Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Questions and doubts...

Nowadays, it is least astonishing to find an atheist among your friend circle. Roughly ¾ths of this population has lost faith in God. It is one of the latest trends. For many it is considered equivalent to your level of clairvoyance and a proof of how knowledge has widened your wisdom. There are many who chide at the concept of God and bawl heavy dialogues basically mocking the existence of God with no substantial backing.
And the believers on the other hand believe in it, only because they fear it and neither do they have a substantial reason for believing. There are many whom I know who fail to give any explanation and end up answering like, “I know he is there and I believe in him with complete faith. It is upto you now to believe it or not.”
And there are also many who give inane reasons like, “Why else do you think there are happenings around the world whose source no-one knows about? Who else do you think looks after you in your tough times? How is there supernatural stuff in this world noone has an answer to? It is he, god, who supervises all that is happening in this world and guides us. Everything in this world is predecided, we are just puppets to perform the task decided for us.
I know these sound illogical and misguiding, and if it is the only explanation provided by the believers, then there is no surprise to see the increasing number of atheists. And the result is that the upcoming atheists have no proper reasoning to support their atheism and merely opt for it due to lack of proper guidance and valid reasoning.
And in this crowd of growing atheists, I found one undying hope in a believer whose ideas never palpitated even after receiving much criticism about supporting the concept. While talking to her in this context I felt a little inspired. I was impressed by one thing: finally somebody who firmly believed in religion had a reason to believe in it. As we were arguing, she said that it is one of the ways that checks that a person does not cross his limits. A religion gives one a set of rules he must follow to live a decent harmless life. And the rules aren’t set by any common man. They are set by an intellectual keeping in view the psychology of man and the rules best suited for him. They have been followed over generations now and widely accepted because of its feasibility.
It was then a question arose that how can a single person decide what rules should every man and that it should be a decent level of sense everyone should have to not cross limits and be in control. A simple answer to that is “Every man has their own definition of decency and vulgarity. If man is let to abide only to the rules set by himself, why would he make a rule for himself then at the first place. He would do whatever he wishes to with no sense of guilt which would lead to absolute chaos. If man is guided by a set of rules provided by his religion and he agrees to follow it by the fear of the supreme power of almighty, why not? It is only profiting to have such a concept.
As I was writing it down, a question arose in my mind, “Till when can you fool around with humans, creating illusionary characters (lets not debate on this for now) for him to fear and abide by some rules? It is like taming an active kid to sleep by frightening him with tales of ghosts and other scary creatures. After a period, the child will outgrow to such stories and find solid explanations to defy its existence.
“Has the time come in human’s survival to outgrow the subsistence of God???”

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Adaab

I disagree with your statement that atheism is a new trend! Charvaka Lokayatha and similar philosophies are a part of our tradition and history.

Indian philosophy had two radical streams: one dint deny the existence of god but said that god isnt the creator but the other stream said god does not exist at all.

Its not a recent trend! And wester philosophy also has atheism in it from time immemorial.

"God is dead" said Neitzche later on. But long before that many philosophers said that god does not exist at all.

Who says that atheists dont have a logic explaination? Do read Bertrand Russell's book 'Why I am not a Christian' and also Bhagath Singh's 'Why i am an athiest'. If you knew Kannada i would have suggested to read 'Devaru' by A.N.Murthy Rao. These works will give a logical expalaination to the belief that denies the existence of god. Coming to religion, kindly read Einstein's essays on Religion. They are insightful and enlightening.

Let me quote A.N.M from his work 'devaru' at the end: its not a sense of pride that i enjoy when i say god doesnt exist. it pains when i say so. i wish there was a god, who could actually do wonders. but sadly, there is no god and this fact hurts me.

Peace,
Samvartha 'Sahil'

PS: open for debate.