What I mean when I say I am atheist ?
When I say I am an atheist belonging to a certain religion it is hard for lot of people to understand it. Thus this effort to pen my understanding of religions and associated personal view of atheism.
I want to, and I do, live my daily life with certain spirituality. This spirituality dictates philosophy of my life, or so I believe. This philosophy consists of the interaction between my actions and my thoughts. The conflicts or agreements between these, my actions and thoughts, are my ethics or my morality (I will be using these words interchangeably ). We humans, as social animals, have two kinds of moralities/ethics. One on a social level and the second on an individual level.
The social morality directs how one conducts oneself in public; a trivial example would be nudity in public. The personal ethics are quite different but equally, if not more, important for the social stability of any human society. The most primary social morals are generally defined in constitutions and implemented as laws. Then there are certain unwritten morals (which we generally call ethics or manners) which are imposed by tacit mutual and social understanding. There are policemen(cops) or group of people to monitor one’s conduct at this level. These are the things where the social accountability ends and “freedom” starts. The other important aspect of the social structure is the social responsibility which, unless otherwise forced, is blissfully ignored.
The hardest tests of morality or ethics are seen at the individual level for obvious reasons. In almost all cultures and countries, generally, the policeman (you can say, the guide, but I prefer the policeman) at this level is GOD (i.e. RELIGION as implementer). God (he/she/it.. whatever) is the beautifully crafted concept by great philosophers; some of these great humans wrote the so-called ‘holy books’ like Gita, Bible, Koran, etc.. The effect of policeman has been tried to achieve through different styles like, by appealing to the social (inclining towards peace and security) nature of humans, or by exploiting the insecurity and bribing with a false sense of assurance, or by appealing to the inherent fear of death or in some cases, fear of life after death. The concept of religion (and hence ‘god’) surely appeals me while it helps to maintain the peace and harmony.
The natural tendency of humans, viz. most are followers of a few leaders, goes hand in hand with this idea of religion/god as the cop. Religion is/was meant to manage the society. BUT the management was to be done at individual level ! The social morals and ethics were responsibility of the rulers. I have a good reason to believe that the creators of the religions or holy books understood this distinction very well. The reason for such belief is the emphasis of most of the religions for their religious leaders to practice detachment from the materialistic pleasures (not necessarily only sexual pleasures) of the world. The extent of suggestion of this alienation from materialism in a given religion, I argue, was based on the faith of the writer (god) in the followers. ALSO, the level of rigidity (or flexibility) in any religion can be thought as a function of this faith in the followers. I would go to the extent of saying that it also reflects the confidence on the writings themselves ! The implementation of this rigidity, historically and undeniably, is function of the age and maturity of a religion (I would like to say evolution but then…).
The tendency of atheism (or social humanitarianism or secularism) seems more prominent in the older cultures around the globe. I personally believe that it is a process of evolution of mind and thoughts for a society as much as for an individual. A dictionary definition of atheist is “unbeliever in God or deities’ and that of God is “supreme being” and that of god( and deity) are “supernatural being”, “figure or image”, “something that dominates”, “divine state”, and “somebody admired”.
I am an atheist who, by my definition of atheism, does NOT believe that for a human to be moral or ethical (or kind or loving or caring or trusting or having any such gentle feelings) there is ANY NEED of fear or bribe (or worry or force or insecurity or rule or such external instigated internal feelings). The accountability of a human being on an individual level can be much higher (and easily at par) than the accountability at a social level without any fear or guidance of god. The causal argument being, it is much easier for god “to forgive” one’s wrong-doing (sometimes some people call some of these wrong-doings as sins) than for oneself to deal through one’s conscience with the burden of such a wrong-doing. It is evident that lot of times god (or its representative) is used as an intermediate step for one to be able to forgive oneself for such an act.
