Why I reject religion and God.

Actually rejection would be strong because it was never a strong part of my upbringing. Because my folks were different. Very very different. No regular pooja, no emphasis on God or be Good else you will be punished. And I guess I turned out just fine. Morally speaking.

The rejection is of the irrational belief that because of the very strong blandishments society used around me. School was a rich diet of the Catholic creed. Moral Science Lessons every day except Saturday, which was doubly welcome because it was also a half holiday. And yes there were Bible lessons, though the whole thing made us more curious than anything else. Because our favorite nuns were very emulable people, for all th non-religious reasons. Sister Dominica, alas no more, encouraged good reading, Sister Margaret developed in me a strong sense of discipline. Their religion was all the more commendable. Because proselytizing was not a part of it. And they talked Darwin in Science class, because marks in ICSE were more important than our immortal souls, I guess.

Home and school were in their place but the rest of the world was a weird pool. I remember hearing at the ender age of 5, from another sweet 5 year old a statement of unabashed hatred at a third 5 year old classmate, Manisha, because she was a Sikh. The politically motivated murder of Indira Gandhi, the cause. Somehow in that half-baked 5 year old mind too the idea seemed awfully evil. Manisha remained a good friend for years. And there were assorted relatives, my father’s mother for one. Her mobile mandir was always more like a mobile dollhouse. She dressed her devtas, swung them on little brass swings, and took pains on the physical well-being of their little bronze selfs. Very touching, but it did seem odd that an old lady indulged in the kind of make belief that I as outgrowing. That and the fact that the stories she told from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata were often more moralizing than interesting. Not to forget the fact that her fasts threw the house into a tizzy as did her very uncharitable behavior, forcing us off our shoes to the kitchen, which is very painful in Nainital winters.

My grandmother’s stories never covered the interesting bits of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, bits I discovered through my voracious reading. Also they were incredibly dull in the moral lessons, but they never answered just why Ram was so unjust to Sita when she had spent her life in a jungle with him, nor did they address why the universe was so unjust to Karna. Personally I have found the Mahabharata to be more “human” than the Ramayana, and thence more appealing, but the “this is good and it happened” approach to these fairy stories was ever so distasteful. Krishna appealed, still appeals for all the wrong reasons. The original maverick, he was a bad kid, grew up to be flirtatious, preached the means not the end, and talked some good sense about doing your work not bother about the consequences in the Bhagwad Gita which is an incredible piece of poetry, written by a human being, not a divinely inspired song(One thing that has always bothered me is why religion is very quick to take credit for some thing beautiful- “ the Sistine Chapel as divinely inspired” “The Mahabharata was divinely inscribed by Ganesha the elephant God” – I wonder if in the creation of an ode to an imaginary friend in the sky, the creator’s erudition, knowledge and hard work did not pay even a small role)

However Krishna, as I learnt later and learn constantly, has served a wonderful money earner, just as the “blessed are the poor “ original Jesus is a Holy cash cow for the Vatican and millions of ministries worldwide. ISKCON, the Sai Baba’s temples, oh Gosh, if its not Krishna, it is one of the 330million others, who, the advaita philosophy will tell you are manifestations of the same being.

Then there was animal sacrifice. Big bad thing. But its not god that asks for it, pleaded ,my very devout cousin and aunt, its foolish humans. But god is the product of foolish human’s behavior. True they may not tell you the exact same verse, the exact same line in the holy book that tells them to slaughter a poor defenceless creature before a bloodthirsty deity( or smash a coconut in lieu of human sacrifice), but they follow it because some ancestor before them had the delusion that that is what is required.

Which made me realize that religion is an incredibly selfish thing. It is all about a constant bribing of a supernatural being for a good life and after-life for your ownself. Nothing else. Prayer, ritual, life.. Every single thing. Separated from that it becomes a mass delusion that a few, the clergy an the extreme right wing, take ample advantage of. Take for instance the claim, Hinduism is a way of life. What is the “way” the verse that calls a woman something inferior to be dependent on a man all her life. Or the part that laid down the law for how a man should carry out his daily ablutions, no flush toilets there for you.( and the left hand fr you know what, comes from there too) But you can believe what you want t, Cherry pick as you would like, tht is the cause of the amazing diversity our country has. Yes, but people in a particular region do not cherry pick. And that makes them Tamils or Punjabis or Telugus, not Indians. And gives birth to the “Malayalam New Year” or the “Gujarati New Year” even if they are on the same date.
The “Hindu way of life” which by the way also claims the Big Bang, the theory of algebra, sometimes quantum physics to as divinely inspired. Talk about false credit.

And that brand of religion is painful. More so because when it came to women, the age old menstrual taboo applies. Which I personally discovered at the tender age of 13 when I was not allowed to sit in a family pooja or enter a temple- ( which was a family outing) because it was the wrong time of the month. Apart from the shame of being singled out, of being made to wait alone outside alone, it was the “this is so stupid part of it” But that was just added to an increasing distaste with religion. As was the fact that the moe overtly religious people I came across were singularly unpleasant. Incapable of holding coherent logical conversation, even when trying to sell their belief system. The arrogance of telling me, you are wrong, refusing to back it up. Besides they were hardly liked in their personal life. All the human vices seemed to exist there( probably magnified by my teenage intelligence too) It was silly to try to talk something for fear of offending thm. Whether it was eating non-vegetarian food, or dressing like teenagers lik doing, it was wrong and non-religious. This god person/ persons was far to concerned with externalities which did not make any sense. Lying, cheating, bribery and stealing, even murder, for it was soon December 1992 and the infamous Babri masjid demolition, he kind of condoned. He/She /it/ they /them( I guess there aren’t enough Hindu atheists because eyou have to get over 3.3 million of em!) were just weird.

Teenage infatuations brought along interests in vegetarianism and of course a fervent belief( “God please let him look at me” ) Selfish, yes, but no more than the one I developed before exams. And got over too. The belief vanished soon after the love did. ( Athiesm of the , there is no god, because he did not love me variety, I suppose) That apart, I noticed a very strange thing. Everytime I got overtly religiously inclined, something went wrong. As it did with my family. I know it’s a stupid superstition. But case in point, we had a big pooja on moving to our house in Bhim Tal , and the next pooja we had to perform was because my father passed away there. Of course his lung cancer was cigarette not ritual dependent, but it did create an incredibly bad feeling.

Then over the years I became more rational and more free. Stopping to ascribe every random event on the maleovolence of some unseen deity was a big help. I learnt how to look inside for strength, how not to worry unnecessarily without cause nor feel guilty for imagined feelings. I learnt how to marvel at science, at human effort and endurance and to ask about everything. The blinders faith was trying to clamp, the reins to imagination and to freedom slowly melted away as did the shackles of tradition. I have begun to appreciate life a lot more, each passing day is new and wonderful and different. This one life is precious, and I fully intend to be happy to the fullest in it.