A Journey Through Atheism
Introduction
Religion. It is looked upon in disdain by some and with reverence by most. One of the leading causes of war, religion is also one of the prime movers of rehabilitation and de-addiction efforts. When it comes to religion, pagan or Abrahamic, it has always been associated with some sort of tribalism that has always led to some kind of detrimental hierarchical system. From the intersectional atrocities committed by Muslims against each other & on disbelievers, to the ethnic cleansing of Jews by the Church & Nazis, to the birth-based Jati system in Hinduism & Buddhism, to even Om Shinrikiyo’s infamous Japanese terror attacks, religion has trodden upon, trampled and committed outright genocided of millions, if not billions, of people worldwide. To add insult to injury, irrespective of religion, women were always dealt a bad hand. Yet somehow, across cultures, defying comprehension, women tend to be more religious than men.
All of this raises an important question — why does religion still exist? In spite of its follies, religion seems to cling on to human society by a large margin. There are several theocratic states in the world even in the 21st century such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Israel, and the country that is pompously entitled, unironically named Vatican City that literally only occupies 0.44 km2 (to put that into context, India’s smallest Union Territory, the Lakshadweep Islands, is approximately 33 km2 in area — 74 times larger than the Vatican). In fact, there are several countries that, despite their self-righteous posturing, are inherently religious states. The United Kingdom, Scotland, Greece, England, Isle of Man, among many other Western European countries officially recognize Christianity as the state religion. Cambodia, Sri Lanka, and Bhutan officially recognize Buddhism as the state religion. Even America, a country that pioneered the “Freedom of Man” during its formation (while holding black men & women as slaves), still to this day swear their President in by taking the Oath of Allegiance on the Bible.
Religion permeates through the several walls of reason, logic, and human perception and inculcates a loyal following that does not seem to be slowing down anytime soon. If anything, faith and religion seem to be garnering a greater number of followers. It is increasingly becoming apparent that there is some fundamental human need religion seems to satiate. So does the opposite of religion, atheism, work in such a society? To understand atheism, it is important to understand how religion came about in the first place.
The Origins of Religion
Before civilization, human beings were a group of hunter gatherers, foraging through dense forests to get what was required for survival. There was no need for the abstract concept of a supreme being — their enemies were their natural predators, simple and straightforward. This, however, changed as soon as humans started agriculture.
It is widely accepted that the adoption of a sedentary lifestyle was what led to the birth of religion. Now, wild animals weren’t the primary concern for human beings. The evolution of agriculture meant that they had to rely on the forces of nature to sustain themselves, things that were out of their control. They personified these life-sustaining entities, Earth, fire, air, water, weather, etc. into entities of supreme power, which actually makes sense. They would do rituals to ‘appease’ these entities, and the concept of God began to take shape. This went on for quite some time in the form of polytheism, henotheism, and so on. Theology led to some of the greatest works of philosophy in the ancient world, only a few of which are available today in the form of the Upanishads, Vedas, and so on. The Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, Babylonians, all had diverse philosophical insight into the human mind, the nature of reality, and how we perceived other people.
The idea of religion initially was for the unification of society under the banner of certain practices, which is known today as culture. Culture was a by-product of the place, traditions, and practices that people followed en masse. However, over time, with the diversification of philosophy & morality, and the splitting of philosophy as a separate entity distinct from theology, the very foundation of what religion seemed to provide must have started dissolving, leading to henotheism.
For the uninitiated, henotheism is a subset of polytheism where a group of people prefer one God over the others. However, with henotheism, sectarianism would have emerged, as is documented in all pre-Abrahamic polytheistic societies including Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, Greece, etc. The concept of religion being the basis for morality started dissolving. Even so, the competition among the different sects is what led to the different schools of thought that emerged in several forms across the world, such as the concept of Darshans in India (the Samkhya darshan, Yoga Darshan, Uttara Mimansa, etc.). The Buddhist and Jain sects broke off as offshoots and became their own separate religions, but they can still be considered a part of the greater Dharmic traditions of Akhand Bharat (undivided India). However, this would all end with the arrival of a narrower form of religion — monotheism.
