From the "Dance of Death" by Michael Wolgemut, 1493 (image in Public Domain)

Just as some humans are more courageous than others, there are also some who fear the unseen and unknown more than the others. This indicates what kind of theists will have the fear of god’s wrath contributing to the persistence of their faith. What if you are a coward and hold your own safety as priority above all truth? What if your life or your genes made you so helplessly afraid of the unpleasant things that in order to have a stable and non-suicidal mind it becomes essential for you to be a hypocrite in all sensitive matters in life? What if your psyche is so hopeless that only a world of fantasies would help you stay sane?

Is there a way to assist such people to stay cool without religion?

Here goes my imaginary argument between a theist and an atheist:

Theist : I don’t care about truth. I’m so scared of god that I’m going to follow his words to get a place in heaven.

Atheist: What if it gets proven that god doesn’t exist? Wouldn’t it shatter your fake world and your self confidence?

Theist: I’m not going to be proved that god doesn’t exist as long as I live. And when I die, if it is so that god doesn’t exist, I wont be existing either, to know that I had led a foolish life. So I’m ensuring that so far as my existence goes, I will lead a happy life, whether or not god exists. Now what about your life?

Atheist: I think that most probably god doesn’t exist and that I will cease to exist as soon as I die. I will stay happy thinking that I am living a life based on acceptance of reality the way it is and am not making a fool of myself.

Theist: What if it gets proven that god does exist? Would you not feel like a fool then? Wouldn’t you lose the reason why you are happy?

Atheist: No, in fact I will be even more happy. For several reasons:
1) the world won’t suck any less than it does now.
2) god will still not be great. I will still be happy that I never prayed to such a violent and indifferent entity, such an egomaniac, misogynist, homophobe.
3) About going to hell, well that would add a lot to my happiness because I would love to exist in some form after death (compared to my present situation where I live with the uneasy truth that I wont exist after death). I would get to meet the dead people I love and admire. And who knows, I could bribe or deal god into getting a fake passport to heaven.
4) Since the worst thing that could happen to me then, would be me being sent  to hell, I wouldn’t have a reason to fear the cessation of my existence from militant theists and so would continue my anti-theist campaign with increased enthusiasm.
5) And If Satan is found to exist too, I will become his partner and annoy god more than he already would be.

The point here is that whether in reality god exists or not, whether you are a theist or not, if you are not bothered about seeking the truth, maybe you can find reasons to be happy. Our ego is inherently capable of making itself happy, irrespective of basic orientations of faith or the lack of it. Our ego defense mechanisms are a lot more diverse than we can imagine, and rationalization is by far the most effective of them. We see such examples in our everyday encounter with theists who will attribute every random event to “god’s will” and every anomaly/calamity to “god works in mysterious ways”.

Maria Yakunchikova "Fear" 1893-95 (image in Public Domain)

When psychotherapies have helped people get rid of different types of phobias and paranoias, why not this one? While I do not claim to have known or devised such a therapy, I daresay we can, for people paranoid of god’s wrath. But more important is to help those who don’t have any clinical paranoia or phobia, who have fear of god and the unknown, removal of which would render their life more productive and happy. It may be possible to have it done with different arguments (example, the imaginary argument in this article), each of which may be applicable to a certain subset of people. Psychologists and psychiatrists, with some research, can make sure that fear doesn’t necessarily have to preclude reason in general and nontheism in particular.

To cite a random example where this thought might be practically applied, there was in recent news, this “ex-atheist” who accepted christianity at the age of 63 years. The reasons cited by this man are rather too fishy and unconvincing. Accepting christianity might be this man’s way of dealing with his situation, especially when he is too fond of suing people and supposedly has a persecution complex. Old age and a persecution complex are enough reasons for one to suspect a possible role of exaggerated fear in turning him religious . So such a psychotherapy just might work for him!

Temperament is an unusual frame of mind; it can boil upto a certain limit, and at breakeven, when the very reason it purges seems to skirmish with it, even to the point of a debate, it deviates its direction and cools down , abnormally low, where it takes a humorous position. That’s precisely what happened with some of the literary masters over the years. During the dark ages of Europe, when societal stigmas, taboos, beliefs, practices, rites, customs and its effects transcended into a firestorm, leading to complete debacle of the European society, the only rescue mission emanated from the fraternity of artistic brilliance. The dogmas were too bitter to consume, as they went over the heads of literary world, tempting them to use provocative satires against it. The fanatics, unlearned and hardliners who couldn’t wait to handle any criticisms against their cults, turned themselves as self-styled crusaders and sought the heads of the literary world terming them as ‘Blasphemers’.

And thus arose a disturbing phenomenon of Sacrilege and Blasphemy, raging out from the veins of despicable extremists, who made it habitual to cry foul every time they felt like feeling offended. The weirdness attached to the term offensive is so great, that it erupts each time, it feels pinched. This occurred as early as 500 years before Christ, when an admirable Athenian philosopher was sentenced and poisoned, for his thoughts. The thoughts that went against the common beliefs of his period, and thus Socrates came to be regarded by modern writers as the ‘first prisoner of conscience’. In the 17th century, an Italian physicist and astronomer devised an innovative theory, which suggested that earth revolved around sun and rotated around its axis, contrary to the traditional belief. The fundamentalists didn’t spare him too; he was charged of hurting religious sentiments, and sentenced to prison. A few decades later, his theory was adopted in the mainstream and to this day Galileo has been hailed as the “father of Scientific Revolution”. Dating back to the mid-19th century, an English biologist released a book by the name “Origin of Species” which explained a remarkable and an awe-inspiring theory of “Natural Selection”. The biologist had penned down a theory on “Evolution of Mankind”, which didn’t go well with western conservatives of his era. His theory exposed the veracity of the ‘Creationism’ concept in the bible, which was central to Christian belief. He called himself an agnostic and suffered a fair amount of backlash, questioning his commitment to Christian Faith. The Anglican church showed mixed responses to the new theory and the great biologist was forced into submission. With a sudden somersault the Protestant hard-liners claimed his reversion back to Christianity in his old days. A few decades later, his theory was seriously narrated in all schools around the world, and today Darwin’s theory and his other findings have been widely acclaimed in academic circles, earning him the title of most important biologist on Evolution of Mankind.

In the recent times, when the world has taken progressive steps in protecting Freedom of Speech and Expression, and most importantly the lives of artists, scientists and literary icons; India has sarcastically remained primitive. This has been portrayed in recent times by the treatment presented to two iconic Artistic genius of this era Maqbool Fida Hussain and Salman Rushdie. The Indian government, greedy of power, spineless in heart, timid in decision, fantastically coward and inexplicably corrupt has successfully created a vacuum for the rise of intolerance in the country. It is the Indian government’s capitulation to the fundamentalist nut-bags wandering with destructive weapons in the streets, which eventually resulted in blocking Salman Rushdie’s much awaited presence at the Jaipur literary festival, for a talk on the topic “chutnification of English Language”. The fundamentalists do not make an in-depth analysis on anything they do, and this proves on two hilarious cases. The first is that Salman Rushdie has made atleast five visits to India, after the “Satanic Verses” episode in 1989. The second instance makes their case excessively pitiable, widely exposing their ignorance on world affairs. Anyone in this planet, who has access to You tube, Facebook and English dailies would have easily recognized the brutally fierce critique on faith and religion, The Patriarch of Non- Belief, the world renowned Biologists and author of ‘God Delusion’ Dr. Richard Dawkins. Some of us were shockingly astonished, watching Professor Dawkins making vehement statements against religion to a literary crowd, flanked by media at the same venue where Rushdie was supposed to have lectured! Now, for heaven sake, we shall not discuss about Dawkins’s ‘God Delusion’, its nature and content, because the book is available at every book store in the country. Neverthless, the man who bashes organized faith and rubbishes its claims, on a routine basis, is allowed to carry out his business as usual at the cost of a spectacularly creative novelist, and the street demonstrators are hardly aware of Dr. Richard Dawkins works, which would not only offend , but also intensify them.

