Letter to a religious nation

Dear Fellow Indians,

Allow me begin with a fervent plea. Abandon your religion and all your god men. They mean nothing and are the bedrocks on which falsehoods are perpetuated. I am an atheist. Allow me reiterate. I am not secular. I am an atheist. I believe all religions you participate in humbug. If I were secular, I’d be compelled to treat all religions on equal footing. But I don’t think it possible. 

This is because the nature of religion demands the so-called truth as revealed in each of its sacred texts is the truth alone. And that all other versions will not stand up to scrutiny. I think that a rather offensive and puerile assumption to make. To the contrary, I think versions of truth as offered by all religions comprise lies and damned lies. 

Why? Because as Sam Harris, a neuroscientist and best-selling author puts it so eloquently in his book Waking Up: "Nothing that a Christian, a Muslim and a Hindu can experience—self transcending love, ecstasy, bliss, inner light—constitutes evidence in support of their traditional beliefs, because their beliefs are logically incompatible with one another. A deeper principle must be at work."

It is tempting then to ask what is so incompatible between all of these faiths? The fact that all of them originated from different parts of the world is the first that strikes me—Christianity from the West, Islam from the Middle East and Hinduism along with its various sub sects from the East. The proselyting natures of Christianity, the intolerance of Islam and the laid back, albeit hydra headed inclusiveness of Hinduism that seeks to embrace proselytization and intolerance as part of the “brahman” or universe; for that matter as an avatar or incarnation of the divine is a case in point.

Then there is the conquest of happiness itself. Every form of organized religion promises happiness. It is pertinent then to ask what is happiness, as we understand it? To the laity, happiness lies in gratification of desire. It could be something as simple as access to good food, or having loved ones within an arm's reach. 

From a philosopher's prism though, the question on hand is, is it possible to happy before one's desires are granted, in spite of life’s difficulties, in the midst of old age, pain, disease and death?

Christianity and Islam promise it in the afterlife. Hinduism demands a life of asceticism to achieve moksha or liberation from the cycle of life and death until happiness can be discovered. 

To my mind, this is asking for too much. I refuse to suffer in the “now” that I may rejoice in the afterlife; or that I renounce all of my “now” that I may be liberated. Fact is, I think these terribly, terribly, stifling. But fact also remains, these are the foundations on which religion in pretty much every form is built on. 

Not just that, Harris argues. The word “religion” is an artifact of language. It is just but a generic term like sport is. To draw an analogy, some sports are peaceful, but extremely dangerous like rock climbing. Some are safer but violent like mixed martial arts. And some like bowling mean you do nothing more than stand in a place like you would in a shower. Therefore, to speak of all sport in the same breath is an impossible discussion to have. We need to understand the nuances of what each sport involves. It is much the same thing with religion. Given these differences, I find it impossible not to laugh at secular shams like inter-faith dialogues to promote harmony.

Into all of this, add the lives we take for granted. Hindus have the gall to believe everything was known of before anybody else in the world knew of it. But truth is, Hindu scriptures know nothing of the biology of cancer, vaccinations, the human genome or aviation. Contemporary medicine and aviation is the outcome of western scientific thought. I am first hand witness as well to the violence blood hungry Hindu hordes unleashed in the wake of the Babri Masjid demolition.

But this does not exonerate Christianity or Islam. How can we forgive the Catholic Church for the trial and conviction to life of Italian astronomer Galileo because he proved the earth revolves around the sun? Contemporary history has it that the brilliant mathematician Alan Turing was prosecuted for admitting to homosexual acts in early 1952. He was subjected to chemical castration through hormone injections until he eventually committed suicide. 

How can any leverage possibly be given to Islam either? It contains the likes of nuclear physicists like the Pakistani Samar Mubarak Mand who told an audience in Balochistan that when he organizing a nuclear test in 1998, he discovered Allah had put a miracle chicken into the pot. Even after 183 people had eaten from it, the pot was still full of chicken.  

On the face of such pig headed assertions, my submission to you is cast religion and secularism in all its forms away. It is riddled with holes and more holes can be punctured into all of what it stands for. That is why I am totally with Sam Harris again when he argues the world’s religions are mere intellectual ruins, maintained at enormous economic and social cost.

Instead, embrace atheism. This is a way of life that understands what you are looking for. Happiness. In the here and in the now. It is what people call a spiritual experience. Allow me add a word of caution here. Religion and spirituality are two different things.

The quickest way to experience spirituality is through a party drug Ecstasy. Pop one of it and what follows is a spiritual experience. You feel a certain oneness with the universe. You experience contentment. You begin to understand what it is to love without expecting anything in return. The line: “I love you because….” holds no meaning then. It morphs into “I love you”. No caveats attached.

I am not suggesting here you pop Ecstasy pills because all of us know of the disastrous consequences that follow. But atheism is a way of life that places a premium on compassion and love. It believes these are skills that can be taught and acquired minus the baggage that accompanies organized religion. That way you engage with life.

Allow me sign this note off with a passage from PM Forni’s The Thinking Life: “The more you value life, the more you engage with it. The more you engage with it, the more you think your way through it. The more you think your way through it, the more effective you are as its trustee. It is then that you finally live out the elemental truth that in life there are no rehearsals and you only play for keeps.”

In anticipation,

An unapologetic atheist

A religion for atheists

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I hadn't seen this picture before until Richard Dawkins re-tweeted it with a link to a sharp rebuttal from a believer. The post Riding with Richard in the Land of Atheist Devotion caught my attention. Unlike most rebuttals that are shrill, this one is measured. But more importantly, it's clear to me after reading it, it comes on the back of contemplation. I so wish debates around religion were as measured as this.

The reason I say that is because until some time ago, I was one of those firmly ensconced in the Dawkins camp. The kinds who believed religious advocacy can only be countered by militant atheism. 

Over time though, I've tempered down. My belief in science, reason and logic remains unchanged. To that extent, I am still a believer in the Dawkins school of questioning everything. That said, the more I think of it, militant atheism is as fundamentalist as staunch beliefs held by any religious sects. 

That is why I find myself someplace in between. The sweet spot for me was articulated by Alain de Botton

Four years ago, I wrote to him in my earlier avatar as one of the founding editors at Forbes India to write an essay on our pages. He was kind enough to hear me out and wrote a lovely piece I had the privilege of publishing: A religion for atheists

"We’d be wiser to start with the common-sense observation that, of course, no part of religion is true in the sense of being God-given. There is naturally no Holy Ghost, spirit, geist or divine emanation. Dissenters from this line can comfortably stop reading at this point, but for the rest of us the subject is henceforth far from closed. The tragedy of modern atheism is to have ignored just how many aspects of religion continue to be interesting even when the central tenets of the great faiths are discovered to be entirely implausible. Indeed, it’s precisely when we stop believing in the idea that gods made religions that things become interesting, for it is then that we can focus on the human imagination which dreamt these creeds up. We can recognise that the needs which led people to do so must still in some way be active, albeit dormant, in modern secular man. God may be dead, but the bit of us that made God continues to stir."