Am I an atheist?

It depends. I know for sure that I am not very comfortable being called an atheist.
a·the·ist Pronunciation Key - [ey-thee-ist]
–noun a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.
You are an atheist if you believe that God does not exist. My stand is similar to Bill Maher's. I just don't know and it is impossible to know. I guess by definition that makes me an agnostic. Being atheist is being sure of God's non-existence and that is not being humble or in fact scientific in some sense. In science I don't think you throw anything away unless you prove it wrong. I cannot throw any idea away unless I know for sure that it is faulty. How can anyone be sure?

I am a believer. How can I be one when I am an agnostic? Because, I believe that God is not a separate entity but that he/she resides in each one of us. To respect each other and have compassion for one another is to respect God. I don't think I believe that there is this supreme being that created all of us and continues to do so. But I do believe that there is something. I am not sure what it is. But I believe there is a thread that connects all of us that can be tapped. A thread of energy? Maybe, I don't know. Like I said, I am not sure. But I certainly detest following any sacred book in the name of God or religion. I believe in using my brain. I cannot live by something I do not comprehend. None of these books ever have any convincing answers anyway. Take The Bhagavat Gita for example. No matter how many times I read it, I still cannot convince myself that Arjuna did the right thing by killing his relatives.

I am also a non-believer. When I see innocent people being killed everyday, I question the existence of an almighty. Why is there so much suffering if there is an omnipotent being? Please don't give me this crap about karma and previous birth. Isn't God supposed to forgive? Isn't he supposed to love everyone, the evil-doers and the good alike? Why create miscreants and then punish them? Catastrophes make me believe that everything happens at random, there is no order. There is no karma, there is no afterlife and there is no selection process (here, I am NOT referring to Darwin's theory, I am referring to selection based on karma) that determines who dies and who lives. And if you still believe in this supreme being, I must say that he is rather cruel.

There is a fundamental difference between the fundamentalists and non-believers. Fundamentalists think that we should not use our brain. Why? Because according to their logic, we are imperfect beings created by a perfect almighty. So our thought process is imperfect, which leads to imperfect reasoning. So we should blindly follow what He has prescribed. I must say, I NEVER would have come up with this reasoning if not for my friend who enlightened me on why religious conservatives do not use their brains. To me this convoluted logic is absolutely ridiculous. I am not willing to live a life worrying about afterlife. I let my brain and sometimes my heart decide what is right or wrong.

Am I an atheist? You tell me. The following quotes sum up my belief.

We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God,
who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes. - Gene Roddenberry

I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence. - Doug McLeod

It ain’t the parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand. - Mark Twain

I refuse to believe in a god who is the primary cause of conflict in the world, preaches racism, sexism, homophobia, and ignorance, and then sends me to hell if I’m ‘bad’. - Mike Fuhrman

If God created the world, then who created god? and who created whoever created god? So somewhere along the line something had to just be there. So why can’t we just skip the idea of god and go straight to earth? - Ryan Hanson

I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure -- that is all that agnosticism means. - Clarence Darrow

I have known many good people who did not believe in God. But I have never known a human being who was good who did not believe in people. [language slightly modified] -John Lovejoy Elliott

A love-hate relationship

Today was a very busy day, lots of work but I also had the opportunity to discuss religion with a very learned person. I complained to him "I just recently read this book about a religion and am appalled by the so called prophet who had all these wives, some as young as 13. He forced these women into 'holy' matrimony, how can so many people respect him? Beats me." As I uttered these sentences, the person who came to my mind was Lord Krishna! Lord Krishna did almost everything this prophet did, and yet, those actions never seemed blasphemous to me. But today, I question my religion, the religion I have been so fond of, the religion I knew had shortcomings, but I also thought possessed some redeeming qualities. But after this 2 hour discussion and reading some excerpts from Manusmriti, I must say, I am a bit ashamed. I definitely disagree with many of Hinduism's principles. If Hinduism procalims that all men are not equal, I don't need Hinduism anymore, if it has the audacity to state that God willed it that way, and if God indeed did, I am not sure I want that God either. I'd rather sin and not go to heaven then ill-treat fellow humans in the name of the almighty. Makes me wonder, how can we be so sure that these Gods we pray to, if they did exist, were indeed good beings?? Reading the satanic verses does make me wonder.

Color of God

Color of God
Today, I was reading this book on a religion founded in America. A religion that actually states that "polygamy is the will of God" and people who do not follow it are sinners and will never see heaven.

As I read this book, I thought of all the stupid and insane things that people do in the name of religion and under the pretext of these "holy" texts that were written thousands and thousands of years ago. Some of these scriptures even go so far as saying that the earth is only 7000 years old and man was born as he is today without evolution and that Darwin's theory is a farce. How many of us actually think about why we are Christian or Muslim or Hindu? There are so many, many good things about these religions and yet, people choose to follow only those they find convenient.

Take Hinduism for example, there are so many Gods; Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva and many more. Only a year or so ago was I able to come up with a satisfying answer to why there were so many. One of my American friends, looking at a picture of Lord Krishna, asked me last month, "Hey, I see that Krishna is blue in color, does it represent anything?" And I replied "Yes Brenda, this is how I think of it. God comes in different colors. He can be dark like Shiva or fair like Brahma. He can be fat with a tummy, like Lord Ganesha or he can be handsome like Lord Vishnu. He doesn't have a single face." Why else would they choose to color a God blue. If Krishna were fair, the dark people would be discriminated against. And if he were dark, the white people would be discriminated against.

I feel so happy when I think of the good things our ancestors tried to convey and sorry when we so successfully manage to convolute even the purest of thoughts. In some religions, this is probably why they don't believe in idol worship. They don't want to think of God as possessing one single form. And this is exactly what I will teach my children, that God lives in each one of us, black or white.