Image credit : Bala Bhaskar

Well, how to go about this part- pathetic and part- sinister case? It is the vindication that radicals and hardliners stretching their necks out from the safe nest of political parties or religious parties (Politics likes to blend with religion) are appallingly crooked. They have absolutely no right of any say on anything in a secular democracy. Because, a secular democracy by definition, lays down the red carpet for sane and civilized people, and rejects those who fail to qualify to its definition. The same mobs that burned down and decimated MF Husain’s paintings and museums were involved carrying out angry demonstrations against Salman Rushdie’s visit. These hooligans and lynch mobs shouldn’t be isolated nor should they be patronized, instead they must be ridiculed, for their common sense and stupidity. They have not attempted in least to understand Husain’s art or Rushdie’s novel, and perhaps they could never have understood Rushdie’s Novels, because they couldn’t read out a word from them. The leaders of these bullying gangs are the only role models these impatient followers have. The leaders are enraged by the passages in the book, but their followers are frustrated because they are unable to read.

The most important community on this planet, those of who believe in the powers of reason and science, or in other words the enlightened ones, do not organize a lynch mob, burn streets, vandalize public property and riot in fury. Why don’t these individuals retaliate with force, threatening people of serious consequences for offending their sensitivities? Why don’t such sadistic thoughts creep into their minds? That’s precisely because they work based on the instruction of the mind and not the heart. It should be noted that being a humanist in everyday life is not a cake walk, our sensitivities are hurt from the time we read through the front page of morning newspaper to the time we return home and find undeserving candidates seated on the debating panel on prime time newsshows. The slangs they use, the ignorance they expose and the obscurantism they vomit deserves attention only from chimps wandering in African bushes.

The fanatics and the thoughtless extremists, who claim that they have the veto power to dictate terms to government and to national events, (which they would find hard to pronounce), should be conveyed that they are not the only people to feel offended. Sometimes, we too are offended with absurd practices, undue hero-worship, irrational beliefs, and glorification of myths. The secularists and liberals in India are offended to the extreme, when women are beaten by drunken mobs for the crime of passing by a pub, or going out to a restaurant with male friends. In some places of India’s coastal belt, the fundamentalists decide what attire a woman should wear, the way she should behave in a society and interfere in their Personal relationships. But, it’s interesting, that we don’t see artists, musicians, novelists, journalists and other faculty of arts parading to the streets with outrage and creating atmosphere of chaos. We have to put up with this madness and cruelty, and claim that our sensitivities are not hurt.

The right to freedom of expression is recognized as a human right under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and recognized in international human rights law in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). It states that “everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference” and “everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice”.

It is high time, some of our politicians; begin to understand the sanctity of Free Speech. Our government must lead the way for righteousness and not fall prey to the vices of the society. The sensitivities of masses are too high and too far, to be tranquillized, it certainly won’t by banning visits of eminent artists and writers. If this abnormal excitement and lunatic outrage for hurting sensitivities of foolish crackpots, proceeds with thrust, well then, chances of encounter between the secularists and fundamentalists is high. The best thing our political leaders could do to calm down the hurt sentiments of intensified mobs is to play the world’s smallest violin. If that can’t easily soothe their hurt feelings, then they are in the verge of intimidating secular patience. The swords may not be out at once, while the pen is still mightier than the sword. This reminds me of the Great French Revolution of 1789, the ever-inspiring principles are still alive. The call for future sacraments of Secular Fundamentalism and Muscular Liberalism must be inscribed with utmost brutality to avoid further catastrophe.

MN Roy’s masterly introduction is presented below

The belief in India’s spiritual message to the materialist West is a heady wine. It is time to realize that the pleasant inebriation offered a solace to proud intellectuals with inferiority complex. The legacy of that psychological aggressiveness is not an asset, but a liability. For it prevents India from making the best of national independence. Therefore, a critical examination of what is cherished as India’s cultural heritage will enable the Indian people to cast off the chilly grip of a dead past. It will embolden them to face the ugly realities of a living present and look forward to a better, brighter and pleasanter future.

The transmigration of soul and the law of Karma are the fundamental articles of faith with the vast bulk of Indian people. The entire religious mode of thought, which still dominates the spiritual and intellectual atmosphere of our country, is rested on those twin-pillars. Modern education and penetration of scientific knowledge are challenging the religious mode of thought.

Yet, prejudice dies hard. The efforts made even by people with modern scientific education to rationalize the religious mode of thought is only a matter of prejudice. A criticism of religious thought, subjection of traditional beliefs and the time-honored dogmas of religion to a searching analysis, is a condition for the belated Renaissance of India. The spirit of inquiry should overwhelm the respect for tradition.

The essays collected in this volume are expected to quicken that spirit.

Superstition is rooted in the ignorance of the primitive man. In course of time, man outgrows the blissful state of ignorance. Nevertheless, he is haunted by superstitions haloed by tradition, and often raised to the dignity of the expression of revealed wisdom. Eventually, scientific knowledge gives him the power to break the spiritual bondage.

The history of the development of science coincides with the history of a bitter struggle against superstition. In our country, the struggle is still to begin. Whatever little of modern scientific knowledge is now there, is very largely superficial, and is often utilized with the purpose of reinforcing superstitions. That is an abuse of science.

These essays are bound to provoke an outburst of criticism. But that will not be serious criticism; it will be an arrogant condemnation of the scientific spirit and scientific knowledge. At the same time, the purpose of initiating an organized struggle against superstition will be served. The clay feet of a number of time-honored gods are exposed by these essays. Fatalism and blind faith have killed in the bulk of the Indian people the incentive for knowledge and progress. The root of this evil can be traced to the doctrine of the transmigration of soul. Therefore, the exposure of the fallacy of this doctrine is a historical necessity. It is necessary not only for the material progress, but also for the spiritual liberation of the Indian people.

A critique of the cult of “religious experience” is equally necessary. That requires not only some knowledge of modern psychology, but good deal of moral courage. Because, in the prevailing intellectual atmosphere of our country, it amounts almost to heresy. How superstition treats the heretic, is a dreadful tale. Nevertheless, the heretics are harbingers of real spiritual progress. In this book, the psycho-pathological foundation of the cult of “religious experience” has been exposed. The sanction for India’s “spiritual message” is derived from that doubtful source of inspiration. Once that is realized, unwarranted arrogance may be replaced by a commendable modesty.

A critique of the ideology of orthodox nationalism may impel the spirit of a renascent India to outgrow the obsession with antiquated ideas and faded ideals, and transcend the narrow limits of a political vision clouded by a racial conception of culture. National independence would be of little significance if it did not let in the invigorating influence of a cosmopolitan outlook and humanist culture.

These essays, which record the reflections of a solitary prisoner, are published with the purpose of provoking thought. They indicate an approach to the difficult problem of overcoming the age-long tyranny of superstition glorified as India’s spiritual genius. The past is dead; it must be buried. India must experience a renaissance-spiritual re-birth. Conditions conducive for that purpose must be created. These critical studies may make some modest contribution in that respect.

