Why My Atheism Doesn’t Need The Absence of God

Atheism

We have been told that there is some supreme being up in heaven who looks after us and is all good.
Supposedly he is all powerful – – the master of the cosmos.
He sees everything – – all our crimes and acts of kindness.
Also, he is omnipresent, existing everywhere, all at once, always.

And yet, despite this grand claim of religion, the amount of human suffering only seems to be increasing as the centuries pass by.

Wars have gotten deadlier as humanity learns to create newer and better Weapons of Mass Destruction.

After a brief waning of religious fundamentalism in the middle of 20th century, our dear god has returned to become an excuse for genocides and terrorist bombings.

We live in an era in which the amount of absolute poverty is highest in the history of humanity. Despite this fact, there seems to be a consensus that the fight against an economy of inequality is trivial or boring.

As if these human-made atrocities were not enough, our dear god seems to be particularly keen on gifting us more and more disasters of the natural kind.

In the middle of all this shit, some people see the divine will at work to do good. They say it is god’s own mysterious way to redeem humankind. The disasters, genocides, mass rapes and child prostitutes are all part of the plan. They are a symbol of divine grace, according to the religious nuts.

And this is what, I think, justifies 21st century Atheism. If God exists, then he is a criminal. And that is why I reject his demand to be acknowledged and worshiped.

If God is omnipotent, then he is responsible for the millions of live lost in earthquakes, tornadoes and tsunamis everywhere in the world.

If he is omnipresent, then he just stood by when millions of women, children and men were raped, ripped apart and destroyed throughout history.

If he is omniscient, then he just watches passively as thousands of infants starve to death everyday around the world.

I know religious crazies have justifications for this as well. “Wait for the judgment day or Karma,” they say.
But a being who can stop and prevent these mind-numbing atrocities through his divine powers cannot excuse himself of his responsibility. Giving judgments after the beings he created have committed their crimes barely lessens the suffering of the innocents.

One who stands by even though he can prevent a crime is as guilty as the criminal himself.

And thus, I refuse to believe in the existence of God simply because I don’t see this divine being making a difference. Even if god exists so what? Humanity still has to deal with the world on its own. Praying and worship have never prevented a tragedy. Nor it ever will.

Thus, my atheism is purely a political rebellion. It is the negation of god even if he exists. It is the act of spitting on his face. It is the slap which he deserves if he exists.

Militant atheists like Dawkins simply waste their time debating with theists about the non-existence of god.

Firstly, the concept of God itself is unscientific. God is (cleverly) conceived as something which can’t be completely known. Thus, God can’t be disproved. And despite the claims of physicists, just because science works doesn’t automatically mean that God doesn’t exist.
E=mc2 has no logical connection to God=Non-existent.

Secondly, if God exists then it is even worse for religion. Because in the center of their belief system lies a being who is the most perverted criminal in the cosmos.

Thus, I think atheism should give up the time consuming, elaborate debates about the absence or the existence of the oldest imaginary friend humanity ever created. It should simply position itself as a political rebellion — something which makes much more sense in the present scenario.

Nietzsche said:

“…if God did exist, we would need to kill him off.”

However the 21st century atheist should say:

” God has survived, let’s kill him better in a better way. “

Truths, Experience and the Return of Falsity

When I was a kid I always thought that the deaths in films were real and that the actors who died were actually born again to star in their next blockbuster.

My fantasy fell apart when I actually saw the video of a film shoot in which the hero died 5 times within the span of fifteen minutes.
It was one of my first encounters with the failure of Truth.

It’s amazing how these early life lessons are buried under pretentious, fallacious theoretical bubbles.
How can people — scholars, intellectuals and activists — actually accept that everything we believe to be true actually becomes our reality? (Yes, I am talking about the post-modernists.) If the world really worked this way there would have been no disappointments. Expectations, faith and hope would have never crumbled as easily as it usually does.

Thus, even if there is no ultimate Truth, there sure exists some kind of falsity. There exists a difference between what we think or consider as the Truth and what we experience as reality. The problem simply is that we can’t demarcate between the two — the nature of our ever-changing knowledge doesn’t allow any permanent dichotomies.

And this is precisely why I think we should approach knowing in a different way than we usually do.

The base of Human Knowledge is not knowing.

Our quest for knowing is fueled by this partial or complete void; because, if we already know everything, then why seek anymore?
Remembering this fact is intensely liberating.

