I don't believe in the concept of God, as the creator and controller of the universe, or as a supreme being having authority and power over nature and man. I aspire to become a scientist, someone who explores, observes, and interprets. I hope to be an oar to take humanity's boat across the treacherous waters of ignorance, to the island of knowledge; and the belief, in God as a supreme being, is the biggest hurdle in our way. This entity is like a small island in the sea. It can accommodate all, not without conflict, but it makes man a vegetable. In the comfort of this island, we lose the instinct to explore. I'd rather hop on a raft and explore the open seas, than stay complacent on a soon-to-capsize island.
People preach about God citing lines from scriptures and holy books. Well, these scriptures and holy books are nothing more than stories and theories. Ancient scholars wrote about their experiences and interpretations as stories, and presented them as theories to explain the behaviour of an ideal man, just as Darwin proposed a theory for evolution and Mendel proposed a theory to explain inheritance (of course, with much less recorded observations). Just because theories appealed to our ancestors, doesn't mean they are universal truths. They are to be questioned, and when proved wrong, people must adopt a newer theory to allow for newer observations.
In any case, scriptures are just compilations of stories. They were written to be interpreted as metaphors, not verbatim. They were written to guide people, not to scare them into doing certain things. We must make ourselves capable of reading between the lines, interpreting the stories, deriving the morals, and applying them in our lives. Scriptures are great storehouses of our ancestors' knowledge and lives; Reading them gives us a measure of the change and development, and the depth of history. But, the obstacle hindering our efforts of tapping into this knowledge is language. Many of the ancient languages like Sanskrit and Hebrew are no longer in common use. So, for the attainment of that knowledge, one has to learn a wholly different language. Since most of us can't, we have to turn to translations. Translators, no matter how good, are bound to err, get stumped at some point, and add in their own interpretations. This leads much loss of actual matter, and ambiguity. I've heard that scriptures have so many stories that a clever man, citing different connotations, can prove two contradictory statements true. Thus, all-believing non-investigative naive common people become prey to faithless vulpine group of greedy individuals.
A proverb I find worth debating over and proving false is, 'The fear of God is the beginning of Wisdom'. I mean, really, what wisdom is the adage hinting at. Fear always leads to ignorance, never to wisdom. I have often come across this fear. People tell, don't do this, else God will punish you, or do this to make God happy and he will grant your wishes. I believe Man punishes Himself, Conscience punishes Man; but never God. Weak people need God. For example, consider you are waiting for a bus, and a man standing close to you starts smoking. The strong one will oppose him, force him to stop causing harm to others, while the weak will just have thoughts running in his mind like,"What can I do?", "I'm mot strong enough", "It is out of my reach", and "God will punish him." I don't fear God, but I do fear faith and tradition. Every day, one or the other quack pops up with mindless acts and prophecies, that he says have been performed for years as tradition. Faith in such mindless and diverse tradition is sure to lead to conflict and loss to everyone involved.
Recently, in the newspaper, I read an article about spirituality in the act of yajna. Yajna is not performed for the satisfaction of some supreme outward entity, but for the purification of the mind and conscience. To perform a yajna, one must abstain from smoking, consuming alcohol, narcotic drugs, cooked food, and celibate, for a period of time. Thus, yajna purifies one's body, and a sound body hosts a sound mind. This mind is the god that the yajna, or any ritual for that matter, is supposed to act upon, not some supreme entity residing in the skies. I believe the supreme entity that few worship and many fear must reside in the mind. I believe the supreme entity is CONSCIENCE.
People preach about God citing lines from scriptures and holy books. Well, these scriptures and holy books are nothing more than stories and theories. Ancient scholars wrote about their experiences and interpretations as stories, and presented them as theories to explain the behaviour of an ideal man, just as Darwin proposed a theory for evolution and Mendel proposed a theory to explain inheritance (of course, with much less recorded observations). Just because theories appealed to our ancestors, doesn't mean they are universal truths. They are to be questioned, and when proved wrong, people must adopt a newer theory to allow for newer observations.
In any case, scriptures are just compilations of stories. They were written to be interpreted as metaphors, not verbatim. They were written to guide people, not to scare them into doing certain things. We must make ourselves capable of reading between the lines, interpreting the stories, deriving the morals, and applying them in our lives. Scriptures are great storehouses of our ancestors' knowledge and lives; Reading them gives us a measure of the change and development, and the depth of history. But, the obstacle hindering our efforts of tapping into this knowledge is language. Many of the ancient languages like Sanskrit and Hebrew are no longer in common use. So, for the attainment of that knowledge, one has to learn a wholly different language. Since most of us can't, we have to turn to translations. Translators, no matter how good, are bound to err, get stumped at some point, and add in their own interpretations. This leads much loss of actual matter, and ambiguity. I've heard that scriptures have so many stories that a clever man, citing different connotations, can prove two contradictory statements true. Thus, all-believing non-investigative naive common people become prey to faithless vulpine group of greedy individuals.
A proverb I find worth debating over and proving false is, 'The fear of God is the beginning of Wisdom'. I mean, really, what wisdom is the adage hinting at. Fear always leads to ignorance, never to wisdom. I have often come across this fear. People tell, don't do this, else God will punish you, or do this to make God happy and he will grant your wishes. I believe Man punishes Himself, Conscience punishes Man; but never God. Weak people need God. For example, consider you are waiting for a bus, and a man standing close to you starts smoking. The strong one will oppose him, force him to stop causing harm to others, while the weak will just have thoughts running in his mind like,"What can I do?", "I'm mot strong enough", "It is out of my reach", and "God will punish him." I don't fear God, but I do fear faith and tradition. Every day, one or the other quack pops up with mindless acts and prophecies, that he says have been performed for years as tradition. Faith in such mindless and diverse tradition is sure to lead to conflict and loss to everyone involved.
Recently, in the newspaper, I read an article about spirituality in the act of yajna. Yajna is not performed for the satisfaction of some supreme outward entity, but for the purification of the mind and conscience. To perform a yajna, one must abstain from smoking, consuming alcohol, narcotic drugs, cooked food, and celibate, for a period of time. Thus, yajna purifies one's body, and a sound body hosts a sound mind. This mind is the god that the yajna, or any ritual for that matter, is supposed to act upon, not some supreme entity residing in the skies. I believe the supreme entity that few worship and many fear must reside in the mind. I believe the supreme entity is CONSCIENCE.
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