"They have purely and simply finished
with God!" said Friedrich Engels.
More than an
ism, it's modern age's statement. Perhaps much more -- now it's almost a
religion. And, as abominable as atheism holds religion to be, it too has
started adorning itself with similar robes of a holier-than-thou insularism.
"After coming into
contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands," Friedrich Nietzsche, like so many other
deep thinkers like him before him as after, was compelled to utter such words
with a good reason, in all fairness.
In recent times, atheism has
mushroomed in the West; largely in Judeo-Christian areas. At the same time, religious
fundamentalism has sky-rocketed in regions under Islamic influence. Both trends must alarm a tender heart.
"All thinking men are atheists." said Ernest Hemingway.
In his ground-breaking book "A Brief
History of Time", Stephen Hawking wonders, "Why it is that we and the universe exist?"
To his own query, he answers out aloud, "If we find the answer to that, it would be
the ultimate triumph of human reason, for then we would know the mind of God."
Perhaps humorist Mark Twain pushed
buttons a little further and farther, when he tongue-in-cheek remarked, "Nothing
exists but you. And you are but a thought."
Ironically, he made bold a scientific assertion; which, since
times immemorial, Eastern spiritualists, yogis and free mystics not only agree
with but also hold as the eternal reality of existence.
"To sustain the belief that there is
no God, atheism has to demonstrate infinite knowledge, which is tantamount to
saying, "I have infinite knowledge that there is no being in existence with
infinite knowledge," says Ravi Zacharias.
Basically, atheism in the
Judeo-Christian belt across the world has stemmed from excesses of the church
and of its not-so-honourable men of robes. Shoving down unpalatable diktats of
Bible in every unwilling throat too gets many a thinking man's goat. And, the
extremities of Islam too have had far-reaching consequences; altering the
consciousness of not only the classes but also a sizable bulk of masses,
against religion as such; rebelling against a perceived unjust God as much.
It is the view of Isaac Asimov that "properly read, the Bible is the most
potent force for atheism ever conceived." Mark Twain too could not resist taking a pot-shot at
his inherited ism, commenting - "The Bible has noble poetry in it... and
some good morals and a wealth of obscenity, and upwards of a thousand lies."
In more recent times, Christopher Hitchens says, "As a convinced atheist, I ought
to agree with Voltaire that Judaism is not just one more religion, but in its
way the root of religious evil. Without the stern, joyless rabbis and their 613
dour prohibitions, we might have avoided the whole nightmare of the Old
Testament, and the brutal, crude wrenching of that into prophecy-derived
Christianity, and the later plagiarism and mutation of Judaism and Christianity
into the various rival forms of Islam."
The idea of
an anthropomorphic, human-like god, sitting up there in heaven, ruling this
hellish earth with all its cruelties, without respite; churns the fires of intelligent
minds, questioning every presumed "godly' intention that seems more and more
like malfeasance than divine ordinance. Thus,
a sceptical intellect would but agree with what Voltaire said; that "those
who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities."
Dr. Anne
Besant, who worked with the free thought and radical movements in England in
her time and later projected Jidu Krishnamurti as the World Teacher, led
Theosophical Society and spear-headed the freedom struggle of India against the
British until her death in 1933; postulated, "The position of the atheist is
a clear and reasonable one. I know nothing about "God' and therefore I do not
believe in Him or in it; what you tell me about your God is self"-contradictory,
and therefore incredible. I do not deny "God,' which is an unknown tongue to me;
I do deny your God, who is an impossibility. I am without God." A
compatriot observed that she was "unable to make logic out of Christian
traditions, she left the Church in 1872 and became a freethinker, thus ruining
her social position through her passion for Truth." However, "it was not the
challenge of unfaith but rather of a highly spiritual nature that desired
intensely not only to believe but also to understand."
Einstein
too confessed that "I came, though the
child of entirely irreligious (Jewish) parents, to a deep religiousness, which,
however, reached an abrupt end at the age of twelve. Through the reading of
popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories
of the Bible could not be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic orgy
of freethinking." To him "the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot
take seriously." Most
importantly, he led us to a secularist's view of the world, with which many of
today's freethinkers could amicably identify; for the renown scientist
elaborated that "If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the
unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can
reveal it."
According to
theoretical physicist, Stephen Hawking, "My goal is simple. It is a complete
understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all." However, this is the ultimate aim and
objective of every Yogi, Sufi and Free Mystic too. For, unlike
Judeo-Christian-Islamic culture, wherein unquestioning acquiescence and
obeisance is expected vis---vis nature of existence or its espoused creator; in
free mystical tradition of the East, of India at least, a metaphysical seeker
is first and foremost expected to ask, "Ko hum?" -- Who am I?
A brief
comparison between the knowledge of present day science and ancient to this day
free mysticism is called for here -- about The Nature of Alpha and Omega, of The
End Reality.
"We each exist for but
a short time, and in that time explore but a small part of the whole universe. " This much Professor Hawking,
perhaps one of the greatest minds of modern day and a prominent exponent of
atheism, admits. On the other hand, a serious free mystic of the Indian
tradition not only wants to know everything about The Ultimate Reality in this
very life itself, but now! - In the present moment itself. And, metaphysical
philosophy of India insists one can, if so be one's divine destiny, attain
enlightenment in this short time available to us in our puny little life.
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