear no weight of believability. From understanding the planet itself and its position in the universe, science has dented religion in ways it could never recover. And despite the incapability of science to elaborately explain much of humanity’s core mysteries, it is highly dubious that religion is credible enough to answer those questions owing to its shredded remnants of fabrications, and its eminent reputability for forwarding ungrounded assumptions.

Similarly, its exhortation role has been questioned for many years. The firmly held belief that religion has always been a force for good in keeping people moral has had its fair share of criticisms. It has always worked on the unwarranted assumption that human beings have no moral magnitude unless they actually endear to a referee in the sky. Whom they should always be reminded of. He(it’s always a he) is watching us. And he is displeased by our sinful acts. So behave, lest you miss out his land of honey and perish for eternity in hell. Religious notions of morality have not always been centered on brotherliness or humanity, but on the flip-faces of either reward or punishment. Besides, the issue of morality is a mind-boggling question for philosophers over the centuries. Examining the moral zeitgist of all ages and epochs of human civilization would warrant a more complex study. One which religion cannot claim dominance over.

When religion is claimed to be a assuagement of the weak, I am stunned because we cannot alienate the powerful in society from religion. For example, in an overly religious society like ours, the rich as well as the poor claim to believe in god. The happy and the afflicted as well. On a Sunday, one man could claim in church that it was through god’s will he escaped an accident or say _ got well after a long period of illness. How merciful can god be? We clap and jubilate.

In the same church, there is another sick person who is still unlucky to get healed. Well, one could argue that the belief that indeed god had healed his fellow believer would grant him the strength to pursue on with life. Having him to pray incessantly till that day when god will take mercy upon him and heal him.

Yet from an atheistic position that sees no conviction of a godly existence, one realizes there is no divine intervention that happens. And unfortunately, this little white lie meant to assuage you will crumble to the weight of reality. And you will succumb to your illness. That is why I find consolation by ‘a white lie’ critically unstable and spurious. I would prefer a system of consolation that does not seek to evade the reality of situations. And while at it, enhance social services that actually offer real time solutions.

Adults are expected to face up to reality. There is intense fear out of there, an insurmountable heap of mystery that shudders us. But we cannot expect that a resorting to infantile solutions of an imaginary succor will actually do much to alleviate us from the glowering angst of life.

Humanity should realize that consolation can adequately lie within itself. Intravenously inject in itself the potential care it needs to ebb away the chaotic fear that seeks to trammel upon it. It is possible. And I find it more realistic and comforting to believe that even in my hours of perpetual darkness, caring humans will exist around me till my last breathe. What more can I fear? What lays beyond perhaps!

Religion in its promise of an afterlife seeks to pummel the fears of death as a finality. It interprets death as an intermediate state of repose that leads one to the realm of immortality. Ironically, it seems to perform a poor job in that resolve.

Religious people despite the promise of an afterlife don’t seem to be elated by the prospect of death. One could attribute this to the double calibration of morality heaped on them as they grew up. There is heaven and there is hell. The Catholics had another zone called Purgatory that spurred its fortunes for centuries but that’s a story for another day. In this case, religion which purports to truncate the mystery around death, actually parlays the dread around it. Because that is what religion does. It presents it case as an avenue of answers, but these egregious answers plunges one further into deeper mystery ebbing one away from the truth entirely.

As an atheist who finds no reason at all to believe in an afterlife, I have more justification to fear death. But I am not afraid of eternal repose. My only fear like many others is the process itself. How will my life break? Otherwise, the state of repose itself arouses in me no whiff of aversion.

I won’t dwell much on inspiration. Imagination has always been the fortitude of art, literature(especially fiction) and aesthetic. And I find it inconceivable that religion in its cloak of a spiritual realm, should claim possession of this valued aspect of human life. I don’t feel it is right at all to claim that there can be no inspiration derived from the the material world and therefore imperative to seek intermediate worlds for it. The material world is vast and largely unexplored. The cosmic universe is astronomical and beautiful too. The world of the atoms which remain microscopic to our sight. The intricacies of nature that still remain a constant source of wonder. There is a fleshy, colorful and abstruse source of imagination around us. Just imagine how wonderful it would be to juggle around with these sensual delights that marvel our eyes every microsecond of our lives. That to me, is enough an inspiration for imagination.

When Nietzche remarked that ‘god is dead’, the pertinent question in his mind was what was the way forward for humanity if it loses god completely. I am optimistic that nothing retrogressive will befall us. Will we revert to cannibals? Lose meaning to life? Lament about our unsolved mysteries? I don’t think so. If god dies, humanity will ultimately find recourse in itself. It has always been the case anyway since man’s jaws became smaller.