A religious atheist

In another of my adventures on the internet, I found this peice of priceless misunderstanding . What profoundly impressed me in this blog is how our thinking is influenced and how rigidly we manipulate happenings to fit our views (and nothing else). For example, the concept of God, religion and political thinking. Some old-timer, sane, dead person, once advised not to mix all three or was it the last two? Because, the one with God and religion was not something Macaulay-like people could see in their society. The concept of religion, a modern day person has, is of a headquarters issuing out step-by-step instructions on the upkeeping of morals. And this borrowed concept is imbibed into our society blindly. There, right there, exists the difference between an organized religion and others- like Hinduism.

An Abrahamic religion is an example of an organized religion. Thus, you are expected to go to a Church if you are a Christian or offer namaz if you are a Muslim. But ask any Hindu if there is a compulsary need for him to attend a sermon (or like some people think, watch Fox news!). Somehow, inspite of their experiences with it, people tend to apply a single-dimensional western outlook to Hinduism. (and whats more, call themselves liberal!). Better still, do a random check on social networking sites like Orkut for the number of Hindus (names might help -Eg: 'Krish'na is a Hindu name as a Muslim or a Christian rarely has this one ;-) who claim to be 'Atheist', 'Agnostic', 'Spiritual but not religious', 'Religious humanist' , 'Unitarian universalist', 'Neo-paganist' etc as compared to people of any Abrahamic religion. It gives you quite the indication why Hinduism is, in reality, a liberal 'religion' unlike otherwise percieved and why they are different.

Whats with God and religion? Every religion has a God. Yes, definitely so, in an Abrahamic religion only. I challenge any Hindu, atheist or whoever to try and show me why a Hindu must believe in a God. Or why my political leaning cant be Right and I cant be an atheist at the same time. I can loathe the self-proclaimed liberals and still be an atheist and no self-hater can stop me from doing that.

"One who fights a monster, becomes one himself"-Neitzsche. Atheism is belief in non-existence of God. And like all other religious fundamentalists, atheistic fundamentlists will always claim to be intellectually superior. Even an Osama Bin Laden can claim superiority of intellect by default. For any frog in the well, the well is the ocean- Is it even a surprise?

All Atheists need not be liberal or rational and we have examples to show that. I end with this dialogue from RHTDM to the men of 'wisdom': "Chashma utaar aur duniya dekh".

PS: For all claims on superiority-by-non-existence-of-proof, try explaining Law of conservation of energy and creation of matter on the same blackboard. And unlike others, this religious atheist welcomes liberal, conservative or confused views. :-)