why I am an atheist

by Shaheed Bhagat Singh

I will paste extracts of the post here and ask you to read the whole article for I can’t do justice to his clarity.

[…]

I was convinced that the belief in an almighty, supreme being who created, guided and controlled the universe had no sound foundation.

[..]

After a long debate with myself, I reached the conclusion that I could not even pretend to be a believer, nor could I offer my prayers to god.

[..]

Those who are well versed in the philosophy of jurisprudence relate three of four justifications for the punishment that is to be inflicted upon a wrong-doer. These are reform, revenge and deterrence. The retribution theory is condemned by all the thinkers. Deterrent theory is on the anvil for its flaws. Reformative theory is now widely accepted and considered to be necessary for human progress. [..] But what in essence is god’s punishment even if it is inflicted on a person who has really done some harm?

[..]

For the sake of argument we agree for a moment that a person committed some crime in his previous birth and god punished him by changing his shape into a cow, cat, tree or any other animal. You may enumerate the number of these variations in godly punishment to be at least eighty four lack. Tell me, has this tomfoolery, perpetrated in the name of punishment, any reformative effect on any human man? How many of them have you met who were donkeys in their previous lives for having committed any sin? Absolutely no one of this sort!

[…]

As regard the origin of god, my thought is that man created god in his imagination when he realized his weaknesses, limitations and shortcoming.

[..]

If, as you believe, there is an almighty, omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent God-who created the earth or world, please let me know why did he create it ? This world of woes and miseries, a veritable, eternal combination of numberless tragedies: Not a single soul being perfectly satisfied.

[…]

The idea of god is helpful to a man in distress.

[..]

No dear sir, never shall it happen. I consider it to be an act of degradation and demoralisation. For such petty selfish motives, I shall never pray.

And if any of the readers of this blog have a copy of Soham Swami’s Commonsense and is willing to lend the host, we could discuss the possibility of this.

Why am an atheist

Something to ponder

We meet Celsus again asking a very potent question, similar, to that my friend Zande does ask, that is

Again, if God, like Jupiter in the comedy, should, on awaking from a lengthened slumber, desire to rescue the human race from evil, why did He send this Spirit of which you speak into one corner (of the earth)? He ought to have breathed it alike into many bodies, and have sent them out into all the world. Now the comic poet, to cause laughter in the theatre, wrote that Jupiter, after awakening, despatched Mercury to the Athenians and Lacedaemonians; but do not you think that you have made the Son of God more ridiculous in sending Him to the Jews?“

And we want answers.