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Sunday, March 7, 2010

The Atheist , The Man of God and the God Man

The very concept of God is so overly anthropomorphized, that some of the mentally strongest, the most intelligent, and the most rational of our species ends up disbelieving in it. I think that this anthropomorphizing stems out of a very human urge, to see God as a human, with superhuman abilities, all stemming out of the belief that “God made Man in his image”. So if any other species apart from human were to develop a brain sizeable enough to interpret divinity, will they perceive God as some sort of a super-animal ? I am not kidding at all , that was a very serious question . Say , if Lions had an average IQ of a human , will their society depict God as a Mega Lion ?

The very existence of light, gravity and matter, and the universe which encompasses it all cannot be denied. And neither can the existence of the source or rather the origin of all energy, whose different manifestations are absorbed by all our senses. If some us fail to see God, in all likelihood the cause could be those who try to force their knowledge upon us. If someone is an atheist, maybe he is so because all his life so far, he has seen it as nothing but an evil influence, either directly or indirectly , the greatest excuse ever to shed blood . If an atheist defies religion and God, then those who don’t must acknowledge, that is takes courage to go against a prevalent and widespread social belief and custom and considerable mental verbosity to proclaim your iconoclastic beliefs.

Let's say an atheist was explained Life , Evolution , The Universe , the Big Bang and the concept of Consciousness in as a scientific manner as possible . And then, he is told that there is a theory which points towards a common factor binding it all together. Something on the lines of the Unified Field Theory. And we call it the G.O.D. factor. What will he believe then ? And what will he challenge ?


The following is a comment left on one excellent post by Chrysalis by a close friend of mine, Dj.

“Amazing post....very rationally written! Could'nt have agreed more wth u..... i guess there are very few existing on this planet in the present "kali yug” who truly understand the notion of "I" and "GOD", and you sure r one of them.

I too was born in a religious family, on occasions over religious. Could never grasp the rationality of pomp and meaningless rituals, hence almost turned atheist. But whatever Vedic texts, quantum physics I have read and blogs like this one draw me back to the concept of "I" and "God". Would love to read another such post on these lines. Please keep writing.”

As Dj says, he almost turned an atheist. And why? Because it was expected of him, to believe in the notion of God and practice his religion, on its face value, to synchronize himself with it , just for the sake of it . But the scientist in him could not let him go astray, he almost rejected it. It was only when he started discovering the spiritual aspects of it, he moved further towards it. He is trying to understand God through Quantum Physics, Vedas and Rationality. Whether he fails or succeeds is immaterial because the path he is treading on is right. That is what religion, “the way to the Almighty”, is , and should be according to me . Dogmas, Rituals and vengeful Personal Gods is what it has been reduced to . From Millitant GodMen , to Proselytizing GodMen , with the Horny & Profiteering GodMen thrown in the middle. My usual angry self, lets out a disgruntled sigh every now and then, at the religion coated bull shit thrown in my face. But more than that, what hurts is that why does no University have a course on becoming a successful GodMan.

These are the visible flaws of Religion. Leave alone the fact whether God exists or not for a moment. As I said earlier, if you just consider the amount of blood that has been shed in the name of God, don't you think many sane, rational, and good people will become atheistic?

One last thing that DJ said, an experiment he proposed years ago from now , back in the Golden Days. The idea is to raise a child in an environment where he is not subjected to the notions of theism or atheism. No mention of the existence or absence of God at all. And then you wait, to find out whether this child does ever go down that road? Does he ever ask those impertinent questions? The experiment bears a stark resemblance to The Truman Show.And it would a cruel experiment to carry out.

The most irritating and intolerant aspect of this rigmarole is the ceaseless arguments, bickering, fights and bloodbaths, over convincing each other of the existence of our own personal Gods, our different versions of him. The most exasperating part is the need to get acknowledgement for our own beliefs from people, who may think or perceive very differently, and so, would obviously misconstrue or not construe at all , of what we do. It is like an Arab fighting with a Hindu, where the Arab is willing to behead the other, and the Hindu eager to burn him alive, for what the Arab calls “aab” is referred to as “jal” by the Hindu, and the two are completely oblivious of the fact that no matter what you call it or how you see it, it is Water.

