Thoughtfully Atheist

Hello wonderful people, first of all lemme start with the niceties, thank you for jumping onto this very occasional blog of mine. I hope you’re all well and safe and kicking it while we live through this strange strange time. The fact that this present of ours will definitely be part of some kid’s history book in the future really messes up with my head. Anyway, this is going to be a heavy one, so here goes.

Disclaimer: These are all my personal thoughts and ramble. I know religion can be a volatile subject, maybe as volatile as politics, so if any of this triggers you, I would love to hear your opinion on it, and would like to tell you that this in no way is intended to hurt anyone’s feelings.

So religion, well to be honest it’s something I’ve always looked at with the eyes of a sceptic ever since I’ve started thinking reasonably. I’ve always been a critique of the evils that come along with it, and the way people’s lives get affected by it. On the contrary though, I also like to think that the very reason I’ve always been a sceptic is because I was allowed to search for reason from the get go. (Thanks mum, thanks dad.)

Doing a commentary on religion is a tricky thing, because it’s very easy to get squashed into the atheist category quite immediately, which I do believe I belong to, but it does become unfair to the agnostics, and maybe someone just looking for answers without disbelieving in it. Now, I would like to admit here, that I started thinking about these bigger questions when the atheism movement was truly at its peak, and being an atheist was almost cool in an iconoclastic manner. But as I’ve grown and have come up with more relevant and bigger questions, while also being challenged by people, I’ve been able to form a perspective, which might even change in the future, but it is the best I can rationally come up with for now. So, (sighs) who were these gods? How did they turn wine into water, or have ten heads, or lifted a mountain on their pinky? How has this story been carried on for generations? And why does this supposed past, still very much relevant in people’s daily lives in the 21st century?

Well growing up, we used to watch the animated version of the ramanyana that came on the TV, which I’m sure a lot of you guys did too. But after watching stuff like that, I used to question my dad about how the things that were shown were even possible, and to calm a curious little mind, he used to say, “They were not really like us, maybe they were just aliens”. Thinking about that thought now, I think if these stories of our ‘gods’ that we’ve all heard so many times have even the slightest of truth in them, maybe they were actually just some advanced beings, that lived here, and left after a while, and all that has passed on over the years is just good old Chinese Whispers. But that couldn’t have been a story with a moral and ideals to follow from the get go right? Somewhere along the chain of this game of message to message, one person must’ve seen the bigger picture.

This guy simplified it for us, made the message clear, and made up a story with all the characters relatable, and became quite literally the messenger of ‘god’. This guy realised how much the world is full of misery, and how he can relieve some of the people from suffering, by telling them a tale which will make them believe in something unbelievably superior to them. And that stays true till date. Why people pray, do all the weird rituals, or even donate millions in the ‘houses’ of different ‘gods’, boils down to one thing, hope. The only reason why religion and and the ideas of ‘bhakti’ or prayer remain such an integral part of the scientific and modern world today is the severe amount of insecurity and helplessness that cripples the lives of so many people in our society. The world we live in is a harsh and brutal place, and most of us fail to meet this chaos with order. So people like to believe there’s someone out there, someone powerful and in control of each and every aspect of their lives, looking out for them. It’s why it’s called hope, because nobody is certain, but the belief that someone will do good for us is way better than the much harsher alternative of reality. It’s what drives a lot of people, makes them believe that something will turn in their favour. It’s like a drug to numb people’s helplessness by giving them a high of hope. And like drugs, people get addicted easily.

Now, a person who understands and is courageous enough to face the alternative, that he/she is the only one who can bring about any kind of change in his/her life, and facing the misery in its face is the only option, usually ends up actually doing it for good, without the help or support of any extraterrestrial being. But, the tragedy here is that the population of these people is far from forming a majority in the world. Humans, are very much wired to look for the easier way out. Most of us fail to look at our demons in the eye, and hence we like to think that someone out there will do the job for us. And by some sheer dumb luck, if things do work out, now this belief takes a turn and becomes so strong that it becomes the truth for so many of us. Now, people don’t want to lose this newfound superpower, so they start doing ‘seva’ or service for that power, they start praying, chanting, reciting hymns, counting malas, and the list never really ends, and maybe never will. But all of this jazz, they do it to make that ‘someone’ so happy, that it never betrays them, and keeps looking out for them as long as they’re breathing, while all they have to do is pray for the things they want and the desires they have, even if it is as simple as a good life.

But the part that piques my interest even more, is that the messengers of god we find today, the advocates or the salesmen, the people who run these temples or mosques or churches or gurudwaras, people who’re actually working to make the common man believe in all sorts of things, have themselves gone through that phase of finding hope as an antidote to their misery. These people got themselves into religion because they were looking they were helpless too. They wanted that same high. But somewhere along the line, they had their light bulb moments, and thought to themselves, “Oh wait a second, I can turn this into my favour. There is ofcourse a lot of misery in people’s lives out there. So let me be the middleman who provides the plethora of ways of finding the hope they’re looking for. And while doing so, let me turn the tables around for myself.” My point here is, and as controversial or blasphemous this may sound, the fact is that these people actually took control of their own misery, found their ways out in the known reality, and turned it around for themselves, by themselves. These people don’t really go to bed praying, and they’re no longer seeking “direction”, because they’re very much the part of the 1-2% class of people who’ve actually taken charge of their lives. They did what they needed to do, and got off the high hope had given them. So if we draw a full circle and come back to why a person gets into religion in the first place, these middlemen are not “religious” AT ALL.

They’re just simply living their lives as they chose it to be, using the resources they had with themselves, and pretty much taking the road less taken. But their success comes at the expense of the common man, who still bangs the bell, and still bows down, not realising that it’s a wild goose chase a fellow human set them on, for the answers or directions people look for were never outside, and they never will be. It is at the end of the day, a distorted reality, made up much easier than the real one. Now if some of you who are triggered right now and haven’t managed to close their window down, I would like to say that I’m not against hope. It’s what makes us human. Hope is a wonderful thing, it drives us and gives us a purpose, and I truly believe it is mankind’s single greatest superpower. But that’s what makes it super manipulative. So all I’m saying here is that a superpower is desirable, only when it is used with reason, for good, while being extremely rational and thoughtful.

WELL, I think it’s all the rambling I wanted to do. But that was a heavy one wasn’t it, but I would still like to repeat myself, I do not mean to hurt anyone, these are strictly my thoughts, and if you do disagree with them, I really ‘hope’ you can change my mind.

Oh and also, these blogs will still be shamelessly irregular. But BUT, there are quite a lot of things and a lot of time to think about them these days, so I have my fingers crossed that I can be a little better with my consistency in the days to come. If you really came this far on this one, you’re amazing, and awesome and all the good things, and I freaking love you. I hope you, as well as the person who closed this after reading the title stay safe, stay healthy, and find ways to kill this strange time. Until next time!

xoxo