For those who came in late, here is a recap of what has transpired very recently at Soul Café. My friend, Kumar, works in a premier market research agency and we were meeting after a very long time, and our conversations at the Soul Café happened to dwell on the modern trends among the teens, especially on the ‘skippies’. In the middle of this discussion, a seemingly well-read teen snooped into our talk. After a while, when my friend had left to finish off with some urgent commitments, this young man, Rahul, and I had a fairly long talk and it revolved mainly around evolution and creation. Despite the fact that I had put forward many arguments against evolution, he still was not ready to give up on it. In fact, I felt, he was not doing so, more because of the other option that he now saw in front of him. If he gave up his stand on evolution, immediately he would have to take up the possibility of creation, and thus a creator! Like most people of our times, for Rahul too, that was a ridiculous choice! Moreover, if he conceded to my arguments on creation, he would also have to become accountable to a creator, and that was not at all alluring. We took a break and decided to meet again at the Soul Café after some time. This time it was going to be me, Kumar and Rahul! Oh my God! What was going to happen?!
When we met up, after the basic formalities of introducing each other, I had to repeat to Kumar what all myself and Rahul had talked up after he left. He silently heard while Rahul was perhaps having a second look at his case.
Kumar: Okay so tell me, if you say God created all this, why did he make a creation that is so flawed by sickness and can you please tell me the logic of death? If he created it, why does everything die, when he himself retains eternal attributes!
Me: God created all things for sure. But there is one major difference between the rest of his creation and us.
Rahul: Yeah, we wear clothes and glasses, and move around on vehicles…
Me: Yes that itself is a big thing. I am glad you put it that way. Have you ever thought about why do we have to wear clothes at all? Or why do humans feel shy? Or even what is there in us humans, that has made us come so much forward in knowledge and creativity and that we have developed so many technologies and overall capabilities?
Moreover, the difference is much more than peripheral. It is deeper in fact. We have got something that’s called ‘Freedom of Choice’ or ‘will power’ and there is a conscience inside of us that plays a part in our decision making process.
Kumar: Conscience! Conscience is morally neutral. We, in the society, fashion and train it to operate the way that it does. The conscience may shape up to commend or condemn a person depending on the conditions that the person grows up in.
Me: To an extent you are right. But if you have watched them closely, little children learn to lie very early in their lives and no one has to teach them that. For that matter no one has to teach anyone the art of lying, cheating and stealing and every other social evil. There are no graduation colleges providing expertise on all that. We learn all that naturally. In fact, the education system is an attempt to make man to learn to do things the better way, of course, but also to keep him from doing much of the things the way he likes to do them naturally! (after a pause) Did you guys understand what I just said?
Rahul: You mean to say, naturally, we chose to do things the way that harms the combined interests of all of us together?
Me: Precisely. Let me explain things more clearly.
Kumar: Man I am getting lost. Can you come back again?
Me: God gave man a ‘Freedom of choice’…
Kumar: Okay we heard that earlier. Tell further.
Me: Why did he give us such a ‘Freedom’?
Both: How would we know? We don’t know him?! In fact is there a God at all?
Me: Nothing can come from nothing. There has to be an intelligent designer behind the seen universe let alone the unseen universe. (I pause a while and continued) Guys, let me just say what I have to and then maybe we can debate.
Kumar: Go ahead.
Me: We humans move around with and relate to other humans more than other animals, creatures or things. Why?
It is because, we can relate not just meaningfully but also more comprehensively with other humans.
Now listen to me carefully. This is interesting. The Bible says, God decided to make man in his own image and likeness. Put these two together, we can deduce that God made man to relate to him. It is so clear that we were intended for a relationship.
Now, no relation has any meaning for us unless it is soaked in love.
Rahul: (breaks into laughter) Oh yeah…Love. Here it comes up again. And what did you say? Soaked in love! That usage is really amusing!
The fact is, sir, I don’t see love around me. I don’t think I really know or have seen the real meaning of love, and for that matter, no one knows how love looks like! It’s a farce. Love itself is soaked in selfishness! No wonder all relationships are now soaked in selfishness!
Me: I couldn’t say it more aptly Rahul. But it’s too early to give up on "Love". It is the most powerful emotion and it is more powerful than all the combined evil.
Rahul: On paper.
Me: Can I just finish with what I want to say? I will surely come back to this.
Kumar: (smiles) What all will you come back to?
Me: If there is a relationship that needs to last for a long time, it has to be soaked in love. I mean, for the time being, lets agree that on paper, this is surely so.
Rahul: Ok.
Me: So when God made man, he gave him the freedom to choose: to love him or not to love him.
