faith | Confessions of a Disquisitive Writer

What if you’re wrong?

August 4, 2013 1 Comment

I am often asked this question by believers when talking about belief in God, “what if you’re wrong?” I do admit that it is definitely a fair question and so it deserves a fair and honest answer.

My answer is:
I believe in humanity, happiness, fairness, justice, equality, honesty and humility. I would like to see everyone to be happy and treated fairly, irrespective of their gender, religious beliefs, sexual orientations, caste and color amongst other things. And more importantly, I believe that everybody should be allowed their fundamental rights to say what they want, live the way they want and whoever they want to live with. All these are important and real issues and principals of humanism. These matter. Not having a blind belief in a God allows me to hold these very real principles as sacred and in a way devoid of any prejudices against any groups of people who might be different from me and hold principles different from mine.
If I am wrong about the God question, then it doesn’t really matter because I have still lived for real causes, real people, real happiness, real fundamental rights, real freedom from oppression. And these would have still remained equally important whether god existed or not because if he did, and he is half as good as you claim him to be, then I can be sure that I would be okay in his eyes because I still advocated for very real issues which were of a more pressing concern in my world than taking time out to worship an omnipotent and omniscient ultimate entity – something that simple logic definition becomes needless – or spending my energy on persecuting people who held different beliefs from me or had a sexual inclination that I did not approve of.
So, if I were wrong, I wouldn’t have lost out much in life anyway because I would still have been the same person as I am today. And if there turned out to be a god who’d still punish me for not worshipping him, then I submit that we would already be living under a supernatural dictatorship – an anarchy if you will – the nature of which would in itself indicate doom for humanity and the universe.
But you, a believer, have lived and dedicated your entire life to an assumed entity that you had no way of knowing for sure. And you don’t possess any special mental and physical faculties that I don’t so you cannot claim to have a way to know that I cannot. And because of your belief in that assumed supernatural entity, you have decided to live by a code which is based on compulsory love and extreme fear of the same entity and which makes some of you do really really horrible things to really really sweet and innocent people -things which someone with secular mindset could never even dream of. What about the sufferings you could cause in the world by following religious dogmas that persecuted people because of their beliefs, sexual inclinations and who they loved.
So, now i ask you the believer, what if you’re wrong? Haven’t you missed out on the most important things in life itself while thinking only for something that didn’t even exist?

Filed under Atheism, Religion Tagged with atheism, atheist, Belief, Disbelief, faith, god, Religion, secularism

Ridicule of religion

August 1, 2013 3 Comments

Why is it that when Charles Darwin, the genius who changed the world with his discovery of the concept of evolution, is made into a cartoon by attaching his head to the body of a monkey and when jokes are made and repeated by people in religious authority, nobody from the scientific community or science “followers” gets angry or violent or even remotely offended? But at the same time, utter anything against a religious figure, such as even a self-proclaimed godman, and you can be sure that people are going to get deeply offended, become violent, damage public property and even kill other people.

I think the difference here is what your belief system teaches you. Publicly, religion says it teaches tolerance and that without this tolerance the world wouldn’t survive. But privately, what it really teaches is to tolerate people only as long as they do exactly what you would like them doing and stray no further. Since birth, people are taught to revere their religious beliefs, which they don’t even understand properly, and blindly follow everything that is told to them.

For instance, if any other person proclaims himself to be highly religious or a godman, then everything he says must be taken as words of perfect wisdom. It doesn’t matter who these godmen are, how many times their acts of con are exposed (as in the case of Sathya Sai Baba), how low their educational and intellectual levels are (such as ISKCON’s Srila Prabhupad). The moment you mention examples of their ignorance, religious people get deeply offended and shut their ears but their dedication to such ungodly people continues despite what you say.

But have you ever heard a scientist or an atheist pelting a single stone towards any of these con-men despite their horrendous world-views?

You know why?

