Last year when I was reading a business book (Left brain Right Stuff by Phil Rozenberg), I happen to come upon something called “The Serenity Prayer”. It reads like…
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference”
The book was about decision making and the context was about differentiating between the things whose outcomes you can control and which you can’t. The serenity prayer was written by an American Theologist in the 1950s. I think this is the only thing you need to know to live in peace and to make good decisions, but the contradiction is that this prayer is written by a "Theologist" and the prayer is arguably one of the best arguments against the concept of religion. Let me explain…
To be clear, I am not going to argue the old theological argument for or against the existence of God. I am opinionated on that, but that’s not what this is about. But I have everything against the concept of religion. First, let’s really understand the serenity prayer. It is, in its core, about understanding the difference between the things you can and you cannot control. And if you actually can perceive the difference, there is honestly no need for religion.
Face it, not a lot of people in the Educated bunch still believe that God designed the humans, the other living beings, and the universe for this instance, which has already dented the authority of religion, but it still runs because of something called “faith”. But faith doesn’t mean anything more than believing that some supreme being(s) looks over you in every instance of your life, without having a modicum of proof for it.
Think about this deeply. why and when you really pray??? Not when you pray just for the sake of it or some naïve prayers as a child. I am talking about praying with 100% faith. What I think the case is when you don’t understand what you can and cannot control. Like before exams and results. You seriously don’t have any clue about what are the things in your control and what is not. You can study all you want, but there are a lot of variables which you don’t control and it makes you nervous and that’s why you pray. The same can be said about the people who pray before flights and not before cars. If praying is something that actually works, you should be praying before driving a car rather than before a flight.
What I think is that we are inherently incapable of discerning the difference between the things which are in your control and which you can’t. Even If you do that, we don’t have the “serenity to accept the things that we can’t control”. This is honestly the last thread on which the concept of religion and God is hanging.
If you delve deep enough you will find this as the impetus behind the practice and perpetuation of every superstition, every religious tradition, and rituals. Deep down, either we don’t know or inherently can’t execute the serenity prayer.
I still vividly remember the last time I prayed with faith… and perhaps even the first time, if you discount the naïve prayers as a child. I never believed in prayers- I either go with bulletproof strategies or have contingencies or even simply don’t care, in instances where usually people pray. But on January 28th, 2018, the final day of Formula Bharat 18, everything went south, I was really in a blur, didn’t know what was or wasn't in my control and even more importantly, we knew deep down that god need to come down and do some miracle to get our car through the Brakes test before the deadline... I have always been a non-believer, but at that instant, I religiously prayed with all faith (I seriously couldn’t stop laughing when writing this). As you may guess nothing happened. But what actually happened was we neither couldn’t live in peace with things we cannot control nor differentiate between what we can and can’t control. These are the kind of instances on which the concept of god and religion thrives on. I seriously cannot still understand how a theologist came up with the Serenity prayer…
Before you ask me “What do you have against religion?”, I will tell you. Inquisitiveness, Rationalism, and Reasoning are the key to development in all fronts (Scientific, Economic, Ideological, etc), and Religion, in its core, is fundamentally against them. It's dogmatic and unscientific. Isn’t that enough?
I don’t believe…I know that the “serenity prayer” is all that wisdom you need…you no longer need a god.
A good reading on this topic - God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
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