It started with the odd powerful statement of ‘Religion is opium for the masses’, which has been credited to everyone ranging from George Carlin to random angry intellectual looking celebrities to anybody wearing spectacles to the original Karl Max in pictures shared over Facebook (black background with a hint of smoke). And now it has sort of reached a peak with everyone who knows the meaning of the word opinion having an opinion about it.
‘What did the article say?’ you fetch.
‘eh, It was a long article yaaar. I mean it was Friday and I had this party to go to and all’….
‘Ahh’… you judge.
‘But but, (passion back in his voice) when I put ‘I’m an atheist’ as my Facebook status, I got 30 likes. Some of them were girls’
There are indeed a lot of advantages of being an atheist. You are able to eat any animal you want to and when you want to. You are able to ask irritating question to others like ‘So you mean to say God’s completely fine with you eating Chicken on Wednesday but has a problem when you do it on Tuesday?’. You’re able to post awesome status’ like ‘Id Mubarak to all my Muslim brothers’ which make you look ‘oh so secular’ (ironically you never see a ‘Happy Diwali to all my Hindu brothers’ from the same people; it’s just a ‘Happy Diwali’, which tells you the whole secular story really. Sometimes excessive secularism becomes sort of unsecular)
Realizing you’re an atheist has become like the modern day Nirvana moment. It’s pretty much the ‘bhakchod’s version of enlightenment’. Quite similar to Buddha and many others who meditated for years for their own enlightenment. The modern human practices his brilliant worthy life filling his mind with all great positive thoughts of any and every possible way to get more money, fame and sex, till he finally discovers the social media picture of ‘Religion is opium for the masses’ and in this eureka moment attains his atheism. The internet is indeed our personal Bodhi tree.
It’s quite interesting to see the range of atheist. From the stout atheists who would go all Kohli on you if you dare to praise your own religion, to the relaxed atheists (few and far between) to the convenient atheists (atheist as long as I am not in deep shit, post which I go ‘pls bacha lei bhagwan, pls’.)
Which is all, quite frankly, absolutely fine. The issue starts when atheists start becoming the new fanatics in terms of imposing their opinion on others about this topic of opinion-imposing religions. (Notice the irony) The issue starts when atheists become all incredible hulkish over anyone making any statement remotely connected to religion. The original statements might be ranging from innocuous to outright stupid, but the reaction from our atheist brothers is scary and kind of hilarious at the same time. The usual statements of ‘Religion has caused wars’, ‘Religion has killed people’, ‘Religion prevents me from jerking off’ are thrown with such abandon that you almost start feeling ‘Religion’ is the pseudonym for Adolf Hitler or Idi Amin.
I quite don’t understand atheist reacting angrily to someone feeling their religion is the best or even better than other religions at some issue. To feel biased towards something you are linked to is probably the most natural feeling in the world. Isn’t it natural for one to be biased towards their own mother than anybody else’s? Again, not drawing a parallel between mother and religion, but just implying that being biased towards something/someone you believe in and are connected to is absolutely expected. Any human who would claim to not have this is either lying or a saint at a much higher state of mind. As long as one’s not affecting anyone else’s life because of this notion, one should be absolutely entitled to have that thought. Lambasting one for thinking so is sort of inexplicable. Let’s just be fine with anyone being anything: religious, non-religious, one who believes their religion is better, one who believes all religions are equal, etc.
I’m no expert really when it comes to religion, but from my humble learning I am pretty sure that no religion really prescribed wars in the first place. It was the human interpretation which screwed things up and from time to time, still keeps doing so. If tomorrow we have a world where every single person is an atheist, are we certain that no one will fight one another or there would be no killings or wars? Somehow, my pleasant experiences with humanity make me feel that the chances of that happening is less than the pope keeping ramadan fasts.
I have a great belief in wisdom of our ancestors and the ancient Urdu saying of ‘Zan, Zar aur Zameen’ being the reason behind all wars and fights is something that I have found extremely agreeable.
Zan = female
Zar = wealth
Zameen = land
Again, not blaming these three (before the sexistbusters come and slay me), but suggesting it’s just the crazy insatiable human desire for them that could be placed for majority of the wars we put religion to task for. Religion quite often becomes the scapegoat for many wrongs. In essence, it’s not the Arab Muslim terrorist who came and bombed your building, but a helpless hopeless uneducated poor guy whose home, family and life got destroyed because of a drone your country’s government sent in their quest for oil and mullah. All other factors being the same, he would have done exactly the same had he been from any religion. Notice how he didn’t go around bombing the Vatican City.
The good aspects of religion, the festivities each bring along celebrating community feeling and helpfulness is also something that the world needs. Probably atheism could do with a festival of its own. Or celebrate all religion’s festivals with the same zest which is what I am pretty sure was originally intended. It’s unfortunate to see Atheism go down the same way of Socialism and Communism. Ideas that were beautiful and logical in essence but got screwed up in implementation due to angry people, people with less understanding, people just going with the flow or the worse kind, materialistic people pursuing their own agenda. The need is for some flexible, broad-minded, calm and composed Atheists to stand up and be willing to hear others out before pouncing on them. Will the real Atheist please stand up. Please stand up. Please stand up.
P.S: Not that it matters but my personal alignment is leaning towards agnosticism. Being confused is a way of life for me.
You say..."but from my humble learning I am pretty sure that no religion really prescribed wars in the first place."
ReplyDelete...and Marx said "The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world"
I gather you're talking more about people who like to be atheists for show and tell but the roots of atheism lies in the bloody periods religion has brought in the West. In India therefore we don't have the same engagement with atheism perhaps because we've had a more pluralistic society (barring some periods).
Thanks for the information Navneet. Again, I reiterate that indeed there my learning are pretty limited on this issue. However, would just want to say this about the 'man made religion bit' you pointed out.
ReplyDeleteHonestly saying, this thought did come across my mind as I wrote it. And indeed those sayings of 'the Bible did not drop from Clouds, but was written by humans themselves' are quite popular. (applicable for all holy books, just to be safe).
But then none of these religions would have been as popular as today's main-stream (more popular) religions had they been prescribing wars and in general, non-violence from the very first day. The fact of the matter is that purely in terms of initial acceptance and sell'able-feature, prescribing peace was very much requisite for these religions.
If today another religion pops-up which suddenly starts getting mass acceptability, I'm pretty sure it would be affliliated to peace and all that jazz (for, if not, it would never get mass acceptance).
Which is what I mean by saying that 'none of these religions' prescribed wars and crazy fighting without rhyme or reason' when they started out.
It is post they were popular in masses that later off-track interpretations started. Which we can pretty much see quite commonly in today's day and age. And the individuals who made these interpretation may have easily been many who had other purely materialistic interests in mind. The point again being that many of these religious battle sorts are actually not as much as religion-based but because of other factors. Which is all I was trying to convey. If anything else came out, then it's purely my fault as a writer in conveying my thoughts.
And about the whom am I talking about bit. I am mostly talking about something that I have recently observed, with many atheists becoming the new fanatics in terms of not willing to listen to others and trying to convince all that only their way of thinking is right. I am not talking about 'atheists for show' or 'atheists for real', but 'angry imposing atheists'.
*wars and in general, violence from the very first day
DeleteMate! You need to read about the Inquisition all over Europe and the Dark Ages and the rise of Islam.
DeleteAt no point was any religion peaceful in their propaganda...that doesn't mean to say that they don't have other good salient features but that's where the atheists slip in when they say that the salient features of any religion is basic humanitarianism and we don't need a religion to preach that.