The first recorded practice of Monotheism was the formation and propagation of Atenism, a religion created around the God Aten. Amenhotep, who changed his name to Akhenaten in reverence to his favorite God, established Aten as the most powerful of all the Gods of Egypt. There is no evidence that points to the contrary when I say that monotheism breeds fanaticism. With the pharaoh of Egypt establishing a state religion, his first goal was to eradicate all the other Gods in Egypt. Multiple temples of other prominent Gods were destroyed & worshippers killed, to the point where it left the economy completely in disarray. This murderous spree was eventually ended with Tutenkhaten coming to the throne, who rechristened himself Tutenkhamun to remove any remnants of his association with his Atenistic (follower of Aten) father. Yes, he’s the famous ‘King Tut’ from the Brandon Frazier Mummy movies. You can find out about monotheism and its tyrannical reign here:
This is not to say that polytheism doesn’t have its drawbacks. Of course it does. However, the pure brutality of killing disbelievers and forceful proselytization of entire civilizations clearly shows that there is a disparity in the way in which polytheistic religions viewed societies as opposed to monotheistic ones.
What is Atheism?
The fundamental concept of religious belief is that it is to honor, revere, respect, and worship a higher power — whether it be a human, animal, or a human-animal hybrid. It stems from our unquenchable thirst for answers. The justification is also fairly reasonable — there are millions of galaxies, billions of star systems, and trillions of planets, and yet we have only found life here, and because of the complexity of the entire thing, it means all of this needed a creator. Fair enough.
However, atheists are people who believe that the world is as it is. There is no higher power, no invisible man in the sky, and no creator. That is also a reasonable assumption to make. However, the reason behind why people reject the traditional faith system is in itself a complex thought process, but not all of them are the same.
Types of Atheism
In my exploration of this topic, I discovered that atheism is as intricately flavored and diverse as religion itself is. There are several reasons why people reject the traditional theistic practices, but I have classified them broadly into 3 — social, political, and personal. More often than not, most atheists claim to have been influenced by a multitude of these factors. Here I will try to delineate these viewpoints into discernable segments for understanding what .
Agnosticism
Agnosticism is arguably the mildest and most innocuous form of atheism there is. It is a rather aloof and nonchalant way of looking at religion. They do not actively participate in ritualistic practices and do not believe that they have anything to do with God. They are comfortable with the concept of God, they just don’t personally identify with it. Such people usually arrive at such a mindset after a lot of introspection and most commonly just question the concept of a supreme all-powerful being rather than reject it completely. However, they do not question other people’s faith and usually do not get into conflicts over faith. Their atheism comes from a personal standpoint, although they may have external factors affecting their judgement. I could give examples, but then, everyone reading this will have encountered an agnostic at some point of their life.
Self-Confident Atheism
This is a more straightforward approach to the rejection of God. They do not consider the possibility of God a viable feasibility. What’s more, they aren’t at a stage of questioning — they are confident in their disbelief, but they do not go out of their way to be disrespectful to other faiths, but kick their heels in and categorically defend themselves when it comes to their own faith (or rather, lack thereof). This form of atheism, I would say, stems from a personal and political standpoint. The personal reasons could also include scientific awareness as well as a lack of faith in the political nature of religion as seen today. To give an example would be hard, as most popular atheists are people who fall into the next category. Even so, they live among us, unfettered by the religious iconography, symbolism, and such in society. They may be your friends, classmates in college, colleagues, and so on.
There is a particular branch of atheists in this category who have learned to distinguish culture from religion, and that while they can be distinguished at times, religion does play a big part in it. This type of atheism is what I call civilizational atheism, a specific branch that doesn’t mind religion as long as the overall culture of the land is preserved. Such people are quite rare but they are more famous in India than anywhere else such as Dr. Anand Ranganathan, Abhijit Iyer-Mitra, Kushal Mehra, etc. This is basically because of the political circumstances they grew up in, and have a sense of nationhood towards the state. These are learned individuals as well, they are not blatantly nationalistic either, they speak out against the state when the state is against their interests as well, but overall they understand that India is the only polytheistic civilization left in the world despite thousands of years of Abrahamic genocide, which they have realized amounts to something worth preserving. While India is not a civilizational state yet, there are several countries that are. The quintessential example is South Korea, where the majority of the population do not believe in any form of religion (46%) but they are deeply rooted in their culture and tradition.
Proselytizing Atheism
These are also self-confident atheists, but the main difference between these people and the people mentioned above is that they go out of their way to convince people of faith to convert people into their fold of atheism. However, they have their own reasons to reject religion. These people commonly have social, political and personal reasons for their disbelief, and it doesn’t necessarily come from a bad place. However, these people are, more often than not, quite hostile towards religion in general and try to convince other people to be like them. On the grounds of their reasons for disbelief, proselytizing atheists can be classified into two — anti-theists and scientific atheists.
1. Anti Theism
This is a specific brand of disbelievers who have developed an aversion towards religion because of the social and political background they are from. They are extremely hostile towards religion, and they go out of their way to point out faults & issues in any faith system in existence. They will make sure that their point is put across until the opposing viewpoint is subjugated sufficiently. This polarizing nature garners a lot of attention in the media, and these are people who center their entire identity around being an atheist.