Because education gives you the maturity to ignore when people deserve your ignorance and pit evidence of all sides against each other and dismiss that which cannot hold its ground. No need to get angry if the same godman as above is making a fool out of themselves by saying that the “…moon is above, 200,000 yojanas above the sun… Above the sun. How they’ll go? [laughter] They are going to the wrong… bluffing only. I am repeatedly saying, they have never gone, simply bluff.”

Well, I only take offense to one thing in the above dialog. And that is that the laughter belongs to the listener and not the speaker.

And I challenge any religious followers to tell me I am wrong in laughing at the ignorance of such statements and the people who make them.

Filed under Atheism, Pseudoscience, Religion Tagged with atheism, Belief, faith, fraud, godmen, ISKCON, prabhupada, pseudoscience, Religion, sathya sai baba

Thank God or else…

July 27, 2013 2 Comments

When some people thank (their) God for giving them what they wanted – happiness, money, health, etc. – and claim the greatness and lovingness of God because of their own personal experiences, isn’t it unfair to those who are supposedly given the opposite of that – disease, disability, grief and a life of immense and eternal suffering?

Consider a state that does everything for the rich but neglects the poor and takes away even their basic rights as humans – right to health, education, food, water, justice, etc. Wouldn’t it be unfair to the unfortunate for these few lucky people to praise that state endlessly because of what it does for them?

And, what if the state declares that it will only take care of the people who vote for it again and again and that those who don’t, must be punished forever or at least until they also fall in line? Wouldn’t you call that state an evil state? Of course you will. Then how dare anyone ever say that in order to get the love of God, you must pray and worship endlessly and have complete faith otherwise you would be subjected to eternal damnation even after you are dead? Sounds equally evil to me.

How would you explain the lovingness and generosity of God when a child is born with a permanent disability, is going to live in suffering for its entire lifetime (long or short) and is marked to die with it? When I see someone suffering immensely, wouldn’t it be a corruption of my mind and morals if I should still praise God?

As Epicurus famously quoted:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

Filed under Atheism, Philosophy, Religion Tagged with atheism, Disbelief, evil, faith, god, Life, Religion, suffering, worship

Moon further from Earth than Sun: Godman

July 9, 2013 3 Comments

I recently came across this website (http://www.prabhupadanugas.eu/?p=9315), dedicated to Late Srila Prabhupada, anchor of the Hare Krishna Movement of the ISKCON fame, and I couldn’t make up my mind regarding whether they are serious or is this all some sort of a joke.

You wonder why I say this?

Because, though this website is supposed to increase the Godman’s followers even post-humously and add strength to the movement, it makes the mistake of actually and shamelessly publishing a lot of junk that he has preached which no sane person can dare to utter and another dare to hear without breaking out into a fit of laughter and ridicule.

Sample this. The Swami says that man has not landed on the moon (http://www.prabhupadanugas.eu/?p=9315) and explains it in a conversation that becomes absolutely non-sensical after the first 5-6 sentences itself:

They have not gone to the moon (excerpt from conversation with disciples, Perth, May 12, 1975)

Prabhupada: They have not gone to the moon planet .
Paramahamsa: Really?
Prabhupada: Yes. It is far, far away. Their calculation is wrong. They are going to a wrong planet.

Paramahamsa: It must be the Rahu planet.
Prabhupada: Yes, or something else. Not moon planet.

Well, as everyone clearly knows, there is NO Rahu planet. Yet, the godman seems to be unaware of modern (or even medieval) astronomy. Anyway, after this bit, the conversation drifts into looney calculation territory which is mind boggling even for a class 6 student because the swami and the other person keep tying themselves up in knots. Suffice to say that they end up concluding that the moon is further than the sun and then he says it is above the sun (another crackpot conclusion). And then he says:

Prabhupada: Above the sun. How they’ll go? [laughter] They are going to the wrong… bluffing only. I am repeatedly saying, they have never gone, simply bluff. How it is that they brought some dust? So brilliant, it is blazing, full. There is fire blazing.