Let us not pretend that we uncover some hidden truth in the ‘outside’ world which we can’t even be sure of (as the world, for us, only exists in our perception).
I don’t mean to exclude the possibility that we have indeed discovered some thing which is universal, permanent or objective. But we just can’t be sure of them. Our knowledge is still in process, and this process includes change,rejection and return of truths which were previously rejected. The world was once flat and now it’s round. Who knows if it won’t turn into a triangle or not?

Knowledge and Truth will always be something which we put in. It exists only as Human knowledge. It is an act of our minds.

So let us pretend  instead that Truth is a story we tell which makes sense.
But does this mean that everything proclaimed as Truth becomes real?

Based on our collective experience of the world, Truth seems to be multiple and fluid. But not everything seems to be true. Not every medicine system cures the disease which it itself claims to cure. Not every hypothesis is proved right even when the person conducting experiments believes in it completely.
Newton is reported to have been much more interested in Alchemy than Physics. Why is it that all his time spent in the search of knowledge, only his experiments with physics bore fruit but not his alchemy?
There is a reason why newton discovered the laws of motion and not the philosopher’s stone.

Truth is the narrative which works as Truth.
For any story to become reality, it has to correspond to experience.
If I believe that the sky is green and I myself see it as blue, then that belief fails as my own personal reality. Similarly, collective narrative has to reasonably correspond to a collective experience.

We don’t necessarily need an outside structure of comparison to judge the narratives — we can use their own claims and predictions to discover their Truth value.

By the same logic, Truths can be hierarchic.
Any Reality Narrative which fails less is obviously better than the ‘Truth’ which fails more in experience.If harvest rituals promise bountiful crops and they don’t as compared to the scientific techniques of farming, then the latter is a more reliable Truth for the society than the former. (Whatever anyone wants to believe.)

And the narratives whose claims lie outside the realm of experience by definition like the existence of God, life after death, heaven and hell will become less legitimate as a common reality when other narratives exist.
Narratives which can be judged inside lived experiences are always more reliable because we can check it’s falsity (or the lack of it). Narratives whose base claims are undetermined are dangerous because when it reaches its fanatic heights, people with other beliefs have no way of negotiation — you either have blind belief in them or you are branded a betrayer, heretic or a conspirator.

This in no way means that such narratives are illegitimate. They shouldn’t be completely excluded. They just can’t be relied upon as COMMON Truth, on the basis of which a WHOLE society can make its decisions.

I am not really suggesting that we create any rigid structures. All Truth, it seems, is probable. As we haven’t experienced the whole of existence, proclaiming any narrative as the ultimate TRUTH will be a fallacy of presumption (same applies for the rejection of the possibility of any permanent Truth).
Knowledge should always be open-ended because knowing is always in process. As long as we live we are experiencing beings.
Knowledge is merely a pattern we put into these experiences, which enriches them, binds them and in turn create new experiences in our consciousness.

Personally as a knower, my ultimate aim isn’t to find out the ‘TRUTH’. Especially when the existence of such a truth itself isn’t absolutely assured (although essentially the question remains open).
I see life in terms of experience and hence, to me such narratives are a way to gain a depth in experience.
To unite scattered feelings, events, memories and thoughts. To combine them in different ways. And to experience those different combinations in different ways.
Perhaps this is too much philosophy for one post 😛

–Dee

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WHY SO MUCH PHILOSOPHY?

My first answer to that is — Why not?

But I understand why many people are wondering about this question.

We all are children of post-modernism now. We all have known the “anything goes” motto in some way or the other.
Initially it does feel liberating.
I was a fan too not a long time ago.

But then reality strikes.
The dark side of this is that no one can really counter the fanaticism which has slowly saturated our world. And I am not only talking about people with guns, scriptures and suicide vests.

There has been a general taking away of liberties all over the world. Our existence is in threat. Even the existence of our planet. And we don’t have anything to fall back on — to counter such threats in a substantial way.

One may question why this taking away of freedom is a bad thing.
To them I reply, that question’s answer doesn’t really lie in some high-brow theoretical argument, but in plain experience.

And yet until we put them into narrative, we will always be silenced by the fanatics.

The following posts are my attempt to at least try creating a position through which we can fight back —

Trying To Escape 21st Century Nihilism By Finding Out The Inherent Purpose Of Life
https://deerayolia.wordpress.com/2014/08/18/the-inherent-purpose-of-life-is-absurdly-clear/

Attempt To Create A Charter Which Isn’t Too Rigid But Which Gives Us Some Guidelines To Fall Back Onhttps://deerayolia.wordpress.com/2014/05/19/the-new-charter/

City Introspections: The Pebbles

He can read the pebbles.
Like scrolls written by the river, he reads their stories and weeps.