My family is not religious and neither was I. However, we followed some customs during festivals and prayed everyday since my mother had (has) deep faith in God.  Because my mother is an honest and righteous person, she is convinced that the God is by her side and would help her, if she had to ask something for her family, badly. As I grew up, people around me presented their clichéd beliefs about various customs but could never truly justify any. For instance, I recall, during “Ganesh chaturthi”, we used to offer fruits, flowers and “doorva”, a bunch of grass leaves. The “doorva” had to be a peculiar number like 21 sets of 3 grass leaves. I used to think to myself – who cares what number it is!!?? Will the loving, caring, Ganesh ji fail me in my exams if I offer him a set of 22 ”doorva” instead? Can any God stoop so low?  Obviously not, then why bother? Realising the futility of all this praying business over the years, I made a statement to my mother: “Mom, I don’t want to pray. I don’t feel I need to pray to God” (My mother, the kind person she is, was fine with it although her faith remains unwavered in some ways). Never had the “cast” of religion on me whereas I got rid of the daily prayers/customs. However, I hadn’t given up on the teeny hope of some godly figure, out there in another dimension, watching upon me.

Shedding the last few layers of belief in God happened when I stepped into the world of scientific research. During my graduate life, I acquired the ability to distill out the facts and the inherent assumptions in any piece of information presented to me. I saw this as a natural progression in my ability to think critically which may have expedited owing to my professional activity of doing research. I often contemplated about the nature of God. The questions I asked changed from “why people believe” to “why people choose to believe” in such a super-natural being. I realized that the main purpose it served for people was of a psychological satisfaction, a hope that someone is there to take care and that someone will set it all right. It offers them a relief that whatever wrong has happened was not in their hands, is not their responsibility and they need not worry. As soon as this realization dawned upon me, I knew that I am not the kind of person who needs God. I know that I am responsible for my own actions. Surely, unfortunate and undesirable events may happen but I cannot afford to sit and whine over these things. It is I who has to learn to be opportunistic on a daily basis rather than wait for that day when “Ms. Opportunity” will knock my door.

God is merely a construct of a tribal human brain, according to me. It is supposed to be a supernatural entity which is responsible for all the mysterious events in the heavens and on earth. We created God (rather than the other way round) to comfort ourselves, to alleviate our fears of our own death or the grief of the departure of our loved ones. This God concept has been passed on to us as a cultural heritage but is completely vestigial in the modern scientific era. It is high time we appreciate what science is about and how scientific knowledge can truly empower us and free our minds of several cultural biases including God. We either already have answers and solutions to many of the problems or are in the process of solving them.

I feel I have come of age but we, as a society, still have a long way to go although thanks to people like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, the awareness of “the God delusion” is permeating in the social structure. We are certainly moving forward but really need to catalyze our efforts to benefit truly from the scientific knowledge which we have gained over the last few centuries and focus on solving real challenges such as efficient use of natural resources (water and energy), global warming and space colonization.

Grand Challenges for the 21st Century

MRSA (from wikipedia)

To eradicate any communicable disease from a nation, let us say, there is first a nation-wide attack of measures. This is usually followed by surveys telling you the info on the more difficult zones in the nation that deserve special attention. Towards hitting the target of eradication, mopping up activities, i.e door-to-door attack is done to eliminate unidentified cases. Same holds for religion, if we want to relieve humanity from the right/ tendency/compulsion claimed by theists to do evil/injustice/wrong in the name of religion. For the new atheist movement to reach its goal, we need to realise, in depth, about the variety of ways theism strengthens itself. It is well known how religion feeds on hope, fear, desire for immortality, politics etc. I will here concentrate on less well-studied aspects of the appetite for religion.

Among the different forms of organized religion, the impediments to human development caused by Christianity and Islam are most conspicuous worldwide, and most well-studied by rationalist critics. The main bulk of the new atheist movement should obviously be directed at them. But there are other religious sects in the world, which we need to be aware of, in order to understand the problem in full.

There is a rather unpopular yet growing and prospering section of Islam, the Ismaili sect.

There are elaborate ways in which they differ from the usual Sunni Muslims that you come across. I will limit my discussion on the aspects of this sect that make it especially more formidable to new atheist movement, mostly from their Indian population.

The most peculiar feature of the sect is that they have a dynamic religion. Though the Quran continues to be their main scripture, its interpretation is not exactly the job of the common Ismaili anymore. Even their religious head, the Imam (analogous to the Pope) issues guidance that often clearly contradicts the Quran. His word is final, a word that is always supposed to change with time, with the needs of the modern world, a word that is the voice of allah for them.

The characteristics of this Imam deserve mention as he seems far less pathetic than the Pope to whom his role has been compared. The Pope himself is a stimulus towards atheism for many born Christians, but this person tends to be a man even an atheist would admire, except for his religion of course. He works for a very long tenure, sometimes elected even as a teenager and working for as long as his body would permit. He makes sure he selects the best successor in his blood line before his death, as simple as that! No complicated procedures. The current occupant of the Imam’s position is a workaholic, and moves round the world for his followers, making life easy for them through massive funds and political associations. It’s not that disgusting for a man, who is indifferent to the big questions of mankind, to say no to Reason, in exchange of a ray of hope and support like him, at every point in life. He allows for a special case where a ‘messenger of God’ satisfies needs of the ordinary, helpless follower, both the spiritual and earthly ones!

Over the years, Ismaili theology has evolved (unusual to use that word for a religion, but its true) out of the words of their Imam. There is no alarming suppression of women, who attend the mosques (in western clothes too, nobody objects!) and are encouraged to study and work as they like. Women can be very learnt and working women or even activists for the upliftment of their sect. It wont be much wrong to say that whatever oppression/suppression of women is left is way lower than that in most religions of most regions of the globe.

The Imam encourages education, “proper” morals and hardwork in his messages every now and then. Not surprising, they might actually be considered the most developed groups of Muslims in India. They have been denied reservations in eductional institutions (currently allowed for other groups of muslims) and jobs unlike other muslims, solely because of their prosperity. In India, you will find a homeless beggar from virtually every other religious group in india, but not this one. These people love each other so much, they wont allow you to stay on streets jobless even if you insist. There are independent scholarships for any level of education, right upto the smallest educational expenses. There are health benefits no government or private organisation will provide you. Countless compulsions that the typical muslims struggle to follow are totally abandoned. The month-long fast is also optional, and the strict restrictions during the month of Ramadan have been compromised to his/her individual comfort.

Then why not leave alone this happy little clan?

Well the answer to this question comes from another question, alteast partly.

“Why after all this education, modernization, these guys don’t turn atheists at the same rate as would be expected by anyone who has known the association of atheism with economic prosperity, higher education, intelligence, lack of poverty ?” I dont have statistics to support but I have seen other religions to have an idea that the rate is considerably less when compared to Christianity or Sunni Islam which supposedly are the most formidable ones. And that’s simply because an important force driving an theist towards atheism – the disgust of the ethics and practices in their religion, is relatively deficient when you are Ismaili-born.

I said they promoted education, but it is a distorted one (when it comes to the big concepts). They have affiliated schools were the teachers can be predominantly the ones of the sect. Now if you thought that removal of creationism from school textbooks will do, think again. For they will teach the creationism of other religions (Hinduism in indian text books, for instance) as fairy tales to be learnt to get through exams and tell you a different interpretation of Darwinism altogether, one that “seemingly” fits into their dynamic religion, if you don’t reason deep enough. They will add a bit of history to their advantage and blame christianity for “misunderstanding” Darwin and that Darwin went to heaven for his contribution to biology (that never conflicted with religion in the first place) It works for an ordinary student, who may not choose a biology related field in future to care about these questions.

