10 Reasons I dont believe in God

I have always wanted to write a '10 Things blah blah' or '10 Reasons why blah blah' article, and when I had a rather philosophical conversation with my sister and her hubby yesterday, I decided to go for it. I dont believe in the existence of a God, or in any Religion and
I think that if you do believe in a deity, or multiple ones for that matter, you have been had in what is a very old hoax that just refuses to die its natural death. So here are 10 reasons why I dont and cant believe in God:

1. Science baby!
My first and foremost argument, if I may call it so, is Science! Good old science with her theories and proofs. The best thing about science, and also the most frustrating thing sometimes is proof. When someone discovers something, or invents something, he has to prove it. Nobody has to take your word for granted and there is no such thing as faith involved. You only have to look back at the annals of history to see how many misconceptions and half truths were buried by noble inventors and scientists, who also paved the way for all the modern technological wonders we enjoy today. There's no magic or miracle involved here, no 'leap of faith' required, all well proven and well understood scientific discoveries.

Ah but say anything that religion/God doesn't agree with, and you will be persecuted and probably murdered. History is littered with great thinkers and scholars who were thrown to the gallows for daring to utter a single word against religious truths and dogma. To think that the priests and clergy would say that the earth was the center of the universe! One only needs to take one look at the stars and you know it isn't true.

2. But there are so many daddy!
When it comes to religion, one size does not fit all. Today there are six or seven major religions, each with a staggering amount of followers each. That in itself is damning evidence, if I may say so. Considering that if you believe in a particular religion, and that makes you a infidel by almost all other religions, almost everyone on planet earth is going to hell one way or the other. Though there

does tend to be a common thread running through all the religions, some of them are simply too crazy to even consider joining up, and yet they have mass followings! Makes you wonder what kind of circus we are living in, but then, all these religions together do make for interesting viewing for a casual observer like me. To put the cherry on the cake, there are more religion related and ethnic cleansing deaths than all other causes put together.

3. Oh the humanity! 

Terrorism, the only word that can make a shiver run up the most hardened man's spine, and the only word that a wise man would not speak lightly of. Religion seems to bring out the most insane, sadistic, cruel side of a human being, and this has been the case for thousands of years. Tens of millions of people have died because they either didn't 'fit in' to the reigning supernatural belief, or that they were trying to make others fit to theirs. In fact there are many countries that have shed any pretenses of secularism and proudly tout the fact that they are havens for believers of a particular religion. It is tragic that man has no tolerance for a different way of life; all must be the same, believe in the same, and many are ready to kill or die trying to make this happen. It is our differences and the variety of life that makes it all multicolored and stunning to look at. Sameness is not and can never be much to talk about. Imagine how boring it would all be, if all the world was like a fast food franchise, the same darned thing everywhere.

4. The numbers don't add up sonny!
The Bible says that the earth is 6000 years old. But there is a staggering amount of evidence pointing to the contrary. There are many artifacts, fossils of ancient animals, rock formations and a multitude of such things that are many million years old. Ask the scholars of any religion to explain the contradiction of Earth being created by God and the colossal amount of evidence for evolution that exists, and they either don't have an answer, or their answers just raise more questions. So tell me, God created all the things on earth, and then buried fossils here and there to have a little fun did he?

5. Moral compass my foot.
My theist friends always throw this at me whenever I question their beliefs; imagine the horror of being without a moral compass, for if there were no God, man would become an immoral heathen, bent on raping and murdering all that he sees. Excuse me, but I don't need a God or a religious book to tell me that raping someone is a crime.

 I know what good and evil are, what right and wrong are and I know this because of the morals instilled in me in my childhood. Doesn't good parenthood take care of most moral  dilemmas anyway? Do you really need a holy book to tell you that loving thy neighbor is a good idea, or that killing someone is not?

6. Fate - a four lettered word.

I am sick and tired of  hearing people say, 'It was meant to be', or 'its all a part of God's plan. If God has a plan for all of us, then do we not have free will? Are we just puppets in a grand show that is being played for someone's entertainment at our expense? A certain religion even speaks of Karma, where the sins of one life will be paid for in another. I find this ridiculous and hard to comprehend. Why is it so hard for people to accept that there is no meaning to it all? That there is only one life and the purpose of your life is what you make of it. That death is truly the end, and there is no afterlife or another life for that matter. If there is such a thing as fate or destiny, are children born with AIDS in Africa fated to live short lives of extreme agony and humiliation? Is that really their destiny, to live such lives? Or are they being punished for crimes of other men? When an old friend of mine passed away in a brutal accident in the prime of his life, I often wondered what the purpose of his life was. Ask a priest the same question, and he would probably reply, 'Man cannot comprehend all that God does, for if God is a human being, then our understanding of our world is that of an ant.' Such answers just serve to make me feel like I am just a puppet and a part of a cruel joke that will never end.

