Complete Trust is too dangerous - just pretend believing in God

The tragic story that I told you about yesterday sparked some discussions in the media and of course also online on social networking sites. Many people just dismissed the case saying that this man and his family were uneducated and foolish. Another person said ‘It is not good to be too superstitious’ and some religious people said you should not try and test god. I wanted to reply to these and similar statements and, believe it or not, defend this man a little bit.

Why would I, the non-religious non-believer, come to the defense of a man who killed himself and his family in order to see Shiva? Because I think they have been fooled by religion into believing that Shiva would actually come and save them! It was not his intention to die or kill his family, he honestly believed he would be saved.

Those people who said he was just stupid are obviously not aware of the fact that he was not uneducated at all! He was a freelance photographer, he sent his children to school and you cannot say he was like the illiterate villager who will believe anything you tell him. No, he was not illiterate and while you may call him superstitious, there are many educated people who call themselves religious and faithful who are also very superstitious because they believe all those stories of the scriptures.

I have to laugh if you say ‘It is not good to be too superstitious’ – a little bit superstitious is okay? You now call this man too superstitious because the holy food that he gave his family was poisoned and he thought it would not harm. The fact however that you think this food is ‘holy’ at all and has some good benefit is fully fine for you! Isn’t that superstition as well? You eat this food each time after going to the temple and think it will help you – he thought even poisoned food will be good. Isn’t it the same?

The root of superstition is religion and its stories, which you can see very clearly in this example. Scriptures insist that all their stories are true and this man was actually simply a very, very faithful believer! He had full trust in god and god’s power to save him. So much that he even made a video of the evening. He read all those scriptures in which devotees are saved and he followed their example. Many believe the stories are true but few dare to do the experiment. What killed him in the end? Superstition or just a very strong faith?

So shouldn’t you all religious people actually celebrate him as the one real believer? One who had so much faith that he even ate poison? You are scared and don’t believe enough in god to be confident that he would save you! If you cannot do what this man did, you don’t really have faith in god and the scriptures!

What can we learn from the whole story? Maybe that you should not trust god completely because if you do, you will die, waiting for him to come and help you! Fool god, tell him that you believe in him and have full faith while you would never actually trust him that much!

If this is the way that you take your religion, I am again surprised that you manage to lie to yourself or your god that much. If this is what you want to do, you are free to do so but I think it is not honest. If you call yourself religious, you should believe in it 100% with all its scriptures and full faith, like this man.

And if not, I think you should not oppose me if I say that those scriptures which spread such superstition and lead to the deaths of whole families should be destroyed and forgotten so that they can do no further harm!