My……………………..!!!
DISBELIEF.
by Dilip Mantripragada
Faith —> Agnostic —> Atheistic —-> Total annihilation of god.
The views represented here are purely my views, my way of interpreting life. I do not want to force anyone in following my view. Now, my dear reader, if you are wondering what this is about, it is just my being skeptic on a couple of worldly/earthly things. Now worldly things I mean literally worldly things, I even consider the concept of god and ghosts and other such things as worldly, nothing supernatural. I would like to emphasize to you that, I am not on a journey to prove the existence or rather non existence, of any being or any supernatural beings. Frankly, neither you nor me know everything in this universe. I would take the scientific aspect rather than the baseless creationism/intelligent designer /religious views. These are purely my views. So if you do like these views or share some/all of these views, welcome to the bandwagon. If you think that you would be sinning yourself or offending your god, this is the point to stop reading and go back to your daily chores. If you would like to continue reading as a critic or a skeptic or as a religious cleric investigating me and my free thought, I suggest you read and consider it in a healthy perspective.
I can give you a nice example of you understanding my perspective. Consider a religion other than yours. There would be a number of beliefs in this religion that you would not follow or even sometimes consider silly. But for a person in that religion it is pretty serious stuff. According to this other religion you might have already sinned and are doomed to hell for all eternity. But thats not at all bothering you why? Because, you are not of that religion or care less about that religion and are really contempt with whatever your belief system(religion/faith) is. Now here, there is not much difference between you and me. I feel the same assurance or contempt in not believing at all in your religion or rather any religion (belief system). There is a small catch here but, I don’t like to call my atheistic/skeptic view a belief. I would like to call it free logical thought. I hope you got my point. Just think in your perspective that my religion is free thought, it will not bother you just like other religions wouldn’t. Belief system!!! Yes thats what l think a religion is. More elaborated, a belief is just another synonym for a lie. A lie with which one tries to explain to himself or much worse, to others, when he cannot comprehend or get to the actual scientific/logical conclusion.
——Is religious belief a mere leap into irrationality as many skeptics assume? Psychology suggests that there may be more to belief than the suspension of reason. Religious beliefs and practices are found in all human groups and go back to the very beginnings of human culture. What makes religion so ‘natural’? Here I want to discuss one particular view of religion, popular among skeptics, that I call the “sleep of reason” interpretation. According to this view, people have religious beliefs because they fail to reason properly. If only they grounded their reasoning in sound logic or rational order, they would not have supernatural beliefs, including superstitions and religion. I think this view is misguided, for several reasons; because it assumes a dramatic difference between religious and commonsense ordinary thinking, where there isn’t one; because it suggests that belief is a matter of deliberate weighing of evidence, which is generally not the case; because it implies that religious concepts could be eliminated by mere argument, which is implausible; and most importantly because it obscures the real reasons why religion is so extraordinarily widespread in human cultures.
- Boyer, Pascal (2004). Why Is Religion Natural? Skeptical Inquirer Magazine, March 2004.
The Relief of praying by Dilip Mantripragada.
Please keep in mind that this particular essay or passage does not at all imply that I am a believer or at least agnostic, I am a pure Atheist, and will always be till the one above as others claim, gives me a strong proof!
