God: Alive in Debates, Missing in Evidence: An Agnostic's Ringside with Irreverent Uncles

 

‘God is dead’, Nietzsche announced in the late nineteenth century, not as a boast but as a diagnosis, bracketing the question of whether God ever lived at all. He was not celebrating the demise of a deity; he was lamenting the collapse of a shared moral universe once sustained by belief. His warning was less theological than civilisational. A century and a half later, God has neither died nor decisively lived. He survives, stubbornly, inside arguments, television studios, debating halls, newspaper columns, and, most relentlessly, WhatsApp forwards. This shifts the issue away from existence itself, toward something more uncomfortable: not whether God exists, but whether debating His existence leads us anywhere at all.

The recent television debate on Lallantop on the existence of God, the widely discussed face-off between Dr. Javed Akhtar, the celebrated poet, lyricist, screenwriter, and avowed atheist, and Mufti Shamail Nadwi, a religious cleric and scholar, illustrates this futility with painful clarity. Such encounters are almost instantly framed as contests: who won, who faltered, whose applause was louder. Argument is reduced to spectacle, nuance sacrificed at the altar of virality. But the very framing is flawed. Faith and reason do not share a common grammar; asking them to debate is like asking poetry to cross-examine mathematics.

From an agnostic standpoint, the problem begins with certainty on both sides. The believer arrives armed with scripture, tradition, institutional authority, and the reassurance of numbers. The atheist arrives with logic, lived experience, moral outrage, and intellectual confidence. Both speak sincerely, yet neither truly hears the other. The believer does not come to be persuaded; faith, by definition, is not provisional. The atheist does not come to surrender reason; doubt is his intellectual spine. The debate, therefore, is not a search for truth but a performance of convictions already settled.

Much was made in the debate of preparation versus spontaneity, theology versus experience, books versus lived ethics. The Mufti came heavily armed, having internalised centuries of theological argument, backed by institutions, texts, and tradition. Javed Akhtar, by contrast, appeared nearly disarmed, relying largely on reason, lived moral intuition, and the confidence of disbelief. His questions, at least to my agnostic ear, were piercing rather than performative. That said, I must confess a bias here: I have long admired Javed Akhtar for his clarity of thought, elegance of expression, and moral courage. It is entirely possible that my sympathy sharpened my perception.

Yet sympathy alone does not explain the asymmetry of the exchange. Once scientific or logical questioning is explicitly ruled out, the atheist is already playing on hostile terrain. When faith refuses the yardstick of reason, reason is left arguing in a vacuum. References to suffering, Gaza’s dead children, for instance, devastate the moral imagination, but they do not logically annihilate belief. For the believer, suffering is absorbed into explanations of a divine test, inscrutable will, or deferred justice. For the skeptic, these explanations sound like moral evasions. Both reactions are predictable. Neither advances the conversation.

Some voices from the Hindutva brigade attempted to deflect the debate by asserting that their faith is strong precisely because it allows doubt, questioning, and selective observance. But this defence was orthogonal to the question at hand. The debate was not about the flexibility or rigidity of any particular religion; it was about the existence of God as such. To smuggle religious self-congratulation into a metaphysical argument is to change the subject mid-sentence.

The oft-repeated claim that God is a matter of experience, not debate, is perhaps the most honest line in the entire discussion. Love, too, cannot be demonstrated, only experienced. Its gestures can be shown, its effects described, but its essence remains beyond proof. Yet this very truth also seals the fate of such debates: what is experiential cannot be adjudicated by argument.

It is hardly surprising, then, that such debates exhaust even attentive listeners. Fatigue sets in not because arguments are weak, but because no shared endpoint exists. When one side declares that science cannot be the yardstick, and the other insists that without science there is only superstition, the conversation collapses into parallel monologues. Agreement is not postponed; it is structurally impossible.

