Atheism – Is it a concept or just a belief system? I have been relentlessly striving to decipher the answer to this enigmatic query for a fairly long time. But alas, the answer has eluded me just as light from a torch-light eludes the shaky grip of a little child when he attempts to catch hold of the beam. Before we go and try to analyze this fundamental question, let us first try and comprehend the fine line of difference between a concept and a belief system. If I were to put the distinction in lay man’s language as per my very own lay understanding, a concept is actually a set theory or assumption put forward by an individual or a group of individuals and accepted by another individual or a group of individuals whereas a belief system is actually the creation of an individual without any formal recognition. This mental creation can actually be customized according to the physical and emotional needs of that individual without necessarily intruding on the belief system of another individual.
Unfortunately, although atheism has been talked about and debated like hot cakes since time immemorial, very few people have actually come forward to standardize this phenomenon. Thus the question has sustained itself. Now let us look at a different dimension altogether. Let us try to define atheism as a separate entity. If we go according to popular myths, atheism is a state of mind where an individual denies the involvement of a creator of this universe and thus completely disowns god and its progenies in all its manifestations. Unlike agnosticism, it does talk about divine interventions albeit in the negative connotation where it does so to disprove the theory it is deliberating upon. Thus according to the earlier definition, it can be treated as a concept as all the hitherto known atheists have subscribed to this basic inference. But, the problem arises after that. Different atheists have approached atheism differently as regards following its tenets in their life is concerned. For example, there are atheists who go about propagating their ideologies to everyone they know and try and inflict their opinions on the people they know propagating that only their theories hold credence and the rest are all crafted works of fantasy. Then, there are atheists who believe in keeping it to themselves and democratization of the individual thought process. They don’t believe in spreading and enforcing their opinions on others. Thus, this inquiry would persist till there are theists and atheists.
As an atheist (although I don’t quite agree with this categorization) myself, I have seen that although atheists deem them to be special creations of nature believing in the ‘true ways of functioning’ of mother nature, they are as rigid as their theist counterparts are. They get so obsessed and possessive about their ‘extremely logical and scientific way of thinking’ that they often forget that everyone has the right to express their opinions. As a teenager, I also fell into this trap. I used to ridicule and denigrate people who believed in god and thus found myself completely alienated and negatively interpreted among most of the people I knew. Now, as a matured person, I dread the atheists as much as the theists for their completely stereotyped notion about everything around them.
With passing time and increasing awareness, I have realized that there are many questions to which we would never be able to throw light and consequently people have taken to God to find a universally acceptable answer. We as atheists have never tried to address these basic issues and branded theists as emotional fools. As a human being, I have given up. As long as we cannot explain this universe in its totality and describe all its variations with subtle craft, we cannot expect people to follow science because even science has failed at various levels. As a student of physics, I find it difficult to admit but yes, even physics has given up. In fact, physics can only predict probability and not certainty. This is obviously a retrenchment in its earlier nineteenth century stand but then again physicists don’t know a way out of it. Thus, I have stopped making seemingly very intellectual comments about the absence of god as I know that even if the person whom I am talking to might not be knowing the failures of physics but I, as a student of science, can’t ignore my insecurities about it.
Unfortunately, although atheism has been talked about and debated like hot cakes since time immemorial, very few people have actually come forward to standardize this phenomenon. Thus the question has sustained itself. Now let us look at a different dimension altogether. Let us try to define atheism as a separate entity. If we go according to popular myths, atheism is a state of mind where an individual denies the involvement of a creator of this universe and thus completely disowns god and its progenies in all its manifestations. Unlike agnosticism, it does talk about divine interventions albeit in the negative connotation where it does so to disprove the theory it is deliberating upon. Thus according to the earlier definition, it can be treated as a concept as all the hitherto known atheists have subscribed to this basic inference. But, the problem arises after that. Different atheists have approached atheism differently as regards following its tenets in their life is concerned. For example, there are atheists who go about propagating their ideologies to everyone they know and try and inflict their opinions on the people they know propagating that only their theories hold credence and the rest are all crafted works of fantasy. Then, there are atheists who believe in keeping it to themselves and democratization of the individual thought process. They don’t believe in spreading and enforcing their opinions on others. Thus, this inquiry would persist till there are theists and atheists.
As an atheist (although I don’t quite agree with this categorization) myself, I have seen that although atheists deem them to be special creations of nature believing in the ‘true ways of functioning’ of mother nature, they are as rigid as their theist counterparts are. They get so obsessed and possessive about their ‘extremely logical and scientific way of thinking’ that they often forget that everyone has the right to express their opinions. As a teenager, I also fell into this trap. I used to ridicule and denigrate people who believed in god and thus found myself completely alienated and negatively interpreted among most of the people I knew. Now, as a matured person, I dread the atheists as much as the theists for their completely stereotyped notion about everything around them.
With passing time and increasing awareness, I have realized that there are many questions to which we would never be able to throw light and consequently people have taken to God to find a universally acceptable answer. We as atheists have never tried to address these basic issues and branded theists as emotional fools. As a human being, I have given up. As long as we cannot explain this universe in its totality and describe all its variations with subtle craft, we cannot expect people to follow science because even science has failed at various levels. As a student of physics, I find it difficult to admit but yes, even physics has given up. In fact, physics can only predict probability and not certainty. This is obviously a retrenchment in its earlier nineteenth century stand but then again physicists don’t know a way out of it. Thus, I have stopped making seemingly very intellectual comments about the absence of god as I know that even if the person whom I am talking to might not be knowing the failures of physics but I, as a student of science, can’t ignore my insecurities about it.
No comments:
Post a Comment