14 December 2011

The Autobiography of a Secular Humanist

by V.N.K. Kumar

Some quotes below:

I became more and more convinced that god must have many psychological problems, even if we asssume that he exists. For one thing, he seems so insecure. He demands worship from everyone — praising him, pleading for money, requesting relief from illness. Why should an omnipotent, omniscient & omnibenevolent being need this flattery if he is omnipotent and solicitation for help if he is omniscient & omnibenevolent (He should know who needs what kind of help at which time, shouldn’t he?). Perhaps, I reasoned to myself, this makes him feel powerful, which shows his inferiority complex and insecurity. Secondly, he goes out and creates faulty humans and then blames them for his own mistakes. So even if hypothetically we assume that he exists, I felt that he doesn’t deserve my respect and adoration.

I found out through Comparative Religion that every religion thinks it is true. But I concluded that all 10,000 + currently alive religions cannot be true simultaneously, though they can all be false simultaneously. I discovered the difference between science and religion. When knowledge is inadequate, science poses a question, but religion proposes a belief.

So it seemed to me that God was rapidly losing his job as an explanation for things we don’t understand.

However, the biggest advantage to believing in god(s) — apart from the comforts of believing in everyday protection in this life, and immortality for self & Ultimate Justice for people who have deliberately hurt us, in the afterlife – is that you don’t have to unnecessarily tax your brain cells to learn & understand anything worthwhile about the origins of the Universe, life & humans — no physics, no biology, no geology, no paleontology, no anthropology, no evolutionary psychology, no neurotheology, no comparative religion, no nothing. Most of the religious people do not have any in-depth knowledge of these subjects and also have not cultivated the art of logical & critical reasoning and hence lull themselves into a sense of self-complacency thinking that their puerile religiosity is unquestionable.

I confess I wanted to learn & understand and didn’t mind the effort required . And so I ended up as an atheist cum secular humanist.

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