An Agnostic says...

Last month world witnessed the horror of two air plane crashes that no one expected would come in such a small period of time. They have been catastrophic for Air France and for the families of some 450 people who witnessed their loved ones haplessly disappearing in the blue waters from where there was no return. Air France flight 447 and Comros Airbus310 both were ill fated with bad weather conditions and both went down in the oceans leaving no escape for the passengers. But as no single victim from Air France flight was lucky to survive, a 13 yr. old teen from Comros flight miraculously survived the ordeal and she remains the only known survivor to be rescued from the second crash of the month.

Miracle it was. Yeah that’s what everyone thinks. And so was the heading on one of the article on http://www.timesonline.co.uk - ‘Miracle survivor of Comoros Airbus crash tells of rescue from Indian Ocean wreckage’. The most intriguing things about this article were not in the content but in the comments section below. Here is an account of what i read in that section.

The comments started with a lady thanking God outrageously for saving the girl’s life. She was then followed by a bunch of theists who were thinking in the same line and thanking God. I had a wide smile on my face reading their thanksgiving speeches.

The chain of thanksgiving got broke when a comment from Roy said – ‘If God did it, why didn't he save the other 153 on the plane? It's got nothing to do with God at all’. Hmm pretty logical, I thought. Surely this guy is an atheist, I realized. But what I think didn’t matter at all because after this the comment section on the miraculous teen’s story became a battlefield for the theists and the atheists. The Jesus’ and Allah-uh-Akbar’s posts were now followed by aesthetics of hate. ‘I don't understand how people bleat on about God saving this one young girl when 152 others souls were condemned to an early death!!! ‘- said an atheist. Then a theist replied –‘ GOD: was, is & will forever be. 1000 yr's in human time is but a spec of a moment to GOD. How can mere mortals even comprehend this being, except to read his holy word and praise him? It could've been much worse. Yet he saved this girl’. Hmm impressive?? Well then what about this comment by an atheist scientist–‘How exactly is her survival beyond the realms of science? Even if the chances of surviving such a crash are one in a million then we would expect one person to survive for every 1 million who die. Nothing miraculous about it, just the way probability works. Well within the realms of science.’ ??Now when you get to see such a sexy rationalism then how you are not supposed to fall in love with Science? Isn’t everyone just amazing in defending his/her views? No doubt every human in that comment section was a genius in putting his/her subliminal theories.

But in between this utter cynicism, don’t you think all of them forgot one thing?? You may be or may not be thankful to God but why did you forget to thank the rescue team who actually saved the girl’s life? Aren’t they the heroes? They put their lives in danger to pull others out of danger. Those who question God’s existence or absence can’t question on the existence or absence of such heroes. So why are we all so indifferent to them? What if the rescue team would have arrived late or if the rescuer had not spotted the girl or he would have just ignored her for not risking his life into danger? Rescuers are the ones who come out of all the odds not for themselves but for the others. Even if the courage to survive was given by God to that girl or even if he was responsible for sending the rescuers in time, what is the harm in thanking and showing your sincere gratitude to them? God’s role is a never ending debate but the fact is that if the rescuers wouldn’t have arrived in time, it would have been a repetition of Air France 447’s story.

But when will man understand this? When will he understand that nothing can be proved about God but everything can be proved about a human? Why can’t we live in reality and stop worrying about someone whom we have never seen. We fight for him, we hate for him and we are blind for him. The blindfold of ignorance about God has deprived us from being loved by each other. And the irony is that people’s God had always wanted us to love each other. So, I am happy in keeping an agnostic point of view. It doesn't let me hate humans who are different. And if you have any doubts then believe this that at least it doesn’t let me ignore the role of rescuers and girl herself who were audacious enough to fight against death. Salute to the dauntless rescuers and the courageous girl who defied death together.