I am ... an atheist

I was brought up in India - where, religion, specifically Hinduism for me, was more a cultural link, than a religious one. I was also fortunate to be brought up in a household where critical thinking was encouraged. As I was growing up though, religion was a part of my life. I didn't really question it. But religious practices always made me uneasy. I went to a Christian school and singing those hymns never really made any sense to me. My grandparents ( on my paternal side) were quite conservative and were big into the whole caste thing. As an example, my grandmom would buy milk from a dude who came and milked his cow in front of her home - but he was NOT allowed in, because he was from a lower caste. We, on the other hand, were Brahmins - supposedly superior!

This is NOT me.

My first revolt against religion was to refuse to undergo a particular ceremony where I would officially become a brahmin of sorts. I'd get to wear a sacred thread around me that was representative of my brahminical status. Truth be told, I revolted because the ceremony required me to parade around in a loin cloth for the entire day - NOT HAPPENING! But as I grew older, my thinking congealed around the inequity of the entire caste system. I refused to be a part of it.

So, as I went through high school and college and work, I was comfortable calling myself an agnostic. It seemed safer to say I don't know. If there was a God, he couldn't really blame me for saying I don't know - can he?

Now, a window into my irrationality.. During the 1990's , India was shaken by the Babri Masjid issue. Hindus in the northern part of the country had broken down a centuries old mosque that they claimed had been built on the site of Hinduism's greatest king - Rama. I was on the side of the Hindus - totally. For one, I couldn't really identify with the muslims, and for another, I believed in the cultural superiority of my kind and I was ashamed of our supposed timidity. So, when the Hindus stood up to the Muslims, I was proud. To an extent, I still am..

Later in life, I began to recognize my rationality and I took pains to understand the rational basis for most of my beliefs and actions. One of the concepts I could not reconcile was the notion of the soul. This really came to me from another direction - vegetarianism which I'll write about later. But the concept of the soul made no sense. I continued to be uneasy around this concept. I then discovered the author Robert Sawyer,  a Canadian science fiction writer. One of his books, Factoring Humanity really made me think. It is a book about an alien lifeform that in opening up human consciousness to humans, shows humans of an inter-networked soul universe. While being an extremely interesting read, I still remained confused - why were humans the only ones with souls ?

Other questions plagued me too. Why did this god dude have to be vengeful ( I'm talking about the Judeo-Christian God) ? Why is he testing us ? Why did he give a crap if I prayed ? Is he so narcissistic that me, a little itty bitty creature among the zillions he has created, can cause him to get pissed because I didn't pray to him? Is he really benevolent or is he like those creatures at the end of Men In Black, you know, those creatures that are playing marbles with the marbles being the universe ?

More to come...