Say – Phase 1

I am an agnostic.

Now, let us move forward with this obviously simple argument.

There is no reason at all, whatsoever, in this whole wide world, why God is important. He or she is not. Let us presume God to be a ‘he’ for a while – it helps to repel the ever-growing wave of feminists from God, so that’s one advantage.

The general idea is that the world is built over binaries, and the most important (moral) binaries being good and evil. Good is represented by light, bad by darkness; good by beauty, bad by ugliness; good by healthy, bad by cripples; good by God and bad by the Devil; and the list goes on, but finally, the most important and defining representation comes up – Good by ‘familiarity’ and bad by anything that’s on the contrary.

Here, thus, God is represented as something familiar, and evil by its opposite. This simple psychological binary has been ruling, ruining, and reigning over the world.

If we look at it, light is merely ‘familiar’ to us, and darkness is just not. In the Apple TV+ superhit series SEE, the blind dystopian populace believes that light is evil, and darkness is God. Their Queen says, “We should not let the evil of light prevail,” and goes on a frenzy.

But let us get over this. This is not about definitions. This is about God himself: the trueness of his, the mercy, the magnanimity, the love, the construction, the nature, and everything good, nice, polite, and pleasant.

But let me insert this little point too in this maze of a write-up (promise me and yourself before reading this statement, that you wouldn’t read it with any kind of prejudices, and sincerely try to understand what the statement says): All Devils of all religions combined did not and could not create the havoc three or four Gods combines.

Agree? Do not agree?

That is not my problem here.

Come, let us move on.

Probably, Phase 2?

If someone asked me to define God, I would like to start it with something like this: “God is a dangerous idea,” that is how I would like to start, and then go on something in this fashion: “People wanted to have something to be afraid of and amused about, so they wrote a fairytale,” but that would be all too rash now, isn’t it? Alright, I shall retract it. I would say, in a better way, “God is a Lord of the Rings character brewing in our minds for nearly seven thousand years.”

One more insertion, and promise me the same as you did above before reading this: No god ever, on this billion of years old planet did survive more than 5000 years.

Very true, that.

Even Hinduism (supposedly the oldest living religion) has been shedding its Gods, wearing new ones and new names for every two thousand years or so.

And Hindus: yours is not the oldest religion in this world. If humans were elsewhere before here, this definitely is not. The moment the first being opened its eyes, or whatever senses it was adorned within the primitive years, in its unconscious self-defense mechanism, had created its first God and thus the first religion. Chill.

And the Abrahamic religion guys, don’t grin, your Gods are babies in diapers.

So, is your God ever-lasting and ever-existent? No. He is not He will not be.

Alight kids, enough of your kitty parties, come on, let us move forward.

A Quick Phase 3:

Have you heard of this special warningly welcoming and acquainting party in colleges that run for a year long? That is called ‘Ragging’. Have you heard of it? Or even better, did you go through or did you participate either in the place of the ragged or the ragger? You would understand this better if you did.

The whole concept is not about welcoming or providing acquaintance, but it is about establishing and securing the power of the already-arrived over the newly-arriving. Simple and sound. It is about teaching the newcomers how to behave around them, how to respect them, how to acknowledge them, how to inculcate and how to communicate with the already-arrived.

The idea is that the land belongs to the already-arrived. Because they arrived first, it belongs to them.

Wait what?

Do you do this in your school? When you sit in one seat of the bus, and the next day someone tries to sit there and you say that is yours? is that yours? Really? And in the classroom running quickly inside because you can go and sit wherever you want to and say, “I came first”? Is that not stupid? To lay a kerchief from the window into a public bus and claim that your possession was already there, so it belongs to you?

That is what religious preachers always try to do. “Our God was there before everyone!” “We were here since times unknown,” “Our religion has no begging and no end,” “This is here then, and this will be hereafter an eternity,” and goes on the list. Does coming first make it all powerful and all okay?

The so-called oldest of the temple cities are hardly 3000 years old. Meaning the time they have been established as a hamlet. Not since the time God came into it. Better than Gods, look for a river in the surroundings of thus cities, and we will understand better why they were built there and then, and still thriving.

Cities, old or new, thrive on water. Not because of God.

And not because God provides us with water.

There is water. And One day there won’t be.

But there was no God, and no way that one day he will be.

Live and Let Live Phase 4:

Religion is the biggest form of human commuting on this planet. And I will tell you about that.

Twitter is a very dark place. My brother-in-law, Srikar Gurazada (an ardent Twiteretti) tried to show me the dark spaces of that social media platform. It basically is comprised of ranges from people abusing each other on several individual differences to threatening with murder, rape, mutilation, sodomy, and so on. And often it got above personal, that is communal. So, this was not a new idea to me.

When RRR was released, I was wishing for a positive outpour from both the fans of Ram and NTR, but the outcome was as I expected. The competition was high. The differences were more clearly defined. The height of cutouts was measured, commented upon, and acted upon immediately. The number of milk packets poured on the pictures of these actors was counted very carefully. The number of seconds each of the actors was on the screen was calculated by stop-watches, performances judged by these maniac novices, and the romantic tracks were peered at and scrutinized.

The same happens with Kohli and or Rohit, Federer and Nadal, Ronaldo and Messi, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, the jokers of Hearth Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix, Batmans, Supermans, Spidermans of various kinds. Why? It can happen between the book and its movie adaptation.

That is the power of our whatever-that-is, and the reason for us being segregated into various groups.

Now, another interjection: Crowds are bad. Bad crowds are bad, good crowds are bad, and neutral crowds are bad. There are no worst crowds or dirty crowds. There are just one crowd: Bad crowds.