7. Aliens: the truth is out there.

There are billions and billions of stars in millions in galaxies throughout the universe. Are we really so foolish to think that the earth is the only place in the entire universe where intelligent life can exist? Were we one day to establish the existence of alien life beyond doubt, where does that leave all the holy books that say that the earth is the only haven for men, and all else was created for a starry sky? Would these books be then re-written to take these new alien beings into account? Not that it hasnt been done already many times over. Just the existence of the Old and New testaments are proof enough that these books don't and can't encompass all that is out there.

8. The Chaos theory
 Chaos is just as capable of creating our world as is intelligent design. In fact it is the more likely, since the minute you accept the possibility of a Creator, isnt the question of his origin automatically the next one? Some believers push the complexity of nature's creations as solid proof that an intelligent creator exists, for how could chance and a soulless nature create such wonders? Taken at face value this is a very good question. But Science has an answer. The complexity and marvels we see around us did not arise overnight. These creations are the result of a slow and stunning process called evolution. Take the example of the human eye. It is a design that is unparalleled in Science in terms of ability and complexity. But this wonder evolved over hundreds of prototypes of millions of creatures, that began from a humble single celled organism, and then hundreds of differently abled sight devices in all our ancestors. Nature's splendor is no accident or a Spiritual being's brainchild. It is the culmination of a long and much convoluted process of minute additions and improvements.

9. The arrogance of it all
 To state that all the fantastic and stunning creatures of our world were all created to make a beautiful and varied home for the human beings is arrogance of extreme proportions. All the mammals, amphibians, reptiles, birds, fish, insects and every other form of life are as much a citizen of our blue planet as we are. Even women are much inferior to men according to most religions, and to refuse to treat them as equals stinks of an ill-conceived attempt to gain the upper hand. I cannot and will not place myself above any of nature's creations, for if global warming, weather fluctuations and natural catastrophes are anything to go by, nature does not appreciate the condescension.

10. The beginning question
Where did we all come from? Why were we created? What is the purpose of it all? We are back to the same old question that has made man look up the heavens, pardon the reference, and come up with all kinds of crazy answers. A close perusal of the long dead religions of our ancestors and you will see that they were not as different from the modern ones as you might think. Yes the names and number of deities might differ, and yes the rituals and practices are changed too, but isnt it all in the same vein? That man is but a humble creation of a great power that is beyond our comprehension. I end this rant with a simple answer to all of man's origin dilemmas: the universe has just been there all the time. There is no beginning and no end, just as there may never be an end to the mass worldwide delusion that is Religion.

Ready for battle...

Why do people need love? Why do we need to be adored, and have constant affection, to be wholesome rounded people? Does being human mean that we are incomplete without being in healthy relationships? If we never knew what a healthy relationship is, and thus never knew what we were missing, would we still have problems in our daily lives? Would we all turn into damaged people, the people responsible for so many of the problems in our world?
Consider a crow chick sitting in its nest, cheeping away to all glory, for its mother to come back and feed it. The mother crow must feed its chicks and keep them safe and when the chick has grown up, it flies out of its nest, ready to take on the world with the few skills it possesses that are instinctively hammered into its brain. It needs no elocution classes, no science classes, no defense classes, not even a language class. It has all the weapons it needs to survive this world, right in its armory from the day it leaves its nest.

Now think of a human baby. Not only must a human child be fed and looked after, he must be treated with love, respect, and sensitivity and so on. He must be taught to be his own man, so to say, so that one day he can have a family of his own, people he will then pass on his learning and affection to. If his childhood is lacking in these fundamental necessities, he develops certain undesirable qualities, some of which he may not even know about until a much later stage. For example, some people who have abusive fathers, end up looking for father figures all their life, to make up for the void their incompetent fathers left. If they dont, they could end up as abusive parents themselves, thus passing the buck on when the next generation arrives. So are humans as a species really the most evolved one on this planet? Or in exchange for such evolved brains, have we lost our ability to be competent whole individuals without love and affection playing a vital role in our childhood and adolescence? In a utopian world, where every child is loved and well fed, would there not be a single issue to deal with, considering all the people are loving and well balanced? If this is true, then truly we are a most un-evolved species, for our success in our world today is largely dependent not on who we are, but who we are allowed to be. In essence, we are no different from animals in a zoo. We can only survive in the world we know, the bars of our cages clearly visible, though we choose to ignore them.

