My Glass House of Faith & Folly
By Neil Gonsalves | A personal story and reflection about the time I grappled with whether to baptize my child or not.
Written by Neil Gonsalves for Seeking Veritas on Substack
(Image: Father and son, Nature, Walking image. Free for use from Pixabay)
“I don’t really believe in God but I’d like to think there is something after this [life], it can’t just be nothingness”
It was 2011 and my son’s arrival into this world was only a few months away. I would be a father soon and the weight of this life altering decision would challenge the very foundations of my world view, it would make me question the nonchalance with which I had infrequently questioned my own socio-religious disposition. All that inner turmoil was kicked off with a five word question exchanged with his mother; “Should we baptize the child?”
Ancestrally my family is from India and my roots within that society more specifically can be traced back to one of the smallest states in the country; an area bordered by the Arabian Sea on its western coast, a region of India colonized by the Portuguese between the years 1510 to 1961 (for those who don’t know, that’s 14 years past Indian independence from British rule). As a direct result of Portuguese subjugation, my family along with most others from that region carry the legacy of colonization through our Portuguese last names and of course, our adherence to Catholicism.
I was raised Roman Catholic by devoutly Christian parents, surrounded by family who unquestioningly accepted their faith alongside the prerequisite doctrine, dogma, and rituals prescribed by the church. I attended Catechism, served mass as an altar-boy, received all my sacraments, studied at a Catholic school and attended weekly mass with my family and friends. Like most people who are assigned their religion at birth, it was a reality I didn’t question. I accepted without introspective examination that I was obviously born by cosmic lottery into the only true religion. Of course, it never occurred to me as a child that every single religious person regardless of their theistic background made the exact same leap of faith, every one of them also born by cosmic lottery into the one true religion, only it was the religion of their family history.
Questioning faith, religion, or even practice was unheard of in my family, I suppose there was strict adherence to the idea, that blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe. Yet by the time I was ready to raise a child in this world the tacit acceptance of religious ideology absent critical reflection seemed misguided to me. My son’s mother was Christian, however through early courtship and subsequent marriage the conversation about religion had never come up.
In all fairness, neither one of us had attended church service in years. After high school I had slowly transitioned over time from a practicing Catholic, to a ceremonial Catholic (you know the ones who attend church service twice a year, for Christmas and Easter), and then to a Catholic by association only, who stepped into a church solely for weddings and funerals. Now with a child on the way we sat down to have the discussion about whether we would baptize our child and what if any religious tradition would we raise him within.
Rabbit Holes
I had shared my lack of participation in religious service with my son’s mother, as well as my quiet discomfort with dogma in general. She on the other hand, expressed a sentiment I wouldn’t come to appreciate for many years. She expressed that she didn’t practice, and wasn’t sure that she believed in God but couldn’t reconcile that with a sense of nothingness that might follow death. Nonetheless, she left the decision with me and in keeping with one of my consistent follies, I went down a rabbit hole looking for answers to questions I had previously never examined. I was fuelled by an insatiable curiosity, supported by a library of books, and a commitment to keep an open mind.
My rabbit hole turned into a journey of discovery that would last several years, span hundreds of books, debates, podcasts, videos, and articles, traversing everything from Animism to Scientology, from Greek philosophy to Stoicism, from Zoroastrianism to Mormonism. I even spent a little time trying to understand upper middle class white women committed to Ashtanga Yoga, “Chai Tea”, and understanding their vibrations so they could align their Chakras. - I didn’t have the heart back then to tell them that Chai was the Indian word for tea, and so their beverage order was quixotically redundant. - I will admit that I was never able to wrap my mind around that last group. To the best of my understanding, Lululemon supplies the uniforms, Yeti sponsors the hydration and TikTok fuels the inspiration. But I confess I was unable to learn anything more.
Things you didn’t know you didn’t know
Turns out Catechism barely covered the history of Catholicism, they seemed to have cherry picked select stories and created a seemingly coherent narrative around them while leaving out a great deal of inconvenient history, including the political involvement of the church, or the very worldly development of canonical law. I was equally baffled by the similarities of mythological stories across time and space. Little seemed original or unique. From virgin births and stars in the east, disciples and betrayal, to crucification and resurrection, the themes kept repeating themselves.
Horus (3000 BCE / Egyptian Mythology) - Born of a virgin accompanied by a star in the east, began his ministry at the age of thirty, had twelve disciples, performed miracles and healed the sick. He was betrayed, crucified and resurrected three days later.
Mithra (1200 BCE / Persian Mythology) - Born of a virgin, had twelve disciples, performed miracles. He died, was buried and resurrected three days later.
Krishna (900 BCE / Indian Mythology) - Born of a virgin accompanied by a star in the east, performed miracles with his disciples. Died and was resurrected.
Dionysus (500 BCE / Greek Mythology) - Born of a virgin, travelling teacher who performed miracles, died and was resurrected.
Jesus - (33 CE) Born of a virgin, accompanied by a star in the east, began his ministry at age thirty, had twelve disciples, travelling teacher who performed miracles and healed the sick. He was betrayed by Judas, was crucified, placed in a tomb and resurrected three days later.
