Musings of an Athiest

There was a silence for like what, five seconds, before I realized that the network was working just fine. It was my mother who went dead silent. "Beta, adharm mat phaila. Tu to adharmi ho hi chuka hai, apne doston ko to mat kar" she pleaded at last. I told her over phone that me and my friends were discussing the reasons why god doesn't exist. I had been trying to convince her since months about the conclusive evidence of god's nonexistence. She would listen, but more often she would just watch me, in utter horror. Of course she had flatly denied my carefully crafted arguments. When she was not able to refute them, she would simply stop talking. But she was horrified by the prospect of my disbelief in god. "How can anyone even sleep when he doesn't believe in the ultimate creator, who watches us every second and guides our every step ?" She would ask.

But the fact is, I don't believe in god. And to her surprise, I can still sleep. Fantastic sleeps they have been, I tell you, as good as the best sleeps I've had when I believed in god. I'm even suspicious if there really is a relation between one's sleeping habits and his theological convictions. God continues to be the psychological support system for billions of humans. It was for me as well. And we should expect it to be. The simple idea that there is someone watching our actions, guiding our lives, giving us directions and parenting us, is so relieving that is often easiest for our so-evolved brains to accept. And it has immense practical utility. It's is, in fact, an asset to be so convinced that you get down to work amidst all the turmoil in your life, simply by surrendering your worries to god. He'll take care and figure it out for us. Most often he does fix things. At least that's how we interpret sequence of events. At least that's how we connect the dots. It is in fact a great tool for the untrained and ignorant mind, and I absolutely mean no offense.

Either you believe in god, or you don't. Every great search starts from one of the two points, and end at the other. My pursuit started with belief in god. And I was adamant about it. I identified myself as a god's creature. My identity depended on it. Not having god control the world was for me not having any meaning in life. The thought that I was not being watched by my creator day and night would make me go mad with a sense of insignificance. I would revolt and deny the idea in disgust, like christendom did, when someone told it that earth was not the center of universe, and god didn't think we were special enough to accord us that honor. After all, like the christians of the middle ages, I too identified myself, my actions, too closely with god, who would spare all the time and attention in the world to maintain a ledger of my life, and probably everyone else's life too.

But the idea did sink in. Bit by bit, against my desperate attempts to clear my mind out of it. We all want to find reason and purpose of our existence, and theological explanations are the weakest stilts to support a strong case. They get as creative as the imagination of religious preachers, who are in no short supply since eons. But if you cannot compromise on reason and logic, science has most definite answers to the toughest questions posed by human mind. My journey started with scriptures, and ended in biology books. In them, I found the trust of an old friend. And I still wonder why spirituality is so isolated from science. Instead of basing our life ideals on someone else's imagination, why not give science a chance ? After all, it was not prayers that had put man on moon, it was science. It was not pilgrimages to holy shrines that gave you LCD screens on which your are reading this blog. It was science. You don't rush to a temple with your sick relative. You goto the hospital working miracles of science everyday. Look around, and you'd see what science had done for us. It has made us humans. Let us not accord it with the same stature what we have given to god. But at least let us give it a chance, a slight priority over whimsical preachings, to explains why we are here. And if we are reasonable and patient enough, we might conclude that there is no god. And we will appreciate the beauty of life even more. I do.

Science is not an opinion. It is not something distinct from religion. It is the strict consequence of the highest virtue of man, his ability to reason. It is what makes us human, and pushes us to surpass ourselves every second. It makes us ponder over the problems longer. It doesn't allow us to leave things as they are on the judgment of god, if there is one. In the extreme words, humanity's belief in god is synonymous to laziness. I will talk what science has to say about us and the universe. But if you are worried in case, be assured that an atheist can be as happy, peaceful, generous and kind as a die-hard theist would be. In fact, you'll figure out, that just like your sleeping habits, these qualities have nothing to do with your beliefs. You too can sleep in peace being an atheist, even if your mom believes it or not.