I try to maintain this state of detachment, to control the emotional tides that would pull me back into the illusion. Pride, anger, lust, hunger, sloth – the old human impulses still reside within me. I strive for control, for mastery over them, to remain an observer rather than a participant in their drama. But sometimes, they surge up, breaking through the surface of my calm. Sometimes they feel necessary, a flicker of the old life. And sometimes, despite the knowing, they simply overwhelm the control I seek.
It's a strange existence, average on the outside, radically altered within. Drifting through timepass, waiting for an end I won't hasten, trying to control a self I barely recognize, holding onto phantom dreams that feel like a pathway to release. Nothing is special anymore, but everything is profoundly different.
The pigeons peck, oblivious. Just...pecking. Searching for crumbs on this cracked pavement, beneath this indifferent sky. Amusing, yes. The world. Or maybe not the world itself, just the things people do in it. The stories they tell themselves. The things they believe.
Look at the person paryer, over there. Hands clasped. Eyes squeezed shut. Lips moving, silent shapes in the air. What's he saying? What's he asking for? A better day? A healing? For someone he loves? And to whom? To... God. Yes, God.
This simple, complicated word. This idea that hangs over everything, for so many. They believe. They truly, truly believe. And through that belief, they think... what? That things will change? That mountains will move? That a job will appear, a sickness will vanish, a loved one will be spared? They believe they can get things. Obtain favour. Influence the universe, the swirling, chaotic, beautiful, brutal universe, just by closing their eyes and speaking into the void. Amusing. Utterly, profoundly amusing. And a little sad, maybe.
Because understanding... understanding is hard. It requires looking without the filter of hope or fear. Seeing causes and effects. Recognizing patterns. Accepting the arbitrary. But belief? Belief is easy. It's a comfort. A shield. A ready-made explanation for things that have no easy explanation. Why did this happen? God's will. Why did that good thing happen? God's blessing. Why is there suffering? A test. Or maybe... just because things happen. Because the universe doesn't have a plan for you, specifically. Or for the man praying for a miracle for his child.
But they don't want to understand. They want to believe. They need to believe. It fills a space inside, a vast, echoing emptiness that logic and observation can't seem to touch. This need for a higher power, for someone – something – in charge, keeping score, listening. The sheer weight of existence, perhaps, is too much to bear without the scaffolding of divine purpose. They build elaborate structures of faith, brick by brick, prayer by prayer, doctrine by doctrine, to hold back the terrifying possibility of meaninglessness. And it works, for them. It provides solace. It provides community. It provides answers, even if those answers crumble under scrutiny.
And the question, the big swirling nebulous question that hangs in the air like dust motes in a sunbeam: What is God? If you ask ten people, you get twelve answers. A man with a beard? A blinding light? A feeling? A cosmic consciousness? Energy? Love? The universe itself? A set of rules? A collective human projection? And is there any God? That's the real kicker, isn't it? The unprovable, un-disprovable core. The foundation upon which entire civilizations have been built, wars have been fought, and lives have been lived in ecstatic devotion or quiet desperation.
If I had to answer. If someone held a... well, not a gun, that's too dramatic. If someone just genuinely, calmly asked me, looking me in the eye, "Is there a God?"
My answer would have to be... contingent. It depends entirely on the perspective of the asker, or the subject. For those who believe, yes. Absolutely. In their minds, their hearts, their lived reality, God exists. Their belief creates that existence within their framework. It shapes their actions, their morals, their hopes. It's a powerful force, belief. It manifests in communities, in rituals, in towering cathedrals and quiet moments of prayer. It dictates their choices, their fears, their ultimate destinations. For them, God is as real as this bench I'm sitting on. Perhaps more real, because this bench is temporary, physical, subject to decay, while their God is eternal, spiritual, beyond the ravages of time and space.
But for those who don't... for those who look at the world, the suffering, the random acts of cruelty and kindness, the sheer indifference of the cosmos, and see no guiding hand, no divine plan... for them, no. There is no God. Not in the sense the man praying over there means. Not a conscious entity pulling the strings, listening to pleas, meting out justice or mercy based on faith. For them, existence is something else entirely. A confluence of physics, biology, chance, and human endeavour. A grand, unfolding process without a conductor. They see the beauty, the terror, the complexity, but they don't attribute it to a singular, sentient will. They see patterns, but not a plan. They see cause and effect, but not divine intervention in the mundane.
So, God exists in relation to belief. A strange kind of existence, built on human consciousness rather than objective reality. Like a story that becomes real because enough people tell it, and live by its rules, and structure their societies around its tenets. It's a collective hallucination, perhaps, albeit one with profound, tangible effects on the world. Or perhaps it's a connection to a deeper truth that my limited senses and skeptical mind cannot perceive. I keep that possibility open, a crack in the door, but I see no compelling reason to step through.
But here's the most amusing part, the part that cracks open the whole beautiful, elaborate facade of belief. No one, not a single soul, fully believes or fully disbelieves. Not really. Not consistently. The edge cases are vanishingly rare, or perhaps confined to asylums or hermitages.
Think about it. If you truly, utterly, unwaveringly believed that God was in complete control, that every single event was divinely orchestrated, that prayer was the only effective means of intervention, that your faith guaranteed protection and provision against all earthly harm... what would you need hospitals for? Why doctors, nurses, scanning machines, pharmacies? Why rely on human knowledge and technology, on science, on the accumulated wisdom of centuries of observation and experimentation, when the Ultimate Healer, the Great Physician, is just a whisper away? Surely, you'd lie down, pray, and wait for the divine touch. You wouldn't need a surgeon's knife or a chemist's pill. You wouldn't need sterile environments or complex diagnoses. Your faith would be the cure.
And police stations? Courts? Laws written by flawed humans? Prisons? Detectives gathering evidence, judges interpreting statutes, juries weighing facts presented by lawyers? If God is the ultimate judge, the source of all justice, the punisher of the wicked and protector of the innocent, wouldn't you just... trust in that? Trust that divine retribution or reward would handle things? Why build institutions designed to enforce human morality, to intervene in earthly conflicts, to lock away wrongdoers based on fallible evidence, when God's plan is unfolding, and the scales of cosmic justice are perfectly balanced? Wouldn't you leave vengeance and vindication to the divine hand?
Even someone who identifies as deeply religious, someone who spends hours in prayer, who dedicates their life to their faith... if their child fell desperately ill, would they only pray? Or would they also rush them to the hospital, demanding the best doctors, the most advanced treatments? If their house was robbed, would they only ask God to return their possessions or forgive the sinner? Or would they call the police, file a report, hope for an investigation, perhaps even install better locks afterwards?