Even the staple flood narratives were eerily similar across traditions, while the Genesis account of Noah’s Ark is probably the most commonly known today, the flood motif can be found almost identically in other faiths. The obvious example is the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh dating back nearly 5,000 years, but similar stories of watery mass destruction and salvation exist in Indian Vedic lore, in Aztec culture, in creation myths from Egypt to Scandinavia some involving floods that purge and then remake the earth and humanity.
I was lost, everything I thought I knew seemed incomplete. I felt duped and disillusioned, how could the people I trusted have kept me in the dark about so much? I was never clear on how to navigate which verses were literal and which were allegorical - as a child, no one would tell me. I had no idea what Pauline Christianity was, nor its divergence from the Jewish reformation that Jesus actually sought. If you told me that the most influential person in the creation of Christianity as we know it today was a man who never met Jesus, whose teachings were at odds with Peter and James and whose entire doctrine was predicated on a vision, I would have been completely dumbfounded.
As a student in a Catholic school, asking questions about inconsistencies was seen as blasphemy itself. Is this what religion demands? Blind conformity to the beliefs of my ancestors? Is this how I am supposed to raise my soon to be born child?
I never did baptize my child, convinced it was the first step in ensuring I did not indoctrinate him. I was pleased with my decision and never regretted it. Then one day twelve years later, I was driving with him in the passenger seat. I shared with him the premise of Pascal’s Wager, he turned to me and said, “I know how I would bet, that’s simple, we don’t believe in God”. It was in that moment that I realized I had indoctrinated him, only I traded Catholicism with Atheism. He had uncritically accepted the things he heard me say, and he did not question the validity of my positions. I unwittingly did the very thing I sought to avoid.
The Mast & Not the Anchor
“For the non-believer, no evidence is ever enough and for the believer, no evidence is ever required”
Today I accept that there is something ineffable about faith and the old maxim is instructive here, “For the non-believer, no evidence is ever enough and for the believer, no evidence is ever required”. Religion as a social institution provides a language, identity and community. Through shared symbols and metaphors it provides a common language for believers and in so doing creates a sense of belonging and purpose for a great number of individuals.
All around us are people who speak different languages, share different mythologies designed to help their young learn ancient wisdom, they practice different rituals, use different symbols and work diligently towards living their best lives in search of a higher purpose. Some call that purpose God, others Allah, Yahweh, Brahma, Shiva or Vishnu, others still think of it as Nirvana or the purpose of a life well lived.
We sometimes fail to recognize that the people we can’t seem to understand are actually working towards the same purpose, with similar conviction; only they are speaking in another language, using different symbols, rituals and metaphors to communicate amongst each other about that which is ineffable to us all.
Anthropologists have uncovered artifacts from pre-historic societies that indicate a practice of ritual and worship. Burial sites, art, and places of worship practices that pre-date modern societies and any known world religion. Author and scholar Reza Aslan often states that there appears to be a tendency hard wired into humans to humanize and anthropomorphize the divine. Perhaps there is validity in the philosophizing of David Hume and Ludwig Feuerbach who thought that religions, especially primitive religions, sprang from the natural curiosity about the future constantly encumbered with hopes and fears. Perhaps religion provided the language to give hope in the face of our natural limitations. A hope that nothingness was not the end of the journey. I began to understand what my son’s mother was alluding to; hope that purpose was greater than our capacity to understand.
Religion is infinitely malleable and adaptable to social circumstances and as such has constantly evolved to meet the norms and needs of societies in every epoch. Religion in many ways is a human endeavour to bring meaning to the uncertainty of the unknown. The French sociologist Emile Durkheim rejected the supernatural basis of religion but argued that it provided a collective consciousness, a social adhesive that fosters cohesion and enables and maintains social solidarity. It may be the reason so many people accept that not knowing is sufficient and faith is inspiring.
Nothing in my childhood drew my attention to the rich diversity of religious views and practices. All of them believing that their scriptures, traditions, and history are the proper interpretation of a true deity. I came to appreciate over time the richness and beauty of the storytelling at the heart of every major religious tradition. After all storytelling is the essence of being human, it is how our shared experiences and wisdom has been passed down for millennia.
Facts get forgotten, reinterpreted, and altered over time, but stories are how we keep this human journey alive. Along my journey of self discovery I didn’t find THE answer but I recognized that my role as a father was to be my son’s mast and not his anchor. Replacing one ideology with another is merely indoctrination by another name. I needed to do better, I needed to guide my son on how to think, not what to think. It’s a work in progress and it’s also a life long journey that will make for a great story that he might one day share with his progeny.
I’m still not a believer, but I have a greater respect for those who do.
About the author: Neil Gonsalves is an Indian-born Canadian immigrant who grew up in Dubai, U.A.E. and moved to Canada in 1995. He is an Ontario college educator, a TEDx speaker, an author and columnist, a recreational dog trainer and an advocate for new immigrant integration and viewpoint diversity.
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