My charity work connects me to the trials and suffering of people who have genuine reasons to believe that God is a delusion and he couldn’t possibly care for humanity in the way religion promises. And if God did, then he’s ineffectual, perhaps even defeated. Among the marginalized people of the world, I believe that refugees suffer the harshest lot, for they are the wounded survivors of the worst hatred among men. The Latin aphorism, “homo homini lupus” (Man prays on man like a wolf) cautions against those who attack the powerless; those who wreak havoc in the dark night of helpless despair; those who cut short innocent lives with callous abandon; those who leave nothing behind of homes and villages, but blackened ruins. There is a darker side to human nature that laws, treaties, conventions and prayers, have failed to control even today, in the 21st century. The godless ruthlessly ensure that “might is right” across much of the globe.
Each of us contemplates divine justice within the framework provided by the experiences that make us who we are. We might appreciate the advantage of “turning the other cheek” in a civilized society where police respond in minutes to emergency calls, as recently happened to me after 22 years in Hong Kong. But how do we relate this belief to the conditions that prevail across three-quarters of the world, where violence strikes ferociously and most victims fall silently and unwitnessed? My friend Joseph was shot twice in his right leg. However, both bullets narrowly missed his tibia, which allowed him to escape and dodge death. I wouldn’t go as far as calling it a miracle, but, crucially, events like this either reinforce or weaken our trust in God. It is said that “a faith untested is no faith at all”, which raises the question: why are some people repeatedly cast into life and death trials, while others comfortably breeze through life?
How sad to reduce faith to mindless routines, to tedious rubrics of liturgy, to rituals seemingly of a bygone era embraced through customs and religious nostalgia. Look how often baptism is received as a pure formality. It becomes a perfunctory event to satisfy conventions, rather than entrust children to the Living God, who guarantees to strengthen them for every future trial. What can we aspire to without the uplifting power of faith? How can we grapple with the enigma of life and the mystery of suffering and death without faith? What vanquishes fear and anxiety? When religion is sidelined in the pursuit of egotism, what follows is a progressive weakening of the spiritual strength that is foundational to human resilience. We are free to treat God as an unreasonable fantasy and superstition, but it subtracts enormously from our potential – for faith alone elevates the mind above petty concerns, enlightens reason and enhances human dignity.
