God is Hopeless

Most people who know me think I’m an atheist, in the conventional sense of one who disbelieves in God—which, to me, is a gross oversimplification. This article serves to clarify my position regarding the matter.

When one thinks of God, one tends to think of a personal figure or deity, perhaps one who is ‘up in the sky’—or, less literally, all-encompassing. Now, this is merely the Abrahamic conception of God, which is rooted in monotheism. The Oriental and Indian traditions, on the other hand, conceive God differently. The Chinese tradition (i.e. folk religion, Daoism) has Tian (天; heaven), which can be understood as ‘fate’ or ‘destiny.’ In the Indian tradition, the concept of God is more diverse: pantheism (‘God is in everything’) of Advaita Vedanta and panentheism (‘God is a personal deity yet is in everything’) of Sikhism, among others. Therefore, before we find out whether I’m an atheist or not, the question that needs to first be addressed is: What is God and how do I understand it?

Hence, allow me to introduce my position through a statement: I believe each of us, knowingly or not, already believes in God, but the more pertinent question is which of our conceptions truly allows us to ‘reach Him.’ In all seriousness, this is my version: God is hopeless. Now, before you judge me, let me share a deeply personal experience. About five years ago, I’d been in a deeply agonising experience for an extended period, with no one and nothing to turn to—my world felt like it was being violently ripped apart. Back then, I was a staunch atheist—I could have proudly proclaimed ‘there is no God’ more than I’d liked to admit—and a caring family member (a Catholic) gently reproved me, asking me to plead for forgiveness, be humble and surrender in His grace.

I didn’t listen at first, thinking: ‘How can I ask forgiveness from something (or someone) I don’t believe exists?’ A few days passed, and halfheartedly, I thought, ‘Why not try?’ So I braced myself and took a deep breath, then said, ‘Please forgive me, help me, G—‘ but just before I finished my sentence, I stopped. At that very moment, without anybody (human) around to answer me, the state of my own helplessness reflected back onto my consciousness, and for the very first time in my life, I felt a profound sense of shame. It wasn’t shame as rooted in pleading an abstract or what could be an imaginary being, but shame as stemming from the eruption of a selfish desire for having a wish fulfilled at any cost, which at the same time happened to be outward-looking.

Before I proceed, allow me to provide some background context: all my life, I’d been surrounded by people who claimed to be religious yet so hedonistic in their outlook such that money, in reality, may as well be their definition of God—and I despised their hypocrisy. As per my introductory statement, each and every one of us, consciously or not, already ‘knows’ God: God is where misery is not. Hence, one ‘reaches out’ to God, and God becomes synonymous with hope, secured through faith. A consumerist has faith that money will solve his or her problems—thus hopes for a lot of it—a devoted Christian has faith in prayers (with God in mind) that will—one way or another—help solve his or her situation, and so on and so forth. In other words, God is the indispensable object of faith. (In this view, the conventional atheist has ‘disbelief in God’ as his faith.)

Thus, wherever we look, faith remains—along with its object (i.e. money, health, a favourable situation, etc.). But what happens when faith does not secure its (promised) object? Then it unravels into hope, and faith becomes revealed as a starveling. Hope is thus faith’s kinesis, in the form of hunger/thirst—in two words, selfish desire (which is what I experienced). It was right there and then that I understood what God actually meant for me: the absence of hope—which is also the cessation of suffering. God is hopeless, not in the sense of apathy—an apathetic person is inherently hopeful, since he places faith in indulging his present emotional state, implicitly believing that this course of action is what ultimately relieves him of suffering, even if only relatively—but because it is a state of ease and burdenlessness. Thus, we find the expression: ‘God is a woman.’ For a man who finds solace in the embrace of the love of his life, God is indeed a woman. For a single mother whose only peace and comfort is her child, God is a son/daughter. For a starving man who is close to death but wishes for life, God is a bowl of rice. Once again, God is where misery is not, and where misery is not, hope as hunger/thirst is nowhere to be found.

However, the above illustrations are more accurately ‘moments of vision’ or glimpses of the divine rather than God Himself, for God wouldn’t be God if He were temporary or circumstantial rather than permanent and absolute. Therefore my conception: God is hopeless. God is where faith ceases without remainder—a state of imperturbability emancipated from hope’s ravenous, gnawing claws—perpetually reaching for a transcendent beyond, torturously sinking into one’s body and mind at every turn. (In this sense, God is beyond philosophy; God is where philosophy ends, insofar as philosophy is hopeful.)

N.B. In this view, God is also beyond religion or even spirituality, insofar as they are hopeful—that is, insofar as they serve as means to an end, i.e. self-referential.