Some pebbles are old. They tell stories of a time when the river was clean, healthy and alive.
The pebbles’ smoothness tells him of the joy the fishes, snakes and the naked girls and boys used to have a thousand years ago.

The pebbles are like totems telling mythologies of times when the earth was respected, the city was dead and the river was alive.

The majority of the pebbles are now black; in places which was once a river bed.
The river is now dead, the earth disrespected and the city is alive.
Or is it?

Some little children stack them up like little skyscrapers and kick them down for fun.
The stories the pebbles tell are unheard by them.

Listen to the pebbles.
What do they whisper?

We have witnessed the jungles and the villages.
We have captured rivers in our grooves.
We have seen you take birth.
We have seen you grow.
We have seen you become a monster.

Beware.

Don’t throw us away when we warn you.
We are the stories which make up your boundary walls.
We are your protectors.
When we fall away, the wild will devour you.
The snakes you killed, the hyenas you slaughtered, the wolves you ate — all of them will return.

When we fall away, nature will return.

Who will protect you from the storms and the sewer-floods then?

We don’t ask for much.

Heed us when we talk to you.
Don’t piss in the river.
Don’t blacken it with your shit.
It is the life source of you retarded millions.
When it will truly die — you shall cannibalise on your life.

We love you.

Love us back.

Or go fucking die.

Baboon Banter On Bestiality

Baboon Bestiality

The Baboon swears on his mountain of slimy bananas that it loves all kinds of filthy copulations. And that is why the Baboon is in awe of the unique ability of you base but creative creatures to fuck, suck, lick or sexualize anybody and anything.

What sours this strawberry pie is how some groups of prude humans reject and are disgusted by their species’ diverse sexualities.

So, when the Baboon encounters people who actually embrace these differences and work towards making them acceptable, he greatly respects them.

In conversation with such a person, the Baboon encountered a difference of opinion.

The human was a queer female — an LGBTQ-feminist activist.

The Baboon had asked a question about bestiality. She said one of the things about sexual liberty was consent. And since animals don’t speak human languages (except for the Baboon) they really can’t communicate consent.

So, that was why she did not support bestiality.

The Baboon of course disagreed, not only because he can ramble whole articles and not just consent, but also, because animals communicate regularly with humans.

The Baboon regards it a little naive to think that humans can train dogs to sit, fetch or sniff out cocaine from the pockets of sneaky smugglers, and still consider dogs can’t communicate something as basic as a desire for sex?

Sex is one of the three basic desires, along with hunger and thirst.

Every species has some way to communicate the desire to have sex, just like the desire to eat or drink.

If human pet owners can be told by their pets that they are hungry or thirsty, the animals are very well capable to convey they are horny (take the Baboon’s word for it).

But the Baboon also thinks that this may not be so simple.

There maybe (are) cases where the animals are really raped. And it is not such a gobble-dung idea to suppose in many instances that these animals are not able to communicate this to a third person.

Thus, the Baboon thinks bestiality is al right when done with consent.

But the Baboon will not encourage (nor discourage) this as it becomes difficult to differentiate between sex-with-consent and barbaric rape, for the human society (which is still really retarded as compared to the Baboons’, I must say).

End of Baboon Banter.

Now go fuck that pie!

We Have Survived

We have survived.

We have survived your gas chambers and your World Wars.

We have mutated and lived through your nuclear explosions.

We have taken bullets to our heads to fight the ignorance you preached.

When you decided to bifurcate our homes and cleave our hearts to suckle your emaciated, infantile egos, we were the bridges across your borders.

In your carnival of riots which celebrate your manufactured hatred, we provide sanctuary to the refugees of sanity whom you betray.

We are the ones who pick up the pieces and bury them in our bosom after you decide to smash the head of that 5 year old in the name of your religion.

We are the rumbling in the streets and the roar of hope which you seek to suppress with your pitiful water canons and your police.

We are the geniuses whom you behead and later on uphold as the icons of your religions which we rebelled against.

 

We have seen you destroy our world;

And we have lived through it all.

 

We have survived.

We will thrive.

Beware!

The Forest

It has been here forever.

 

A narrow strip of trees, caged by two walls on the either side – the remnants of the forest which gave way to the city.

 

It stands stubborn, arrogant and indestructible.

 

The bulldozers never touched it.
The axes were all impotent.