Most ex-Muslims fall under this category, people such as Rizwan (better known as The Apostate Prophet), Harris Sultan, Yasmin Mohammad, Javed Akhtar, etc. The same applies for anti-theists who leave Christianity as well, people like Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, etc. These people are solely influenced by the sociopolitical aspects of religion — the genocidal nature of Abrahamic faiths to explore religion and grown disgusted by the concept on the whole. In fact, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens are held in high regard within atheistic circles and follow their teachings rather religiously. Ironic, considering the circumstances.
However, they are responsible for the wave of Neo-Atheism we have today. Their efforts are commendable, speaking out against the institution of organized religion by putting their necks on the line, especially when it comes to Muslim fundamentalists. However, the reason behind their outgoing polarizing nature is a result of the very polarizing nature of the religion they have come to understand. They call it a ‘mind virus’ — an entity that can only cause pain and disdain in a person’s life. That has been true for them, so it should be true for them too. Their recollection of what religion is mostly because of what religion was to them — a vice.
2. Scientific Atheism
This is another branch of atheism that is quite popular. These atheists are people who do the same thing as anti-theists, but they use science as the basis for it. They project science as the second coming of Christ and hail it over and above any and all things . Their understanding of the world is purely through the lens of experiment. Their main argument against the institution of religion is the verifiability principle, which states that “a statement is meaningful only if it is either empirically verifiable or else tautological”. I understand where they are coming from — these are exclusively people from the scientific community, people like Neil deGrasse Tyson, Richard Dawkins, and Sam Harris. They have that scientific temperament in them that is always cynical, anti-speculation, and need proof of concept of some kind. A lot of them are quite supremacist in their atheism, looking down upon people who do not disbelieve. However, it is their scientific temperament that makes them the weakest form of atheism there is. Since they completely side step the social aspect of religion, they easily succumb to social pressure from religious fundamentalists. They consider the possibility of being killed and stop addressing that part of religion on the whole. In fact, scientists like Neil deGrasse Tyson do the opposite — he goes back into a time when Islam was supposedly scientific and praises them for it while ignoring that the Holy Quran specifically promotes the concept of Geo-centrism (2:258), that the Sun sets in a muddy spring (18:86),and so much more. In fact, recently, Richard Dawkins was cowering in fear as he refused to talk about the Shamima Begum controversy because of the murderous retribution it could imply. (32:26–33:41).
The Future of Religion — Will It Die?
As mentioned several times before, religion has its follies and its advantages. It has led to the bloodiest wars, the most tyrannical dictators, and also the most peaceful set of people on the planet, the Jains. In fact, the more extreme you get with Jainism, the more peaceful it gets, because at the core of Jainism is non-violence itself. For all its shortcomings, there is currently no alternative to religion when it comes to building culture.
So what happens when you remove religion from society? You get a cultureless society, the quintessential example being the United States of America.
The USA is a fragmented country held together only by the power of the state, their only community being that they can carry guns & speak their mind. This is why there has been a need to borrow culture from other nations such as St. Patrick’s Day from the Irish, Halloween from the Celtics, Mardi Gras from the French, and so on. They also had to build a culture around their ethnic & group identities, which is why you have Black pride, Hispanic pride, Asian pride, LGBT pride, and so on. Their lack of culture as a society led to the fragmentation of society into multiple micro-identities that are simply held together by the state.
There is a common argument that I have heard when it comes to this particular point — that it is tolerant of all other religions. Exactly — it is just tolerating the other religions. The US is not a pluralistic society — it was built on the bones of the natives of the land, an invented culture that is unique because it was created with the sole purpose of being exclusivist in nature. At its heart, America is a white Christian country. A society such as India is, on the other hand, pluralistic in nature. It has historically had an influx of religions and cultures constantly intermingling and mixing with one another through peaceful trade as well as religious conflict. However, Bharatiyas have always found a way to co-exist in peace, not just tolerate them. They were always treated as equal to the other Dharmic traditions, and that is what sets us apart from Abrahamic traditions.
So, will religion die one day in the future? Will the future of civilization be ‘Godless’? In my opinion, people will always need common cause to bond over, it is a result of our nature of being complex social animals. If not religion, people will find other causes to form a group and rally behind — it’s almost like human beings are wired to do so. Woke ideology is the new religion of the West, and is now being shipped to other parts of the world. This has prompted a culture war of sorts, further polarizing societies and turning them even more tribalistic. So religion, in the sense that it is a reason for finding commonalities in abstraction, will not die until we find something that can satisfy all the above factors.