There she goes..

Once upon a time, long long ago
God sat on his throne completely bored
Mouth opened wide, he gave a big yawn
and thought to himself, This world is a chore!

Calmly he pondered how he could bring

some sparkle into man's livelihood
He looked around his heavenly lair
and his eye fell on a piece of wood

He held it close and started chipping away
what he wanted he knew not yet
The magic of night, the splendor of day
He added them all, from every which where

Some spice, some sugar, some ocean's waves
a hint of mischief, and all the world's cares
He rolled it all in, and then bound it tight
He had before him, a girl shining bright

She smiled, she laughed, she was free
the apple of his eye, a woman to be
her beauty put even the moon to shame
but she often wondered, from whence she came...

A future I care for..

Like most people, I have been asked many times that age old question of how long i want to live, and every time my answer is the same: as long as I possibly can! If asked to give specifics, I would say a 100 years! Immediately the shake of the head follows, and the usual reply goes like, 'You dont wanna live longer than 70-75 at the most, because then the quality of life goes down so much that life becomes too much of an embarrassment to go on.' One cant really argue with this assertion, because to be frank it is quite true, and a visit to any old age home will testify to that. But then one day, while surfing the web, I come across this image, and my mind is drawn away to all the fantastic visuals drawn in my mind by scores of Sci-fi authors, and I can clearly see those flying cars, the robots, the awe-inspiring, blow your mind away technological developments that are sure to be a part and parcel of our lives in the future. My skin starts tingling and I can feel the awakening of that deep thirst in me to see and experience what science holds in store for us, what great advances in technology the world will witness, how man will endeavor to make our planet Earth a safer and more beautiful place to live in.

But then inevitably my mind is also drawn to how much we are affecting our world in a negative way; all those species of plants and animals lost to us everyday, as we ravage our planet to satisfy every one of our needs and desires. I wonder if future generations would ever be witness to the fantastic variety of flora and fauna that our planet is home to today, or whether the zoo would be their only peek into the Earth that once was. I am conflicted now, at once drawn to see the wonders that science surely has in store for us,

and also repelled by how ugly and artificial that future world might be. For truly, is there anything more beautiful than a humpback whale breaching the surface of the sea? Is there any sound our musical instruments can make that can match the beauty of a songbird breaking into song at the onset of a new spring day? It would truly be a tragedy if in the pursuit of better lives for ourselves, we make the diversity and beauty of our planet a mere sacrifice at the altar of scientific development.

So when people say that a long life has only senility and lack of self respect at the end of it, that doesn't really scare me at all. What truly scares me is that one day, I might be witness to a world without beauty, a beauty that only mother nature can produce, and we can never hope to even mimic. If this is what the world has to offer me, then I'd rather die while mother nature still breathes.

Endless

Oh! This life, such a tug of war,

light one way, and dark another

a world without, and one within

a love for life, thrown into the din

Fuelled by rage, passed down by seed

each' folly a son of his own greed

circling our lives, is the smiling crow

the same end for all, yet a long way to go

The silent river, stands as ever trial

whispers in our ears, cant watch us burn

dreams of beauty, marred by actions vile

regret is no friend, yet it misses not its turn

He who laughs last, laughs not again

Venged by time, that healer of pain

Scars heal not, wail though in vain

A love lost for life, is a hate in gain

Dance you can but all for naught

for life had and has not been caught

it slips and slides, and plays the con

when all is said and done, life goes on..

I am what i was, and so I will be..

What is it that makes man want to label everything? Like that oft repeated cliche says, would a rose not smell as sweet were it called by a different name? Why then must we first stick a label on everything we find around us, and then go on to defend that label as if it preceded the thing it represents? Did the name come before the object it stands for? Did the belief come before the person believing it? The best argument against this wholly man made concept of beliefs and culture is that there are so many different cultures. What works for one man may not for another, and so came about all these varied ways of looking at the same world around us. As soon as we are out of the womb, the people around us we so fondly call our family starts labelling us, with the label changing according to the prevailing beliefs. So an infant sucking on his thumb, and living on his mother's breast milk has already his name, his religion, his eating habits, his sensitivities and right down to the style of underwear he wears chosen for him before he has uttered his first comprehensible sentence in that prechosen mother tongue of his. In some cultures, if this infant turns out to be a 'she' rather than a 'he', then she faces discrimination for no fault of hers. She is labelled a 'burden', and her burdened caretakers are already hatching plots to get rid of her.

