Essay on atheism

 

India and the world's greatest religions series

Essay on atheism

By Dr. Shantanu Abhyankar 

Atheism disconnects itself from every kind of religious dogma. It denies god. The question follows, what kind of God? God is a nebulous term with varied interpretations. There are hundreds of religions and thousands of Gods. The layperson understands God, as an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, immutable, eternal, ‘swayambhu’ person or spirit who is the source of all morality. Such noble qualities aside, it is commonly understood that this God answers prayers, is benevolent, sometimes short tempered, at times vengeful; but works by your side and for you, with enough prayers, etc.; where et cetera means a lot of things to a lot many people. It is this kind of God that atheists deny.  

 

Just like God there is a whole spectrum of atheists. It's not an all or none phenomenon. Agnostics do not rule out the presence of God but keep the chances to the minimum. The so-called ‘militant’ atheists say that God certainly does not exist. There are others who believe in ‘a power’ or God, not the ‘prayer-answering’ type- that set the rules, set those famed six constants, started everything off and now follow a hands-off policy. Then there are the ‘pantheists’, who look upon the universe itself as God. 

 

Only recently Dr. Richard Dawkins, the famous atheist, has given us the atheism scale. On a scale of 1 to 7; One- total belief in God and seven-sure disbelief and four is 50:50. This is not agnostic. Agnostic would be somewhere between 6.9 to 7; giving God just some benefit of doubt. They would rather be called ‘de-facto’ atheists. Dawkins ranked himself at 6.9; quipping, ‘absence of proof, is not a proof of absence.’ 

 

This scale is useful. Almost every atheist has travelled along this. Beginning as a firm believer, as taught by the cultural environment, growing out of this belief either through exposure to science, atheistic writings or thinking critically on one’s own. Only with great courage can some ‘come out’ and declare themselves as atheists. It isn’t very comfortable nor safe. There is the threat of ostracism from family, society and even death penalty in some countries. India prides itself in a long tradition of religious debate and discussion and strong undercurrent of atheistic philosophy. We know of Charvaka and his materialistic views. Hinduism accommodates a wide spectrum of beliefs.Thus one can declare oneself an atheist and still be accepted, even as a Hindu. 

 

Atheists keep asking for proof of God’s existence and the theists say, it is self-evident, needing no proof. The theists then challenge the atheists to prove the non-existence of the God entity. Belief is the default position, they say, and ‘absence’ a new assertion. The onus of proof squarely lies on the asserter. They also argue that they are right since majority carries the vote. Atheists will point out that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and that, the God claim is certainly extraordinary. 

 

Such God debates are bound to be sterile and do not help us understand the contrasting conceptual framework. 

 

There is the naturalistic view of the world which presumes the universe to be a closed system, with nothing outside, influencing it. There are several questions this idea cannot answer. ‘Why does nature obey any laws at all?’, ‘How did conscious purposeful life arise from non-living matter?’ and so on.  If we don't know something it is better to accept that we don't know, rather than to imagine some answer. By imagining an answer, unsupported by proof, we discourage any further search for the real answer. This is the naturalistic point of view. 

 

The other is the supernatural view. It believes the universe to be divided in natural and supernatural realms which interact with each other. The fundamental truths about any realm are available in books and traditions. The obvious example of the supernatural spirit is ‘God’ who pervades, monitors and alters the universe. However there are nuances. The Abrahamic religions believe their God to be separate from the universe, whereas the Indo-Oriental traditions believe God pervading every living or non-living thing. What one sees and experiences as the material world is called Maya or Mithya. Beauty, goodness, patterns and order in the world is considered to be a manifestation of the divine presence.

 

The idea of naturalism is Spartan. It has minimal assumptions. As opposed to this, the supernatural idea of the world is baroque. It is embellished with several beliefs and assumptions and just about answers every question; like what exists? Why does it exist? How does it exist? How long will it exist? And so on. The answers to these come from ancient holy books: Tradition forbids any revision. Thus older the book, more authoritative and authentic it is.  

