Straddling the fence between my faith and my desire to be an existentialist
As a cradle Catholic, my religion was predetermined for me. I grew up learning the Lord’s Prayer, going to church on Sundays, and sometimes close to examinations or when someone in the family was ill, we would go for Novenas on Saturday to appeal for the intercession of Our Lady.
Yes, it may seem that I am just like any other of the 850,000 Catholics living in Malaysia
As I do not consider myself an overtly religious person, I am able to view Catholicism objectively, which may contradict the very teachings of the doctrine. Semitic religions bank on the faith of their followers. Creationism dictates God is the supreme creator and ruler of the universe. He created mountains, rivers, oceans and animals. He created man and from the rib of Adam, he created woman. On the seventh day he rested. Science will tell us otherwise. Ancient Greek philosopher Anaximander postulated the development of life from non-life and the evolutionary descent of man from animal. Darwin
To the faithful, this will seem absurd and utterly untrue. Their faith guides them and provides all the answers they need. Bertrand Russell states:
..for all further religious knowledge we must rely on the Scriptures. We ought not to seek to understand time and space before the world was made: there was no time before the Creation and there is no place where the world is not.
I am not a cynic in any way. I do believe in a higher being. However, I also believe that man is his own worst enemy. We have to come to terms that we are not fighting the shapeless form that is Evil or Satan, but merely ourselves.
The notion of the soul and sins I believe is man’s invention. Over time, sins have evolved from the impurity of the mind to indecent dressing to devil worshipping through cross-dressing, music and ritualistic animal/human sacrifice. Today we condemn suicide bombers who claim to maim and murder in the name of God. Rewind to the 1500s when people were being torched at stakes, accused of being in the occult, or performing witchcraft and in general not following the life intended for god-fearing believers. What makes those executions any different or any more ‘legal’ than the massacres we see today in modern society? All three religions state that only Yahweh/God/Allah shall judge men. Why then do people take God’s judgment in their own hands? Humans have a tendency to annihilate one another and worst of all, they purport that they are doing God’s will by ‘cleansing the land’, ‘enlightening godless beings’ or ‘finishing off the infidels’.
The grievances that drive men to lash out like that can be traced to the very social fabric of their community and upbringing. Serial killers, rapists, pedophiles, religious extremists more often than not were brought up in less than ideal surroundings. Our basic survival instinct provokes us to react. Countless of times, extremists have quoted the line from Exodus 21:23–27 “An eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” to justify their revenge which results in a never-ending cycle of violence.
It is very Utopian to profess that we ought to live as one, as equals. In my opinion, a Utopian society here in this life will be the earthly equivalent of the Holy Grail.
An existentialist is a person who wants to know how life should be lived and believes that philosophical and psychological inquiry will provide some answers. Religion exists as a comfort mechanism – to provide reprieve from this life, with the promise of a better one in the afterlife. Religion comes with values and a set of rules that we have to strictly adhere to, to confirm your seat in the pleasant afterlife, otherwise known as Heaven. Existentialism, on the other hand, believes that life is very difficult and that it doesn't have an "objective" or universally known value, but that the individual must create value by affirming it and living it, not by talking about it.
How do I reconcile my faith and my existentialist leanings? Paul Tillich a professor of Modern Art in Harvard says:
There is really no such thing as Christian existentialism. Christians who question life in existentialist terms answer as Christians. "For this reason, I do not believe that the ordinary distinction between atheistic and theistic existentialism makes any sense. As long as an existentialist is theistic, he is either not existentialist or he is not really theistic.
Common sense tells me that I cannot be completely theistic. My limited knowledge of Scripture is a true testament to that fact. I profess to believe in God, yet I wonder if everything in life can be solved by faith. There is a contradiction between free will and fate in the doctrine. If God has predetermined your fate, how much in control are you of your own life? I think that by surrendering your will wholeheartedly you are merely not taking responsibility for the ramifications of your deeds. That is the reason why suicide bombers and extremists claim to be doing God’s work.
In contrast, Existentialists tend to take freedom of the will, the human power to do or not do, as absolutely obvious. Now and again there are arguments for free will in Existentialist literature, but even in these arguments, one gets the distinct sense that the arguments are not for themselves, but for "outsiders." Inside the movement, free will is axiomatic, it is intuitively obvious, it is the backdrop of all else that goes on.
Religion is still very relevant today because at its roots, it does provide comfort, spiritual guidance and values for the individual to live by. All I am saying is, do not let faith be your only driving force because, faith alone cannot sustain the individual in today’s modern world.
Geraldine Phillips
Russell, Bertrand. The History of Western Philosophy. New York
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