If you thought that those guys who joined the other non-affiliated schools had escaped, wait! They have a more fool proof way of indoctrination, the one that I propound is stronger than the one the Sunni Muslims adopt. They have this concept of “night religious school”. And it really is a school, with classes, subjects, exams and all. Here they don’t force the lines of the Koran to be mugged in toto as is done with other muslims. In fact, quran is not brought into the scene by anyone. “Quran studies” is a subject apart from other handful. They teach you the meaning of quran and the words of their head in the context that is more acceptable by the young mind. So as the actual lines of the scripture aren’t read, an ordinary student never knows of the highly unethical elements of koran that the atheist world knows about.

If you guess that a fraction of students will avoid these classes due to boredom, wait. First, the parents are going to force them into being regular to these, till the students get used to it. And sooner or later they figure out that atleast partly, they are fun. To add to that, it’s a good hangout for an evening, you can do all silly juvenile stuff before and after the class. Kids are treated as kids and not as soldiers of Allah. And they try all novel and modern ways of teaching. A lot of students end up loving this night schools more than the routine day schools.

For those enthusiastic students who go out of the syllabus and try to read and interpret the actual quran and compare it with the teachings they have already received, there are backup measures already in place. Firstly, they are never taught Arabic. And obviously they live in parts of the world where Arabic isn’t a language you would learn, or be taught otherwise. The next usual option of “appropriate interpretation” being Urdu, the language related to Arabic, for an indian sunni muslim, isn’t an option for ismaili students to study religion. Here comes the benefit of being a minority, there is no specific language for their theology, worldwide. They gain the language of the area. For India it is Gujarati, the language of the Gujarat state. The prayer is obviously in Gujarati. They being “forward”, also adopt English in bigger cities. So this allows a lot of opportunity to mistranslate it. Mistranslation is the rule, because the ones who will bother to translate are the “dynamic” followers you see! A simple change of style of presentation will make the prophets more great and less questionable, no need to change the basic fairy tales (who can disprove them anyways).

Next, perhaps the most basic, is that before any student reads the actual quran, he is likely to be well indoctrinated in the point that the Sunni Muslims are wrong in that the word of Mohammad is final. That the absolute truth was meant to be the words that carry from the mouths of the descendants of mohammad over the centuries. There goes any chance of beating them with their scripture! So hard for atheists to teach the theists about the parts of a single old book, now these guys have several unwritten editions of koran they will point at our face for us to disprove! Not far fetched to say everyone of them has an edition of his own, given the liberal nature of religion. Who will succumb in this sect to think of atheism? A multidrug resistant mutant you see!

Accomodationists might argue, why not leave them alone?

This group doesn’t differ from other extremist, intolerant religions in a few aspects, most important of them being the constant pointing that their faith is supreme and all the rest of them are going to hell. Now isn’t it too greedy for such a small group to expect they alone will go to heaven? They wont allow marriage with other religions, even with Sunni Muslims and but the damage is only social if you go against this. And given their minority, some degree of inbreeding is inevitable, especially when cousin marriage is encouraged to solve the problem of finding a bride/bridegroom from scattered areas of the globe. I don’t have links to reports saying so, but cerebral palsy, certain genetic disorders are indeed curiously common among Ismailis. Their education isn’t going to help them avoid it, but the problem might be lessened given their growth and spread. But they are relatively friendly guys who will keep their feelings of righteousness, to a great extent to themselves, and, no jehadi feelings. They will not allow other theists into their mosques. In this aspect, they are worse than the Christians and Hindus. All this is enough for them to be atleast wrong in thought, as wrong as any racist/casteist.

All the good social work they do, most of them do it for being one of the “famous frogs” of their well. And others will do it for better place in heaven. They have charity, education, prosperity, yes, but all of them with their share of hollowness. Hardly any of their prosperity, goes into doing good to the world outside their sect. In essence, it is a relatively harmless (if harm is supposed to mean an active move) resistant strain of a microbe that will raise its generations by filling a biomass of irrational crap. Everyday they spend hours in the mosque (double or even triple to that of the typical sunni muslims we know of) doing all sorts of stupid rituals apart from the usual prayer, whose only good purpose is to bind them together. There wont be threats if you refrain from this wastage of time, but there will be ridicule and social outcasting (even greater if you study in those affiliated day schools for most of your friends would be ismailis, the family and family friends would already be ridiculing you and your parentage). Their unity, which by making them close to each other, repels them from not only Sunni Muslim sect and other religions, but from reason as well. It matters less if they help you educate yourself to compete with the world without knowing what evolution and big bang say. While a lot of accomodationists feel that religion is a problem that is on a serious and self-perpetuating decline with increasing literacy, levels of education and prosperity, this stands out as an exception as I am yet to know of the existence of person below poverty line or an illiterate. This is one example where education, intelligence, charity, prosperity all co-exist with a fanatic religion.

So I sum up that its primarily a model for understanding how the disease called religion strengthens itself. Religion is similar to infectious disease in that it has a carrier state too! Its not scientific to be careless about the carriers who go wild and spread with their resistance plasmid and their ability to aquire formidable mutations! If we have to see scienctific thinking win in every human’s mind, these rare sects will pose a big problem in “mopping up” activities in eradication of religion. And its not necessary for them to remain a minority, for they are growing well. Multi-drug resistance was once an exceptional concept, not the case now!

As I was taking an early morning walk on the path bordering Kukkrahalli lake in Mysore, it looked pretty deserted except for one person, who from a distance seemed to be standing at the edge and meditating. As I approached him, I saw to my shocking surprise, that he had tied a big stone to himself with a rope and was about to jump into the lake. So I ran to him and said ” Stop ! Don’t do it ”

” Why shouldn’t I ? ” he asked.

I said, ” Well, there’s so much to live for !”

“Like what ?”, he asked.

“Well,” I asked, ” I will tell you that. But first tell me if you are a Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Isai ?”

“I am a Hindu “, he said.

” Me too”, I said, and asked ” But are you a South Indian, North Indian, West Indian, East Indian or Madhya Pradeshi ?”

” I am a South Indian “, he said.

I said, ” Me too !  Are you a Brahmin, Kshatriya, Lingayat, Vysya or  SC/ST ?”

“I am a Brahmin”, he said.

I said,” Me too ! Are you a smartha or vaishnav ( Iyengar/ Madhwa) ?”

” I am Smartha Brahmin “, he said proudly.

I said, ” Me too ! But but are you Mulkanadu, Velnadu, Aruvela Niyogi or Nandawarikalu ?”

He said, ” Mulkanadu”.

I said, ” Me too ! But do you worship Lord Shiva ?”

” Yes, certainly”, he said, “I worship all the 12 jyothirlings of Shiva : Somanatheshwara, Mallikarjuna swamy, Mahakaleshwar, Omkareshwar, Vaidhynath, Bhima sankar, Naganath, Thrayambakeshwar, Grishneeswara, Kashi Vishwanath, Kedarnath and Rameshwara”.

” But do you worship Nanjundeshwara of Nanjangud, near Mysore ?” I asked.

” Not really”, he said.

” Then die, you heretic scum, people like you don’t deserve to be alive”, I said, and pushed him off into the lake. He started screaming as he hit the water and started to sink. It was then that I woke up from my sleep.

It was a nightmare. Thank goodness !

Psychologists say that dreams are meant to fulfill the desires which are unfulfilled in real life in a symbolic and metaphorical manner, to enable us to attain a sense of closure. Then how could my dream be so vivid and realistic ? Did it happen really ? If so, the question I ask myself is whether I am this intolerant of other castes and sub-castes in real life too ?

"It was a nightmare..."

In Real Life

“Don’t touch the curtains or anybody. Go straight to the bathroom. I have kept your towel and a fresh pair of clothes over there”, said my mother sternly.

