Do we need religion to be moral?

The word atheist in itself has a distinctly negative connotation.  I have come across people who feel that atheists are immoral, a bad influence on society and as someone who in their words “will take you away from the way of god”.

This always gets me thinking is religion the source of our morality? I definitely do not confer to such a belief; morality is an inherent virtue in humans. So when people do good deeds and shun bad ones they do so on their own. There is no validation required by anyone, there is no god required to decide and tell them what is good or what is bad.

In other words what is good and what is bad is somewhat a common understanding in all humans. It is not something on the whims and fancies of any celestial being. Man took what he thought was right and projected it as the will of god, the Ten Commandments, Manu Smriti or whatever.

So when in a moral dilemma we can decide for ourselves what is morally correct without invoking god. Some might argue why the need for all this blabber if the end result is the same – if we decide for our self or take it as god’s will and follow it.  This distinction is what separates a fundamentalist and liberal. When people start blindly believing that god’s will is right without deciding for their own self,  that is where the truly dark side of religion is exposed.
That is where terrorists get the will to massacre hundreds as was in Mumbai, this is where the rioting mobs in Gujarat got the will to kill, plunder and rape innocent people.

Faith without reason can beget nothing but disaster.

Most people say what the suicide bomber or the mob did were not religious, that what he does is not the religion they so steadfastly believe in and that is not what the religion is.

See what happened here – we have achieved a complete turnaround from our initial argument.

People are not using religion to decide what is moral and what is not, but in fact are using morality to decide what religious is and what is not.

The very idea that we need religion to be moral is an insult to mankind. We do what we do because we believe in it and not because we are required to.
Most religious scriptures are very old, confusing and are open to multiple interpretations. Fact of the matter is no one needs to confer any religious teachings to remind us of what is good or evil.

When the first human ancestors were evolving it was certain that as weaklings their strength lay in numbers. As they started living together in proximity, it was a consensual realization that the greater good was to be kept in mind at all times. We as humans had an unsaid understanding that we would not like to live in a society where it was right to kill, steal or rape.

This is the foundation of morality which was established before any religion or anything was ever conceived. The failure to understand other celestial things is what gave them the idea of a superior being who was later also given the role of a policeman to oversee human morality.

So to sum it up I quote the Nobel prize winning physicist Steven Wienberg

“ Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.”

Navagraha hmm...

My mom is very into religeon so she used to take me to the temple with her. There was this one god( set of gods) dat intrigued me the most- the navagrahas, I asked a few preists abt the poojas done to PACIFY (that is what he said) them.

Navagraha shanti yagyas are pretty common and take place in many ceremonies like marriage, naming of the child etc. And one of the grahas they say is the MOON . The moon or the chandra bhagwaan features in the vedas and the Mundaka upanishad which cites the rituals to please him. Thereafter with the rise of Shankaracharya and the emergence of the satvika movement the moon god disappears from the scriptures written thereafter.

Strange that even after religeous philosophers like shankaracharya and Carvaka renounced these demi gods from Hinduism they still exist in our temples.

Guys its been 40 years since Man trampled the face of the moon, i think it is abt time that reasonable theists sit up and take notice. I know that some people would get hurt if we take off the idol from the temple or denounce Chandra's existence , but than were there not people who felt that their religeon was being targeted when SATI was abolished.

The moon is a beautiful spectacle at night, poets have sang ballad after ballad in its praise. If u are mesmerised by the moon go look at it in a planetarium , it is a beautiful sight. You need an observatory to fully appreciate the moon not a temple.

You do not have to be an atheist to follow this logic. So next time u sit in a grah pravesh or Marriage pooja and the preist says (utters actually in his monotonous tone) " Om shraam shreem shraum sah chandramasay namah" Sit up and take notice and think of why u are paying the preist?

- Everyone is an atheist of the majority of the gods that the humans made up: Zeus, Amon-Ra, Thor... Real atheists simply go few gods further.

Russels Holy Teapot

Mr X: do you believe in the holy teapot?
Mr Y: The teapot has helped me get over a lot of tough times in my life. The feeling that there was this figure looking over me and looking after me has made me strong enough to face the toughest of challenges. When I pray I feel my burden getting lighter and the reassurance I get from the thought that the teapot is there to protect me from harm keeps me at peace.
Mr X: I don’t agree with you I feel you are belittling the efforts put in by you when you attribute all your success to the teapot.
Mr Y : The teapot created everything on the earth, and is the one driving everything in the universe. It is now revolving in space from where it directs everything on earth. These truths of the teapot are revealed in the holy book. And for hundreds of years the teachings have been handed down from generation to generation. It is true.
Mr X : Humans believed the earth was flat for a thousand years, did people not realize that it was false, they will realize that the teapot is a lie soon. Faith tells us not to question and reason whereas modern science is dynamic and ever changing because of its ability to challenge itself at every stage.
Mr Y: When did I say that I don’t believe in science? I believe in the scientific method as well but it is undeniable that science has not disproved the existence of the teapot.
Mr X: We do not have the technology or telescopes sophisticated enough to search for the teapot. Even if we had such technology we cannot possibly look everywhere in the infinite universe. Just because we cannot disprove something does not mean it exists. There is a lot of things u can’t disprove.
Mr Y: What about the things modern science is yet to explain like origin of the universe, complexities of the mind? How do you explain that?
Mr X: Science could not explain many things before like the human body, atomic structure and all but now it can. I am sure Science could explain most things and nothing would be left unexplained. The Big Bang theory seeks to explain the origin of universe. The theory will develop in the future.
Mr Y: Even if Big Bang theory is true how did the universe originate. Surely someone created it, the universe just cannot come out of nowhere.
Mr X (chuckles): You urself claim that nothing can come into existence someone has to be create the universe. Now I ask if the creator created the universe then who created the creator. How can he just come out of nowhere.
Mr Y: That makes no sense u are arguing for argument sake.
Mr X: Yaar, I will explain using an example. It’s like someone saying that all fires are hot and there can be no cold fires, and someone counter arguing saying that there is a special fire that is cold. U said there has to be creator as someone has to create the universe. When I said that then who created the creator u say the creator is someone that needs not be created and is omnipresent. If the creator can exist without its creator why can’t the universe exist without the creator? So u see why I don’t believe in the creator. Let alone believing that the creator was the teapot.
Mr Y: Who cares if you believe in it or not. Almost 1 billion people or 20% of mankind believes in the holiness of the teapot. Surely all of them cannot be wrong.
Mr X: My point exactly what about the remaining 60% who don’t believe in Teapotism. What about spoonism, another major belief in the world, they don’t believe what you say.
Mr Y: I don’t believe in what they say either, the thought that the world was created when the sea was churned with a spoon and the drops that fell off the spoon formed the land is ridiculous.
Mr X: The spoonists may think that your theories are equally ludicrous. So I see u don’t believe much in other faiths, I am no different than you.

I just don’t believe in one more religion than you.