ATHEISM

While we grow younger it gets determined by how our parents, teachers, relatives, our breathing society put us in a box based on which religion we come from. The religion is seeded in us in such a way that it gets embedded in our growth, our lifestyles, our behaviours, in fact, our existence gets sheltered by our religions.

There is a significant term known as, “rationality”. What makes the human distinct from the other species on the planet? – we are endowed with capacities to think, analyse, to reach at certain logical conclusions and hand it on to the subsequent generations.

Not only do we inherit our instincts and genes from our parents or predecessors, but also knowledge of various aspects, then we act to that knowledge and pass it on to the next. It goes on and on with time. We act to the information, collect and analyse it and reach the conclusions. That is how humans have evolved for centuries from caves to skyscrapers, from being unschooled to being cultured.

For most of us, ‘belief’ and ‘faith’ are interrelated or similar with each other.

There lies a lot of confusions surrounding it. For instance, if I state, “I believe that if I work hard I will pass the exam with flying colours” – it’s my belief since if I have the resources to study and history has proven how there is no substitute to hard work and success after labour is almost inevitable. The logic, evidence, reason and the possibility to experience it myself is available.

That is what ‘belief’ is!

Whereas, ‘faith’ is born in uncertainty – it emphasises on reaching conclusions sans any certainty, logic, witness and any rationale. If we reach a conclusion and accept the statement in the complete absence of certainty, it is what faith is!

But if it is backed by evidence or witness, it is ‘belief’.

According to me, the concept of ‘blind faith’ is flawed, as faith itself is blind; if it’s not blind, it’s not faith and hence, shouldn’t be emphasised in particular.

Because I start believing that I am the Prime Minister of the country and even if it gives me immense pleasure to think so, I would be put to the asylum the next minute since there is no proof or evidence to confirm that. But if 20 million people start believing that I am the Prime Minister, it will gradually be accepted to be true, though there is no any witness confirming it.

It is that number of people who agrees on such theories which lays out certain dignity to it. If we sit down, think logically and question the existence of it, we will certainly realise that no religion will establish any kind of scrutiny – one of the reasons to why hyper religious people are devoid of logic, reason, evidence but sentiments.

The sole thing to defend their irrational belief is their sentiments associated with it; the moment we expose that illogical aspect of their beliefs, the irrationality of it, they get emotionally bruised. It is completely understandable for them to be emotionally driven, they are nothing but helpless.

Javed Akhtar, an Indian poet once tweeted, “Even the most religious person in the world is 90% an atheist” – because out of say, ten major religions of the world, he looks at the nine religions as a rationalist, as an atheist – he loses his objectivity and rationale only with his own religion; otherwise when he looks at other religions, he is profoundly reasonable and logical. Hence, the difference between an atheist and a theist is only of 10%.

We are all raised in our religions, taught whom to pray, how to pray, conditioned in a way that it sits in the back of our brain.

Teaching religion and its belief to the child at a tender age is nothing but ‘child abuse’; very impressively we damage a part of the child’s sensibility for the rest of his/her life. It becomes difficult for them to undertake a responsibility, a pressure of such magnitude at an early age and overcome eventually.

There have been evidences of how acutely religious people starts practising atheism while they grow younger because of the overdose and as an outcome of their reactions to it. When the parents are fanatic about their religion it becomes severely impossible for the children to emerge out of it. In moments of distress, uncertainty, loss of hope or when we are really worried about the people we love, we resort to whatever we consider as ‘God’.

But the perspective of atheists in dealing with those situations is somewhat contrary to the theists – instead of falling back to the divine for support, they start questioning their existence with the thought that if God exists and it’s only He who can intervene and brush away the miseries, then there is no denying that it’s He who has poured that on to their lives as well.

There are atheists who celebrate and love festivals belonging to any religion, as if we go deeper into our understanding of every festival, it doesn’t belong to any religion, they have usurped them. These festivals are there even before religions came into existence. When the religious preachers decided to make their religions more acceptable and popular, they imbibed the popular festivals (as a popular culture) and gave them religious explanations.

The festival of Christmas which the Christians celebrate on Dec, 25 each year had its roots in Rome much before Christianity came into light. Then Christianity took it over and turned it into what is now celebrated as ‘Christmas’.

In John G. Jackson’s book, Christ Before Christianity, it is mentioned how nothing is new or original in Christianity.

Likewise, the festival of Eid too existed even before Islamism, but they gave religious connotations to it. These festivals are a part of our culture which can be celebrated by anybody in the country irrespective of the religion one follow. When we reject superstitions or dogmas, we don’t reject the celebrations or festivals with it.

The horrible social evil we have inherited along with religion in India is the cast system. few years ago, in fact, a young Dalit boy was shot and killed by the people of different casts because he had allegedly entered a temple in Uttar Pradesh. With rational thinking at this point we need to relook at this entire cast system and find our way to rid ourselves of it.

If we study the history, we would find that not only the religions in India, but the Christian forces in Latin America, Muslims in central Asia as well are not free from sins or violence. They claim to be the believers of non-violence, but practise the opposite of it. In the known history of India, there were two indigenous religions which had come – Jainism and Buddhism.

Both the religions emphasise on non-violence. Why do we need two religions emphasizing on non-violence if there is no non-violence in the country?

Our society has always been violent. Where there are casteism, there is violence. It is almost unlikely to keep a huge segment of society as untouchables without violence.

Moreover, religion is so illogical that it becomes a fertile ground for politics as well.

Humanity and rationality differentiates us from the other species on earth. We’re sane, because we think rationally. Be it being religious or sceptical, we should always reject the obscurantism of those defending any of it.

[Images from different sources]

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