The last couple of weeks there were a couple of times I ran into an argument on the issue of faith. Both the times, my friends claimed that people in general were losing faith in God because the world as we know it is becoming more unsafe with every passing day. The examples they gave varied from the unknown suicide bomber who might be standing next to you in a crowded bus stop to the monster that is capable of raping 3 year olds. And each of the examples were more horrendous than the other. But, the question that keeps creeping up in my mind is whether the world as a whole is becoming unsafe to live in. Even if that is the case, why do people lose faith in God when most of the reasons for the world being unsafe is manmade? First lets examine if there is any truth in the conclusion about safety.

Everyone of us who live in big cities are worried about a terrorist attack striking us. But, do these terrorist attacks make this world more dangerous than it was at some point in the past? Or, do all these terrorist attacks happen because some people are not happy about the freedom we have or the economic progress we make? But leaving all the moral and political reasoning aside, do these terrorist attacks make this world a dangerous place. Though it may be counter intuitive I personally feel, that the world is now the safest than ever it was in recorded history. When I say dangerous I don't talk about the possibility of physical injury alone.

Today we have institutions in place which keeps in check the forces that are controlling (ruling elite) the world. Think about a world without a UN, or an IAEA. There are the human rights commissions that are fairly independent in the developed countries and to some extent in our country. And today, think about how many people have come out of the hold of caste system by moving to the cities and getting themselves a decent way of life. Some parts of our country is still under the spell of this vicious system which is based on utter nonsense. Today there are more avenues for the common man to express himself, to voice his concerns and demonstrate against the ruling class if need be than ever was.

Coming back to the problems that face us, we have to realise that each one of them is man made. Say if I am from Bihar and I see the sorry state of Bihar under Laloo Yadav. If i feel sad and decide I cannot do anything about it (which may be the case for very many) and expect God to do something about it, its not going to happen. Reason number one, Laloo is a product of a system designed by us. He is a product of a long history of exploitation of one caste by another. Reason number two, by putting the responsibility on God (whose very existence is questioned by a few), we are excusing ourselves of any culpability. In any case, until someone comes around to create an awareness among a critical mass of population, the problems afflicting Bihar will not disappear. And Bihar is just one example. The same reasoning can be applied to most of the man made troubles we might have.

The practice of Sati did not go away until RajaRam Mohan Roy came around to create awareness about this atrocity. Similarly, Mahatma Gandhi created the necessary awareness among the masses about our need for independence. So are the examples of Periyar, Bharatiyar, Jesus, Buddha etc., They all created a mass awareness about a cause and in some cases have tried to show a way to deal with it. Terrorism is again a problem and it has to be dealt with. The cause is human and the one doing it human and I don't see any reason for losing faith in God just because we are not ready to face the problem and deal with it. When i say deal with it I mean to go to the root of the problem and stop the menace from growing. Not nuke all the places that you might think terrorism originates from.

The way I see it, faith in God is on the rise (except maybe western Europe whose population is shrinking anyways). And since most of the problems facing us are human, there is no reason calling GOD to make amends for them. Lets try and do our part to make our system better and leave everything that is not in our hands to GOD.

C Karthikeyan

P.S. My special thanks to Rahul, Subbu and V Karthik for their ideas.