Another conversation on the same page:

Guru krpa: How is the moon behind the sun?
Prabhupada: Not behind, above.
(ACBSP. 27th May 1975. Morning Walk in Honolulu, Hawaii.)

The moon is really above the Sun? Am sure this is going to piss Newton off because if defies his theory of gravitation completely. And I wonder how an eclipse is caused then. Oh, well, but wait… he has answered that important question also in an equally looney way:

Amogha: Is that Rahu planet closer than the moon to the earth?
Prabhupada : Rahu planet orbit is in between moon and sun. So when it comes in between moon and sun there is eclipse . At night it is eclipse in the moon, and daytime it is eclipse in the sun.

Eclipse in the moon and eclipse in the Sun? I have never heard such preposterous claims in my life and I was shocked to the core. I could not understand if I should simply laugh at everything and let it be. But then I realized that it is extremely sad to know that ISKCON has a huge following world over and this is what they must be preaching to their innocent unquestioning followers, so this is tragic news for humanity.

I really think that all the followers should now attend ISKCON sessions but only for fun and entertainment and not for science anyway.

Oh, and by the way, this is how that webpage concluded considering all the arguments against (none in favour, mind you) man landing on moon:

So as ISKCON devotees we are left with various possibilities :

1) Astronauts did indeed land on the moon, but they did not perceive the world of the demigods (Candraloka) because it is invisible to gross sense perception.

2) The astronauts were deluded by the demigods at some stage in their journey and diverted to the planet Rahu. (SB 4. 29. 69p)

3) The entire moon-landing story is a complete conspiracy, which has fooled millions of people all over the world for over 30 years. (Some say that they filmed the “moon’s surface” in a place in America known as Area 51, according to the TV program.)

So even those concluding from it were nuts? They gave so much thought to the Swami’s arguments that they perhaps didn’t consider a fourth more obvious conclusion:

4) The man was crazy.

P.S. I know all ISKCON followers would be fuming by now reading this blog. But please stop here one minute and think and answer one second. Don’t you think it is grossly unfair of you to get angry when everything I’ve state here is the truth substantiated by Prabhupada’s own webpages? And do you really believe that the moon is further from the Sun?

Come on.. You know he was wrong.

Filed under Astronomy, Atheism, Pseudoscience, Religion, Science Tagged with Astronomy, atheism, Belief, faith, fraud, hare krishna, hinduism, hoax, ISKCON, prabhupada, Religion

The Quotable Atheist

June 29, 2013 3 Comments

“Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man … living in the sky. Who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer, and suffer, and burn, and scream, until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you. He loves you and he needs money.”
― George Carlin

“Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“All thinking men are atheists.”
― Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
― Voltaire

Filed under Atheism, Quotes Tagged with atheism, atheist, Belief, Disbelief, Enlightenment, faith, Quotes, Religion, skepticism

It’s not my Karma

June 9, 2013 1 Comment

Karma, they say, basically means that your good and bad actions or deeds come back to reward or punish you. So, if something good is happening in your life right now, it is because of your past good Karma and if something bad is happening, it must be some bad Karma.

Of course, it is only a concept that people theorize about and it comes mostly from religious texts but, of course, no one can ever know for sure. Well, then why am I writing on this? It is for two reasons.

First, I think it is completely wrong. Why? Because it requires me to presuppose that the Universe is a just place. It tries to fool me into assuming that I am the most special component at the centre of this universe and the entire universe along with the laws of nature are colluding to make things happen with only me on its mind. Or, increase the subset and say it has us – all humans – on its mind. Even then, I feel that once you consider the vast expanse of the universe and our relatively tiny and irrelevant place in it, the concept just stops making sense right then and there. The universe is huge and we haven’t explored even 1% of its size to see if there are any others like us on some other planets. It is so vast that we haven’t yet, and might never be able to discover any other forms of life in it. Yet, we can be so arrogant and self-centred to make this gigantic claim to know that the same universe is designed to run as this rewarding and punishing machine that know exactly what some tiny human did and what he/she should get in return.