What further complicates matters is the persistent conflation of religion with spirituality. Organised religion, especially when tied to identity, power, and numbers, often demands obedience over reflection. It thrives on certainty, hierarchy, and boundaries. Spirituality, on the other hand, has historically unsettled institutions. Kabir offended both temple and mosque alike. Buddha rejected ritual authority and caste. Bulleh Shah and Rumi spoke of an inward God and were met with outward hostility. Mansur al-Hallaj was executed not for denying God, but for collapsing the distance between the human and the divine. The irony is stark: those who spoke most intimately of God were often silenced by those who claimed to protect Him.

The agnostic does not deny the possibility of God; he denies the arrogance of access. He does not reject faith; he rejects coercion masquerading as certainty. He observes that religion, when weaponised, has justified extraordinary cruelty, while spirituality, when genuine, has almost always spoken the language of compassion. Yet he also acknowledges a human truth: when logic falters under grief, many turn instinctively to faith. And when faith hardens into dogma, progress suffocates.

All this points, unglamorously but persistently, to a modest conclusion. Whether God exists or not, debates about Him change very little. Believers remain believers. Skeptics remain skeptical. No deity gains or loses existence points based on applause or rhetorical victory. What does change, often tragically, is the quality of our public discourse. Humility gives way to triumphalism; curiosity is replaced by combat.

What finally matters is not whether God lives, but the kind of humans we become while arguing about Him. If belief produces cruelty, it has failed regardless of metaphysics. If disbelief produces contempt, it too has failed ethically. Between blind faith and sterile rationalism lies a middle path most people already walk, questioning when strong, believing when vulnerable, thinking when possible, hoping when necessary.

The agnostic, awkwardly but honestly, inhabits this middle ground, and paradoxically, that is his comfort zone. He is spared the anxiety of defending the indefensible and the burden of disproving the unprovable. He neither claims access to divine certainty nor insists on the finality of human reason. He accepts ambiguity as an intellectual condition, not a moral failure. Free from the need to ‘win’ metaphysical battles, he remains open to wonder without surrendering skepticism, to compassion without doctrine, to inquiry without fear.

And maybe that is the quiet truth Nietzsche sensed: not that God died, but that our ability to speak of Him wisely is what is most endangered.

Since I have already bored you sufficiently with ambivalence, let me digress, like all incurable agnostics, into the more entertaining territory of my most favourite uncles, the Bard and the Mirza.

Shakespeare’s personal faith remains elusive and contested. Living in Protestant England after the Reformation, he outwardly conformed to the established church, yet his works reveal a sustained familiarity with Catholic ideas like purgatory, confession, sacramental marriage, etc., suggesting at least a residual Catholic imagination. There is no evidence, however, of doctrinal commitment to any denomination. Religion in his plays operates less as revealed truth and more as moral atmosphere, shaping conscience, guilt, mercy, and power. Shakespeare neither preaches nor polemicises; he observes.

Ghālib, too, resists neat classification. Formally a Muslim and intellectually influenced by Sufi metaphysics, he was conspicuously non-observant and openly skeptical of orthodoxy. His poetry mocks clerical certainty while remaining saturated with metaphysical longing. God, for Ghālib, is less an answer than a provocation, queried, teased, accused, and desired in the same breath.

One can almost imagine the two uncles in conversation, seated comfortably beyond time and geography, perhaps in some celestial rendezvous where Stratford meets Ballimaran. No moderators, no applause buttons, no studio lights. Just wit, wine (for one), whisky (for the other), metaphors (for both), and an infinite patience for ambiguity.

Shakespeare, ever the courteous elder, begins with a gentle shrug: “My dear Gulliver of Gaulib Street, God? Or, for people of your land, gods? Long ere we crossed the pearly gate, we lived quite happily without ever running into this God fellow. As Hamlet once told Horatio, rather wisely, a line of mine, now quoted far more often than it is understood: “…There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of…”. Having now toured both departments, I can confirm the inventory of God remains absolutely incomplete.