Rahul: Oh. That way! So you mean to say, the first man chose otherwise? I mean he chose not to love God.
Me: It’s not that simple. But yes, he, for once he took a stand against his own creator and took sides with the devil!
Both: Now, Now, Now… as if one such character is not enough! Here you bring in, who, the devil himself!! Come on Geo, is this all not too much? Come back from the dark ages man, we have moved ahead in life. We are modern men and we need to get rid of these medieval notions and terminologies.
Me: Only technology and means have changed. The problems are still the same. Our lives are not so simple. There are unseen realities that we are unaware off and need to acknowledge.
Kumar: I am not sure about that, but I surely wouldn’t mind hearing the rest of what you have to say.
Rahul: Me too.
(they were enjoying)
Me: See guys, it’s very easy for you to hear one thing and get carried away, but we all should look at the full picture and not bits and pieces. We should look at every aspect and then make our conclusions.
Kumar: Explain.
Me: When we consider the case of a creator, we should also consider the other options and prospects of those options, the realities of life like death and sickness, the heart touching stories of what people do for and have done for other people, the complexity of this universe at macro and micro levels, the presence of guilt in man, the reason behind world religions, the moral and ethical framework, the cry of people everywhere for justice, the reason for suicide, terrorism, patriotism, sexual perversion, the stories of persecution and concentration camps and little babies raped and mutilated, the stories about ghosts and hexes, the growing popularity of the occult, the inability of a man to be ever satisfied with anything that he achieves under the sun, the meaninglessness of the wealth amassed, near death experiences, the testimonies of miracles and healings, prophecies, the non-absoluteness of science and many many more such things. We cannot ignore one or more of these and come to a conclusion. Our conclusion should be after considering such and many more such issues. I have reasoned long enough, and the most logical explanation to such issues I got in the way Bible explains it.
Kumar: And what does the Bible say?
Me: This is the gist of what it says. The devil was one of the angels. One day he thought in his heart to replace God. That apparently made him an opponent of God. God could have finished with him then, but God had a greater plan. He made man, in his image and likeness, and subject man to the temptation from the devil himself. In this test, man exercised his free will and sided with the devil. On God’s side was life and wholeness. So what was supposed to be on the other side? What else but death and suffering and every evil that we can see under the sun.
Kumar: Makes logical sense, but why death?
Me: The problem is that we are able to associate only sad, bitter and ugly pictures to that word. What is death? Death is a separation. In its most visible state, death is a separation of a person’s spirit from his body. In what I said earlier, death meant a separation from God. God is life. So that’s how death becomes a separation from life.
Kumar: How do we explain sickness and every other natural disaster on man?
Me: God gave the earth to man to rule. When man became accursed, the whole earth too was subject to curse and thus to corruption. Add to it the devil’s role to make the whole creation more and more corrupt so as to rule out every possibility of any reconciliation with its creator.
Rahul: Sounds very filmy.
Me: It does. In fact God has announced a dramatic end to all this when Jesus returns to the earth.
Rahul: What!? Jesus returns?
Kumar: I have heard this one before. Its very difficult for a person in a very normal frame of mind to take in all this information with eyes closed.
Me: Hey, who is asking you to keep eyes closed. Investigate all that you want to but also be ready to concede that our human capabilities have limitations and its better to rely on other sources to arrive at conclusions.
Rahul: You mean just as we use the sight and smell of the dogs to our benefit.
Me: Man, you have helped me a lot this evening.
Kumar: You have said a lot of things, but I still don’t get the picture quite correctly.
Me: See man, you cannot circumvent the choice of God and come to any other reasonable conclusion. Maybe, you can close your eyes and make believe a lot of things just because you want to. If there is a God then he was a purpose behind all of his creation. If he has a purpose, he has surely revealed it. It’s our duty to seek and find it. Now, whether we seek it or not, it’s evident that God will do a stock taking at some point of time and we better be geared up for it.
This talk was not heading for a conclusion that soon. My stomach was growling by now. We decided to take break for a heavy dinner, and very soon we were deeply involved with the menu card trying to locate something sumptuous in a café to call it a dinner!
This looked like the longest day of my life. I had been talking the whole evening. My being was crying for some rest. But I knew, God had a purpose for me and for these dear people who were now munching away at the huge pizza they had ordered. At least I could generate some kind of hunger in them. However, I felt deep within, that I had to be ready for serving out more manna that day. I prayed in my mind as I saw them laughing away. They had got chummy very soon. Common view points and interests strangely can bring even strangers so close to each other, albeit for a short time. I was having more reasons to be glad about Soul Café.
NEXT BLOG:
Discussion on the Bible-the greatest book ever!
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