 

In its bosom it holds a parallel civilization.

 

From the windows of the high-rises all around, one can see the birds – its airforce – keeping a vigil.

 

Often peacocks come out of hiding, weary of the incessant love-making.

Often they will fly towards the city, peering through the windows at sexual violence and erectile dysfunction.

Their call rings like laughter.

 

They can see through the hollowness of your eyes.
The systematic draining of your soul has made you incomplete.

What happens when you realize that with all that money you can only buy Lamborghinis and 12 Storey Palaces – but these are far from enough.

 

You sleep with a hundred people, but the sex is dead.

 

You peer into the eyes of your lover and your lover needs another cigarette to stand you.

What happens when you waste your life to get to the top and realize that you’re already dead.

 

What happens when even your death is just another event, even for you?

You blame the concrete and the machine.
But it’s you who is broken.

 

The forest knows.

And that is why it refuses to abandon you.

 

The walls on the either sides have gaping holes with open arms.

 

Take all your drugs and alcohol and cigarettes there.

The forest will let you intoxicate yourself.

It will let you vomit and spasm and even let you die of an overdose.

 

It will let you mourn, for you should mourn your death.

Its mosquitoes will suck away all your blood.

Let them.

 

If you die she shall bury you in herself.

 

But if you survive, find a lover.

 

Make love in the forest.

 

Feel the skin instead of the designer clothes.

 

Kiss with love and not with technique.

 

Taste and not just lick.

 

Do it with love and passion and not for duration or achievement.

 

You will know pleasure and not just a fake orgasm.

 

Do not sleep in the forest.

Stay awake and watch the trees.

 

They will shower their dew on you.

 

Look at the stars peeking from behind the canopy.

 

Let the dogs sniff at you when they come.

 

Know that you exist and you are not your name, or your position, or your popularity or your money.

 

You are worth the labour of the Universe even without those things.

 

Go home.

 

Take a bath.

 

But don’t forget the forest.

The Two Impulses Of Being Human

What is it that makes Humans, humans?

This question, which is essentially an attempt of our egos to feel differentiated and important, has haunted our philosophers and emperors for eons.

My version of an answer to this question is this: Freedom.

It is the want, or should I say impulse, of Humans to break free of the bondage and anxieties that Nature tortures us with a sadistic zeal.

Our societies, according to my opinion, provide exactly this sanctuary which allows us, to an extent, this freedom.

Our science is all about defeating disease, aging and even the permanency of form and function of our bodies. We can now even fuck with the blueprint which creates life.

Nature made us weak, small and hairless with almost no natural defense from bears, tigers and sabertooths, except for the squishy thing inside our skulls.

And indeed this squishy thing is the only weapon we ever needed.

The success and the growth of Human kind is a GIGANTIC middle finger to whoever thought we were just meat-lollipops for those ferocious big boys roaming in the jungles.

Some may say this impulse of freedom maybe present in ALL animals who live in societies.

Okay.

But were they successful?

of course not.

Another thing which characterizes, but not differentiates, Humans is the lust for power.

It is this will to dominate not only all the other species in sight, but also the members of its own kind which has helped us reach entirely unseen levels of douchebaggery.

I mean seriously History is ALL about wars, rapes and massacres.

But power and the lust of it arises from insecurities and self-esteem issues which someone is unable to deal with. Why will a person want to enslave another one?

It is the absence of something deep inside us which makes us insufficient and to fill that gap we become conquerors.

It is a tool for our egos to prove to ourselves that we are worth SOMETHING. We have power, hence we are winners, hence we are heroes and hence we are awesome.

It is the same thing which makes men who suck in bed or in their jobs to beat their wives and kids.

But one may say, if the society sets us free, and freedom is who we are then why does this insecurity exist?

Well, society has set us free from the dominatrix ‘Nature’, so as to say.

But it has enslaved us in its own disgustingly special ways.

Poverty, Social norms, the constant threat of violence and the almost imminent annihilation of the world with all those fancy nuclear arsenal we boast about — they are our new enslavers.

All these things are because of the social control, this amazingly fucked-up (and abstract) entity called society exercises on us in the name of maintaining ‘order’.

And that is why I think that rebellion is the only worthwhile thing for an individual to do. Being obedient, being crushed, being tethered to anyone is betraying the essence of being Human.

Freedom is the only path of Human evolution and progress.

And all those people who glorify war, dictatorship and enslavement have just lost the way.

 

 

For

Liberty

Love

And Anarchy

–Dee Rayolia