The great Indian Metro debate.

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This is actually a debate (‘heated discussion’would be more appropriate) that I had recently on a metro ride, returning from a friends’ get together in sec-18 Noida. Who was opposing me?? Yes ‘The one and only’ my dear friend AK. So he decided to share his theory on creationism, family history, and how God has a part to play in the tying of a cat to a pillar. His hypothesis:

“Praying to God to get your wishes fulfilled was invented because that’s the only way you could get the ordinary unwashed masses to meditate, an activity which has actual scientifically proven benefits today. Old Hindu saints preached that the cow was a sacred animal and that keeping one in the house as a pet would get you to heaven (and killing it would reserve you a seat in hell) because they knew how essential milk was for our health and wanted to ensure that we would have a constant supply of it.”

He went on to say “The forebears of human civilisation realised that they needed to incentivise doing the everyday good deeds as well and make people fear doing anything wrong and that’s why they invented God. For that reason, I believe in God, even though I don’t.”  Yes he was saying all that while we were standing in an overcrowded Metro, and every other Aunty who believed in God was staring at us with an I-can-kill-you-right-here-right-now kind of an expression splashed across her face.

Since AK went ahead and shared an anecdote to illustrate his point, I decided to go ahead with one, too.(this might seem out of context now, but it related to the tale he narrated.. which I can’t include :( ). This was what I said “I have a lot of vivid dreams during my holidays. Sometimes it’s an action sequence, sometimes it’s horror, and sometimes I’m about to get lucky with Penelope Cruz” Ya, I am a total movie freak!! Anyway, coming back to what I said “I mention ‘about to’, because someone or the other will wake me up just as the good stuff is about to begin. As soon as consciousness takes over, the dream starts fading, and I don’t want that to happen. I quickly shut my eyes, and try to get back into that dream. I try to dream of Penelope again, but she’s fading away. Everything is slowly turning to reality. The pillow now feels like a pillow, and the simulated perfume no longer exists. I will never have Penelope.” As I finished this, I wasn’t surprised to see all the 'UNCLES' this time around, turning their heads towards me. Their expressions were one of disgust but deep down we both knew, they felt jealous !! ;)   

Now whether you like Penelope or not, is a different matter. I have my days. That’s besides the point. My point—hypothesis, as AK says— is that once you know, you know. There’s no turning back. You can’t dumb yourself down (same as you cannot dumb yourself down into believing that you are still in your dream even after you have woken up), because let’s admit it, religion is all about dumbing you down. The problem with AK’s convoluted mess of a hypothesis, is he confuses God, with religion. He says “God doesn’t exist. End of story. You know it, I know it, everyone knows it.”

“If that’s the case, you’re an atheist, and I’m an atheist; there’s no argument beyond that.” I tried to send him on a guilt trip which was obviously a bit mean. (If you do believe in God like me, you should probably stop reading this blog and please do not rethink your beliefs. And if you don’t, just sit quiet in the corner—grown ups are talking.)

So AK went pale when I called him an atheist and hence I had to reconcile him. Here is how I tried “But atheists are not just non-believers. They’re people who think for themselves. Once you remove God and religious doctrines, you have to make up your own. Every decision is your own, and you are aware of it. An atheist understands—or at least tries to understand—the thresholds of what’s good and fun, and what’s detrimental, causes harm, or is just plain stupid. ‘Make up your mind’ doesn’t mean violent, uncultured, anarchic or stupid. Atheists don’t go around slaughtering cows, eating unhealthy foods, or refuse to eat neem leaves, any more so than they would if they were followers of a religion. An atheist understands the reasons behind any religious practice, and practices them because of that understanding (elaborating what he had already said.. I know I am dumb, but it still worked).

Thankfully, modern civilisation and things-to-do-other-than-god-stuff is bringing about a change in thinking, with a lot more atheists roaming free on this planet. This is a good thing, for the points illustrated above. AK isn’t exactly wrong, but he isn’t right either. First of all, I think he’s got his concepts about Agnosticism (courtesy- Encarta) wrong. He’s clearly an atheist, so we’re off on a good start. His folly is he wants to blindly follow religion because he assumes it’s good for him. And that’s an irresponsible decision. Believing in GOD and following a religion are two completely different things and that's what he needs to understand.He quotes neem and meditation, and while those are acceptable religious practices, we’ve seen a lot of them which are detrimental to humanity. Besides, religion is not even required to perform them. As we have seen, you can meditate without praying to a God, you can have neem leaves without a morning sacrifice, and humanely rear cows without considering them to be gods.

Woof... all this was heavy and tiresome.But let’s excuse AK this once. I have a feeling his latest infatuation got to him which resulted in his thought-compass going haywire. I mean, on this very same day the idiot actually wanted the iPhone (yes, he has one) to have an extra button, that would serve functions like creating new tweets. Oh AK, get well soon.