Do Atheists have a leg to stand on? Why don’t the super- naturalists win the lottery every week?

 Richard Dawkins, justly called the Arch Bishop of Atheism, said:” It’s been suggested that if the super-naturalists really had the powers they claim, they’d win the lottery every week. I prefer to point out that they could also win a Nobel Prize for discovering fundamental physical forces hitherto unknown to science. Either way, why are they wasting their talents doing party tunes?” With all due respect, that’s a rather infantile understanding of religion. Most arguments against the existence of God target myths and legends which surround a prophet: For example:  In the light of modern biology, we know that a virgin birth is impossible and the body decomposes after death. So how can there be a resurrection or reincarnation? Clearly, an afterlife is a fantasy, so are heaven and hell. Evolution has proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the world was not created in seven days, it evolved over eons so on. In short the entire atheist argument is focused on the myths associated with religion, not its teachings, ideas and ideals. No atheist will accept that there are states of consciousness that only a small number of diligent seekers with pure minds attain. The two key themes of the Bible – ‘agape, ‘(compassion) and sacrifice of which the crucifixion is a symbol fall by the wayside.  So far as I know, no atheist has talked about concepts such as ‘Satchitananda’ which are the soul of Vedanta. 

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Dawkins, Richard; ‘The Appetite for Wonder,’ BBC 1, November 12, 1996 (Richard Dimbleby lecture

Do Atheists have a leg to stand on? Don’t throw Christ in my face!

The French existentialist writer Albert Camus famously took a Catholic intellectual, Francois Mauriac to task for ‘throwing Christ in my face.’ Camus belonged to a post Darwinian generation suffering from ‘existential angst –‘i.e. a world sans hope, God, heaven, certainty, justice or even reason. In Camus’ novel, ‘The Plague, ‘the character Tarrou says to Dr. Rieux”…each of us has the plague within him; no one, no one on earth is free from it. What is natural is the microbe. All the rest…health, integrity, purity (if you like)…is a product of the human will”(p.229) Camus’ answer to this dilemma? Love.  “…a loveless world is a dead world, and always there comes an hour when one craves for a loved face, the warmth – and wonder of a loving heart.” (p.237) Camus’ atheism is free from the missionary zeal of many modern atheists. Speaking at the Dominican Monastery in Paris, he said : “I shall not try to change anything that I think or anything that you think…the world needs real dialogue …between people who remain what they are…This is tantamount to saying that the world of today needs Christians who remain Christians.’

(Pic: toholdnothing.blogspot.com)

Camus, Albert; ‘The Plague’

Do Atheists have a leg to stand on? “God is dead, I teach you the superman”

I can’t possibly talk about atheism without touching on Nietzsche’s dramatic declaration of the death of God.   In ‘Thus Spake Zarathustra,’ Nietzsche puts a new age prophet in God’s shoes. Zarathustra comes down from his lonely mountain to save a Godless world. He tells a dying acrobat that he doesn’t need to fear retribution for his mistakes. “The soul will die even before the body.”   In the light of scientific knowledge, a belief in an afterlife, either as resurrection from the dead or as reincarnation has become difficult.  So, is death ‘the end,’ the final curtain? Alas! Nietzsche contradicts himself! Whatever is happening now has happened before and will be repeated from eternity to eternity! The acrobat will die again and Zarathustra will come to comfort him.  The bottom line is that even atheists find total annihilation hard or impossible to accept. All of us long for immortality in one way or another.  If you believe that God is dead, hail Zarathustra or whoever else takes your fancy.

Ref: Friedrich Nietzsche; Thus Spake Zarathustra

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Do atheists have a leg to stand on?

There have been any number of discussions on this site about how scientific and rational atheism is. Consciousness requires a brain and this is something that we believers leave on the doorsteps of churches and temples … In fact atheism is supposedly the only creed for the educated, aware, sensitive, thinking individual.  That’s not all.  Religious fanatics (That’s God fearing people like us) are responsible for almost all the crime and ugliness in the world. Most, if not all the evil in the world has its source in religion. So if you’re dreaming of utopia, walk away from God and spirituality.  What we need to do to save our souls and mend our lives is to join ‘a non- Prophet’ organization like an atheist group. I don’t know about you, but I think it’s time for a real look at the rationale of atheism. Is there any logic or truth in it?

(Pic re shared courtesy: www.enwikipedia.org)

Swami Vivekananda on Reincarnation:Is reincarnation a myth?

Are Swami Vivekananda’s views consistent with science? Do they explain our life experience in a more complete and satisfying way? Please share your views and wisdom. Thanks.

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Swami Vivekananda on Reincarnation: The personal and collective unconscious

Swami Vivekananda’s remarks contain the idea of the personal and collective unconscious and point out the greatest flaw in Carl Jung’s argument: It’s possible for us to access the collective unconscious only because of our previous life experiences. Jung’s theories of the personal and collective unconscious can stand their ground only if they are supported by the idea of reincarnation and the Advaitic idea of a single, universal Self.

Artist: Swami Tadatmananda, vedanta.zenfolio.com

Swami Vivekananda on Reincarnation:How can we inherit the entire experience of living creatures without reincarnation?

Swami Vivekananda continues; ‘If in the bioplasmic cell the infinite amount of impressions from all time has entered, where and how is it?  …This impression is in the mind, that the mind comes to take its birth and rebirth, and uses the material which is most proper for it, and that mind which has made itself fit for only a particular kind of body will have to wait until it gets that material…The theory then comes to this, that there is hereditary transmission so far as furnishing the material to the soul is concerned. But the soul migrates and manufactures body after body, and each thought we think, and each deed we do, is stored in it in fine forms, ready to spring up again and take a new shape…When I die the resultant force of them will be upon me.’ (2.222-3)

Artist: Swami Tadatmananda, vedanta.zenfolio.com