A friend of mine recently passed me this book called The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, a scientist whose name I am familiar with thanks to his previous work The Selfish Gene. When showing me the book, my friend commented “It’s a highly controversial book…but extremely thought-provoking.” Now that I have started reading it, I feel that no other description is more apt.
The God Delusion, in one sentence, is an argument against the existence of god. Now you can see why my friend considered it controversial. In these days, when fanatics from every religion are ready to jump down your throat and claw their way out, even thinking about the non-existence of god is blasphemy. Indeed, ‘blasphemy’ is the term that is used by most English-speaking evangelists (of any religion) while referring to such atheistic beliefs. I have to admire Dawkins’ guts. Not only does he have to contend with hot-headed religious crusaders who will be ready to throw him down the nearest available volcano but also with aghast academic theologians, mortified television evangelists, affronted ritualistic priests, hurt spiritual gurus and last but definitely not the least, a largely god-believing public who think he’s either joking or eccentric (or both). I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s physically attacked by some zealot in the near future.
Why does God make us so emotional? Let’s face it, most of us do not involve god in our daily lives apart from a morning prayer. Whether or not, God grants us success in our lives, most of us do not have any objection to labelling these successes as our own. A lot of us tend to remember god only during dark and difficult times. I do it myself. There’s this popular e-mail that keeps coming back to my account about god and man walking on a beach, leaving two sets of footprints except at more rough places where there is only one set. Man accuses god of abandoning him during hard times but god replies that the one set of footprints belongs to god and he was carrying man in his arms during those times. A rather warm fuzzy story but one which is also truthful. Far from god abandoning man during difficult times, it is man who abandons god during good times. Neale Donald Walsh in his book Conversations with God describes a scene where god tells him “When disease doesn’t exist, people don’t need doctors; when legalities don’t exist, people don’t need lawyers; when conflict doesn’t exist, people don’t need armies; therefore when problems don’t exist, people don’t need God!” Though I’ve taken this sentence slightly out of context, I don’t think people will disagree with the views I’ve put forth over here.
There are millions, especially in India; however who will disagree with me. They’ll claim that god is an integral part of their daily lives. I can just imagine those indignant replies that will be directed at me right now
“How dare you say that, I say? I pray to god at least twice a day. I go to temple once every week. I perform seven pujas a year! If this is not devotion, then what is?”
“I am a devout follower. I perform namaaz every day. I go to the mosque every Friday. I have already gone on Haj once and will go at least two more times. Allah is forever guiding my life.”
“I call myself religious. I go to church every Sunday. I say prayers every night. I’m the one who says grace before every meal, thanking god for what he has provided us. And I am not the only one. There are hundreds like me who involve themselves with god everyday.”
But is this really devotion? Is one’s extent of devotion really measured by how many pujas you perform, how many times you go on Haj or whether you say grace before meals or not? This is the biggest mistake that most religious people make. How many self-declared religious people actually contemplate their nature of existence, on the structure of this universe, on the beauty of this world that we live in or even dwell on the existence and nature of god? Do they ever seek to question why certain things happen in their lives? No. Most people will simply say “It’s god’s will.” But why? Why should god do what he (or she) is doing to you? Why should god grant some people extreme success while punishing others with failure even if the respective parties worked equally hard at achieving their objectives?
To some, that might be blasphemy. But to me, there is no greater objective in any spiritual or religious quest. When a mother tells her daughter that the latter should not consume drugs, the daughter doesn’t blindly obey. She’ll want to know why. If the mother exerts her authority and says “I’m your mother and I’m saying so. That’s why!”, the daughter will go on and try drugs anyway because she wasn’t satisfied with the given answer.. Yet when the gods apparently told us “People of lower castes are polluting.”, nobody wanted to know why. They just blindly obeyed what was written in the Manusmriti and as a result our country is fiercely divided today. Why don’t more people question what is written in our ancient texts? By this I don’t mean just Hindu texts or Muslim works or Christian writings but every religious document in the world that orders society to follow some path in life or the other. I’m not saying that one should blindly rebel against these teachings. By questioning, one should ascertain what principles and laws that are listed in these writings are beneficial to one’s life as well one’s society and what are not. Then, one should incorporate the beneficial parts into one’s life and expel the irrelevant or dangerous parts. That’s the way a society progresses.
What are my personal beliefs? I don’t agree with Dawkins’ view that god doesn’t exist. I guess according to him, I would be labelled a deist. I find it hard to believe that this perfectly structured universe with a number of amazing natural laws was not created by some superior intelligence. I like to think of this universe as a computer programme, ordered to evolve by itself from a few basic laws and constraints which have been fed into the programme by some super-intelligent programmer. The programmer then sits back and watches his world develop gradually. He or she does not intervene, he or she does not interfere. He or she just watches. He or she is neither cruel nor benevolent. He or she just is.
Richard Dawkins classified believers and non-believers into seven different categories ranging from blind devotion to blind atheism and including everything in between (to know more about this classification, read the book – page 73). I personally feel I am a mixture of category 2 and category 6 – I strongly believe in the existence of god but I live my life as if god doesn’t exist. Of course, there are dire circumstances where I abandon all my theories and just pray, hoping to attract the attention of that great programmer and force him or her to intervene. But this is only when I have exhausted all my other options and is more for my own personal comfort and hope than for anything else. And if the dreaded event does pass, I attribute it to god if no other reason can be found.
