ON ATHIESM AND GODS

Speculating about natural phenomena is one of the privilages that Nature has pleased to afford us human beings. But what a mess we have created, out of the potential of understanding nature and its myriad ways ! It is astonishing that many of the specialities of which human race can boast of, have a demeaning effect on that very race. One would cite the example of nuclear bombs; but that is a rather recent occurence in humanity's psychological hostory. A more subtle but potent concept that has degraded human life is the presence of an omnipresent,omnipotent, and omniscient God in collective human psyche with its multifarous effects. Such has been the effect of THE GOD CONCEPT that no field of human activity has stayed clear, unstained and unconditioned of it. Many would argue that humans are humans because they believe in God and in a surreal way of talking that may well be true, for, we have no evidence whatsoever that any biological species than Homo sapiens has such fantastic notions as 'the god concept' , but , then, no one has any positive evidence that ants and donkeys (less fortunate as they seem to us, for no objective reason) do not have a God. In fact, I have long speculated that if donkeys have a God, that can't be in a human form; that has to be an impressively strong, omnipotent, omipresent, and omniscient donkey, having all conceivable rights on all lving and non living being around them. But, of course, human conditioning and 'pride of race' rebel against allowing donkeys a God of their own and, just as we presume that donkeys are to serve humans because we take care of them, we also presume that our God will also take care of donkeys. If this smacks of human imperialism,you are bang on target. God has long been a convenient concept for imperialists of different ilk and has been much abused to allow and justify much of the injustice present in the world. So, MANY PERSONS GAIN IN MATERIAL TERMS. Thus, many claim special knowledge of God and his ways, many claim to protect God's and his followers' interests, stll others claim to spread his word to the pitiable ignorants. And they generally do this for some worldly gain, direct or indirect. This is one of the chief reasons of persistence of 'the god concept' in discourse of human affairs. Then, human beings can speculate about future. As we are condemned to have a better memory than any other species,we know our past better and seek to establish cause-and-effect relation between that past and speculated future. But experience soon shows that prediction of future is fraught with dangers and seldom accurate as human behaviour and surrounding environment is multivariate, thus leading to different outcomes in seemingly same obtaining conditions and same outcomes in seemingly different conditions. In a nutshell even the nearest and most mundane FUTURE IS UNCERTAIN otherwise God would have lost much of his ( it is a predominantly male concept) sheen. Then, human life,like all other life forms, is essentally perishable,and often without notice; and though there have been long talks and complex theories regarding possibilities of life after death. In solemn moments of approach of death, human mind is constrained to concede ignorance regarding such fancies. This IGNORANCE ABOUT STATUS OF CONSCIOUSNESS AFTER DEATH further fuels weak minds to cling to some notion of continuity after death, for, if everything ends with death, life is bound to be absurd (a concept championed by Camus). So, we have heavens and hells and their administrators and our life continues after death, though in a rather mystified state. Thus, God concept helps PROVIDE MEANING TO AN ARGUABLY ABSURD LIFE. As humans are condemned to seek meanings even in most innocent and natural phenomena, they create concepts that help them find meaning, howsoever erroneous, in life; and God concept helps many people live according to some principles that are easy to grasp, handy to practise.....