Secondly, let us suppose that this concept was somehow acceptable on the grounds that it encourages us to do good deeds increasingly more often than bad ones fearing Karmic retribution. Fair enough. But I am still not too happy with it because now it attempts to do something else that spoils the essence of being human. That it does by telling people that their achievements and failures are somehow magically linked with a past that they might never know to be true (like from “past lives”), thereby fictionalizing our lives. Does it also mean that one’s efforts to achieve something and their emotions and feelings attached to it are basically irrelevant in front of Karma?

We don’t need to find supernatural explanations in everything. Sometimes, things just happen. The essence of being human is in doing and dreaming, it is in rising and falling, it is in flying and hurting. We deeply cherish both our good days and bad days and that is how humanity gets its charm. Let us not trivialize it by resorting to a concept that stinks of wishful thinking and immaturity in order to gain a placebo effect.

Filed under Philosophy, Reflections Tagged with Belief, faith, hinduism, Humanity, Karma, Life, Philosophy, Religion, Supernatural, Universe

Argument of God vs Evil

May 20, 2013 2 Comments

What displeases me about arguing with creationists is that in order to challenge the existence of an imaginary being (i.e. God), we must first assume the existence of another imaginary being/force (i.e. Evil) and from there start arguing backwards. Of course, just as concept of God is flawed, the concept of there being an Evil is also equally flawed because we again end up dividing good happenings and bad happenings as effects of a supernatural phenomenon, rather than using the most simple and logical explanation: That human beings behave differently and some of us do good while others do bad. Natural things happen according to the laws of nature and these laws do not presuppose the existance of a special species such as Humans. However, to creationists, the idea of assuming more and more imaginary entities is nothing of concern. Once you say Yes to religion, you can go on believing anything that you like. Even that Elvis is still alive.

Filed under Atheism, Religion Tagged with atheism, Belief, Disbelief, evil, faith, god, Religion

A cold and harsh reality

April 21, 2013 Leave a comment

People who have faith in the supernatural, sometimes find it a lot easier to deal with pain. Faith acts as a guiding force, a form of support that helps you cross the road when the going gets tough. All you need to do is continue to believe in a universal force that is out to help you very soon. There is comfort in knowing there is a big brother watching over you. Sooner or later, things will be better.

But for people who do not put their faith in an invisible deity or mantra or good or bad karma, any suffering becomes hundreds of times more difficult to deal with. There are no imaginary friends to take care of you and no promises of a better future. All there is is a cold and harsh reality. Things won’t become right by kneeling, praying, offering sacrifices, worshiping idols or following godmen who claim to be agents for your salvation. There is just a realization that you don’t always get what you want, you simply get what you get. Things happen. We can’t always explain everything but it’s alright. The question, “Why me?” gets the answer, “Why not!” or maybe “So what?”

I feel it is alright to take support in whatever makes it easier to deal with pain, despite whatever anybody else might say. And this is coming from someone who chooses not to do so himself. Because I also think there is no way I would ever pray, ask or beg for happiness. That is not the way life is supposed to be lived. I believe we are a lot more than puppets being subjected to good and bad conditions by a universal force just so that it can get devotion and admiration in return.

Filed under Atheism, Philosophy Tagged with athiesm, Belief, Disbelief, faith, Life, pain, praying, reality, suffering

Lord Shiva’s New Avatar: A Pumpkin!

March 5, 2013 1 Comment

Just this morning, I opened a news site and this is what I found.

A pumpkin wholesaler in Bokaro found an unusually large pumpkin in his stock, one unlike any he had ever seen before. What conclusion did he draw (as if there was a need for a conclusion)? Large pumpkin, oval shape.. what else is oval shaped? Shivalinga. That belongs to? Lord Shiva. Hence, the pumpkin is an avatar of Lord Shiva. See? It’s that simple. That is how you go from not knowing to knowing certainly. (Sherlock Holmes would be proud of that science of deduction).

