The longer you walk through life’s winding paths, the clearer it becomes: life’s not fair. Not just for you, if you look closely at the lives of others, and you'll find that fairness is a myth we all wrestle with. Life’s more complicated than the mathematical equation that we’ve encountered during our education years. And most of our thought/emotional process, action, decision and the coincidences we face lies beyond the rule of cause and effect. Life doesn’t ask what we’d like on our plate—it simply serves. The only real choice we have isn’t whether to eat it or not rather it is how we eat and digest. There are countless things beyond our control. No bargaining is heard and acknowledged—just acceptance of what life hands us. Looking at the fragility of life, even a slight, accidental cut to a nerve, just deep enough can lead to irreversible consequences.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), approximately 1.19m people die in road accidents every year—that’s over 3,200 deaths per day, 133 people in an hour and two every single minute. Each of these individuals was on a journey, with their futures ahead of them. Weren’t they planning what they would do the next day? Yet, how can we justify their untimely deaths? While some religions attempt to justify it through the karma of past lives, others attribute it to destiny, believing it’s all written. And nobody knows how true this justification is and nobody will probably know. Although if we get the justification, will it bypass our emotional reaction and responses generated by the event and coincidences. I don’t think so, because rationalization lacks the power to regulate the emotion that we experience. It’s often said that everything is fair in love and war, but one thing is certain—everything is fair in life. Anything can happen, we can’t deny this fact.
Human nature is quite opposite of the nature of life. We are drawn to certainty and it comforts us. If we closely invigilate our plan and action, we can sense that they are steps taken to make our lives more secure. Our natural tendency is to seek certainty and control, but with surprises—whether good or bad—we feel discomfort, which is why we attempt to structure our environments and lives in predictable ways.
When human nature, which seeks control, meets the unpredictability of life, it results in friction. And how this friction manifests, we attempt to challenge the nature of unpredictability of life and try immensely to make it more secure and predictable. We often seek answers that lie beyond our capacity to understand. We are inclined to seek the deeper reasons behind the unwanted experiences that life presents to us. Although nobody has found and nobody probably ever will, the mysteries behind the cause of any events. This mystery creates a deep sense of uncertainty and instability within us. And Sigmund Freud argues that in order to cope with this anxiety of uncertainty, and to create a false sense of control over future events, humans tend to believe in and worship God. To mitigate this, humans invented narratives of control, with God serving as the ultimate answer to chaos. Freud argues in his books titled ‘The future of an illusion’’ (1927) and ‘Civilization and its discontent’ (1930) that if we tend to believe that there is someone in the sky who controls everything, who justifies every sin, we feel we have a shoulder to lean on. Now, let’s explore why we have this tendency to search for such a figure.
Central to Freud’s idea is the notion that children feel very secure being within the arms of parents. In those arms, one experiences the protective figure, feelings of security and are completely able to rely on their parents. Child gets an opportunity to explore life without taking any responsibility for his action and is ensured that it’s taken care of by their parents. The child often develops the belief that their parents are like superheroes, capable of solving any problem they face. This belief is why the child feels more carefree and lively, experiencing a sense of joy and security. And in the process of growing up, he slowly understands that there are a lot of things that their parents cannot control, in fact, many things that no human being can control. One understands that there’s chaos, a mystery that no one knows the formula for. No equation fits in justifying the cause-and-effect rule. As the child matures into adulthood, their cognitive development allows them to analyze and become more aware of the chaos, uncertainty and unpredictability of life. This awareness then gives rise to a profound sense of helplessness and powerlessness, as the illusion of control fades. Now I invite you, dear reader, to contemplate how one might confront this uncertainty that springs from feelings of powerlessness and helplessness.
This is where Freud’s central idea revolves around. In order to address this uncertainty, humans often turn to believe in God—a higher power who is sitting in the sky assessing and evaluating every thought, deeds and action. You can think about it. If you are powerful enough you can repay the injustice given by another human fellow. But how does one seek justice for the suffering inflicted by life itself? Although we can question the unwanted events and experiences that we go through in life, is there anyone who answers that question? Of course there’s no one—no entity to respond to our grievances. This profound imbalance, this need for meaning and resolution demands equilibrium. Here, belief in God serves as a psychological anchor. By surrendering to a divine order, we find solace, attempting to bring emotional closure to our unresolved turmoil allowing us to find comfort in the face of the unknown. Belief in God offers a reassuring shoulder to lean on.
Following Freud’s theory multiple scholars have conducted the research on our tendency to believe in and worship God. Existential security theory (Norris & Inglehart, 2011) suggests that people turn to religion more in uncertain or economically unstable environments. Research suggests that in more secure and stable environments, where there is less insecurity, the tendency to believe in God may decrease. A study by Will Gervais and Ara Norenzayan (2012) found that encouraging analytical thinking reduced religious belief. This implies that in environments where individuals feel more secure and are encouraged to engage in analytical thinking, the reliance on religious beliefs may diminish. Reflecting on these studies, can we infer that our inclination to seek support and believe in God stems from the uncertainty born of helplessness and powerlessness?
Probably we’ll never know the exact answer and the formula that guides our lives. From another perspective, could it be that we are merely puppets in a grand simulation—acting as if we have free will, while every event is already predetermined? There may be a higher power, something beyond our understanding, hidden from our awareness.
In many of the texts that Freud wrote he never argued about the existence of God. Neither he nor this article directly questions the existence of God. We both are questioning the tendency to seek solace by believing in God.
