We Are All Atheists

I am one of those non believers when it comes to religion.  I believe that religion as we know it today is a creation of the human mind (and therefore we created god and not the other way around).  Science has proven that the theories of creation as described in almost all of the major religions are patently false.  The earth is 5 billions years old and the universe as we know it is over 15 billion years old.  I feel very comfortable in embracing the fact that we human beings are bipedal primates belonging to the species Homo sapiens.

But I am not anti-religion.  Religion in my opinion is an effort by the human mind to explain things that were unexplainable at that time due to scientific limitations.  Religion like us continues to evolve as new data or information is found by the scientific community that conflicts with established religious beliefs.  This is important.  Fundamentalism and militant forms of religions thrive in societies and families where everything revolves around religion instead of religion playing a supportive or spiritual role.

In February of this year the Vatican admitted that Charles Darwin was on the right track when he claimed that man descended from apes.  Father Guiseppe Tanzella-Nitti (Professor of Theology at the Pontifical Santa Croce University in Rome) said that “I maintain that the idea of evolution has a place in Christian theology”.  This looks like an attempt to keep Christianity relevant in face of mounting evidence against it and other religions.  But pushing the boundaries of religion also has its side effects.  You risk loosing the die-hard followers to other more fundamentalist versions of the religion.

One of the issues facing the book religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) is that the main doctrines and beliefs are well documented.  Many Christians believe that the Bible is the word of god.  The first book of the Bible is the book of Genesis which describes how the earth and the universe were created.  The scientific data completely contradicts the book of Genesis.  So the question to the believer is whether the word of god is true or not.  If you maintain that evolution has a place in theology then the question is whether the word of god and theology are two different things.

One of the tactics used by some believers is to place god at the edge of scientific knowledge.  One of the questions asked by the religious is that if the big bang theory is true then who or what created the big bang?  Scientists have many theories for what might have caused the big bang but nothing has been conclusively proven yet.  There will always be unknowns which is what makes life and the scientific endeavor very interesting.  Answers to these unknowns will be revealed in the future.  But meanwhile we should not make the mistake of attributing the reasons for the unknowns to the existence of god.  But if you want to believe that the reason for the big bang is god then the question to you is whether that god is the same as the gods mentioned in the Vedas, Bible, Koran or the Torah?  The honest answer is no.

The title of the article is “we are all atheists”.  This might sound preposterous.  But the reality is that most people who are religious are very suspicious of other religions.  The religious always believe that their religion and their gods are the true ones and the others are infidels.  It is a fact that a Christian Vatican would be comfortable within an atheistic Italy than a Muslim Italy.  Why?  Shouldn’t Christians and Muslims both of whom believe in the supernatural god exist happily in each others company rather than in the company of the sometimes arrogant and godless atheists?

Related posts:

1. Lord Karunanidhi: God of the Tamil Atheists
2. The Problem with Miracles
3. Obama wrong About a Just and Loving God
4. Bangalore University Says No to Astrology
5. Ravi Zacharias: Christian Missionary From India

Tags: Atheists, Bible, Charles Darwin, Christianity, Genesis, Islam, Judaism, Koran, religion, Torah, Vatican

Category: Culture & Religion