I have come across quite a few communities in Orkut, where there is an ongoing war-of-the-word between theists and atheists. I have seen some of these battles take place on the blogosphere as well. And I try to stay away from them now, for neither will my arguments serve any purpose, neither will I change my belief system. Change is brought about by self realization, and everything else can be nothing but a catalyst or an influential agent. The manner in which members of both the schools of thought, keep trying to convince the other about their misconceptions, would shame the most passionate of all zealots.

So you believe in God, or you don’t. Cogitate, contemplate, debate, retrospect and introspect! Make your decision, and please live with it in peace. But why force your belief down somebody else’s throat. What I fail to understand is that why can't it be left to me and me alone to decide whether I bow before a God or not. I like most devout Hindus do bow before an Idol out of reverence, love, awe and sometimes fear. As a child, the Holy Trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh were super men who created, preserved and destroyed. The Mother Goddess was a fiery and ferocious, yet a very loving and nurturing mother, all of humanity being her children. As an adult, I sometimes feel that the Holy Trinity is nothing but the process of creation, preservation and destruction, the source of those fundamental processes . The Mother as once pregnant with the seed of the life, the point of singularity for the Big Bang, and nurturing the Universe since its conception . I believe so, because of the way I was raised. And I do not think it has impaired my judgment or reasoning.

As I developed my own thought process, I have questioned my own beliefs, tested them, and drew my own conclusions. And this process of design, development and testing is an ongoing one, and never shall it cease, even if I come to disbelieve. I am not inspired by the way I practice my faith to kill, rape, murder or maim. If, I am vengeful or murderous, if I harbor hatred and negative sentiments for my fellow beings , it is more due to the shortcomings in me as a human and a man, rather than the work of the Big Guy. For I am the product of my own deeds, my very own actions have shaped my character, my life and destiny.

Now it won't make much of a difference if I perceive that God as personal or impersonal, whether I envision Him as the expanding and contracting Universe or just a scintillating source of light. I do NOT like being labeled delusional. And as far as evidence or proof of the existence of God is concerned, does the absence of evidence imply the evidence of absence? It is positively insulting to be told that my belief in a higher power suggests that I have a closed mind. That function is governed by weltanschauung of the individual. Freedom to Believe in God or Not is one of the most fundamental of all liberties, and it should be treated like one. As I see it, the myriad schools of thought in this World pertaining to the matters of existence and/or absence of God, could be envisioned as lenses of different tints and hues, and nature, convex, concave, spherical or cylindrical. Light cannot be but seen in different ways through them.

I, for one, believe that no faith is totally good or bad as such. Using the water example here again, religion like water is tasteless, colourless and odourless. So it is the followers who spice it up, aggrandize it, embellish it appeal to their own taste buds, sometimes so, that it doesn’t appeal to the other fool.

"Religion is the opium of the masses”. And how do most drug addicts end up ?

Coming back to atheism, I truly and sincerely respect some of them. If I dislike a few, it is because they are no different from a religious fanatic, perpetually busy shredding every damn thing that Religion touches or inspires. I hope the Atheistic movement does not become another Organized Religion without a God. I fervently hope that the day never comes, when they too become one of the enemies of Humanity, not unlike the many religious extremists plaguing the Planet right now. The intelligent indifference of Atheism should never become the murderous zeal of a Fanatic.

To Believe or Not to Believe, is a very personal and individual choice. You have the right to shred, demolish and question my belief system, but no right to judge or annihilate me for being an adherent, provided it is not the direct or indirect agent of death, destruction and chaos.

A theist and an atheist, once saw the glimpse of entire universe, in its enormity and magnificence, and were awed beyond expression by it. The theist yelped, “Oh My God! This is Him!” The theist interjected in an equally wondrous, yet a slightly rational tone, “No, my good man. That is nothing but the Universe. And it is incredible.”


P.S. : Why the hell did I not think of becoming a God Man ? It hurts to realize that I will have to start as a novice in this Industry , and then gradually work my way up , even though I keep yapping about Religion and Philosophy most of the time . So please pray for me . I promise you , I swear I will not succumb to Horniness , and I will treat all men,women,children and animals,and certain inanimate objects with the Total Respect . Pray for me , so that one day I can quit my job and become Super Shree Sanganak Swamy Manipal Maharaj . To SMSize it , sm42_Baba . What say you ?