The evolutionary stage of consciousness dictates the level of morality an atheist (or for that matter even a theist) achieves. The relative differences in the stage of conscience differentiate the atheists from one another. Lot of atheists use one or the other religion as a ladder to climb up to a level of atheism. I have seen a few who have used the ladder of religion to climb down to a different level of atheism. These are the materialistic atheists who ignore their responsibilities and sometimes even social accountability. Such beings are threat to the society. I hesitantly say that for that hostile category, even if it is fear or bribe, if it works then let it be. We, as a race, are not at a stage where we can manage completely without religion or god.
Though, currently we see that these aspects of religions have led people to be threat to each other and to themselves and eventually to human race. The love taught is through hatred for others, the security brought is through instability to others, the peace bought is through chaos to others, the respect sought is through fear to others, the belief is strengthened through mistrust in others, and the heaven is achieved through hell for others !
I am an atheist who respects those who respect others, who fears nobody and most importantly whose acts of kindness or love are not functions of any intentions of afterlife gains. I am atheist who assures to the world that he is not a threat to anybody in any way. I am an atheist who believes in everybody’s right to have their own beliefs. I am atheist who does not believe in any god but would vouch my life for the divinity in every human being. I am an atheist who does not hate anybody but only hates the thought of hatred. Finally, I am an atheist who does not worry if I am going to heaven after death but dreams of creating one here on this earth in this life of mine.
Love and peace,
Saatwik.
I want to, and I do, live my daily life with certain spirituality. This spirituality dictates philosophy of my life, or so I believe. This philosophy consists of the interaction between my actions and my thoughts. The conflicts or agreements between these, my actions and thoughts, are my ethics or my morality (I will be using these words interchangeably ). We humans, as social animals, have two kinds of moralities/ethics. One on a social level and the second on an individual level.
The social morality directs how one conducts oneself in public; a trivial example would be nudity in public. The personal ethics are quite different but equally, if not more, important for the social stability of any human society. The most primary social morals are generally defined in constitutions and implemented as laws. Then there are certain unwritten morals (which we generally call ethics or manners) which are imposed by tacit mutual and social understanding. There are policemen(cops) or group of people to monitor one’s conduct at this level. These are the things where the social accountability ends and “freedom” starts. The other important aspect of the social structure is the social responsibility which, unless otherwise forced, is blissfully ignored.
The hardest tests of morality or ethics are seen at the individual level for obvious reasons. In almost all cultures and countries, generally, the policeman (you can say, the guide, but I prefer the policeman) at this level is GOD (i.e. RELIGION as implementer). God (he/she/it.. whatever) is the beautifully crafted concept by great philosophers; some of these great humans wrote the so-called ‘holy books’ like Gita, Bible, Koran, etc.. The effect of policeman has been tried to achieve through different styles like, by appealing to the social (inclining towards peace and security) nature of humans, or by exploiting the insecurity and bribing with a false sense of assurance, or by appealing to the inherent fear of death or in some cases, fear of life after death. The concept of religion (and hence ‘god’) surely appeals me while it helps to maintain the peace and harmony.
The natural tendency of humans, viz. most are followers of a few leaders, goes hand in hand with this idea of religion/god as the cop. Religion is/was meant to manage the society. BUT the management was to be done at individual level ! The social morals and ethics were responsibility of the rulers. I have a good reason to believe that the creators of the religions or holy books understood this distinction very well. The reason for such belief is the emphasis of most of the religions for their religious leaders to practice detachment from the materialistic pleasures (not necessarily only sexual pleasures) of the world. The extent of suggestion of this alienation from materialism in a given religion, I argue, was based on the faith of the writer (god) in the followers. ALSO, the level of rigidity (or flexibility) in any religion can be thought as a function of this faith in the followers. I would go to the extent of saying that it also reflects the confidence on the writings themselves ! The implementation of this rigidity, historically and undeniably, is function of the age and maturity of a religion (I would like to say evolution but then…).
The tendency of atheism (or social humanitarianism or secularism) seems more prominent in the older cultures around the globe. I personally believe that it is a process of evolution of mind and thoughts for a society as much as for an individual. A dictionary definition of atheist is “unbeliever in God or deities’ and that of God is “supreme being” and that of god( and deity) are “supernatural being”, “figure or image”, “something that dominates”, “divine state”, and “somebody admired”.