 

This particular approach of religion, of explaining everything without the need for evidence, is a butt of jokes. David Shotwell has famously said, ‘let's assume that each subatomic particle is inhabited by a dainty little gremlin, which maintains the existence of that particle by a continuous creative act and its instantaneous telepathic communication with others. By this means, they co-operate to produce the universe and its lawful behaviour!’ Bertrand Russell too mocked such an approach, quipping, ‘I know that there is a teapot orbiting the sun between the Earth and Mars; now prove me wrong!’ Given the technological limitations-this is obviously impossible.

 

  Rather than quibbling over approaches, the third school of thought suggests that science and religion are ‘non overlapping magisteria’, each equally important, equally valid and equally necessary. Why think in binaries; it need not be this or the other; it can very well be this and the other. Atheists counter by contradicting this as dodging all the challenges and simply moving the goal post.

 What qualifies religious beliefs and thoughts to be put on equal pedestal with science?  

 

The religionists readily can and do place their God in the gaps in knowledge. Such is not the way of science. For instance, if you keep on asking why, you soon reach a dead end and they say, ‘that is where god lies!”

For example, ‘why did it rain in Pune yesterday?’ 

‘The weather system caused it.’

‘Why the weather system?’

‘The earth's rotation, revolution, etc.’

‘Why is that?’

‘It's since the big bang’

‘Why is that?’

‘Following the big crunch.’

‘Why is that?’

‘Dunno!’

 

Now ‘that’ is what was caused by God!

 

It is rather impossible for God to exist for so many reasons. Firstly, God doesn't make his presence quite obvious. People say, God reveals himself to those who believe and pray. Belief; unquestioned belief! is a prerequisite. 

 

Divine impossibility can also be logically inferred by showing a pair of divine properties to be contradictory.  An omniscient God can predict the future but an omnipotent God can change everything that’s going to happen!  How does this fit? Can God make a rock so heavy that he himself cannot lift it? Though crisp and interesting, such logical repartees yield nothing. 

 

The strongest argument against religious thought and belief is the ‘problem of evil’. If God is good and stands by the good, why are there so many bad things happening? Different religions have answered this in different ways. Concepts like Satan, karma, God tests your mettle; have been invoked to get past this impassable question. 

 

Recently, scientists, sociologists, evolutionary psychologists are looking at the God idea from their lenses and explaining a lot of things. Sociologists have listed ideas common to all religions. Here is a very short list: 

·         A strong belief in supernatural powers, spirits and life after death.

·         A divide between ‘us’ and ‘them’; co-religionists are our own while others are inferior or infidels.

·         Rituals and rites of passage.

·         Omens. 

·         Music and dance.

·         Food taboos.  

·         Holy and tainted words, books, behaviours. 

·         Divine reward and punishment.

 

Since the God idea sprang from the human mind, studying our mental makeup through evolution, yields a lot of interesting clues. Evolutionary biology tells us that just as bodily traits decide whether you are selected in or out of the population; behavioural traits also decide your fate, evolving generation after generation. Certain thinking patterns and behaviours are evolutionary hallmarks of the human brain. These behaviours were extremely useful surviving in the African jungle but are useless or even a handicap in the modern concrete jungle. It is proposed that the God idea thrives on such age old, ingrained processes and hence can’t be readily got rid of.

For instance, we humans are pattern seeking animals. Given a few dots, we quickly connect them to conjure up a familiar figure. Our brains have evolved that way. Our ancestors on the savannahs would startle with a rustle in the grass. It could be the wind or a tiger. A striped pattern can be barely discerned in the thick grass but the brain quickly joins the dots and concludes that there is a tiger. It is prudent to take a distant, safer path than be the next meal for the big cat. Such pattern seeking, quick thinking mind has been selected in and we all have inherited it.

We have evolved with agency seeking minds. We simply believe that animate and inanimate world around us are agents having a mind and will of their own. This is called folk psychology. Spirits inhabit mountains, rivers, dead bodies; cyclones and earthquakes, are the result the wrath of gods. We readily believe all this. We believe, concurrence to be proof enough to conclude causation.  If an earache goes away after some sorcery or homeopathy, then credit readily goes to sorcery or homeopathy. If a deformed baby is born during an eclipse we blame the celestial shadow. Such mind-set favours the God belief. Theory of mind explains how our minds can guess what the other person is thinking ; that is walking in someone else's shoes. There are mirror neurons in our brains which make us feel the pain and pleasure of another. Sympathy and empathy thus pre-date the idea of religion.