Praying,is this quality good or bad? Now what a silly question one might think this is, in both the skeptic and religious views. Asking this question being a skeptic feels even more absurd. When such a question arises among the free thinkers/skeptics you are by default considered a agnostic. Ok, one might be thinking here that I am really agnostic, well thats not true. I am a pure skeptic, totally atheistic. Well, coming to my point which I would like to put across, I have to admit that I do get some relief when I sit close my eyes and wish some things to happen, just being pure selfish. This may sound like praying, rather this is praying but what I do is purely non religious. Maybe this is how yoga/meditation came into being. Man is not a pure being(asking yourself you will realize that nothing is), every man by nature is selfish, has jealousy, tells lies, does mischevious things, if having a criminal intent would also do much more atrocities. Now, there is a exception here, man is always true to one person whatever the situation maybe, he will not at all be selfish to him, will not show jealousy to him, will not in majority of cases cause harm to him. Well who is this person, GOD…….no way, not at all, that person is himself. One can be unfaithful to others but never to himself, because he cannot hide the truth from himself. Now, once in a while confiding to ones self, realizing what you did wrong, calmly thinking and negotiating in ones own mind is definitely a relief. When some really hard tasks are to be done usually the prayer practice comes into play. Which is perfectly normal, and I guess inevitable sometimes to a religious person. After all we are human beings not super beings, everybody needs some councelling and everybody cannot afford a shrink!! I guess I am getting carried away here, but I guess you got my point. Praying religiously is just another manifestation of psychological relief. My kind of prayer is a simple one. I would just close my eyes wish myself best of luck before a exam or sit and breath calmly in case of something important, as simple as that. So, in simple terms thats what a prayer is or should be for a atheist/total non believer. Now, praying with respect to a religious person itself has so many variations that it would really be appalling sometimes. In Islam, one has to pray 5 times daily, no matter what happens. Even if its the armageddon, one has fall down on his knees and start praying not once but beg for 5 times. Being a hindu and praying is totally a different experience. I would rather say all my childhood it was rather fun for me. Luckily even being in one of the most religious caste, my parents were not very orthodox. I was always looking forward to any religious festival, not because I was religious but only because it was purely fun. I mean there were varieties of food being made, loads of friends and cousins coming and going. It was more of a normal party to me than a religious ceremony. I am not specifying that, this is always the case in Hindu societies, there are many cases where a person is obsessed with prayers or frequent visits to holy shrines. This kind of obsession really surprises me, I cannot contemplate that a person definitely has to go to a holy shrine in order to say his prayers. Duuuh….Hello….god is supposed to be omnipresent, he is everywhere. Why the hell then you would like to climb 7 mountains and then go and pray. It can be a fun trekking trip, once in a while but not for damn deed you want to perform. The thing is prayer is really a good thing if considered for both an atheist and a religious person, when considering only with respect to psychological well being. But sometimes really absurd for a ardent religious person. Why? read on. Now, one thing every religious person will agree on, is that God is an Omnipotent God, Omnipresence, Omniscience and of course Omnibenevolent. No religious person will deny this fact. Anyway, now if god is all knowing, always/everywhere present and having total knowledge, then why ask him for something, will he not provide you with what you need because you really are desperate of it. Does god not know what good and bad is, do we have to always remind him, bribe him in a temple in order to get what we want. But why do we want to ask him in first place. The desires we have good or bad are made in our brain, which is made by god right, then why put bad thoughts in our brain. Well is god not omniscient?, then why remind him. Is god not omnipresent, then why go places to pray. Is god not omnipotent, then why remind him of his ultimate authority. A different answer totally arises from praying, that answer is, is god really there. Consciously or unconsciously a prayer to a very religious person is a cry for help, a cry asking god to come back to his terms, a cry to remind him of his duties. And you know what he would atleast listen and agree after sometime. This should always ponder in the mind of a religious person when he prays. So finally, why pray????Only one thing crosses my mind again and again and that is psychological relief only. For a religious person believing in a supernatural being and then begging him/praying to him will definitely bring him some relief. If thats the only purpose, purpose I mean in achieving psychological relief, I have no hassle against it. But, if one is really obsessed with prayers I think he has real psychological problems or rather personal serious problems which he cannot confide to his friends, family. Hence, has to confide to a non-existent being.
The point I am trying to put across is that for ones own psychological relief such things I would consider acceptable. But taking it to a extreme fundamentalistic point is always dangerous. I am a skeptic and will always be but I am not at all against religious people. I have got friends and family who are very religious and really sometimes go into nice and healthy arguments.
