PLACEBO

on friday i sat at jummah in lahore, pakistan listening to the imam recite the quran by heart.

devotees stare into their hands to pray and prepare themselves for worship in the mosque. today on a sunday i dodge church traffic in greenville sc and find a table among christians grabbing coffee between services. they stare into their iphones with bibles under their arms. they wear their sunday best to show respect to a god who prefers collars on men and not to see the knees of the women he apparently regrets designing to be so beautiful and alluring.

the romantic anthropologist in me heard the imam sing and felt moved to tears as the arabic flows through loud speakers, echoing an ancient way of life. the westerner in me was haunted by the sound as my mind filled with images of falling towers and decapitated journalists. the athiest in me finds the songs of devotion hollow and pathetic. i feel the same mixture of judgments as i witness my fellow south carolinians dashing through the rain on their way to church. yet when i visited st. paul’s cathedral for the vaulted ceilings covered with iconography i cried listening to their choir sing the songs of advent in latin. i am an alien among their traditions but not immune to their effects.

we are a strange type of primate who can’t help ourselves but to manufacture gods in our own image. then we produce artifacts and infrastructure and rules about the governance of women and slaves, blaming the mandate on god as his divine revelation. we are smart enough to build abstract concepts and faith structures to explain the questions we cannot answer but rarely clever enough to realize we’ve been duped. we fall in love with an idea exhibiting fervent devotion. it seems to be something we need, a placebo pill everyone is born addicted to.

i see the religious zealots as idiots and feel pity. how stupid they must be to lose themselves in a god.

i want to separate myself from their ranks with my mental superiority, found blameless of their unquestioning beliefs and enslavement to a lie. yet i am among their kind and find no escape. i too have fallen for gods in the past. the only difference is the exposure i’ve had to alternative ideas which found purchase in the fertile soil of the doubting, unstable, skeptical psychological state of my mid twenties. can i really take credit for the conditions that made shaped my mind towards god’s rejection? the early loss of my father, exposure to secularism through various encounters with random coworkers and authors, the theological challenges of professors and drinking buddies - all conspired together with ever-present doubt to pry off the talons of my fundamentalist christianity.

i enjoy feeling better than my brothers and sisters who remain chained to the delusions of god and eternity their parent’s gave them. but there is no god keeping score of who was clever enough to be in on the joke, to ask the questions necessary for His own demise. when i die no one will say “well done! you remained pure of all religious trappings!” my religious friends and i will receive the same fate in the end - absolute oblivion. we will attend our cultural functions, eat bread and drink caffeine, serve our gods or argue about their absence, yet in the end our bodies and ideas rot in the ground all the same. the sound waves emitted by a pious imam’s calls to prayer and hillsong’s stadium tour will one day dissipate in the cosmic microwave background as this struggling incarnation of god-making sapiens are forgotten.

until then, i walk as an alien among them. i photograph their churches and mosques, showing curiosity about their customs. they don’t realize my secret - i am poison in the well, an antichrist by their own definition. i keep their sugar pill under my tongue, spitting it out when they aren’t looking before absorbing any of the toxins. if the brother next to me at jummah knew the heresy running through my mind, would he kill me? have me stoned on the steps of this beautiful mosque? would the christians in this coffee shop run out screaming if they had full access to my critique of their world view? i feel like a spy behind enemy lines wherever i go. they feed me chai and paratha and decaf espresso though i reject the very notion of the god underpinning their culture and identity.

i’d like to think myself clever as i pity these poor bastards who believe jesus or allah hears their pleading. but it is mostly luck or misfortune, perhaps, that lead me to my view of reality.

is it truly a better life to know there is no god out there with a plan or positive regard for my life? that we are truly alone, an anomaly on this space rock who gained consciousness long enough to make a weird motherfucker like me who thinks we may have it all wrong? how is it lucky or beneficial to be free of the comforting delusions of the devoted masses? i have been informed of of our collective terminal illness and the many ways our end could be brought forth but i have refused the placebo pill everyone else enjoys, the opium of false-certainty. is this it’s own brand of madness to deprive my mind of the sugar pill it wants?

the evidence suggests that no one is coming for us. there is no higher power with a special interest in my suffering or success. i struggle with anxiety and ocd - how could i not? i think i am here for no higher purpose than genetic accident and the miracle/nightmare/mystery of consciousness. if a god has an intention for us his creation it must be, by my math, to suffer and squirm under the weight of existence briefly before returning to oblivion. i can’t find a satisfactory view of god’s handling of humanity that doesn’t look like negligence or evil.

and yet i am insanely jealous of my fellow creatures, slumped over in prayer as allah’s brand of opium enters their bloodstream. i envy the way it must feel. life through the lens of my muslim brother seems so straight forward. submit to the will of allah in all things and all of your problems will work themselves out inshallah. i imagine it is relieving to have such clear direction - so little of the existential uncertainty i experience. i wish i could believe that an all powerful force was on my side. that i could be a as jesus suggested, a flower of the field or a bird of the air who doesn’t worry about tomorrow for they know the lord will provide.

i see my muslim sister curling under her hijab bearing the full weight of man’s superstition, the real threat of violence she faces, and remember what total submission to allah really means.

my pity turns from the muslim devotee or first presbyterian to all of us sapiens. we are a sad bunch indeed. clever enough to anticipate our imminent destruction yet merely capable of creating placebos that have no meaningful impact on the nature of our predicament.

no god will reward my atheism or grant you a host of virgins if you pull the cord on your vest.

this is all we have - these brief moments of wakefulness on a ball of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen hurtling through nothing, headed nowhere.

i can only hope to see my precious moments of existence as clearly as possible. i continue to pass when offered the placebo though i shake from withdrawal. i will watch my life happen and draw to a close through the clearest vision i can muster.

i’m grateful i’m not alone in my pursuit of clarity. i am proceeded and surrounded by many camarades who stand firm on the edge of the void. no matter the story we grew up on, and whether we realize or like it or not, we’re all in this together.

as my friend paul says,

may we keep the faith