Even man's defense of his culture, his pride in its veracity and supremacy over that of his neighbours fails to stand upto scrutiny. Some people tout their culture as being supreme or marvellous because it is so old or is so steepled in history. Considering the fact that every culture, language, tradition, belief, custom etc etc were all brand spanking new at one time or the other, that every iota of history that we have proof of today was at one time non-existent, when people decry modern influences for corrupting their cultures, one feels compelled to ask these protesters: Were these cultures also not evolved from the ones preceding them? Then why does nooone bemoan the loss of those ancient belief systems that preceded the ones we have today? This makes for a very interesting observation, that culture is not and cannot be defined by those who came before us, but one may see where our culture is headed by looking at those who lead us into tomorrow.

All this stems from that eternal search for one's soul, one's identity. I personally find this to be quite the wild goose chase, because i truly believe that there is no such thing as a blueprint for humanity. Each of us sets out from a different lane of the race track, each endowed with different abilities, dreams, fears and so on. The fact lies unstated that though we all seem to be running towards the same destination, the journeys we all take to reach there are so different that trying to find parallels is an exercise in vain. Hence the point of a common identity, and thereby a reason to bond with our neighbour is quite fruitless. In this journey though each of us goes through so many of the same experiences, each is influenced so uniquely that we all end up as different as snowflakes; they look the same from a distance, but when you look closer, each one a marvel in itself. We must stop looking at ourselves as fixed entities, like mud pots, that have been cast in a certain way and are to remain so for eternity, and see ourselves more like wet clay, that can and is continously moulded according to the prevailing forces in the world around us. Those people who lament the loss of byzantine, magnificient cultures must wake up to this reality, that the only thing constant in life is change, and that embracing this simple but revealing truth could help us achieve mental peace.

Why am I here? What am I here to do?

If there is one question that has plagued man ever since he developed a consciousness, it is this
one: Why am I here? Entire lives have been spent in either the search for the answer to this
dilemma or even worse, trying to push one's answer onto others as the right one. Some people even say that we are all here for a divine purpose, that every person's life is an arrow with a head that points in some direction, and only by accepting fate, destiny and a higher power, we can truly discover the purpose of our existence. To every one of these people I say, "Shut Up!!"

George Carlin, a great comedian and an even better thinker in my opinion, once said that we are all here because the earth needed plastic! Earth didn't have the time to make it herself, wanted to delegate it to someone, and so she created us humans. Thus the purpose of our existence is to make plastic for earth! Laughable though it may sound, it is a revealing insight into the stupidity and enormous lack of humility on our part that we think that all the billions of galaxies filled with gazillions of stars in our universe and all the fantastic and unbelievably diverse variety of creatures on planet earth were created just to give us a beautiful starry sky and a nice place to live in! That's exactly what most religions make out our world to be, a place created by Mr God so that we could appreciate his supreme benevolence for such a wonderful gift and remain ever thankful to him, spending our lives in eternal gratitude.

I have a very simple answer for the quest for the purpose of our existence: There is no such purpose! Our lives are what we make them to be, our destiny lies in our own hands. Why is this such a difficult thing for people to accept? Then are we like boats with sails but no compass you ask me? Yes, its true that our lives by themselves have no purpose, but it is in our hands to give our lives a purpose. YOU, yes you, are the rudder of your ship! You decide what you want to do with your life. Since every action we take affects people around us in a myriad of ways, some of which we know about and comprehend and some of which we don't, it is truly upto YOU what you want to do with your life.

If you decide that you want to help people through your life, and take part in social service, then that could be the purpose of your life. If just being a good human being and a good son or daughter, a good wife/husband or a good employee is what you are willing to do, then that could also be the purpose of your life. One doesn't have to make a huge difference to the world around them. If you could touch even one person's life, give him/her one better day of their lives through your actions (or lack of them, in some cases), then yours was definitely a life worth living. Life isnt worse for the lack of a purpose, its actually better because then we all are truly our own masters, the captains of ships that only we know the destinations of. Like Mother Teresa once said, "I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.".