As children when we used to get a haircut in the saloon and return home, we were not supposed to touch any person or clothes, like the door curtains, lest we make them impure. We used to regain our purity after we took a bath. That was because we had come in contact with the hair stylist/ barber who normally belonged to the lower Hindu castes.

Though born into a Brahmin family, I have outgrown long ago all those prejudices in favour of Religion and against the so-called lower castes. Now to answer the question I asked myself earlier ” Am I this intolerant of castes and sub-castes in real life too ?”, I can proudly say that I am not.

I believe that every individual in a well-rounded society should cultivate all the virtues that were traditionally considered the sole monopoly of particular castes. We should all have the interest to achieve and maintain physical fitness through proper diet and exercise and feel duty-bound and have the courage to physically protect the people who are dependent on us, which was once expected only of the ‘Kshatriyas’ of folklore. We should develop the entrepreneurial skills of producing food and other requirements of mankind and marketing it, in an equal-opportunity environment and not just in hereditary guilds like the ‘Vysya’ merchants of antiquity. These days, this would mean holding a job and earning a livelihood for oneself and ones family. We should have a commitment to learning and teaching, which for ages was considered the sole privilege of ‘Brahmins’.  Nowadays, this would mean teaching professional skills to our subordinates as a mentor in an organization or teaching proper values to our children. We should all work with the spirit of service while performing our alloted duties without a grouse, something which in earlier oppressive societies was enforced upon ‘shudras’ exclusively. These days it would mean identifying with the superordinate goals of your organization and doing your best to fulfill them.

The advancement of human potential should proceed unhindered by any antiquated, oppressive frameworks of classifying human capabilities in a limiting, caricatured way. It means that to succeed in life, each one of us should be a composite of all virtues that were historically pigeon-holed into castes.

This is my definition of a complete polymath having an integrated personality.

But what is happening today in our country as well as some other parts of the world runs quite contradictory to this. The rising intolerance to the contradictory point of view is now becoming a great danger to democracy and the freedom of expression of the individual. This could be anything from preventing a marriage between two consenting adults to preventing some one from speaking his point of view to trying to restrict the freedom of the press. This has gone to extent of attempts at curbing the rights of individuals to speak out their minds on the so called ‘social web sites’, that too by the judiciary which is supposed to uphold the fundamental rights of the citizen. We in Karnataka have been increasingly subjected to such attacks by all sorts of outfits belonging to various religious and political denominations. The same has been now observed at the national level. While these outfits tend to support individuals who have points of view inconvenient to those which have a conflicting interest, when it come to their own their attitude becomes totally different. For example the saffron outfits which prima facie support Salman Rushdie’s freedom of expression have attacked journalists for writing things about some historical individuals who they feel are their exclusive property though they lived long before these came into existence! Again, we can see the defenders of freedom of expression belonging to some religions who act like supporters of democratic rights in countries where they are in minority while in those in which they are in majority have been converted to Islamic republics where their primitive tribal laws hold sway! Some of them even claim that Islamic rights are superior to human rights as proposed by the United nations organisation!

The rise of this intolerance has reached such depths that we have had ministers commenting on how what women wear invites rape! In fact, this is an indirect support for those who can say they were provoked into rape by the way women dress! This could be also an indirect way of strengthening the gender stereotypes of the religious beliefs in which women are looked upon as chattels. In fact this has been happening in some places where there are claims of ‘love jihad’ as if women are some commodities who can be easily hoodwinked or traded. This attitude is particularly reflected when a marriage takes place. Instead of looking at that as a decision of two individuals to live together, it is viewed as a reflection on the status of castes and religious beliefs of the families of these individuals.Many times, even murders have taken place to preserve the ‘family honour’! The revulsion is more in the case of interreligious marriages and those which occur between those of a ‘touchable’ and untouchable caste! Having assisted hundreds of such youngsters in love to get married, I have noticed the maximum opposition when one of them is a dalit! It does not matter whether it the male or the female! the very thought of a caste Hindu marrying a dalit is anathema to the families of the ‘upper caste’ partner of the marriage.

Image credit: Bala Bhaskar

The funniest part of this intolerant society is their selective support to the victims of intolerance of their perceived enemies. the saffron groups for example have condemned the attack on Salman Rushdie by the Muslims. The most recent one in this has been the protest against Rushdie attending the Jaipur literature festival and speaking there. This has been condemned by some of the saffron gangs as a infringement of right to freedom of expression. All this while one of the victims of their attack, the artist Hussain was protected by islamists! It is but natural that ones enemy’s victim is a friend to be supported! This intolerance has now been extended to literature too.

The most recent protest in this respect has been about a book called Gandhi Banda which has been a prescribed non-detailed one for the degree classes of the Mangalore University. While this has been in the syllabus for quite some time, it is only very recently fund to be offensive to one particular community- the gold smiths! Though the person referred to is a carpenter called as Achari in Tulu the local language, the community of goldsmiths who are also called Achari had threatened to go on protest. However, nothing much actually materialised out of this threat! However, the moving forces behind this so called protest are actually the Shivalli brahmins about whom is this work of fiction! Though based on a true story of a brahmin widow marrying a Muslim, The book depicted the cruelty to widows and a young woman rebelling against it in the back ground of the freedom struggle in the district. Though the attempts to get it removed from the prescribed list of text books has not succeeded so far, we do not know when it will be proscribed.

The reaction to a write up in a popular Kannada daily, the Prajavani by a student organisation is another example of this hooliganism. The write up pointed out that Swami Vivekananda whose 150th birth anniversary is being celebrated all over the country as a mortal with all his shortcomings. He was described as a dull student, his history in service that of being removed from his post for not being very good in teaching etc were mentioned and the author took pains to explain that despite all these he managed to build up a strong movement, revived the reformist streak in the Hindu society and emphasised on the eradication of many social evils including the caste system. he was also portrayed as a non vegetarian with a fondness for cooking good food and also suffering from many ailments. This had perhaps punctured the egos of certain elements who had imagined him to be of a strong muscular build and a vegetarian too. More than anything it must have been an attempt to hog the lime light. While the choice of some words to describe him could be called uncomplementary though not defamatory the reaction was an act of total intolerance to anything that does not conform to the what the protesters thought was right. Even a protest could be justified as it is everyone’s democratic right to protest but it cannot be done by violence and destruction of property!

The level of this expression of intolerance has been fine tuned to such an extent that they are conflicts even among the upper castes themselves about their degrees of purity! For example GSBs(Gowd Saraswath Brahmins) have been physically removed from the rows of Shivalli Brahmins who fancy themselves as those with a higher degree of ‘purity’. It has come to the extent of even boycott of a swami from one of their own maths for having committed the ‘sin’ of crossing the seas which climaxed into high drama with one of seers going on a fast to protest this injustice to him and the most senior one of them going on a counter fast!

Culminating this series of localised acts of intolerance come the attempts at the national level to curb all dissent and freedom of expression. Under the guise that certain statements or pictures may offend the ‘religious sentiments’ of particular communities the central govt. is thinking of enacting legislation to ‘filter out’ what is called as ‘objectionable content’ from the internet. While it is powerless to act against against individuals and organisations which incite communal sentiments and even exhort the listeners to commit even murders, the action is being contemplated against those peacefully express their views of the net! The culture if it can be called as so of intolerance is on the rise in our society. It is coming to such levels that the freedom of expression is being curtailed and human rights are being trampled upon. matters have come to such a head that some citizens have become authorities by themselves and hold their self made ‘constitutions’ to be superior to that applicable to all other citizens. If the superiority of the constitution of this country is not asserted by those whose responsibility it is to do so then this country has a very bleak future. The silent majority as to be expected from them are keeping up their tradition of being silent while the vocal microscopic minority professing their own laws have the ears and eyes of the media and that of the nation. Unless we the silent majority break our silence and make ourselves heard we can be sure that a time will come when we are going to be silenced for ever and it will be too late to repent.

