This is a correctional facility

Atheists argue that God cannot exist because there is so much tragedy and evil around us. If God is all good, evil cannot exist and because evil exists, God cannot exist. If we look at this world objectively, the atheists are indeed correct. There are tragedies taking place every instant and with social media, it is more glaring now than ever. People more and more are losing faith in a higher power as a result of difficulties around the world.

In my opinion, losing faith in God is a bigger tragedy than all other tragedies put together. But we have to keep reminding ourselves, this world was created by God not as a place of permanent happiness but a transient place of correction. Of course, this has to be accepted as an axiomatic truth (that cannot be fully tested) - much like when we assume the laws of the physical and natural world around us are constant at all places and times. There is no way to test if light behaves the same way it did at the time of Big Bang versus today or that light on the earthly domain is the same as the light in distant galaxies. Yet practically every leading physicist from renowned universities such as Harvard, Oxford etc accepts the constant nature of light. Otherwise, no theories can be formed or explained.

Similarly, in order to understand God’s creation, the axiomatic truth is that this place was created as a place of “corrective behavior” and not “paradise”. People who believe or want to create “paradise” in a “correctional facility” will not be able to accept “non-paradise” ways of this world. In a correction facility, there will be punishments to correct and rewards for corrective behavior. There can be times of distress and times of relief from distress. Similarly in our world both global and personal, we can experience distress and relief from distress and both are meant to correct us.

So what are we correcting? – this very attitude of rebelliousness towards God’s supreme dominion. We don’t like His supreme dominion and we don’t want to hear about it or do anything with it. we (the individual) like to be independent and be the supreme dominion of our piece of land, property or people. This very attitude has landed us in this correctional facility.

A true hero will willingly submit to a superior hero with pride and dignity. Accepting defeat to a superior warrior is not a sign of defeat or shame but true chivalry. Similarly, it is only noble for a lesser person to submit his greatness to God’s Almighty greatness. If we can work in this mood of humility in front of God and all of His creation, then, as a true hero we will be released from this correctional facility.

So instead of trying to correct the correctional facility or find fault with the creator of the facility, it is in our best interest to correct our attitude and if possible teach others to correct theirs.

Hare Krishna