[Reader-list] God doesn't want us

[Cyril Gupta]

Some Free Speech

Knowledge, Freedom, Progress. (Is all we need).

Instead of talking about more relevant issues like literacy, security, 
social and political issues, I see people wasting their breath on petty 
stuff like religion. The politicians, journalists, intellectuals, artists, 
don't we all have a weird lemming like obsession with religious issues.

Don't you think we are giving this relic of the fears of ancient man much 
more attention than it deserves.

Religion maybe was of significance in the era when Man (Humanity for those 
bent on political correctness) still hadn't cracked the enigmas of this 
world and was constantly threatened by forces of nature. God was his 
solace, a fatalistic sort of escape on which he could blame anything good 
or bad that happened to him, and absolve himself from responsibility.

Religion in my opinion was not borne of enlightenment, but of lack of 
knowledge. As we progress further and further towards new knowledge 
religious theories become more and more ridiculous.

In contemporary times specially, religion has no significance. The new 
world is about pursuance of knowledge. Spiritualism is not among one of its 
goals.

Born a Hindu, I have been to a temple about thrice in my lifetime, and not 
out of any love for God. I am not an atheist, but I am sure God doesn't 
need my attention. I'd rather work, or read.

I have had the occasion of reading texts like ramcharitmanas, geeta, bible 
and koran. I read them out of curiosity (without being blinded by 
reverence), and they all bored me. If you don't mind the expression, all of 
these books are full of nonsense and its hard to extract an ounce of logic 
from their pages. Oddly enough, our wise-men detect reams and reams of 
spiritual subtext that they so eagerly spoon feed us. All of these texts 
were written in the dark ages of man, when there was a general absence of 
personal security and the world was still rife with the presence of demons, 
witches, mages and mystical beings. Maybe they represent an early 
undeveloped sort of philosophical thinking, when man tried to explain all 
that he found un-explainable. Maybe they're manuals for obscure little 
cults that later grew into full-fledged religions. I won't be surprised if 
the Brahmakumari movement of today for example, becomes a separate religion 
of its own with lakhs of followers. (Visit them and they'll tell you that 
the end of the world is near, they've predicted the end of the world thrice 
times already, in 1960, 1980 and 2000, God save our world from the next 
date they set for us. Today they have over 6 lakh members.)

Men are what the society makes them. Freedom of thought is an illusion. Our 
thoughts are shaped by what we observe and by what our mentors think. I am 
sure many of us 'free-thinker's would have happily burnt witches on stakes 
were we born in medieval Europe. Its only the access to more knowledge that 
has given us a mind broad enough to break the boundaries of tradition.

Some issues deserved to be ignored. If we don't give religion attention, it 
will wither and fall off like the tail that humans dropped when they 
evolved from apes to humans. Let's not let religion become an appendix 
that's quite useless and surfaces only to give us pain, instead let's drop 
it like the monkey's tail.

God doesn't need us and we don't need him.

Humanity my friends... is very much on its own.

And This I believe.

This I Believe by Robert A. Heinlein

  "I am not going to talk about religious beliefs but about matters
  so obvious that it has gone out of style to mention them. I
  believe in my neighbors. I know their faults, and I know that
  their virtues far outweigh their faults. "Take Father Michael
  down our road a piece. I'm not of his creed, but I know that
  goodness and charity and lovingkindness shine in his daily
  actions. I believe in Father Mike. If I'm in trouble, I'll go to
  him."

  "My next-door neighbor is a veterinary doctor. Doc will get out
  of bed after a hard day to help a stray cat. No fee -- no prospect
  of a fee -- I believe in Doc.

  "I believe in my townspeople. You can know on any door in our
  town saying, 'I'm hungry,' and you will be fed. Our town is no
  exception. I've found the same ready charity everywhere. But for
  the one who says, 'To heck with you -- I got mine,' there are a
  hundred, a thousand who will say, "Sure, pal, sit down."

  "I know that despite all warnings against hitchhikers I can step
  up to the highway, thumb for a ride and in a few minutes a car or
  a truck will stop and someone will say, 'Climb in Mac -- how far
  you going?'

  "I believe in my fellow citizens. Our headlines are splashed with
  crime yet for every criminal there are 10,000 honest, decent,
  kindly men. If it were not so, no child would live to grow up.
  Business could not go on from day to day. Decency is not news. It
  is buried in the obituaries, but is a force stronger than crime.
  I believe in the patient gallentry of nurses and the tedious
  sacrifices of teachers. I believe in the unseen and unending
  fight against desperate odds that goes on quietly in almost every
  home in the land.

  "I believe in the honest craft of workmen. Take a look around
  you. There never were enough bosses to check up on all that work.
  From Independence Hall to the Grand Coulee Dam, these things were
  built level and square by craftsmen who were honest in their
  bones.

  "I believe that almost all politicians are honest...there are
  hundreds of politicians, low paid or not paid at all, doing their
  level best without thanks or glory to make our system work. If
  this were not true we would never have gotten past the 13
  colonies.

  "I believe in Rodger Young. You and I are free today because of
  endless unnamed heroes from Valley Forge to the Yalu River. I
  believe in -- I am proud to belong to -- the United States.
  Despite shortcomings from lynchings to bad faith in high places,
  our nation has had the most decent and kindly internal practices
  and foreign policies to be found anywhere in history.

  "And finally, I believe in my whole race. Yellow, white, black,
  red, brown. In the honesty, courage, intelligence, durability,
  and goodness of the overwhelming majority of my brothers and
  sisters everywhere on this planet. I am proud to be a human
  being. I believe that we have come this far by the skin of our
  teeth. That we always make it just by the skin of our teeth, but
  that we will always make it. Survive. Endure. I believe that this
  hairless embryo with the aching, oversize brain case and the
  opposable thumb, this animal barely up from the apes will endure.
  Will endure longer than his home planet -- will spread out to the
  stars and beyond, carrying with him his honesty and his
  insatiable curiosity, his unlimited courage and his noble
  essential decency.

  "This I believe with all my heart."

Robert A. Heinlein wrote this item in 1952. His wife, Virginia Heinlein, 
chose to read it when she accepted NASA's Distinguished Public Service 
Medal on October 6, 1988, on the Grand Master's behalf (it was a posthumous 
award).

Mrs. Heinlein received a standing ovation.