Bearing the risk of repetition I once again quote the great parliamentarian Edmund Burke- all it takes for the dark forces of evil to take over this world is enough number of good people who want to do nothing. Let us stop being those good people who want to do nothing.

~Reflections from the Horsemen and other wayfarers~

“Hadn’t time,” said the Gryphon: “I went to the Classical master, though. He was an old crab, he was.”

“I never went to him,” the Mock Turtle said with a sigh. “He taught Laughing and Grief, they used to say.”  - Lewis Carroll (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland)

"...He taught laughing and grief, they used to say..."

This snippet sounds ludicrously profound in a Carrollesque way, because most of us think we know what grief is about and it isn’t Greek to us to be learnt from some ancient doctor universalis. There are some who are secure enough in their beliefs or unbelief to think that grief is something all grown-ups can handle without help, while there are others who think that it is giving in to grief that keeps us human. Neither of them, however, can claim to have never encountered the questions “Why this? Why now? Why us?”

“Show me the meaning!” : As a species, we are infovores and explanation-seeking creatures and seem constitutionally unable to view chance injustice and freak accidents as just that: random. It seems as though people find misfortune coming from a consciously malicious agent easier to rationalize and accept than misfortune coming entirely by chance. In other words, it may not just be the notion of benevolence that draws people to concept of God, but the usefulness of this concept as one single answer to every unnerving “Whodunnit?”. People, therefore, bizarrely seem to find the idea of a capricious even casually malicious God more acceptable than the idea of no God.

In the formulation of the famed 20th century psychiatrist Viktor Frankl:

Desperation = Suffering – Meaning

Meaning in suffering: Quote by Viktor Frankl (Click on image for source)

In this ‘arithmetic of desperation’, suffering is something that may well be a matter a chance, but the meaning we endow it with remains a matter of choice and this choice can be exercised by us to prevent and cure despair. That remains the central thesis of Logotherapy, which almost literally means ‘Meaning Cure’. The founder of Logotherapy was not averse to finding meaning in ‘Providence’ while freethinkers over the ages have been. Prof. Dawkins derides the question of whether there is a uniquely ordained ‘purpose of life’, as about as ridiculous as asking “What is the colour of jealousy?”. ‘Purpose’ is a human construct and it remains a worthwhile project devise one that is free from theological fictions and at the same time genuinely useful in times of distress.

False consolations and white lies: Religion’s palliative to help people unable to cope with the finality of death is the consolation of an afterlife. A contemporary example of an avowed atheist facing impending death and yet unconvinced of the utility of this consolation of an afterlife is Christopher Hitchens and he offers a take on why an endless afterlife isn’t much of a consolation at all, in this video. While most atheists share this sort of intellectual conviction that the afterlife myth is a crutch we will discard, there remain atheists facing dilemmas like “Would we lie about heaven to comfort a dying child?“

Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011) (Click on image for source.)

Parting as friends and being friends during departures: Solidarity in times of ailment and bereavement, is something which ideological differences should not stop well-meaning believers and non-believers from offering across the fence. Christopher Hitchens says that the one thing ideologues must avoid is conniving to engineer death-bed conversions and recruiting born-agains when their opponent lies low, and also magnanimously commends the efforts of Francis Collins who did not let his evangelical persuasion come in the way of offering therapeutic advice to perhaps the best-known atheist debater of our times.

Giving credit where it is due, longtime debate opponent of Hitchens, Rabbi David Wolpe too agrees that it is out of form to press ideological differences during times of distress. Quoting from here:

Despite our shtick, there are real principles at stake each time. That is Hitchens’s gift: a dance between mockery and erudition. In his world, God is a fabrication and a cudgel. In mine, God is a solace and a guide. I was reminded of this distinction when I heard the sad news last week that Hitchens is about to undergo treatment for cancer. I have no doubt that he will face it with the same stoic courage with which he has met other challenges. There is no reason to suppose it will change his convictions; I have undergone neurosurgery and chemotherapy with my faith unshaken — why assume he could not emerge with his unbelief unchanged as well?

Even if we maybe people attempting to practice atheism in one’s life under all circumstances, this need not stop us from tempering our critiques of those who do not share our convictions out of deference to the human need for a silent pause in times of bereavement.

Freethinkers’ farewells : Rabbi Wolpe continues in his article:

In the meantime, on we battle; Hitchens challenges me with how much evil happens in a good God’s world. I talk about religion’s contributions, its spur to altruism, and point to the mystery of consciousness and the wide testimony of religious experience.

We can address the omissions in the learned Rabbi’s narrative by adding that freethinkers too are spurred on to altruism through simple empathy rather than any religious injunction, and that disbelief in an afterlife brings to freethinkers more eagerness and urgency in savouring the mystery of the one life we do have. We acknowledge the need for meaning and insist that it must built on less insecure foundations than Bronze Age myths and we also acknowledge the need for human solidarity which we believe can be maintained without positing any heavenly parentage or ‘heavenly plan for humanity’. This well over an hour-long podcast “Grief without God” by Thinking Atheist features many personal tales from atheists on how they found meaning and solidarity in times of distress.

As for the inevitability of death, Prof. Dawkins in the passage he has chosen to be read at his funeral says that the very fact that we are going to die is a testimony to the fortune we have been endowed with. Neil deGrasse Tyson, in this moving reply to a query about his attitude towards death, says that he seeks no entry to Heaven but only a return to the Earth and instead of seeking an ‘afterlife’ we would like to offer up his remains to Life.

The Four Horsemen

Parenting about pain: The course of life presents its share of painful experiences that are not always direct, personal or immediate but also witnessed, shared or impending, which may call upon us to respond with appropriate sensitivity. That pain is just something that happens to other people, or that it matters only when it happens to us, are ready myths which an untrained mind all-too-often can lapse into. Responsible parenting involves scrupulously avoiding such myths. In the second edition of Ask Sam Harris Anything, author Sam Harris speaks about the need to acknowledge even to children how suffering is part of the human condition and how education about this must begin at home, and how a good upbringing involves knowing when and how to grieve with feeling and dignity.

The Consolations of Philosophy (Click on image for source.)

The consolations of philosophy:  Philosophers over the ages have not been entirely indifferent to the common human pre-occupation with tirelessly seeking pleasure, and with wearily seeking solace when distressed. In the acclaimed television series “A Guide to Happiness” based on his book “The Consolation of Philosophy”, philosopher Alain de Botton speaks about different philosophers’ views on human suffering. Seneca the Elder views suffering as resulting from unrealistic expectations about a pleasant world and advocates a stoic acceptance of the world’s inevitable unpleasantness. Schopenhauer views the all too common suffering resulting from unrequited love or nostalgia for a more romantic past as a result of overly romanticizing what in Nature’s terms are merely reproductive functions endowed with a character of companionship and affection only through human constructs. Nietzsche advises us to welcome suffering and calls upon us to recognize hardship as a pre-requisite to accomplishment and greatness of any kind.

It is hard to not notice that far from recommending any remedy for suffering, philosophers instead counsel more examination and forethought, and even an acceptance and embrace, of suffering. Consolation has never as much been an object of Philosophy as Understanding is. In contemporary freethought circles, there is a lot of discourse devoted to finding ‘reason-based alternatives’ to the traditional functions of religion. Since freethought too is concerned more with evolving Understanding founded in fact than in offering consolation traditionally demanding faith, there are some functions of religion which freethought obviates rather than being under obligation to find a replacement for. An apt illustration for this is offered by Sam Harris in this debate with Rabbi Wolpe. Quoting from around 50 min 40 sec:

Harris: …We are terrified to lose the people we love in this world. That is an objective fact if there is one in this area. And religion is the strategy we have adopted to keep that terror at bay.

