Being a scientifically-inclined person since childhood, God and religion were subjects I had to prove existed... My parents, Sohinder and Inderbir were both respected teachers. Our primary language of communication had always been English. My parents were religious and we were taught to do prayers, read scripture and pray in a language that was not only difficult for us kids but which our dear parents too found difficult to translate... Punjabi!!
My brother Gurinder, my parents, my sister Taninder and I debated every topic under the sun at the dinner table. My dad would encourage free thought but my mum would silently pray that we would one day accept our religion and culture. Mum derived from a very strictly religious background. Her father, Wazir Singh was a major influence in not only the family but the community.
Despite the free thought that dad promoted he held to one thing dearly, almost fanatically... Sikhism and the keeping of his hair, turban and other aspects of religion. He drilled it into our heads that if we were to cut off our hair or go against the religion we would not only displease and disappoint him but we would also be disowned. I personally attributed this to the fact that when dad was 14, his father, Jang Bahadur Singh, had shorn his hair and dispensed with the turban for 'health' reasons. Dad was so upset, he did not speak to Grandad for 2 years!!
So we were allowed to think whatever we liked but we were forced to follow dad's wishes in fear of being disowned. If not for the fact that dad was the most loving, caring and giving father a child could have, except for his occasional violent temper, my brother and I would easily have done what we thought was best!! Filial piety and not piety kept us "good" Sikhs.
Our schooling was in Catholic mission schools where we were taught by some close-minded teachers that evolution was a myth despite all our protests. We were made to believe in Moral Instruction that being non-Christians we could not enter heaven. I have had several conversations with 'God' to plead for my case, I promised to be good, to help where I could, to not commit any sin and to love all God's creations but the myopic priests and teachers still excluded me from his heaven as I would not accept Christianity as my religion. And so my trust and belief in God waned!!
Later in secondary school, St Patrick's, I argued that like Sikhism taught, all religions are but different ways to God but again I was shut out of the kingdom of heaven by my intolerant teachers as I was not Christian. They said even if I were good I would have to go through Purgatory, and accept Christ, before I could even dream of entering heaven. God could not be so cruel, I was determined to be an exception and so I fought on. However in my heart I felt more and more rejected and so more and more I distanced myself from God through no fault of his.
Junior College & Medical School was where the scientific method was taught to us and if one could not prove the existence of something, one was trained to deny its existence!! Further and further away God grew, though all this time I had maintained the external symbols of my faith, Sikhism.
It was not until 1990 when my first child Kavina was born that I accepted God as a fact.
