Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion is a fascinating book that answers all your questions and doubts about why there certainly is no reason yet to believe in a God. Even if there is one.
When I first read about this book in a Khushwant Singh column[1], I was overwhelmed. I too had my own ideas about why, logically, there could not be a God. My aversion to God was not some principled, thought out, introspected plan. It came on very quietly. Indeed, I didn’t even know at the time that I had started detesting those set of feelings that are conventionally associated with believers. All of a sudden (of course, this suddenness is only in retrospect) I started arguing, thinking, following all such ideas that had I known it then would not have been possible for me to understand, fathom or harbour (perhaps?). I say so because before these incipient transformations I was a very devout Hindu: till sometime I had made it a habit to eat my first meal in the day only after I had had a bath and, then, been to a temple. Even after I gave up on it I still used to discuss and cogitate on Hindu philosophy[2]: Vivekananda, Vedānta and all that jazz (crap?).Quite long after that, I had a discussion with a friend[3] about the possibility of the existence of God; it was the first time that I had tried to articulate my atheistic views, though I don’t think I was ready with even plausible arguments then (my friend wasn’t even capable of refuting those; it was not really an intellectual discussion). Actually, none of us had even an elementary training in either religious or philosophical matters. I was yet to come across any atheist literature.
When I first read about this book in a Khushwant Singh column[1], I was overwhelmed. I too had my own ideas about why, logically, there could not be a God. My aversion to God was not some principled, thought out, introspected plan. It came on very quietly. Indeed, I didn’t even know at the time that I had started detesting those set of feelings that are conventionally associated with believers. All of a sudden (of course, this suddenness is only in retrospect) I started arguing, thinking, following all such ideas that had I known it then would not have been possible for me to understand, fathom or harbour (perhaps?). I say so because before these incipient transformations I was a very devout Hindu: till sometime I had made it a habit to eat my first meal in the day only after I had had a bath and, then, been to a temple. Even after I gave up on it I still used to discuss and cogitate on Hindu philosophy[2]: Vivekananda, Vedānta and all that jazz (crap?).Quite long after that, I had a discussion with a friend[3] about the possibility of the existence of God; it was the first time that I had tried to articulate my atheistic views, though I don’t think I was ready with even plausible arguments then (my friend wasn’t even capable of refuting those; it was not really an intellectual discussion). Actually, none of us had even an elementary training in either religious or philosophical matters. I was yet to come across any atheist literature.
My doubts were not of the kind of logical-end absurdity that usually puzzles people about God that if such a thing actually created everything, who created that thing? This is one of the principle questions that Dawkins raises in his book, though in slightly different and redoubtable manner.
All religions, as a general rule, hold the body, in general, and sex[4], in particular, in contempt. Death and abode of pain are the two general reasons for doing so. As a child, I grew up watching a banner showing the famous ‘niśkāma karma’ saying from Gitā-"karmanyevdhikāraste mā phaleshu kadācan".
When my ideas started showing a different indentation, I did not really have a problem with this logic-what troubled me was its unnaturalness and rarity. I never saw anyone doing something just like that, without any yearning, with no intention to get something out of it. Now, as some would say, that’s a very puerile attitude towards philosophy. Maybe, but I don’t understand how could you speculate usefully about something that had no existential import. You could say, its not that human beings are like computer programs that would follow a general principle like robots do in the Will Smith movie, these are principles underlying human behaviour. Just that people never brood on it. Well, that’s my point exactly, though what I’m saying is these might be underlying principles but there’s nothing in them that makes them the privileged set, there are a heck lot of principles out there which are getting left out. And the very reason we see ‘deviations’ is because perhaps, either we don’t factor in those other principles or just think them too ignoble to be considered. Most of the times, it is this ignobility that is characteristic of philosophers. All ignoble things are ‘deviations’. Men and women, being the creations of a being for who even the thought of the word ‘bad’ (what does that really mean but for our personal preferences?) is anathema or antagonistic, could never in principle be made up of these ‘deviations’. Sex is perhaps the greatest of these ‘deviations’. I could never see any logic in it. Sex is what drives evolution. It is the élan vital. We wouldn’t have been here, if it was not for this drive, hunger. You may argue that about prostitution, rape, molestation, paedophilia, harassment, abuse etc but that didn’t mean passion for sex was in itself unethical.
But there was another side to religion that made me ditch God.