P.P.S. Do think about your belief system , and compare it with others .

11 comments:

Pagan said...

Yes, God is a much maligned word. The Upanaishads tell that You are that Being, to which everything happens. The Sun shines and the wind blows out of 'terror' - terrified by YOU!

भीषाऽस्माद्वातः पवते
From fear of Him does Wind blow

भीषोदेति सूर्यः
From fear of Him does Sun rise

भीषाऽस्मादग्निश्चेन्द्रश्च
From fear of Him Agni and Indra (act)

Heisenberg tells us the same but with a lot of mathematical equations.

I guess what remains is to find out who you are.

Anonymous said...

People who believe in God aren't so much closed minded as they are way too open minded to things that can't be shown to exist.

As for the anthropomorphizing of God, that, along with giving attributes to or giving credit to God, is the biggest problem religion has next to the total and complete lack of evidence, not just for God, but for anything supernatural whatsoever.

When you give attributes to God, it makes it much easier to refute. If you want to believe in a God, and you want to make sure that your belief isn't looked at as totally unsupportable nonsense, the only ones that seem to be able to withstand scrutiny are deist and pantheist ideas of God. Why do you think that the popular arguments for the existence of God are deist arguments and not theist?

In other words, don't claim God intervenes. Don't claim that God cares. Don't claim God interacts. Just say your God created everything and now he doesn't care. That way people won't really have so much to laugh at you about.

Anonymous said...

"To Believe or Not to Believe, is a very personal and individual choice. You have the right to shred, demolish and question my belief system, but no right to judge or annihilate me for being an adherent, provided it is not the direct or indirect agent of death, destruction and chaos."

Very well said...This stands true for other beliefs and lifestyle choices as well...

BK Chowla, said...

I am in complete agreement with Bones.

Anonymous said...

Interesting point on the anthropomorphisation of God....and I wonder why it is so difficult to live and let live....

Let me know if you want a partner in the godman career!

Cheers,

Quirky Indian

aShyCarnalKid said...

@Godlessons

Define 'Exist' .

And no matter what , Energy reacts , interacts and intervenes .

aShyCarnalKid said...

@Inferno

Well Said . And Welcome .

@Bones & B K Chowla

Thanks . :)

@Quirky Bhai

Join the gang . Jump on the bandwagon . But what shall we call ourselves as a group ? :D

Unknown said...

Hi, I'm an out and out atheist from Chennai. Your post made for quite interesting reading. While I agree with most of what you said, I'd just like to state a few points from my perspective. Your post gave me the impression that you feel that people "stray" into atheism mostly as an act of rebellion against domineering religious influences and pressures in their environment. I agree with you partly. I know people who have become atheists as a reaction to unfortunate events or as an act of rebellion. But there are also atheists who simply look at the claims made by religious people over the centuries in favor of God's existence and find the evidence to be woefully inadequate. You were talking about energy, big bang etc and you concluded by saying that there is a source for all this which you then assume to be an intelligent entity called God. But why this assumption? Why are we suddenly positing an intelligent entity from nowhere out of thin air without any evidence whatsoever? Is the concept of God an answer to our question or is it simply a red herring to mask our ignorance? Anyway, like I said, the rest of your post is exceedingly thought-provoking and interesting. Keep posting. Cheers :)

aShyCarnalKid said...

@Srips

Agreed . We don't just need an entity called God to link it all together . But what if even scientific evidence points in that direction ? Not about the existence of a Religious God per se , but a common link . A theory of Everything .

Arun.N.M. said...

Very good post My feeling is it is the need of a person that make him a believer or atheist Animal brains are not developed enough to generate a need for God.Many persons who were atheists in their 20s and 30s may transform into believers as they grow old because in them a need is developed.

Pritz said...

First of all I respect your opinion and agree with your post..

My question- Who created God? Humans..
We are all scared what happens in future so we are not able to enjoy the present.. To be able to enjoy the present, the humans invented God to whom you can transfer your problems, be free and enjoy..

I believe in God, but only as God. I go to temple and pray to the God I believe.. It gives me peace and happiness.. I don believe that chanting mantras will make any difference.. So according to you, where do I stand?

Oh my god I can write a whole post on this!