Thank God I'm an atheist.....

Disclaimer: While writing this one I was in a very contemplative mood,these are the few occassions when I can be stupid enough to think about thinking, about why we think and how we think. It is during such times that I can come up with questions like ' Why do we we think in English or Hindi, why not in C++, why not without its use either?' Yup I can ask such things!


Being an atheist can be a tough job, especially when you have a mom who thinks Indra — a Hindu counterpart of Zeus — will zap you with a bolt of lightening for not believing in him! Zap.....


I'm an atheist but I wasn't born one, nor have I turned into one overnight. The journey from being a theist to an atheist has come to me as a result of reasoning and experiance. I just couldnt believe in the 330 million Gods — each with a dozen names or so — that Hinduism claims exist.


A zillion misconceptions exist about atheists and most among atheists themselves! Atheism is not a religion in the sense that Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism are. Atheism does not generally offer a complete guideline for living as most religions do. However, Atheists frequently derive their own ethics and philosophy of life using their Atheism as a starting point. They are generally derived from reasoning and experience put together. Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair colour. To different people it means different things. To me it is the belief in no God rather than no belief in God. The word atheist is derived from the ancient Greek adjective atheos meaning 'godless'.


'If we go back to the beginning, we shall find that ignorance and fear created the gods; that fancy, enthusiasm, or deceit adorned them; that weakness worships them; that credulity preserves them and that custom, respect and tyranny support them in order to make the blindness of men serve their own interests. If the ignorance of nature gave birth to gods, the knowledge of nature is calculated to destroy them.' -Baron D'Holbach one of the first famous European atheists.


God is always invented to explain those things that you do not understand. Now when you finally discover how something works, you stop associating it with God, you dont need Him anymore. But you need Him for the other mysteries. Therefore you leave Him to create the universe, you need Him for those things which you don't believe the laws will explain, such as consciousness, or why you only live to a certain length of time — life and death — stuff like that. God is always associated with those things that you do not understand. We use God as crutches to hide our disabiltiy in the form of ignorance.


Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is God both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?
-Epicurus