Moderator : If not religion, then what do you have?

Harris: It’s not that you necessarily have a replacement for everything Religion does on every question. I mean, you don’t replace the belief in Santa Claus with something that does exactly what the belief in Santa Claus did; equally consoling, equal motivating on Christmas morning. It doesn’t happen.

An endnote from Epicurus: It is the Riddle of Epicurus that still sends religious apologists scurrying for cover under the supposed ‘ennobling nature of suffering’ or ‘inscrutable ways of the divine’ when confronted with the apparent arbitrariness and pointlessness of so much human suffering. What did Epicurus himself have to say about suffering? Like so many other philosophers before and after him, he too seems to have held that suffering results from an incomplete understanding of and unrealistic expectations about the real nature of the world. His riddle itself is a consequence of religion’s manifestly unrealistic narrative of Providential harmony and the onus of coping with its cruel incompatibility with lived experience is therefore upon religions. Epicurus had this to say about suffering: All pain is only for a time, after which it is either overcome or ends. The recognition of this impermanence is itself the understanding and consolation we need to cope with suffering. Sam Harris, a contemporary thinker who in many ways belongs to the Epicurean tradition, adds that the fact that most pleasures are impermanent too does not render them worthless.

“This notion of eternity, this notion of nothing matters here, but matters only over the long haul, in the afterlife, because the bulk of our experience is after we die; this religious idea actually robs life of its meaning. It doesn’t bring meaning to life. It renders meaningless all of the precious moments we have while alive. This is the only life we are certain of. And it is continually ending. It not only ends in death but it ends in each moment and things change. And that makes each moment precious.

You take an experience like…you are a new parent and you are carrying your child. You pick your child hundreds of times a day it seems, and you never think that there is going to be a last time you do that. At a certain point your child is going to be too heavy to pick up. You don’t pick up 15-year olds for the most part. At a certain point, you would have picked your child up for the last time. We tend not to go through life thinking in those terms, but if we did, if we realized that is is as though we are standing in front of a ticket machine at a deli counter and just pulling tickets not knowing how many are in there…and at a certain point we pull and have the last one we have for every experience. There will be a last time you would have picked your child up and you would not have noticed it is the last time. That makes life very precious and certainly death, the final ticket at the end of life makes it all incredibly precious. It could not be any more precious and its preciousness is not predicated on it lasting forever.”

The poet William Blake in a single quatrain echoes the philosophers’ contemplation of impermanence:

He who binds to himself a joy

Does the winged life destroy;

But he who kisses the joy as it flies

Lives in eternity’s sun rise.

The advice fit for every change and chance, that ‘Even this will pass away‘ remains perennially relevant.

...The joy that flies (Click on image for source)

(Cross posted with edits from this thread at the Nirmukta forums.)

]]> http://indianatheists.com/2011/12/25/on-rough-rides-and-the-ride-into-the-sunset/feed/ 0 http://indianatheists.com/2011/10/29/god-loves-children-but-only-if-you-brainwash-them/ http://indianatheists.com/2011/10/29/god-loves-children-but-only-if-you-brainwash-them/#comments Sat, 29 Oct 2011 12:14:29 +0000 Ajita Kamal http://indianatheists.com/?p=1036 I took a screenshot of this image on the Facebook page of someone I know in real life. (Red markings added)

How about

Yeah, fuck you, “concerned student”. I’m god, I can do what I want. And I want to allow psychopaths to mow you down because your government doesn’t let my sheep brainwash you.

Let’s forget about the lousy logic for a minute. The ethical issue here is the ease at which these religious believers are justifying the violence perpetuated on innocent children (the victims of gun violence, rape and other forms of abuse in American schools), to bargain for the right to brainwash them into believing in an imaginary, sadistic, egotistical, tyrant without whom their lives are worthless.

The image above is not an old thread – comments are being added and it continues to be shared on Facebook. Here are the last 5 comments:

“…So help me God.”, concludes the oath of office of the President of the United States. “I…do swear in the name of God…”, begins one text of the Oath of Office for every Constitutional office-bearer in the Republic of India (where, fortunately, there is an alternative text of solemn affirmation ). Iman, Taqwa, Jihad fi Sabilillah (Faith, Piety and Fight in the path of God) is not the motto of some outlawed jihadist outfit, but of the Pakistani Army. The official war cries of the Indian Army hark back to Puranic deities. The successful conclusion of an important American counter-terrorism operation was relayed with the words: “For God and country…Geronimo!Geronimo!Geronimo!” Raised amid these menacing and triumphant war cries, it is unsurprising that many people who consider themselves patriots imagine that the presence of God or at least belief in God is necessary for the defence of, and the very sense of, nationhood.

Be it in ‘one nation under God‘ or a nation watched over by a ‘dispenser of destiny‘, the symbolism and trappings of patriotism are so suffused with religious connotations and imagery that in the popular imagination, some sort of piety is considered a pre-requisite for citizenship. To the religiously minded, such piety is a pre-requisite not just for a sense of belonging to a nation, but for global citizenship too! This view is articulated in Count Leo Tolstoy’s narrative, of three stages in the advancement of human civilization:

These three views of life are as follows: First, embracing the individual, or the animal view of life; second, embracing the society, or the pagan view of life; third, embracing the whole world, or the divine view of life….In the first theory of life a man’s life is limited to his one individuality; the aim of life is the satisfaction of the will of this individuality. In the second theory of life a man’s life is limited not to his own individuality, but to certain societies and classes of individuals: to the tribe, the family, the clan, the nation; the aim of life is limited to the satisfaction of the will of those associations of individuals. In the third theory of life a man’s life is limited not to societies and classes of individuals, but extends to the principle and source of life–to God…The whole historic existence of mankind is nothing else than the gradual transition from the personal, animal conception of life to the social conception of life, and from the social conception of life to the divine conception of life.

A mind like Tolstoy’s that was instrumental in re-imagining the nature of the individual and the State and contributing to the foundations of Non-violent Resistance, too, alas, seems to have been unable to imagine a widening empathic embrace based on simple human solidarity instead of an imagined divine mandate. To make a case for how someone can be a good citizen without God, or good without God at all, is the unenviable task of having to paint a picture that is at variance with the vision of luminaries adorned by a halo of infallibility, and speak up against the din of war cries which have become sacred chants.

Tolstoy, to his credit, displays a breadth of imagination which transcends petty tribalistic and nationalistic considerations, but democracies today aren’t free of demagogues whose conception of a world state is not a plural comity of nations but a world of vassal states acknowledging the supremacy of their de facto, or sometimes de jure theocracy. Here are a few vignettes of the world order imagined by quasi-religious demagogues and cameos of what their conception of a global citizen should be:

1. The late Sheikh Ahmed Deedat, the famed Muslim apologist of whom Dr. Zakir Naik is an aspirant ersatz version, claims that Islam produces the finest type of citizen:
   

   “…You count them on a man to man basis, the Muslim and the Christian, the Muslim and the Hindu, the Muslim and anybody else…in brotherhood, in piety, in charity, in sobriety. There is no other community that can show a candle to us, that we are better than you!…We have in my country, I have boasted and nobody has contradicted, as the Muslims of South Africa, the lowest alcoholic consumption, the lowest gambling rate, the lowest suicide rate, the lowest prison rate, the lowest divorce rate and we have the highest charity rate in the country! Jesus says, ‘By the fruits ye shall know them!’ Judge them by the fruits, not by individuals: ‘This ruler had something wrong….That guy had done something wrong’. I say why don’t you look at your own man? Hitler! Who was he? Christian! Mussolini! Who was he? Christian!”