A little exemplification: The crowd that cries Jai Shri Ram and Jai Shri Ram in a frenzy is as bad as Kill that Bastard Kill that Bastard murder crowd. The crowd that cries Save the Trees Save the Trees is as bad as Let us Sell Drugs Let us Sell Drugs crowd. Cause a crowd is bad.

Explanation: A crowd, good or bad is prone to two anti-societal deliriums. One, Mass Psychosis, and Two, Mod Mentality. Everything becomes correct in a crowd, and all crimes are justified. The power a crowd gives is the true lair where real evil breeds. The anger of a crowd is unstoppable. The thirst of a crowd is unquenchable.

Now. What is the biggest communal force on this planet? As I said, religion. The fans of Ram and NTR might merely have a faceoff, but they can’t kill each other. But, a religious crowd is a thousand folds larger. It can abduct, rape, mutilate, murder, massacre, and also arrange gas chambers. No regrets felt. No sorry said. Justified. Even proudly exemplified.

Parasuraman of Hindu pantheon is an example. Old Gods of Abrahamic religions are the epitome.

The crowd of religious people does no good. It cannot. Cause the nature of a crowd cannot be good.

In addition: The people that died in the stampedes of the so-called processions of goodness (like religious, spiritual, environmental, sports and etc.) are nearly countless. Nothing good came out for the survival too. No blessings, no moksha. Cause, you were either praying a rock or a wooden cross or worse: praying nothing at all.

I am Lost in this Muddle, Phase 5:

What God stands for and what the religious preachers have been saying lost their total connection. Not that anyone knows what God really is, no. But what did he probably say at all? Our planet is in total disarray because of this. God has become a million-fold multitudinous fiction, that started encompassing everything!

I love, that’s god. I hate, that’s god. I give life, that’s god. I kill someone that’s god.

With a wise smile, people started to say, “God is everything. God is everywhere. God is anything that we do, and do not do. God is everything that is known, that is unknown, and that cannot be known. God is the past, the present, the future, and the realms beyond this meager understanding,” and so on and so on and so on and so on. Humans are artists. We can blend the surroundings into beautiful images that are beyond our comprehension (in a placid state). We can twist shapes, colors, and words, orating anything and everything.

But the truth is deep inside everyone’s heart:

The only thing that can be everything at once is: Nothing.

And they said, Shiva means Nothingness.

Oh God. What contradiction.

That is not a problem of philosophy. That is a problem of semiotics. People, understand! Don’t fall into the verbal traps you’ve created for yourself. If there is no art of words or colors or stone, there is no God. Cause there could be nothing beyond the raw world around us.

We discovered blending things. Don’t be too amazed by it.

Don’t be so self-loathing or self-appreciative, my goodness!

Old Questions and New Answers Phase 6:

The old questions once ranged high. If there is no god, who created us? Where did we come from? In whose image are we growing into? Who rules us? Who is the master of everything? Who is the task master? So on and so on and so on. Wise sounding, shallow ringing, stupid, hysteric, and blind question.

Almost (I said that out of modesty, in fact, all) of the questions are answered by the meticulous effort of Science. If they still put the papers of ISRO before the Balaji of Tirupati before a satellite launch, that particular piece of the human mind has manufacturing defect, pardon.

Alright, I shall not talk all that.

The new answers to following a religion have come, forcing science to pose questions. The answers are thus: Self-realization, peace, divine musing, spiritual upliftment, oneness with body and soul, reaching beyond the self. . . . Woah Woah Woah.

Every day on this planet hundreds of people are being killed in the name of god. Thousands are robbed off their houses, millions are stripped off their respect, and many more are being pushed into the darkness to live with fear, superstition, or backwardness.

Insertion: Your religion is not spreading ONE PERCENT of LIGHT compared to the tons and tons and tons of UTTER DARKNESS that it is spreading. Everyday.

This world deserves better. The havoc religion has created is ENOUGH. The wreckage it has wrought upon this world is ENOUGH. The blindness, the darkness, the MADNESS it has been BREWING in the populace of hundreds of millions is ENOUGH. ENOUGH. Religion’s thousands of years of time is ENOUGH. The cornerstone to all this stupid running – the God! ENOUGH!

We had enough of God on this planet.

It is time we open our eyes. Our ears. It is time we see the world around us as it is. Not as the fantasy world we have been taught it as. It is time we are more free and humane creatures than God-abiding or God-fearing puppets.

We are people. We are real. We are not stones. We are not trees.

We deserve to live understanding the real universe than to live in the superfluous veils of utter shams and lies.

There is no God. There never has been.

Save your myths and legends if you like them. Just like literature. Don’t kill over them. Don’t let that be your pride. Don’t let that define you. Be a human. That is what we are. That is our REAL definition. Nothing else. We are all humans. Thus, brothers. Kin.

To save that humanity, there are no pacified ways. There are no striking that balances. There are no escapisms and being in the dark. There is just one way:

Say No to God.

Epilogue – The Last Search for Definition.

“God is an idea. An amalgamation of all popular archetypal hero types into one. A proud symbol of the cultural heritage. A pseudo-proof of a gallant history. A sentiment that defines the nation’s morality, dignity, and courage. God is evil. Evil brewing as light. God is all kinds of oppressions behind the mask of smiles and love. God is primordial. god is primitive. God is bloodthirsty and contradictory. God is a pack of lies that makes millions for one and kills the children and women of another. God is the real Devil in disguise.”

I say. “No.”

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{P.S: If you read this piece with certain compassion and positive understanding, I am sure many many many questions regarding our identity, the world, and the institutions of religions arise. Please feel free to comment or mail me. I would like to discuss this topic with anyone, thus expanding my own understanding. Email: authorindra.in@gmail.com}