It is easy to go wrong. Just like a system which always seeks greater entropy, human mind settles to chaos than order. One of the brilliant ideas in the history of mankind is the concept of god, which induces morality in society, and keeps a psychological boundary,and hence a degree of orderliness. There are two ways to inculcate morality in human beings: either through FEAR or through KNOWLEDGE. The former caters to the mass for whom philosophical thinking is on a premium, and the later appeals to an individual who wants to take her mind out of equilibrium and venture the ‘out of comfort’ zone. The later are usually labeled as atheists, and the way society looks at them is bit different from the conventional, which is unfortunate. To question the very essence of existence of god has been discouraged in our society, and this stance has to be changed. One should remember that atheists are as much responsible and belonging to a society as are the so-called theist. If anybody has doubts over this, I strongly recommend to read the works of Richard Dawkins. You shall realize that there is a beauty in reason and logic, even more compared to the perception of mystic thoughts.
The concept god has indeed done good to inculcate morality in humans, but it is important to ask whether inculcating morality by a non-existent entity is anyway better than inducing a just and righteous living by logical and evolutionary thinking ? I agree that there is a strange, soothing feeling to have a thought at the back of your mind which tells you that there is an omnipresent entity whose abilities transcend everything in the universe. But how long can we live with this euphoria? Is it not right to question this perspective towards life? Are we not deceiving ourselves by integrating our minds to an illusionary concept, and accepting the same without testing or differentiation? These are open-ended questions whose answers will never converge to a single line of thought, but at least it is worth questioning. In a sense, that leads to variety in thinking, which is always good to have in demographic distribution. Ultimately, what really matters is the individual’s freedom to define their own philosophy, and for that a thinking mind is always necessary. After all, your controllable life is a function of your mind, and the uncontrollable part is just a game of probability.
Good one Pavan!True! "controllable life is a function of your mind, and the uncontrollable part is just a game of probability". The point I see every where is the concept "God" is being segregated to a Hindu god, a Muslim god, a christian god and so on....They sure do converge(as far as i have seen) but only in conflict!The fact that none of our minds are completely in state of balance to accept the purity of the "God" concept! I guess understanding the most misunderstood and the non-understood "God" would be the greatest conquest of a human mind.
ReplyDeleteanother note on the individual's freedom philosophy, I think this freedom has taken various paths both in magnitude and direction (more like vectors). I would only add another line to your blog, a line of Swami Vivekananda “You cannot believe in God until you believe in yourself.”
Good perspective to the concept of God, Well i would like to add my observation,
ReplyDeleteThe idea of inculcating morality through Fear actually is a flawed idea has been misused by the people thus you see the Violence in the name of religion arising only because the people has accepted the fact of imbibing morality out of fear of facing the so called wrath from Almighty.
Whereas the Individual who imbibes morality and goodness based on knowledge is the one who actually is right.
So, do you believe in god?...
ReplyDeleteAnyway the more we think we are near to knowing the existence of god, the more further he seems to be away.
@Karthik - I agree with the misuse of the concept, although I haven't specifically mentioned
ReplyDelete@Manu - goodness is the key word you mentioned, that's a worthy concept to peruse
@Arun - your thought on near and far has deep significance, this concept is under huge debate...but yes...I am an Atheist..
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ReplyDeleteI’m torn here between being “theist” or “atheist”. Born in a polytheistic Hindu family, I have always felt “there almost certainly is God”. Having said that I can argue that religion has made the secular world running scared, which is in agreement with what Dawkins says in his book “TGD”- “it’s the religious hand behind all evils like suicide bombings, 9/11, 26/11, WWII Holocaust, Bosnian genocide, Cambodia or Darfur Genocide and many more. Then, won’t it be just great to imagine a world without God that is nevertheless both complete and wonderful.
ReplyDeleteNonetheless, it can not be denied these heinous crimes are primarily driven by political motives and an appropriate citation would be our neighboring country SL, where Tamils are being killed just for being Tamilians and asking for their basic rights and another one would be the Stalin-era where almost the entire priesthood were exterminated simply for being priests (as told by my Russian Colleague). So I deny that atheists don't do evil things. To put it in best words, Human by nature is bad and has the innate tendency to mess up things.
So here I completely agree to the idea of “Existence of GOD” and our Hindu religion is the best example where there are tens of millions of deities, each one representing different human character also non-living entities. I’m amazed by the fact that we worship almost every creation of Mother Nature, be it a plant, or animal, or stone, or five elements of life. I may not qualify to make many other comments here, but we should not take the Religion or GOD at its face-value and it’d be precarious to interpret the Existence of GOD without properly defining it.
Thanks!
Shailesh
On the fun side of being non-believer of GOD “(An Agnostic, Dyslexic and Insomniac person would stay all night up and ponder upon existence of DOG)”.
Pavan, you are going to rot in hell as you have questioned the existence of the Lord :P ...nice post, BTW :) ...me is big fan of Dawkins ! Have read only his Delusion book but have purchased a lot more..not finding time to read as course work keeping me biji :(
ReplyDelete@Shailesh - liked your views, but definition of god is a personal issue, and left to the individual, so, I would not take a stance on that. In terms of spirituality, I firmly believe that personal philosophy should take precedence over the generalized one.
ReplyDelete@Narahari - coming to the issue of Dawkins, I too like his writing, he has strong opinions, but I think he severely lacks support, also worth watching his TED talks
AND coming to destination hell.....well...not a bad place to visit ;), would be a welcome change from the present world !
You wrote:"There are two ways to inculcate morality in human beings: either through FEAR or through KNOWLEDGE."
ReplyDeleteIf you are talking about the concept of god as a mere tool to create fear and thereby inculcate morality, I should say that this is simplistic point of view.
If you read the Upanishads there is such deep venture into self inquiry that finds no room for a fear based theory.
Without a deep inquiry into the nature of things both the theists and atheists fall in to the same category: the "name game"
cheers
Satya
@Satya - I appreciate you brought up this point. The concept of 'self inquiry', according to me, is nothing but a path taken via knowledge, so it means that Upanishad is trying to inculcate morality through knowledge but not out of fear.
ReplyDeleteEven though, inculcating morality through fear sounds simplistic,I should say it is also the most probabilist one if you try to derive statistics from a group of people...
Frankly speaking, it is the reluctance to enquire which leads people to take the path of fear towards morality; though it is a shortcut and undesirable path, it has turned out to be the most effective one...
The motive of my blog was to reject the concept of god as a metaphor of morality , and inculcate morality via rational thinking, after all it is a game mind...
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ReplyDeletehmmm..Interesting. However I have my own reservations about the limitations of rational thought. For me the spontaneous,intuitive intelligence holds the key to understanding reality more than rational thought.
ReplyDeleteLike blind belief in God can lead to superstitions, forcing rational thinking in all walks of life also makes one top heavy and imbalanced,for example the inherent intelligence that our body possesses is pushed into a corner, when the rational mind starts operating.
In that sense an abstract concept of God which connects to ones emotions goes a long away in avoiding this pitfall.
However there are also other ways of doing this. But for the masses this does serve a purpose is what I believe.
cheers.