Freedom of speech is the greatest enemy of orthodoxy. In
many countries it is restricted including India. In fact the first amendment in
the constitution diluted the freedom of speech on the contrary in US; the first
amendment in way gave absolute freedom of speech! Freedom of speech should not
be diluted just because someone’s feeling is hurt. It is under this camouflage
the religious institution tries to supress free thoughts.
But moving on, this blog is about atheism and in a way tries
to look at dharmic and abrahamic religions. In many ways I feel that
‘’atheism’’ as such in India, is more or less a borrowed word from the west. In
US in spite of having greater freedom of speech, you will find being a
non-believer will not let you attain great heights except in the field of
science. On the contrary in India being a non-believer will create so much
fuss. Pt Nehru was an agnostic. Even today you can find a number of agnostic or
atheist politicians in India. This may not be so in US or many European
countries. (List of famous atheists or agnostic Indians is provided at the end
of this blog). Religion can be broadly categorized into Dharmic (i.e Hinduism, Buddhism,
Jainism and Sikhism) and Abrahamic (i.e. Islam, Christianity and Judaism). All
the religion fundamentally differs from each other.
In his book ‘’The God delusion’’ Richard Dawkins puts
forward different forms of belief. There are basically two kinds of believers;
one is who believes that God interferes in their day to day activities and by
praying to God they can alter God’s decision. I strongly feel that if this is
the case then it would generate praying
inflation as more and more people are praying to God for limited resource! (You
can read here http://pathaksham.blogspot.in/2013/06/praying-or-getting-preyed.html)
The second category of people is those who feel that the God
created the world but usually don’t mess with its own rules and regulation. The
second category people sometimes contain even scientists. The Human Genome
project in US was headed by scientist who believed that earth was just 10000
years old and God created it while the ISRO chairman prefers to visit temple to
pray for the success of mission. Now, it is totally correct that every
individual has the right to his belief. But the question here arises why do
they feel so? I mean a scientist heading the Human Genome project is very
versed in the theory of evolution and would have certainly read about the Big
Bang Theory, and then what makes him belief so? Similarly, the ISRO chief knows
the probability of success of his mission depends how well they have predicted
the various stages of their mission, I think praying can certainly cannot alter
the probability of the success of the mission.
Like I said earlier, in India being non-believers didn’t raise
any eyebrow. Even the word ‘’nastik’’ in hindi means ‘those who don’t believe
in Ved’. Here also you will find that there is no question of God. Rishi ‘Charvak’
questioned the very existence of God (6th century BCE), yet he was respected
and his teachings still continued. Gautam Buddh was agnostic. He questioned the
religious practices. Irony is that he was made God and his disciples even
formed two different sects namely Hinayay and Mahanay! Mahavir Jain too was
considered agnostic.
The famous scientist Carl Sagan in a documentary that he
hosted showed that the various God in Hinduism namely Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh
actually depicts the cosmic cycle. By using human symbols these story is being
told since many generation. (Link is provided at the end of this blog). I personally
tried to find out how Carl Sagan concluded it but I couldn’t find it. I would
be happy if anyone reading this post posts the link or book in the comment
section. Even the great epic of Ramanyan and Mahabharat has different versions.
The counterpart of Ved is Avesta of Iran. Even the importance of some God and Goddesses
have decreased and increased based on the then political scenario. You can call
it an irony that the President of Hindu Mahasabha (Vinayak Damodar Savarkar) was
an atheist yet his disciples fight in the name of religion!
Consumerism and the necessity to find shortcut to success
has created a room to market various God men. Santa Claus was not present in
todays until late 19th century! Battles have shaped the world and of
course winners write history. Had Ashok lost the Kaling war history would have
been different. If Constantine (Roman king) had lost the battle then our
present would have been different. Certainly, Christianity has taken a great
change since the renaissance and Hinduism too has done its share of changes to
end the barbaric practice of Sati. Yet some religion has yet to do its share of
renaissance. In fact these renaissances should be treated as kaizen!
I think the world can learn a lot from Indian atheism which is
in way more tolerant and yet retaining its core value of being a ‘non-believer’. J
Please go through following links to learn more.
http://pathaksham.blogspot.in/2013/06/praying-or-getting-preyed.html
Brilliant piece! I personally believe that "faith" and "reason" should not be mixed. They are completely disparate. They wouldn't call it "faith" if it was based on solid evidences, reason and logic. Sometimes people just "need" to believe. All the major breakthrough of humankind have been from people of reason or "faithful" people using reason which is why faith should not be the foundation of a working ideology in the world today. It is redundant in matters of state. Both the "saffron" and the "green" brigade need to go.
ReplyDeleteAnd I completely second your thoughts on the need for change in all the major belief systems of the world. The west has emerged out of the dark ages. Cruel/irrational practices like sati are no longer in practice in India (many more pending though). It is high time for the people of the muslim world to wake up and ride the wave of change. The Middle Eastern Renaissance is long overdue.
Hi ..while going through your blog, I thought of replying u separately for each paragraph .
ReplyDelete1) 'Uninhibited' freedom of speech in a society is always like a flood in a river .
2) India harbours more non-believers , they blossom well in this country ..thats why this country is the largest democracy . All religions are fundamentally the same . the differ only in their expressions. The division as dharmic and other is an illusion
3 +4) Einstein once said" there are two kinds of people in this world , one who believes everything is a miracle , and other believes nothing is a miracle " but the point that is common to both of them is "a belief to believe in" , and this belief is a religion which can be Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism ,Islam, Christianity , Judaism and interestingly include humanity , science ( which too are religion followed by convention non religious people). ISRO scientist visting a temple symbolizes his respect and gratitude to a controversial supreme power whose non existence yet to be proved to disbelieve it hence, his action is scientifically valid and not unscientific.
and my comments for rest all remaining paragraphs are :
either i hold no difference of opinion to author or falling short of thoughts and words to express.
Though i dont want to counter on all the points but on some issues i would like to clear the air.
Delete1. Freedom of speech is restricted in India. technically speaking though in our fundamental rights ( article 20 to 35) we are given freedom of speech but there are restrictions to it and this very restrictions are subjective in nature. to put in perspective the freedom speech enjoyed by MPs speaking in Parliament is not equivalent to what u n i should enjoy. compared to this the US ''bill of rights'' has greater degree of freedom of speech.
2. ISRO chairman has the rights to follow any faith that he wants, NO ONE question it. but definitely we can ask ourselves whats makes him belief so. Richard Dawkins gives a very profound eg that if i ask u to believe that a ''tea saucer and tea kettle'' is revolving around Jupiter, will u believe it? Now it is too small to be detected by satellites. but based on this premise can i say that the existence and non existence of ''tea saucer '' is 50%?
The ans is NO because there is logical fallacy in the very existence of tea saucer !
Hope i answered some of ur query ! :)