“God doesn't exist. But don't tell that to my servant...”



“God doesn't exist. But don't tell that to my servant because I am afraid he might kill me while I sleep.” - Voltaire

I came across this quote in the book Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. It struck me as really profound. The concept of God was probably created to bring some kind of order to society. Think about it. Do you think a majority of the people who do not have the fear of divine punishment would stay away from things we consider ‘wrong’? Granted, there are some people who would not do ‘wrong’ because it is ‘wrong’. But how many such people are there? My thinking is that a vast majority of human beings, sapiens if you will, don’t do ‘wrong’ because of the fear of punishment of some kind - by the law or by God.

Take away the fear of punishment and then the world would quickly descend into chaos and anarchy. People would be doing all kinds of things - murder, rapes, cheating, dacoity, you name it.

Having law was simply not enough. People would be punished only if they got caught and then there was also the burden of finding evidence to prove your guilt. There was something more powerful than law that was needed. God fitted the bill nicely.

The trouble is the concept of God relied on something called faith. You did not need evidence to prove anything. Nobody could question anything. Dogma was the order of the day. This lead to some rather unfortunate consequences: rituals and rules.

I think religion was a good thing that man made. However, the real problems began when layers kept getting added to every religion. With every generation came another layer - a layer of rituals and rules. “You should not do this”. “If you do this, this will happen”. “If you do this ritual, this can be cancelled out”. The rituals and rules became so complex and so irrational that religions today are probably completely unrecognisable when compared to their original forms. And the most important rule was “Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die.” No questions could be asked. That would be blasphemous. With this came absolute power for the clergy and unquestioned obeisance from the laity.

In the end, religion has become a monster that is being misused so badly that it completely defeated the purpose for which it was created.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Good insights, Kamal.
Rajeev
B said…
Just started reading Sapiens
B said…
Just started reading Sapiens.
FLAMES said…
Loved Sapiens. Book has interesting thoughts on religion, economic doctrines.

Regards,
Abhinav
R said…
The only problem is that the quote is fake, Voltaire never said that. Lots of stuff in the book that are presented as facts have unfortunately only taken place in the author’s mind...