The Age of Vanished Normalcy

That's what Martin Amis calls the epoch in which we find ourselves. I plagarised from him in the most barefaced manner, cos this, I think is a term well worth plagarising. But at the same time, we have to admit that it isn't unique to our decade, or even our century. I'm sure when the Mongols invaded the Arab world, mullahs passed each other on the street and muttered, "Never did we think this situation would come to pass, brother. Never will life return to normal". And when Nehru declared our freedom, I'm sure joyful Indians, hugged their neighbours and said, "Never will we be oppressed again in the fashion of the Brits. The old ways of living are gone". And I'm even more certain that when the Brits finally realised that Imperialism was definitely passe, old men tottering around with walking canes and puffing pipes harkened to the Good Old Days and told each other, "Never again will be see days like those. Our days of Glory are over".

I think the beauty of it all is that Never is Such A Long Time, isn't it? We humans use it casually and think of it in human terms, but really its quite an inhuman word. Life always returns to normal, its just that normal keeps changing (and not vanishing, really). Acceptance of God was once the norm. It was a given. We didn't question it. And then along came Men who Asked Questions. And sometimes those men can be so tiresome, can't they? But they made us think, and now a lot of us accept that there might be a remote possibility that there really isn't a god.

Dawkins has written a new book, The God Delusion. He makes Atheism sound as rabid and totalitarian as Medevial Christianity. The point of atheism is that there is always room for doubt, always room for questions. Therein lies its charm. In that and its acceptance of most points of view.

What Dawkins forgets (in all his animated rhetoric) is that belief and faith will always be necessary. It is all fine for me to sit here, with my college education, and my comfortable life, and pontificate on the presence or absence of God. But when you hardly make enough to feed your family, when you struggle to get through every day, and some mornings the only thing that keeps you going is the thought of a better world which will one day be yours, who am I or indeed, who is Dawkins to take that away?

I love the way Larkin says it,

"It pleases me to stand in silence here;
A serious house on serious earth it is,
In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,
Are recognised, and robed as destinies.
And that much never can be obsolete,
Since someone will forever be surprising
A hunger in himself to be more serious,
And gravitating with it to this ground,
Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,
If only that so many dead lie round".

He was talking about churches, and the reason why they will never be obsolete. But it might just as well be applied to religion and belief, no?