Ghālib, grinning like a man who has outlived his critics, says: “Bajā irshād farmāyā, Shakaspīr Bābū (Appropriately said, Shakespeare sir),  at least they still know your name; my name travels mostly under other men’s trashy verses. And, what is this hullabaloo about God? I am tempted to rewrite my couplet,

Jab ki vo kahīñ bhī nahīñ maujūd

phir ye hañgāma-e-ḳhudā kyā hai

(maujūd: present, existing, hañgāma: tumult, uproar. When He does not seem to exist, what is this uproar about God?)”

Shakespeare raises an eyebrow, speaking mischievously: “Master Galibary, we too played our part in humouring the people about God because during my lifetime, virtually everybody routinely believed in God, and I had to toe the line of the day for retaining my ability to put on plays. I should have let Hamlet improve that letter to Ophelia, by adding God to the list of doubtful items: “Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move, Doubt truth to be a liar, Doubt thou God, or gods, But never doubt that you must love...”

Ghālib warming to the heresy, leans in: “Na thā kuchh to ḳhudā thā kuchh na hotā to ḳhudā hotā (When nothing existed, God existed; if all were to return to nothingness, He would still remain), indeed! What a ruse I invented to keep theologians gainfully employed!

Janāb Shaikhpeeri, Marḥūm-e-Drama (Mr. Shakespeare, the departed man of drama), heaven or earth, there are only two universal truths.  Faith, like love, refuses to see reason and whereas the former is futile, the latter is fulfilling.

Ishq par zor nahīñ hai ye vo ātish Ghālib

ki lagā.e na lage aur bujhā.e na bane

(ātish: fire, spark. Passion in love cannot be controlled, this fire is not lit up easily or, if put out, would not be extinguished.)”

Shakespeare, enjoying a rare freedom from bishops, declares: “Mirza of Metaphysical Mischief, how mistaken I was, having Henry V declare that all our hopes were in God. Paradise experience tells me today that “Wine, not God, shall be my hope, my stay, my guide and lantern to my feet”. Falstaff, it turns out, was my most honest theologian, who in Henry IV, Part II, says, among so many swell things about strong drinks that “…If I had a thousand sons, the first human principle I would teach them should be to forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack (wine).”

This absolutely warms the cockles of the heart of Ghālib who jumps in, saying: ”Wah, Sāhib-e-Saleeloki (Bravo, Master of Soliloquy), he speaks like a true faqir, only with better funding. Apart from love, drinks are precious. In heaven, you may never see God but you will surely see, feel, smell and drink whisky.

Vaa.iz na tum piyo na kisī ko pilā sako

kyā baat hai tumhārī sharāb-e-tahūr kī

(Vaa.iz: preacher, sharāb-e-tahūr: wine of the Paradise. O Preacher, you neither drink nor offer a drink, is there something special in your wine of the Paradise?)

You were right. I have not seen God but have drunk the finest whisky here in heaven. Yes, never be stingy in drinking wine for the sake of tomorrow as it shows distrust in the generosity of the cupbearer of the heavenly lake but the couplet I wrote needs modification:

Yuuñ to kabhī na kar tuu ḳhissat sharāb meñ

vaise milegi khuub sāqi-e-kausar ke baab meñ

(ḳhissat: meanness, sū-e-zan: doubt about ability, sāqi-e-kausar: cupbearer of Kausar, baab: regard. Never be stingy in drinking even if the heavenly lake is indeed bountiful)

 

Shakespeare, settling the matter as only a dramatist can, concludes: “Thou shalt have no God or gods!  The commandments, I fear, need revision as they suffered from excess brevity; love deserved a clause, doubting God a pardon, and wine an exemption.

Ghālib, content that God remains safely undecided, adds:

Ye kah sakte ho ham dil meñ nahīñ haiñ par ye batlāo

ki jab dil meñ tumhīñ tum ho to āñkhoñ se nihāñ kyuuñ ho

(nihāñ: hidden. God can say that I am not in his heart but even with He, and only He, in my heart, why is it that he is still hidden?)

Across the wide world, God may remain an open question; between my uncles, however, He achieves something rarer—a consensus. For an agnostic watching from ringside, that itself feels like a modest victory.

…