Meanwhile, I’m hoping to finish The God Delusion before I’m declared a heretic.
The God Delusion, in one sentence, is an argument against the existence of god. Now you can see why my friend considered it controversial. In these days, when fanatics from every religion are ready to jump down your throat and claw their way out, even thinking about the non-existence of god is blasphemy. Indeed, ‘blasphemy’ is the term that is used by most English-speaking evangelists (of any religion) while referring to such atheistic beliefs. I have to admire Dawkins’ guts. Not only does he have to contend with hot-headed religious crusaders who will be ready to throw him down the nearest available volcano but also with aghast academic theologians, mortified television evangelists, affronted ritualistic priests, hurt spiritual gurus and last but definitely not the least, a largely god-believing public who think he’s either joking or eccentric (or both). I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s physically attacked by some zealot in the near future.
Why does God make us so emotional? Let’s face it, most of us do not involve god in our daily lives apart from a morning prayer. Whether or not, God grants us success in our lives, most of us do not have any objection to labelling these successes as our own. A lot of us tend to remember god only during dark and difficult times. I do it myself. There’s this popular e-mail that keeps coming back to my account about god and man walking on a beach, leaving two sets of footprints except at more rough places where there is only one set. Man accuses god of abandoning him during hard times but god replies that the one set of footprints belongs to god and he was carrying man in his arms during those times. A rather warm fuzzy story but one which is also truthful. Far from god abandoning man during difficult times, it is man who abandons god during good times. Neale Donald Walsh in his book Conversations with God describes a scene where god tells him “When disease doesn’t exist, people don’t need doctors; when legalities don’t exist, people don’t need lawyers; when conflict doesn’t exist, people don’t need armies; therefore when problems don’t exist, people don’t need God!” Though I’ve taken this sentence slightly out of context, I don’t think people will disagree with the views I’ve put forth over here.
There are millions, especially in India; however who will disagree with me. They’ll claim that god is an integral part of their daily lives. I can just imagine those indignant replies that will be directed at me right now
“How dare you say that, I say? I pray to god at least twice a day. I go to temple once every week. I perform seven pujas a year! If this is not devotion, then what is?”
“I am a devout follower. I perform namaaz every day. I go to the mosque every Friday. I have already gone on Haj once and will go at least two more times. Allah is forever guiding my life.”
“I call myself religious. I go to church every Sunday. I say prayers every night. I’m the one who says grace before every meal, thanking god for what he has provided us. And I am not the only one. There are hundreds like me who involve themselves with god everyday.”
But is this really devotion? Is one’s extent of devotion really measured by how many pujas you perform, how many times you go on Haj or whether you say grace before meals or not? This is the biggest mistake that most religious people make. How many self-declared religious people actually contemplate their nature of existence, on the structure of this universe, on the beauty of this world that we live in or even dwell on the existence and nature of god? Do they ever seek to question why certain things happen in their lives? No. Most people will simply say “It’s god’s will.” But why? Why should god do what he (or she) is doing to you? Why should god grant some people extreme success while punishing others with failure even if the respective parties worked equally hard at achieving their objectives?
To some, that might be blasphemy. But to me, there is no greater objective in any spiritual or religious quest. When a mother tells her daughter that the latter should not consume drugs, the daughter doesn’t blindly obey. She’ll want to know why. If the mother exerts her authority and says “I’m your mother and I’m saying so. That’s why!”, the daughter will go on and try drugs anyway because she wasn’t satisfied with the given answer.. Yet when the gods apparently told us “People of lower castes are polluting.”, nobody wanted to know why. They just blindly obeyed what was written in the Manusmriti and as a result our country is fiercely divided today. Why don’t more people question what is written in our ancient texts? By this I don’t mean just Hindu texts or Muslim works or Christian writings but every religious document in the world that orders society to follow some path in life or the other. I’m not saying that one should blindly rebel against these teachings. By questioning, one should ascertain what principles and laws that are listed in these writings are beneficial to one’s life as well one’s society and what are not. Then, one should incorporate the beneficial parts into one’s life and expel the irrelevant or dangerous parts. That’s the way a society progresses.
What are my personal beliefs? I don’t agree with Dawkins’ view that god doesn’t exist. I guess according to him, I would be labelled a deist. I find it hard to believe that this perfectly structured universe with a number of amazing natural laws was not created by some superior intelligence. I like to think of this universe as a computer programme, ordered to evolve by itself from a few basic laws and constraints which have been fed into the programme by some super-intelligent programmer. The programmer then sits back and watches his world develop gradually. He or she does not intervene, he or she does not interfere. He or she just watches. He or she is neither cruel nor benevolent. He or she just is.
Richard Dawkins classified believers and non-believers into seven different categories ranging from blind devotion to blind atheism and including everything in between (to know more about this classification, read the book – page 73). I personally feel I am a mixture of category 2 and category 6 – I strongly believe in the existence of god but I live my life as if god doesn’t exist. Of course, there are dire circumstances where I abandon all my theories and just pray, hoping to attract the attention of that great programmer and force him or her to intervene. But this is only when I have exhausted all my other options and is more for my own personal comfort and hope than for anything else. And if the dreaded event does pass, I attribute it to god if no other reason can be found.
Meanwhile, I’m hoping to finish The God Delusion before I’m declared a heretic.
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