Though there isn’t a God centre in our brain, the evolutionary framework of our mind provided a rich and fertile ground for the idea. The harvest has indeed been religion as a huge memeplex transmitted from generation to generation, from place to place.

There are several other factors. God and allied ideas spiralled as people started staying in larger groups. Social interactions in a band, of up to 150, are smoother. Fraudsters and free riders can be easily spotted and punished, not so with larger groupings. They need a more robust system. This is provided by the imaginary monitor- God. But the idea helped community building and building by the community too. The great pyramids could be built, only because everyone believed that pharaoh was god incarnate and his orders are mandatory. Religious ideas proliferated since they helped solidarity and won wars. Men have been summoned time and again for holy wars and have sacrificed everything for this cause.  Religion helped business too. Interaction became smoother between distant businessmen if they belonged to the same community. Even today cartels of traders, all from the same community are at work. Thus the proliferation of the god idea had to do with several factors.

Morality is often thought to be the exclusive domain of religion. Can one be good without God? Of course one can be. We do not draw our morality from God or any religious text, we just feel we do. No one can follow one’s holy book, word for word. We pick and choose from the wide variety of available teachings or reinterpret them to suit our times and happily believe that we draw our morality from religion. Tarkatirth Lakshman Shastri Joshi mustered evidence supporting Mahatma Gandhi's struggle against untouchability from the same texts which were quoted by his detractors. 

A godless morality is not only possible but desirable. The Indian constitution is a shining example of secular law, not drawing upon any religion. There is an upcoming science of morality. Certain moral behaviours are hard wired in our brains, through evolution.  Helping your kin and helping yourself by helping your kin, are evolutionary phenomena. Evolution is not just about survival through competition; in some aspects it is survival through cooperation as well. Evolutionary psychologists suggest that reciprocal altruism earns a good reputation and qualities such as loyalty, telling the truth, trustworthiness, and generosity help in building it further. Altruism too pre-dates religion.

Often the cruelty and pogrom by world’s well known atheists, Hitler, Stalin and Mao are cited as evidence against atheistic morality. The problem with fascism or communism, is not that they are too critical of religion but too much like religion. These ideas are dogmatic to the core and generally give rise to personality cults that are indistinguishable from cults formed in various religions and sects. Auschwitz and the soviet gulags are not examples of what happened when human beings rejected religious dogma but are examples of political, racial and nationalistic dogma. 

Atheists aren't averse to ‘spiritual experiences’. Of course this term is difficult to define but if it means enjoying love, music, poetry, nature, ecstasy, etc., the atheists do value these experiences and seek them actively. However they don't use the usual jargon connecting this to the divine. They are averse to unjustified claims about the nature of reality based on such experiences. Since most such experiences are subjective, atheists would rather wait for objective evidence. 

Finally a word about the Indian atheistic tradition; India has a long tradition of atheistic thought. Charvak (Baharspatya, Lokayat), the most ancient of such schools taught us that belief should be proportionate to evidence, that Vedas are nothing but human creation, rather than worrying about moksha, rebirth, heaven and hell, it is better to accept the ephemeral quality of life; that it is full of sorrow and pleasure, of torment and bliss, and get on with life. Self-abuse, wasting of resources and a perpetual, deeply negative attitude toward the world is no good.  No Charvak-ist text has survived. Traditionally critics would write a purva-paksha, survey the arguments they were refuting and then in uttara- paksha, present their own argument.  It is through such indirect means that we get a glimpse of Charvakian thought. We also have Jain and Buddhist traditions which denied god but stuck to concepts of heaven, hell, rebirth etc.  

But all said and done, though the majority of us believe that theists are in a majority, I have a different suggestion. All theists are atheistic towards all other gods but for their own! A Muslim denies the existance Christian God and vice versa. So, there are always more, ‘not believed in gods’; than those worshiped.  Atheists just let go of that one last God.