I am sure I would be stirring calm water surrounding me. The moment the article reaches my dear ones it would raise some question marks and create a few red eyes too. But when I am sure of what I do or say and there is a justification and an answer for every possible question that would come up, there should be no fear in the heart. I am sensible enough to accept bricks and brats. Because, in a world where majority believe in praying and god, if I stand up and say I don’t believe in praying, then I know that definitely will raise a few eyebrows.
After all I am an Indian and I am from a country whose ideology according to great writer Rabindranath Tagore is (or he meant should be) “Where the mind is without fear and where the head is held high” . Hence I take the courage to say I don’t believe in god and I have a reason for doing that.
Being from a not so orthodox Brahmin family saved me from learning Veda forcefully. But out of my own interest I learnt it for a few days. It was a pride to chant mantras. Even today I find the chant soothing and lovely. But, I challenge their power to change anything else in world than your mood.
There is a rhythm that soothes your mind but can they change the external world? According to me – No.
Before I give justification to the above statement I would like to make a statement. Believing in god and prayer is left to one’s perspective and wish. I will not propose or promote atheism by any means and I will never do. But here are the reasons which turned me into a pseudo atheist who neither denies god’s presence nor prays seeking for his blessings. There are a few billion people in this world and at least a million faiths and a few gods in each faith. Each one believes that not following their god would lead to sorrow and trouble. If at least one of the faith’s beliefs was true then the entire world should have been in dire straits.
Each individual wishes to live without any fear. But the concept of god and prayer itself comes as a package with freebie of fear. Each work we do has to be thought twice as though if it is acceptable by god. However, god according to people is no different than any corrupt Govt office of India. Because bribing a god with offerings would nullify any of your mistakes and you are allowed to do anything that is not right ‘on papers’ ! Oh please, god if exists should be little strict than you think. I strongly disbelieve in any offering to any god. Because if god is the ultimate power he/she should be least expecting anything from mere you. And also, it confuses me when people say god has framed each one’s life and at the same time offer something for the mistakes. After all, it is the same god who made you do all those and why should you apologise for what he made you do?
My thoughts against power of a prayer in changing anything are after deep thoughts and self-experiment. Prayer definitely has enormous strength to change your mood and mind but it cannot change something that is not in your hands. Because, a prayer can bring in a hope in you and make you feel stronger. But I have seen prayers not work when things are not under your control. I have seen people arguing against this, giving instances that prayer has given life to a dying person. At the same time I have seen people crying – “in spite of praying we could not save him”. The latter was said to have lost his life because he was destined to, but the former was saved by god..! Do not both contradict? It is the same in most cases. When things change then I believe even without prayer it would have, and if it does not change then even prayer would not have changed it.
I tried changing a few things through prayers and when none did, I went in for a self-realization with questions on what went wrong and at what stage? Were there flaws in my truthful devotion? Or did I pray to a wrong god? What I realized was none of those were the reasons but my hope and belief to change things through prayers was..! People looking for religious conversion would jump in and say “believe in my god and you will get what you want”. My question is if your god is so strong why he needs foulmouthed people like you spreading lies to make people believe him? Or, why does he need a messenger to ask me to believe in him. There are better things you can do to yourselves and the society, do it and the god you believe would be happy! (As per my argument, I would say, if everything is driven by god, he would not have made you do this)
And the last one is about the life after death. Nobody has ever seen both lives. But we still live here hoping for next life. As per a few arguments, the concept of god was created to induce fear in people by Kings, ages ago. This was needed when someone asked questions like “who has made you king?”, “ Why should I bow in front of you?”, the answer was “God”. Because, The kings had made a propaganda to make common men believe that there is someone above him, who has given him the power and the position. And when the question of “What if I go against him?” was raised, the concept of ‘life after death’ was pushed into the brains. However, Indian mythology does not directly propose the afterlife but speaks about transfer of ‘Karma’ to the next generation. Because, attaining Moksha/Salvation is the highest goal of one’s life and he can take multiple births for that. But to control, the weapon used was ‘Karma’ in India. Hence I feel the concept was a cooked up story driven by political or some unknown reason.
For all the people who start firing questions showing proofs that there lived Rama, Krishna, Prophet, Christ or whomever, and ask me “Do you need more proof to believe in god?” My answer is simple. Yes, they did and they lived setting an example of how a person should live. But I still challenge the argument that they have the power to change an individual’s life and the world. Each one of them was of high moral standard and values and we can take them as role models to lead the life in a better way.
Before signing off, I keep a clause saying –
“If on any day I feel the presence of god and feel the power of prayer in changing things which are not in my control, I will give myself an option to believe in god and prayer”
