Well, I am aware of the plagiarised title that I chose, but I had to put my thoughts into words. Bhagat Singh, who is one of my inspirations, wrote Why I Am An Atheist as people thought he became an atheist because of vanity or pride, which was not the case. I am certainly not comparing myself to him; I am not worth even his little finger. Vanity is far from being the case. I am the most self-loathing and self-doubting person ever.
I was tired of the questions. Why do you not believe in God? Did something happen in your life that made you question God's existence? When I finally tell them the reason, I see the judgemental look on their faces. I was not born an atheist. I belong to a typical Hindu family, which always used to tell us as children that "you can marry anyone you like, except a Muslim". When we asked why, they used to reply, "They are not good people." This is how hate is cultivated in most families, and children grow up to commit hate crimes. Well, not everybody grows up with hate in their minds, because me and my siblings grew up to be rational citizens. Even as a child, I knew our elders were wrong. I used to wonder how they could be elderly and not understand that it is wrong to hate another human being if I could understand it.
I grew up questioning many of the beliefs that our mother, grandmother, and aunts taught us. I observed that restrictions against women are much more than against men. People will stop me here by saying that even other religions have regressive laws against women. Of course, I agree that women have been oppressed from time immemorial in all communities. No religion has been kind to women, but I was a Hindu. I will speak about what I have learnt from this religion. Women are made to follow rules made by men, and it is so imprinted on them that it has become a part of their lives. Patriarchy has become a way of life for them. It is ingrained in them that they eat only after they feed the men in their family. It is ingrained in them that men are pure 365 days a year and women are impure for 7 days every month. The very process responsible for life on earth is frowned upon and treated as taboo.
Religion is a topic one would shudder to touch at this time period in India. Even if we go back in history, religion and violence have always been synonyms. Wars have been raged, people killed, structures demolished. This hatred has only been increasing for decades. One would have thought this arbitrary bloodshed would be stopped as we progress, but our mindset is only regressing day by day. Humans have made cars that run on their own but still struggle with accepting the fact that it was not one person who made it possible but people from every religion, caste, and creed came together to create an invention. People do not think twice before killing another human being. They kill each other’s children just because they believe their faith is better than the others', or more real or important than the others'. They become monsters, and lynch people in public places, making them chant their religious war cry. They have the audacity to film and circulate it to cultivate fear.
Casteism is a deeply repulsive and unsightly reality in our society. It is beyond my comprehension how humans can treat another human being with the utmost disrespect and consider them lower than themselves. It is followed even today, as mentioned in the Rig Veda about the four varnas: Brahman (priest), the Kshatriya (noble), the Vaishya (commoner), and the Shudra (servant) who issued forth at creation from the mouth, arms, thighs, and feet of the primaeval person (purusha). I cannot believe a text that says people should be discriminated against based on the community into which they are born. This is the reason I believe in Karl Marx's communism; in a stateless, casteless society. Karl Marx said "Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand."
I believe in Dr. B. R. Ambedkar and EV Ramasamy Periyar, the anti-caste crusaders. I believe in Narendra Dabholkar, who strived to fight against blind faith, black magic, and superstitions and promoted rational thinking and who was killed by the so-called "Dharm ke rakhwale" (protectors of religion) because they thought their religion was threatened by an educated man.
While growing up, my mind would be full of questions. Which God came when? How did people realise there was a God? If God made our bodies, then he also made the process of menstruation. Then why are we not allowed to go near God during periods? Why is God always addressed as He? How come all religious books and scripts were written by men? I made up my mind that there might be only one God. People must have made up so many gods just because they can celebrate many festivals. I eventually stopped idol worship. I realised they were just sculptures made by humans. I still used to love going to temples. I felt peaceful there. I used to talk like I was talking to a supernatural being, and I felt like I was being listened to. Over the years, I realised that it has become a competition now to see which community builds the most religious structures. According to the 2011 census, India has more places of worship than schools or hospitals.
To give a scientific angle to it, I agree with Stephan Hawking that the Big Bang created the universe. It can either be God or science, and I choose science. Although I am not stubborn enough to rule out possibilities, there are many things yet to be discovered and truths yet to be revealed. "There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark," Hawking said. People are scared of their gods. They even tend to bribe their gods for their selfish motives. They do not work hard and think God will handle it. There is no logic in thinking that God will grant us the job, God will make us pass the exam, etc.
Einstein does not think an individual survives the death of his body. Religious people cremate or bury bodies, which are both harmful to the environment. They do not donate the organs that can be donated so that someone else can live, as they think the soul will not attain peace if they donate the organs. I do not want to disregard any religious practises or God. I just expect people to make rational decisions and think logically, which I know is too much to ask.
My reasons are political as well as scientific. I do not hate any religion, but I cannot accept any religion that propagates hate. Like the comedian Ricky Gervais says, I may be an "agnostic atheist" because I do not have evidence that God does not exist, but I cannot be a believer as logic and religion are at the opposite poles across religions.
Also published on www.medium.com
https://medium.com/@egalitariansaranya/why-i-am-an-atheist-8b74bb3e981b