I am an atheist who, by my definition of atheism, does NOT believe that for a human to be moral or ethical (or kind or loving or caring or trusting or having any such gentle feelings) there is ANY NEED of fear or bribe (or worry or force or insecurity or rule or such external instigated internal feelings). The accountability of a human being on an individual level can be much higher (and easily at par) than the accountability at a social level without any fear or guidance of god. The causal argument being, it is much easier for god “to forgive” one’s wrong-doing (sometimes some people call some of these wrong-doings as sins) than for oneself to deal through one’s conscience with the burden of such a wrong-doing. It is evident that lot of times god (or its representative) is used as an intermediate step for one to be able to forgive oneself for such an act.
The evolutionary stage of consciousness dictates the level of morality an atheist (or for that matter even a theist) achieves. The relative differences in the stage of conscience differentiate the atheists from one another. Lot of atheists use one or the other religion as a ladder to climb up to a level of atheism. I have seen a few who have used the ladder of religion to climb down to a different level of atheism. These are the materialistic atheists who ignore their responsibilities and sometimes even social accountability. Such beings are threat to the society. I hesitantly say that for that hostile category, even if it is fear or bribe, if it works then let it be. We, as a race, are not at a stage where we can manage completely without religion or god.
Though, currently we see that these aspects of religions have led people to be threat to each other and to themselves and eventually to human race. The love taught is through hatred for others, the security brought is through instability to others, the peace bought is through chaos to others, the respect sought is through fear to others, the belief is strengthened through mistrust in others, and the heaven is achieved through hell for others !
I am an atheist who respects those who respect others, who fears nobody and most importantly whose acts of kindness or love are not functions of any intentions of afterlife gains. I am atheist who assures to the world that he is not a threat to anybody in any way. I am an atheist who believes in everybody’s right to have their own beliefs. I am atheist who does not believe in any god but would vouch my life for the divinity in every human being. I am an atheist who does not hate anybody but only hates the thought of hatred. Finally, I am an atheist who does not worry if I am going to heaven after death but dreams of creating one here on this earth in this life of mine.
Love and peace,
Saatwik.
posted by Saatwik at 8:27 PM
3 Comments:
Hi Saatwik
I liked the post for atheist. Thanks for the post.
The reason I liked is, I have seen very few people who actually do this kind of analysis. But then again I haven’t seen entire world.
I have certain questions about being atheist. I don’t claim myself to be atheist or theist. I always wanted to ask people about atheist-ness, I hope that you might be able to help me on this.
Tell me – when you say that you are atheist, don’t you actually give importance to god somehow. It makes me feel that being atheist is very important for you as you have mentioned that just after your address. So by saying that I don’t believe in God all the time I feel that you are giving importance to something that you don’t believe in. I always feel that odd about all the atheist. Most of them feel good about telling people what they don’t believe in instead of telling in what they believe in.
Other thing I noticed that you feel that currently religion is giving people a cause to fight, war and threat. But I feel that people who cause the chaos need any reason to do so, history will give you enormous points to prove it. Religion is buzzword nowadays. Religion is selling more than anything everywhere today.
i liked the concept of social ethics and personal ethics. But I feel that we create all these concepts for our own sheer convenience.
my view about god- god is a concept like any other concept. its upto an individual to deny or accept the existiance of that concept. we often tend to put efforts into denying/accepting something and trying to find out reasons to justify that.
why so much fight over the intangible god concept when there are so many tangible questions that are awaiting help and resolution.
see the paradox.i am putting in so much efforts to know an athiest-ness. just the concept.
Ashutosh
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Hi Ashutosh,
Thank you very much for your reply. I will get to the point right away.
I have been plenty of times (and more so recently) asked why do I feel the need to label myself as an atheist. I also sometimes feel its unnecessary but then..
