An acquaintance who is very devoutly religious sent me the link to this video, entitled "Why I'm Not an Atheist." Please see the video, followed by my atheist response:
Consider this: 99.99% of the human race openly or secretly want to believe in something, because humans have to believe in something in order to pull through the incomprehensions of the act of living. Believing in some sort of god, any sort, is therefore easy, and therefore, that high percentage are believers. Interestingly, the same percentage of human beings are violators of the fundamental tenets upon which those beliefs are based. Common sense mathematics would dictate, then, that those who believe are also the violators of those beliefs. In other words, the believers are also the non-believers.
Regardless of which and what religion is one’s preferred one, or is the given one, the fundamental tenets are very simple: do not lie, do not cheat, do not covet, do not hurt; yet it is these very tenets which are most violated. So, how come? If there really were Belief, such simple things would be very easy to practise. But precisely that has never been the case throughout human history, and is not likely to be the case in the diminishing number of years remaining to us before we perish.
1 comment:
Bhai,
I concur whole heartedly to this sequential and well crafted response to the video of Ravi Zacharia’s lecture. He is promoting Jesus Christ. Having said that, I will make few comments on the lecture by Ravi himself.
I admit he speaks aggressively; which can be impressionable on many.
I also admit he drops names such as Russell, Nietzsche, Sartre, Rand, Dawkins and such to contend that the atheism which he defines as “deliberate, definite and dogmatic denial of existence of god” promotes Hitler and Stalin style fascism; and that is because atheists lack “moral point of reference”. He fails to note there is more than just one Christian god in the world. And there are varieties of moral references. Do you use Islam’s Five Pillars or Ten Commandments or Middle Path of Buddhism or self sacrificial Jainism or Gita-esque teachings? He is promoting only Jesus Christ.
He cites Holocaust by Hitler, who had no moral compass, the result of fascism. Agreed. But did Ottoman Empire who supposedly had Islamic rules to follow have no moral compass when they killed thousands of Armenians? History is rife with many such examples where even Popes, Holy Sees, have done undoable. What about Crusades? What about Ivan the Terrible who followed, Russian Orthodox Church, Rasputin, Borgia; again a Pope himself?
People do bad things with or without moral compasses. They have done it in the past, they do it today and they will continue to do it tomorrow. Atheism as an “Ism” does not necessarily lead to bad deeds.
What does it matter even when one calls oneself "one of faith", disobeys given canons and proves oneself a non-believer, but lives out guilt free life which most people do? Isn't that most people do? So turns the world.
charu
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