   This isn’t something Sheikh Deedat said once, but something that was his constant refrain.

2. Tarun Vijay, former editor of Panchajanya, the magazine of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, proclaims that what our planet needs is a Hindu ethos:
   

   “A Hindu-majority India remains the only guarantee of a pluralistic and democratic nation. The moment we accept the de-Hinduisation process of the nation as a sign of secularism and an acceptable factor in polity, we are not only doomed as an Indian nation but also invite Talibanisation of the society … We are those Hindu people who gave the world the concept of ‘world is one family’ (vasudhaiva kutumbakam) when the semitic races were launching Crusades and Jihads … To be a Hindu means saying no to Gulags and accepting a Galileo with appreciation. Even today the best of the economic developmental models in the states are indisputably seen in states where BJP is ruling. Still seculars deny that showing a pathological hatred for the Hindu word and world view.”

3. Dinesh D’Souza, a Christian apologist and conservative commentator in the US, makes an even more grandiose claim:
   

   “… We all think that we know what a secular society looks like. We have in a sense one foot in secular society. Europe is, we think, a secular society. But no! Our society, and certainly Western civilization, remains imbued and in some ways drenched, with Christian assumptions. Even people who think they are acting in secular ways are often reflecting those assumptions…You had strong anti-slavery or abolitionist movements largely motivated by Christianity. The Quakers, the Evangelical Christians basically said that if we are created equal in the eyes of God (a theological point) then no man has the right to rule over another man without his consent. This idea became the basis not only of anti-slavery or abolition. It also became the basis of democracy…Or look at the idea of compassion. Aristotle makes a list of the virtues; compassion does not appear on that list. In some senses, Aristotle thought it more as a vice. Compassion is a value that came into the world because of Christianity!”

In reality, all the three gentlemen, incidentally all of Indian origin, quoted above are saying only thing; that without their religion, the world will lapse into primitive barbarism and savagery and that civilization’s only hope is a mass conversion to their worldview.

To those swooning over Sheikh Deedat’s boast about Islam producing the finest fruit of civilization, here is a point to ponder, not related to individuals but about the sort of society a religion creates: Why do the worst places in the world to be a woman so often happen to be theocracies of a certain persuasion?

To those nodding vigorously in agreement with Tarun Vijay, here is an exercise. Read aloud Tarun Vijay’s paean to Hindutva quoted above, while looking in the eye this image of Qutubuddin Naseeruddin Ansari.

Neither Deedat’s nor Vijay’s conception of ideal citizenship were sufficient for either of their co-religionists in India to recognize Papalal and Jayshree as one of their own, as Indians to be proud of. Far from motivating Indians towards model citizenship as these demagogues boast, all that the daawa and Hindutva strains of demagoguery have done is vitiate the general discourse, an anguished comment on which can be found on the pages of this blog:

Hindus obsessing over what a true Hindu should be seem to suggest that adopting an orphan born in a different faith is un-Hindu. How about speaking out against this? Muslims obsessing over how Muslim a four-year old (FOUR YEAR OLD!) should be seem to suggest that an adoption on humanitarian grounds regardless of faith is somehow unislamic. How about speaking out against this? While we could well have been speaking out against any of this, here we are….

Atheists obsessing over how vocally atheistic one should be and what particular brand of delusion one must appear to criticize to be certified a genuine atheist! Wouldn’t it be great if the certificate-demanders here were equally voluble fairness-demanders in the public square?

And coming to those smugly agreeing with Dinesh D’Souza here’s some news. Some manifestations of compassion may indeed have been occasioned by Christianity at different times, but so are some obvious contemporary manifestations of evil like traumatic exploitation of minors and spread of lethal falsehoods about contraception.

However, D’Souza himself does freethinkers the favour by himself making it easier to rebut him. When pressed by Peter Singer on the point of compassion, D’Souza responds:

“If there is a famine tomorrow in Rwanda, you will notice something very interesting. The Western nations will rush to help, send volunteers, the Churches will send food, Doctors Without Borders…There will be people writing cheques. You will notice that in the other cultures of the world, there is a relative indifference, including cultures that have been influenced by Buddhism.”

He forgets that Doctors Without Borders is a resolutely secular organization with origins in a staunchly secular state. The very name Doctors Without Borders is also a reminder that while we treat piety as the virtue of a bygone era, patriotism itself, devoted to borders, is not particularly an obvious virtue of a future era.

If it is indeed tireless service to humanity that ought to be the yardstick of good global citizenship, then Indian freethinkers have no reason be impressed by the mythical caricatures of ideal citizenship propped up by the demagogues quoted above, since we have real-life examples of our own to look up to, Baba Amte, to name just one. To many of our compatriots “Indian Atheist” is a veritable oxymoron, since even to many who consider themselves liberal, to be ‘Indian’ means also to belong to some spiritual tradition, any spiritual tradition. During the heady early days of the Indian freedom movement, the obvious interpretation of the tricolour flag was a saffron and green acknowledging the Hindus and Muslims, interspersed with a white band of neutrality and accommodation. The founders of the Republic of India, after Independence, in their wisdom chose to not let this obvious religious symbolism be the defining one, and instead chose the secular interpretation of saffron denoting courage and sacrifice, white denoting peace and purity and green denoting abundance and prosperity. From just one account of the life of Baba Amte, from this Economist obituary, we can see how an atheist can be most gloriously Indian and be a living demonstration of all the ideals of nationhood embodied in the flag.

Courage and sacrifice: Mr Amte, a handsome man in his 30s, was better known as a big-shot criminal lawyer in Warora, in what is now Maharashtra in central India. He could charge as much as 50 rupees for arguing for 15 minutes. He was a member of the bridge club and the tennis club and vice-president of the Warora municipality, and he kept, outside town, an elegant farmhouse set in lush fields which he had never lifted a finger to cultivate himself….

When the scavengers came to him with grievances one week, he decided to try their work, scraping out latrines for nine hours a day. His family, landowner Brahmins who had given him a costly education and a sports car, were scandalised; and the more so when, in 1946, he married a Brahmin girl, Sadhna, who thought nothing of leaving her own sister’s wedding to help a servant-woman do the washing.

Peace and purity: On the outlying fields of his ashrams he held camps where the young were inspired to be social activists; he led them, lying in a van, on rallies for peace and social unity throughout India; and he never ceased to beat the drum of self-sufficiency, for he had proved that even lepers could achieve it.

Abundance and prosperity: His own ashram, founded in 1951 on barren, rocky land full of snakes, was specifically for the handicapped and for lepers, who built and tilled it from scratch with half a dozen tools and their stumps of hands. It was called Anandwan, “grove of joy”; its philosophy was that lepers could be rehabilitated not by charity, nor by the begging life in railway stations and on streets, but by hard work and creativity, which would bring self-respect. Not by tears, but by sweat, Mr Amte wrote once, and noted how similar those were. By his death around 3,000 people lived at Anandwan. The farm grew millet, grains and fruit; in the schools, lepers taught the blind, deaf and dumb; there were colleges, two hospitals, workshops and an orchestra, where popular songs were conducted by a polio victim. Warora townsfolk, who had shunned the ashram in its early years, had learnt to buy its vegetables and drink its milk without fear of contagion

Without God, all this was possible for Baba Amte. For patriots without piety, it is a possibility that affirms…and beckons.