Doomsday Smileys [COLUMN]

Losing Faith

I'm an agnostic, which is a step closer to full blown religious fundamentalism than is atheism. So I view it with interest when I see people becoming disenchanted with God. Someone recently complained to me that God had turned his back on her and her family, and that she no longer wanted to go to church as a result. How could God, after being so dedicated and having invested themselves for so long, how could he - well - drop them. Ditch them. Squirt lemon juice in their eyes.

I say I find it interesting because this disenchantment is really one of a bunch of responses we make to discovering reality. Religion can be a nice duvet cover over the cold, hard truth. And the longer you have been divorced from reality, or avoided it, or run away from it, the more uncompromising reality can seem to be. Truth can seem paralysing. But sooner or later most people find themselves in the headlights of reality and are dumbstruck by the sheer, freight train power of it.

Since I try to make it my business to stare into the unpleasant beam of it (and sometimes it is not so much unpleasant as simply, unbearably bright) one thing I do rely on, and trust, is the irrevocable nature of it. For example, once one accepts the truth about Peak Oil, that resources are finite, one doesn't have to get caught up in the conventional delusions of excess, and something for nothing, and false hopes that certain patterns may peter out if we wait long enough. Truth does provide some fundamental certainties (which is why there are fundamentalists lurking in the best of us).

The economic malaise we find ourselves in is going to take us down a road through permanent decline. Not nice I know. But in that contraction, people will become communities again, things will be made that have a use (beyond making money). Discipline will be re-introduced into the system, and while nature abhors a vacuum, many will initially abhor the introduction of discipline. Discipline may take the form of a rationing system, or shortages or both.

Losing faith in our delusions is a good thing. It may feel painful at first, as painful as when we realised our true love was cheating on us for the first time. But in the long run, the sooner we look full and hard into the Truth, the sooner we get ourselves on track. Some will fail in this simple task, making choices such as to take their own lives, or turning to alcohol or recreational drugs. Religion has a place - as a builder of communities. As a bringer of altruism. Religion on its own may not address objective truths such as climate change and other realities. Religion is based on the hope that salvation exists in another life. An after-life.
There is just this one life, and if we continue to put off our responsibilities to sort out the present, the present will sort us out. The Truth always does.