One of the filthiest, bloodiest, loudest,
most inconclusive and most controversial debate topic among intellectuals and
pseudo intellectuals of the current populace is that of atheism vs theism.
Quite a lot of resources are being wasted by people on this debate where both
parties have neither good proof nor good citations for either.(A religious book
which is supposed to be the work of god cannot be a viable source
obviously)(also I’m such a hypocrite that I’m not citing any sources because I
haven’t read anything) I’ll just say that both are theories and one must be
sceptical about both of them.
But one thing that people don’t confirm
before debating is the context of God. Meaning, what is the meaning that a
debater attaches to the term God. For example, when Einstein talks about God,
it’s in a completely different context to the God that the Pope is talking
about. So, one must make that clear before one says anything else about the
topic.
So, being the sceptic that I am, I think if
there were a God, then, God isn’t a he or a she. God isn’t a person at all. It
cannot be so. It would make no sense for God to create the entire universe that
is so freaking huge, put an intelligent life form in a small corner of the
universe (Darwin disagrees. We evolved) and also, take his form. Why isn’t God
an alien, or the flying spaghetti monster?
Hence I love Hinduism. Sorry, Sanātana Dharma (Fuck you
Foreign Invaders. Btw, it’s Sindhu not Hindu or Indus) It’s analogue to the
Abrahamic ‘God’ is the Paramātma. Paramātma isn’t a person. What is it? Well, I can’t say because I’m a twenty
year old boy who has a life and hence hasn’t read the upaniśad.
But wait, what
about the Hindu Pantheon as it is called? How did that happen? Everyone knows Kŗșna
and Rāma and others. There are many more, so how can one explain that.
Mythological reasons are given in the scriptures, but why did this happen in
the historical development of the religion? (Try to look at the religion as a
computer software application)
I have a theory.
So let’s start at the beginning.
What are the most
important scriptures in Sanātana dharma? The vedas.
I’ve had a
minimal glimpse of the vedas and the first three contain hymns of Gods and Goddesses.
These deities are mainly associated with nature, for example, Agni the God of
fire, Varuṇa the God of water and so on. But, one cannot personify the
elements. One simply cannot. Can a child look at a flame and conceive that
flame to be a person? I highly doubt it. So how did these elements get
personified?
Language.
One reason I hate
Sanskrit and other Indo-European languages is because of the ‘genderization’ of
every noun. Sanskrit, Hindi, French, Latin. It’s there in all these. So, if I
associate a gender to an inanimate object, then over time, because the context
is forgotten, that object gets implicitly personified by the language itself.
Doesn’t it?
Whoa! So the composers
of the vedas were trying to tell “Oh fire, you’re awesome” but it got
interpreted later as “Oh fire lord, you’re awesome”. (not an actual verse in the vedas. Illustrative example only)
Well, obviously
it’s a hypothesis. It can never be proven or unproven, so let’s just think
about the hypothesis and admire the implications for a few minutes and go back
to thinking about the actual legitimate research done by our Ph.D. holders in
universities. I hope atheists and theists take a this stance. Neither can you
neither prove nor disprove God. So stop debating about it and start thickening
about Science and Spirituality and Art, the three things that make our lives
better now, and also give us more answers than whatever you say.
Still, how I
would love it if my hypothesis were true. Hey, don’t blame me for being sympathetic
about the culture and religion I was born in.