Well, the man worshiped the pumpkin and offered it sweets, which I am positive the pumpkin refused to eat.

The news of the divine pumpkin spread like wildfire and people are flocking to the town to get a glimpse of it. Someone offered to buy the pumpkin for Rupees 5001, but the man refused to sell. After consulting with a priest, it has been decided that the pumpkin will be worshiped for a few days after which it will be cut open and distributed to devotees as prasad.

There is nothing new and noteworthy in this piece of news. It happens everyday in places where education and enlightenment has failed to reach. But what I really do want to point out in this blog is that never on such occasions has a priest or a religious group ever come forward to say that not everything that one suspects to be divine may be so. They always agree with each other! Whatever bullshit one may think up, the clergies will never ever deny it.

Why would a god come down as a pumpkin? Is it because he wants to mess with people’s minds? Or will people believe just about anything under the sun if anyone relates it to religion? Why no skepticism at all?

Is belief a blanket phenomenon that makes you believe “everything” unquestioningly? I mean, tomorrow if I start jumping up and down saying another Lord XYZ came in my dream and told me he is coming as a Pizza the next day, will the same people believe me and start ripping pizza joints all over the country?

I really would like to see at least one priest come out and say the pumpkin is not Lord Shiva because there is no reason why the god must come down as a pumpkin. A giant fruit is just that – a giant fruit.

Come on guys, have I overreacted? Don’t people take their beliefs so seriously as to make them look stupid? Isn’t unquestioning belief a double edged sword that undermines that which it claims to uphold?

Imagine, a dogmatic physicist claiming that since such a giant fruit has never been seen before, it must have come through a wormhole from another parallel universe?

Filed under Religion Tagged with Belief, Dogma, Education, faith, god, Lord Shiva, Pumpkins, Religion

God’s Diary

December 30, 2012 3 Comments

playing-god

Dear Diary,

I am omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. I am good, I am goodness. I am the crusher of evil. I am happiness itself. I am everywhere. I am everlasting.

But, I am also bored.

Yes, it is a terrible feeling being bored. What shall I do? I made the universe, the heavens, the earth and it has been so long since I did that and placed these stupid humans on earth. Now, I am just sitting and watching them as they go about their lives. And I am bored. And there is no one here with me.

Sometimes I enjoy myself by sending hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and have fun watching those “people” fly around and smash into things and things smash into them. And at other times I start jungle fires to clear up the view. My favourite country is, of course, Japan where I like to test my nuclear capabilities. It was fun when I spoilt their reactor. The poor Japs thought they made some mistakes, but why do they forget that I am behind everything that ever happens in the world?

Mostly, I am spending my time spinning a coin to decide whether the next kid to be born should be normal or deformed. If I am tired, I simply send a death wave to kill them all.

I remember when I invented religion. That is something that is still keeping my amused. I appeared in different forms in front of different groups and I liked it when they all got confused. Now, that has brought in some entertainment in the long term. But what I found intriguing was that these people even invented some new religions of their own. I didn’t mean to confuse them so much, but what the hell! And I like the fact that most of them remember me so much, they even pray to me. I know I can easily grant everyone’s wishes but where will be the fun in that?

I want to write more, but what stops me from writing is that there will be nobody to read what I am writing. Except me! So, I think I will just stop here and focus back on Earth. There are a lot of rapes happening in India and I am finally making them more and more gruesome. But don’t you dare think I am immoral. Look at how many women I am saving by not having them raped, even though I’ve said in all my holy books that I hate women. So what if a few of them are sacrificed? At least they are realizing there is again a battle on between good and evil (wink! wink!).

godcomputer In my defense, I may be subjecting some small amount of people to tragedies, but look at how much good I have been doing at the same time? Look at what a role model I have made out of (that atheist) Stephen Hawking by paralyzing him for life and yet he has become an enigma for everyone. He represents hope for millions whom I have made that way. So, don’t I infuse hope into the lives of people by taking something away from them? Isn’t that what humans should be learning from all of this?