GOD – Mythology or reality?

It has been a very tiring week for me up until yesterday when I finished my Chemistry examination. I am satisfied by my performance and am confident that I will pass. Now coming to the the title. That is the question on most of the people’s minds. I wanted to write this post as an answer to SU’s post. While mentioning Atheism and Theism, every religion wants to prove only that god exists. And if questioned what/who is GOD, they quarrel among themselves saying that their perception of GOD is better than the rest. Now according to me, that is like saying, “My imaginary friend is better than yours.” Now let me make something clear before moving on to the depth of the topic.

I am an Atheist!

Now that I have expressed my point of view about this topic, it would be a little better for you to understand my views even if you don’t agree with or respect them. Now coming to the topic. People whom I know might know how I converted to an Atheist at heart. But people who don’t usually ask two questions with respect to religion.

1. What religion do you believe in? – None. I don’t believe that there is some “power” controlling the workings of the universe. In short, I am an Atheist.
2. You weren’t born an Atheist right? What were you before you converted? – A Hindu Brahmin.(I haven’t converted legally though. Just for the sake of my loved ones.) I don’t really know even if that matters. That is because I think there is only differentiation based on species. Not on something that doesn’t even exist.

I want to accept one fact though. I did convert to Atheism very recently. Not because my troubles were too many or because I followed what another person said. I have had experience with the latter with reference to my close friend Abhilash. My mother asked me whether he told me something that made me disbelieve in GOD. The answer is NO. The first reason for my answer is that he is not someone who forces himself upon someone else. Secondly, I don’t let other people think on my behalf.

There were a series of realizations following which I accepted the truth that there is nothing governing over the goings on of the universe. I will be writing about many such realizations. So if anyone feels that this post is not worth reading further, I suggest you stop now. Moving on, there were four situations which thankfully led me to the truth. They are also inter-connected.

Praying for something all my life:

Now this might sound a lot like I thought this way only because I didn’t get what I prayed for. But I assure you it is not so. I had prayed whole heartedly to “GOD” that I somehow PASS in the examination. But that did not happen. Before you come to conclusions, I want to say that the amount of work and my paper presentation were not up to the mark. I know this because I applied for the photocopy of my answer script and analyzed it. First Realization – It was entirely dependent on me. I cannot blame anyone. To this, many of you will reply, “Only prayer will not lead you anywhere. You need to work accordingly.” To that I reply, “Even if you don’t pray, the amount of work you put in will lead you somewhere.” This is because there is no entity to listen to whatever you say to yourself.

The discussion I had with my friend Abhilash:

Now don’t be misled into thinking that he altered my mindset. I assure you. He did not. The discussion was about how god was created. He produced a very funny explanation that GOD was created because of lonely philosophers who did not have anybody to share their feelings with. To avoid this, they created an imaginary friend called GOD and made people believe that the imaginary friend was not so imaginary after all. However, I don’t believe all philosophers were loners. But I stated my view. God was created to explain the vast mysteries that nature had posed in front of us. An example would be the Aurora Borealis. The northern lights phenomenon. They said the “Valkyrie” made a trail of lights when they rode forward in the Norse mythology. And what do we call them now? Think. Realization two – GOD is a fictitious explanation to the unexplainable.

History of religions being region specific :

When I listen to the discourses given by Hindu pandits and the sermons given by the Christian pastors, I observed a pattern. How come there were no temples all over the world if god existed everywhere? And why would the apparent “GOD” in christianity protect only those that believed in him and not other religions? Last I know, Jesus was only the messenger of GOD. Anyway, that is for you Theists to decide. It is not that I do not respect the beliefs of other people. I only wish that all of you be awakened to the facts and not the myths. Realization three – GOD is not who the people claim it to be.

My performance in this semester’s examination:

This is the last situation. This situation did not exactly make me realize anything new. But I can say it played an important role in establishing the fact. This semester, I have performed very well in most of my exams. The ones I did not perform well, I can only say I hadn’t expected it would turn out that way. Which is entirely the fault of my under-preparedness. Here all of you need observe one point. I did not pray or in any other way ask a supreme being to help me. The result is as you see it now. Before I used to blame that “power” for all my mistakes. But now I found there isn’t anything that I can blame it on. Even if I did, it would be like creating a person who doesn’t even exist, in my mind and then blaming him. Final realization – Nothing controls the workings of the universe. All that happens is because of logic. There is nothing more factual than logic. An example to prove that is given in this link. Man was not created by GOD and women most definitely not from the ribs of a man.

