This post is
more of a confession.
I have always been intrigued by the
concept of God ever since I started thinking. Who is an atheist? What is
atheism? Who is a theist? What is theism? All these questions have been around
me for a very long time now and I have stopped to affiliate myself with the
supreme one through time. I started moving away from the supreme one following
an atheistic path until I came across a Blaise Pascal’s comment on God, where
he argues that a rational person should believe in God. If God actually did
exist, then that person is full of gains and if God doesn’t actually exist,
what is the big loss? This seemed to be a good argument.
There are billions of Gods in our earth, some contradict with
others but most try to explain the same concept in different words. I’ve not
read or learnt about all the Gods of the world, so, my views on the almighty
may seem like to have been taken in haste or like I’ve jumped into conclusions
without knowing everything, but who does know everything? There is always
something that we are bound to miss.
It irks me when people confuse theism with religion. Even
though both are intertwined, they are two different things. Religion is only
the path towards the supreme one but people forget the almighty and fight with
themselves over their separate and fundamentally not-so-different paths leaving
humanity slaughtered. I can be a theistic person without enrolling myself into an institution called religion. Religion divides more than it unites and in the Indian
context, caste has surpassed religion as the supreme discriminator of life
forms. The concept of caste based on birth is fundamentally flawed. It comes as
no surprise because it was developed later by “higher” caste Nepotists (if
that’s a word) which is not absurd in a country which was ruled with nepotism
for the major part even after its independence.
People always say that rejection of God is driven by vanity.
But I personally think, acceptance of
God as the supreme creator of the universe is the highest level of vanity. No
one can be sure(at least as of now) about the emergence of the universe; but
claiming to know the exact way it had happened as in a drama and not ready to
accept further discoveries and findings is the epitome of vanity. When the early
man was not able to explain certain things he named them God, when he didn’t
know what decision he should take, he believed in God to show him the way. What
does a civilized society do to distinguish itself from the early men? Why does
all aspects of life revolve around the concept of God? Because, I think the
concept of God is widening day by day. As far as my understanding, most religions
even establish the fact that their Gods are not just mere persons with
supernatural powers, like Krishna who
shows his true self to the left handed archer or the Holy Spirit which has always been shapeless. Then what is wrong in
following a religion, one might ask. Syadvada
is the answer. The ancient Jain philosophy says that there is no right or wrong
and that there is no one thing even if there is only one thing. Gods surround
themselves with the sphere of exclusivity
which demands conflicts of ideas which sometimes lead to violence. Perspectives
are given very little space if it is even slightly deviated away from the
accepted dogmas.
The doctrines of God is based on fear. It is not wrong to say that fear has brought us this far in
terms of development and will take us further towards expanding our race, but
when morality is concerned, on what should it be based on? God, which mostly
relies on fear? So should we base our moral values on fear? What if
hypothetically the fear factor is taken away from our minds? Will we lose our
morality?
I personally believe our moral values should come out of
respect to ourselves. Self-respect brings out the beautiful aura of morality
within ourselves. I would not let religion teach me to be a nice person only to reap the fruits of
the next/after life.
I would like to be socially and mentally aware and not
succumb to old dogmas just because they are ancient.
At the same time I wouldn’t want to miss the golden philosophical teachings
of the yesteryears just because I opted a
“rationalistic” path which is itself thereby not rationalistic. I would
like to stay out of the never ending and not-useful war between theism and
atheism like Siddhartha, who rejected the concept of God but was never
considered an atheist.
So coming back to Blaise Pascal’s argument, I personally
would tweak it a little bit. I, a modern rationalist, would place myself not in
any end of the spectrum thereby not adhering to both theism and atheism, which
would give me more space to let my brahma
(conscience) wander around in search of answers to my own questions.
As far as religion is considered I would like to part ways
with it because only then it would justify the Kali Yuga or the returning of Jesus
or the Mayan Gods (6 years late
though) or any other prediction or prophecy.
So before being an atheist or a theist or an agnostic or
whatever, let’s start being humans and show some humanity towards others,
because duh, we’re humans.
Start loving
and be more inclusive.
So that is
why I would like to label myself not as an atheist, but as a human.
P.S: People
get offended when it comes to religious beliefs, so I’ve constrained myself to
write it in a first person point of view and I‘ve just exercised my
constitutional right (see article 19 & 25 of the Indian constitution)
By Benolin
