Rationalism – Part One: Why I Am an Atheist – The One Time God Helped Me

I consider myself an Atheist. But I was not always like that. I was quite a believer when I was young. I was particularly fond of Maa Durga. Like any other Indian boy, I grew up listening to stories from the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. I was especially fond of Lord Rama’s toils in the forests of the Dandak and then his epic battle against Ravana to win back his beloved wife Sita. I was like what any other kid of my age would be.

Rationalism first started to set foot into my thought process when I started to grow up, read books and apply logic in trying to explain things. When I realized that everything has to have a rational explanation, Atheism started to creep in and on today’s date I am an Atheist. But yes, I do believe in the good things in life, the good things in a human being. If these good things in life is God, then I am a believer. My disbelief is in anything supernatural.

Anyways, Atheist or not, my childhood belief in God has helped me overcome the fear of darkness to a large extent. When I was a kid whenever I went out in the dark I would be very very frightened. I wouldn’t dare to go out alone. But one day Maa said, “Whenever you are afraid, just chant the name of the God you worship”.

Now being an ardent fan of the Ramayana, I was a big fan of Lord Rama. Hence whenever I went out, I would chant “Ram Ram Ram Ram……” I dont know how long it took me to overcome the fear; but I remember that whenever there I was alone in the dark I would take the name of Rama. I was no more afraid because I had the belief. Slowly, maturely, what happened was that I did not need to chant Lord Rama’s name anymore. I was no more afraid of the dark, even if I was alone.

This is how it all works. It is all about belief – the belief that there is someone beside you, always ready to help. This is where God rules: in the shady area where you are vulnerable. The reason behind such vulnerability could be many but in such vulnerable moments where you are desperately seeking for a friend but you are getting no one, God comes in. God is necessarily a daemon from your mind. He is nowhere else, he is inside you.

I can say I am a non believer because I have the belief in my own abilities and I know that whenever I need help, I will get it from my friends and family and won’t need it from a hypothetical God. Even if I don’t get the help from my friends and family, God is not going to help me because of the simple fact that he is not there. It’s me who will have to help me.

The one time when God helped me, it was the result of my belief in God. But it could have been my belief in my own self as well. I needed help because I was young and did not have the understanding about the working of this universe. People who do not have all the belief in themselves take refuge in God’s shelter. I am saying this because the majority of people remember God when he or she is in a fix and are not sure about his or her ability to come out of it alone.

God is the non belief in one’s own abilities.

Disclaimer: I do not want to hurt anyone’s feelings. These are my own thoughts and my own philosophy and is not binding to any other individual.

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