That concludes my post on my perception of GOD. I say that the principle of GOD is myth and will always think so. I still put the Tilaka on my forehead just to make my dad, who is a very orthodox person happy. Signing off, an awakened human being, Pavan a.k.a Anniyan.

PS: This post might not convey my exact feelings as the length and the medium also matters. A phrase said in a letter can mean many things when read from different perspectives.

Note to my brother: If you happen to read this post, please don’t mention about it to mom and dad. They would feel bad if they came to know about my views of god.

Relative Peace. Is it worth fighting for?

After many months and some humorous posts, I thought about writing a post on another serious topic. And there it was! It was “Independence Day” on August-14th in Pakistan and the next day August-15th in India. This led me to wonder- Are we really Independent? I vote to say NO. Why? Even though we are supposed to be a democratic nation, we are in fact a bureaucratic democracy. Now politics is not the reason I am writing this post. It is for an entirely different reason: WAR!. After World War 2, there have not been any displays of violence by any nation that equals WW2 or exceeds it. That is however, a good thing. But the war on Iraq and other “Small Scale” wars according to the UNO are necessary steps to maintain Relative Peace.

This leads us to wonder. What is this relative peace that I keep stating about so often? It is the co-existence of many nations in a condition where they are apparently not fighting with each other. The diplomatic relations between any 2 nations might be that they are not at war. But under all the dust and soot, a war of superiority could be raging.

After ages during which the earth produced harmless trilobites and butterflies, evolution progressed to the point at which it has generated Neros, Genghis Khans, and Hitlers. This, however, I believe is a passing nightmare; in time the earth will become again incapable of supporting life, and peace will return.
-Bertrand Russell

On the other hand, I always thought; “There can be no peace without war”. This, according to me is true to an extent. Sometimes, tyranny and conspiracies are not expected and openly done. This leads us to another point. What is the cause for all this HATE and VIOLENCE that is developed in the hearts of people? I answer RACISM! This is the reason for almost all the wars that have been fought in the world. While we think of preserving all the culture and traditions of OUR ancestors, we are more intent on destroying the same of other cultures. This is seen even today in the smallest walks of life. The solution? Acceptance of other religions as good enough as our own. There is no religion which is better than the other. Religion is the grouping together of people who believe in particular ways of worshiping the supreme being. Some may build statues of their conceptions of god. Others may paint them. Some others may attribute them to nature.

Different ways to look at god does not mean that there are different gods. It is like this. When we think of water, there are ponds, lakes, rivers, seas and oceans. These reflect the statement: One being, different forms. There are also groups of people who say there is no god. That there is no supreme being which controls the workings of the universe. Referring to the above example, these people think of god as vapor. They do not want to believe in it. But that doesn’t mean it is not there. No offense to any Atheists. These are MY views on religion. Please excuse me if ANY religion or way of life has been offended by this post.

Concluding my relentless ranting, I wish to say: Equality is not a concept for a fiction novel. It is a fact/truth; embrace it!

Limits of Life

There are no limits to anything!!! This is what we all want to say. However, this is not the case according to me. Oh yes, we can keep saying that to ourselves. But it still doesn’t change anything. There are limits to EVERYTHING! Many people may(WILL) object to this saying that Imagination is not limited. But all I can say is… We cant imagine something we don’t want to or don’t know. Which implies that there ARE some limits to even imagination. However, they are very HUGE in the case of imagination.

But, when it comes to day to day life, NOTHING is UNLIMITED. Not even the unlimited meals advertised by hotels Which brings us to another question. How can you say everything is limited???

To this i answer, I don’t. What i mean to say is… There have been boundaries for everything right from the beginning. Think… there were always things you did… and the things you COULD do. But why didn’t you do them??? The answer?? LIMITS!!! Universe has set itself many boundaries. So have many living things. From the beginning of time, there have always been some boundaries.

This brings us to yet another point. Are setting boundaries good or bad? This question can be answered by everyone if we just think for a minute. Imagine a situation where we did not have limits. Nothing would be organized. Everything would be chaos. Limits provide a comfortable surrounding for each and every one of us. Each person sets his own limits voluntarily or involuntarily. Sometimes they can be wrong. If that happens, it is what we call “Inferiority Complex” or Lack of confidence. It can also be explained as the incapability to set your own limits in life.

Now many people also say that the power of god is limitless. I do not want to delve any further on that comment as views on whether god exists or not differs from person to person. If anyone wants to prove me wrong, You are MOST welcome. Let us see if we can reach a conclusion on this matter.

I conclude by saying “Nothing is limitless” and so is my post. Good Day!