About your comment “we create all these concepts for our own sheer convenience.”
Yes, I agree and I believe that god also is a concept created by humans for the same reason.
The reason why I feel the need of label is …
Currently we are living in society driven by religion and hence by the concept of god. The contradiction is, using this concept, which is supposed to be peaceful, people have managed to cause chaos. It is a fact we cannot deny and run away from. Also, if you (’A’) made a sharp stick to (hypothetically) get your food (dig in earth and get potato or hunt and get fish) but somebody starts using it as a weapon (against fellow humans), you (your descendants/followers who think they understand your purpose ) would naturally feel the need to ‘aggressively’ get the point across that “we do not believe that A created the sharp stick to be a weapon.. it was meant just be a useful tool to simplify certain aspects of life.” I think that is what I do when I tend to stick label. And as it would be explained at the end of this post, I would prefer to use the word “realize” instead of “believe” but I hesitate to do so since it might sound arrogant and factual to the extent of offending some.
We are on the exact same page on the aspect of “need to find answers to tangible questions”. That was supposed to be the main theme of the post above (or was intended to be) that I do not need god or religion to be a good human being and try to be compassionate towards others (once you are compassionate you tend to acknowledge their problems and once you acknowledge those you tend to work to find solutions for the same). The emphasis on the fact that I do not need god or religion probably did not ascertain the later aspect of the intention of the post.
But as one of my dear friend never seizes to point out (and I agree), we are human beings and we are (or at least intended to be )different from animals to some extent. That difference can be seen in what we call spirituality of humans. This spirituality, which is governed by conscience (and I like the Marathi word सत्सद्विवेकबुद्धि [sat-sat-vivek-buddhi]), drives us to pose these questions to ourselves and seek answers. Thus, not indulging in these “intangible concepts” does not seem practically possible for those humans who have surpassed the basic needs for survival. Hence do not beat yourself for putting in effort to understand what you think you may never understand. As another friend of mine likes to argue, “how can the same m/c analyze itself”.. trying to question if our own brain has the ability to understand its own functioning (and if you do not like the word brain, you can put mind, heart or soul and re-read the sentence). But that should not deter us away and I think it CANNOT deter us away from trying to communicate to/realize the ‘divinity’ within us.
Regarding your point that people who want to cause chaos would use any excuse to do so.. may be but I will not necessarily agree. But my current effort is focused on those who do not “want” to cause chaos but are “misled” in the name of god or religion to contribute to the unrest around the world. As I have tried to suggest that I have faith.. and full faith in humanity (the goodness in all humans.. call it divinity if it makes sense) . Thus, I do not believe that even a single human is born with an intent to contribute negatively to the human race. If correctly appealed, I do have the faith that, we could invoke that humanity in any human being and eventually bring relative peace.
I would love to discuss at length.. so do not hesitate to keep posting.. but I have to get back to the mundane aspects of life (i.e. to sleep so that I can get up in time to go to work : ) ). I hope I have addressed some issues you raised but might have added to the confusion.
I will, in the end ,give a quote by Swami Vivekananda which constitutes a good part of my philosophical inclination ( wherein the definition of God should be understood as the divinity, or the humanitarian aspect, or the conscience which exists in every human being). Also for religious correctness, you could read the part of the speech by replacing the word Hindu by Human Being but I do not dare to alter the words of Swami Vivekananda hence here is the part as he said it :
“The Hindu does not want to live upon words and theories, If there are existences beyond the ordinary sensuous existence, he wants to come face to face with them. If there is a soul in him which is not matter, if there is an all-merciful universal Soul, he will Rota Him direct. He must see Him, and that alone can destroy all doubts. So the best proof a Hindu sage gives about the soul, about God, is: 'I have seen the soul; I have seen God.' And that is the only condition of perfection. The Hindu religion does not consist in struggles and attempts to believe a certain doctrine or dogma, but in realizing - not in believing, but in being and becoming.”
Peace and realization,
Saatwik.
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