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In response to my article, Indra writes, You are already living in such a world. There is no plausible reason to suppose there is any God anywhere. At least I am not convinced by whatever proofs I have seen.
The non-existence of God doesn't prevent religions from flourishing though. God doesn't really have to exist. Only the need of a benevolent, and at times wrathful, Big Brother is sufficient. Mankind has invented God because it is its most primal craving. Kids need parents. Adults need Gods. I guess we never really grow out of childhood.
I have often heard people pontificate that all religions teach the same basic truths and that all lead to the same goals. If you get to the bottom of these religions, you'll realize this is untrue. Religions are mankind's attempts to understand their existence. Not all attempts are successful. Some just lead to a blind alley and die out. Some flourish till a better idea comes along. If Newton and Einstein had founded two different religions it would be ridiculous to say today that both teach the same truths.
People fight over religions all over the world. It has nothing to do with religion. People fight over national boundaries, land, women's rights, trade unions, and even football clubs. Man, I believe, is a territorial animal. He (or she, but mostly he) has a primal urge to fight for his territory. In our modern world personal territories have disappeared and our sense of property and territory has shifted to more abstract things like national boundaries, cricket teams, and philosophies. By fighting for a cause a person feels he's fighting for his primitive tribal clan. He feels himself part of a group. He feels secure. While religious fanaticism is widely condemned, it goes unnoticed that fanaticism for one's country is equally unreasonable and even more harmful to mankind. The bottom line is that communal riots and riots of all other kinds will continue till mankind grows out of it's craving to be part of a group.
I am not underplaying your concern for peace and brotherhood. I am just widening the scope of discussion. My tuppence of contribution.
Indra What to do? We are like this only
to which i wrote,
Well, I wrote that article from an agnostic's point of view. My concern was that the interpretation of God by humans was what is fatally flawed. You write your article from an Atheist's point of view. So let me answer to that now.
It all depends on the kind of person you are, I suppose. God's existence has neither been proved nor disproved. For some, the fact that the existence of God has not been proved is reason enough not to believe in him. And for others, it is the other way around.
Science has indeed answered most of our questions but the most important question has never been answered by Science : how did this world come into being ? We all know something can never come out of nothing. So what was the initial spark : the promordial source of energy ? This is where Science stops and Religion steps in. So to say Man invented God to satisfy a primal craving is wrong. There might have been some who asked a few questions about our very existence in the olden days and when none were answered, They might have started thinking of a force beyond their comphrehension and called it God. The trouble was what followed after that. During the early years of humanity, Man had a lot of time in his hands and very little in the form of knowledge. Everything was a miracle for him.If he sees fire burning, he is amazed and he thinks it is a miracle. So at that point of our history a lot of myths and legends grew around God. Which one of these stories are manmade and which one actually happenned is not known and will never be. To this day, we follow these myths religously. Most of us are afraid to break free from these in the fear of a backlash from God. This is what i hate.
To repeat what i said in my earlier article, I want to live in world where there is no worship or places of worship. I want to clean out the myths and the superstitions about god. I am perfectly okay with lines like God is Love. A clean understanding of God minus the superstitions is what i hope for.
The points that you make about Man's inherent craving to be part of a group, his insecurities, his obsessive interest in things he is part of, his impulsive nature all are the factors which will ensure that my ideas remain just ideas :)
Man is an animal with the gift of intelligence. Just like an animal would search for food, Man searches for answers to his questions. But unlike the animal which is satisfied with his food, man never is satisfied with his answers. But as a certain Mr.Sherlock Holmes would say if presented with the problem of God, It is criminal to arrive at conclusions without sufficient data. From my agnostic point of view, i would say both believers and atheists are on shaky grounds. Neither has a solid reason for believing in what he is believing in.
The ultimate irony of this situation is that we will never know the answers until we die and then it might be too late.