God

Let me remind you a little story.

Sinbad the Sailor and his companions got marooned on a vast floating island. They were weary and wet and then one of them lighted a little fire. That’s when the ‘island’ rose skywards with a groan. It was a whale. This illustrates the old saying that "the absence of proof isn’t always the proof of absence".

All my life, I have been fiddling with the idea of God. I keep on struggling to define my position vis-s-vis the belief in God. I realised early in my life that I would have problems with God when I refused the request of my first girlfriend to accompany her to a temple. Of course, I do not believe that it is the curse of God that's why she had left me. I am not an atheist, nor am I an agnostic.

It fascinates me when I look at people totally at peace with their Gods. I do not mind people worshipping god or gods. But I do mind if I am forced to pay obeisance to 'their' god. I prefer to be left alone when it comes to worshipping. I would like to decide for myself whom will I worship... a god or a human.

That makes me what? According to what I read in The Economic Times, I am possibly a follower of Possibilianism. Neuroscientist David Eagleman says,"Our ignorance of the cosmos is too vast to commit to atheism, and yet we know too much to commit to a particular religion. A third position, agnosticism, is often an uninteresting stance in which a person simply questions whether his traditional religious story is true or not true." On the other hand, Possibilianism is open to new positions: one that emphasises the exploration of new, unconsidered possibilities. Possibilianism is comfortable holding multiple ideas in mind; it is not interested in committing.

As the saying goes - "the absence of proof isn’t always the proof of absence".