Infinite Space

 

Since the 1960s, about 55 missions have been launched to the planet of Mars. Of which, only half have successfully landed. That's a mission every year, very roughly.

Just goes to show how horrendous space travel is right now.

Imagine how much more work needs to go in to actually map all of our solar system, and manage to do it quickly. After that, we can probably work on getting out of our solar system. Then travel many, many solar systems, until we encounter alien life.

Once we encounter these alien life forms, we get to know if they’re good to us, or if they’re hostile, or completely uninterested in forming any sort of bond with us.

I don’t think any of this will happen in our lifetimes. Or even our great, great, great, great, grand children’s lifetimes.

For the little people like you and me, it’s probably best to just continue fighting over imaginary slights like religion, and land, and hurt sentiments.

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Published originally in the newsletter that I send out monthly. If you wish to subscribe to it, here's a link.

There is no god

 

I’m not a Hindu.

 

I started off as one, when I was very little. My father told me stories of gods and monsters and I always found them fascinating. I always had fun listening to them and I was always excited by how clever the gods were compared to those dumb demons.

 

But as I grew up, I began questioning things about religion. It started off as random, but interesting questions, like…

 

Where does god stay?

 

What does he do all day?

 

Who gives him food?

 

Does he ever pick his nose?

 

Also, if there are different religions, where the hell are gods from other religions living (No, I never, for a second thought that my religion was the one true religion and followers of other religions were going to burn in hell for being faithful to their religion)?

 

But then the questions began to evolve.

 

If God is that powerful, why doesn’t he stop all the bad guys from doing bad things?

 

Wait, why did he make bad guys in the first place?

 

When did we decide he was a ‘he’ and not a she?

 

At which point I decided, you know what, these questions are too heavy for me, and I’d rather not answer them. These questions exist, and clearly, there are no real answers. So, it’s probably safe to assume that the question - whether or not god exists - should be a question we only deal with when we die, and we’re in the afterlife. We’d probably have a better understanding of things then.

 

I think these questions pissed my father off a fair bit, but that’s a story for another day.

 

Anyway, from this point on, it was pretty easy to get to -- God clearly is a made up entity because humans obviously have an innate need to believe that we have to come from somewhere. It’s not enough that we were born from (more or less) loving parents, we need some kind of magical entity sitting in the sky, birthing humans and overlooking the whole thing.

 

For the past, many years, this is what I’ve known. Not ‘believed’, known.

 

Humans have lived at least 2,80,000 years more than any of today’s gods have.

 

That number, 2,80,000 years, that’s just a random number I picked up. Humans have lived far longer than that.

 

Just to give you some perspective, Hinduism, apparently, has been around for less than 5000 years.

 

So, really, what logical reason do you have to believe in gods?

 

And because of all this information about the non-existence of god, my life has felt…

 

No different.

 

The existence or lack of the existence of god, literally, has no effect on how humans behave. I’m still the same, petty, stupid, self-centered human being I was when I still believed in god. There are even bigger assholes out there in the world. Life goes on.

 

And yet, the fact that arguments about god, on several occasions, has led to groups of people cutting, maiming, beheading people, and raping women, even. This is shocking. It reprehensible. It’s fucked up.

 

I know of many Hindus who are quite vocal about how they want Muslims to suffer. I don’t know many Muslims, but I’m certain a large portion of them want Hindus to suffer as well.

 

We’re living in a fucked up world, where imaginary entities in the sky are making people hurt each other.

 

I don’t know what to make of this.

 

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Originally published in Ashwin's Dispatch, a monthly newsletter sent out by me. You can subscribe to it here.

The Gods Are Dead

 

I don’t believe in magic.

 

I don't believe there are beings hiding in the dark, waiting to steal out eyes, or hearts, or your ribs. I don't believe in vampires, or werewolves, or witches. I don't believe in Golems, I don't believe in the Oni, and I don't believe in Imps.

 

I also don't believe in gods.

 

I did, when I was a child. I did, when I was in college. But sometime after that, I just stopped believing. I think it was because I disagreed with my father on so many things.

 

My father was an engineer. He worked for a very reputable oil company for years. So, for all intents and purposes, it sounded like he was a man of science.

 

But he believed in god.

 

I can't understand how a man of science could believe in a magical being, sitting in the skies, altering our lives, guiding it, and ensuring that it came to its logical conclusion.

 

My relationship with my father was not exactly ideal. One of the consequences of that was the fact that I stopped believing in god. It’s one of the better things that came out of that relationship.

 

But, enough about me and my father. Enough about how I came not to believe in god. All that was just to let you know how I came into atheism.

 

Atheism, for all intents and purposes, is the only logical place to be in.

 

Religion came into existence some 3,00,000 years ago.

 

But, what before that?

 

The people who existed before that time, who did they worship? Did they worship anyone at all?

 

Religion, like language, is an invention of man. It was created, by people, only a few years ago.

 

Heck, even before, when there were the dinosaurs roamed the earth, the Tyrannosaurus, the Velociraptors, the Megalosaurus, or the Megladon, what did the gods look like back then? Did they look like dinosaurs? Or did they look human even then?

 

Years from now, when humans are extinct, and another species lives on earth, a species that is completely different from us, different in behavior, different in thought, different in attitude, will the gods look like them? Or will they still look human?

 

It’s rather narcissistic to think that we are at the center of all of this, that the gods are doing all this for us. I’m sure this is what people felt like, back in the day, when they believed the earth was at the center of the universe. It’s stupid thinking, it helps no one, and it’s detrimental to our growth as a people.

 

Frankly, I’m not the sharpest pencil in the box. There are a million other people, much smarter and much more articulate than I am. And yet, for someone like me, it’s kind of obvious that god isn’t real. So, it’s hard for me to understand why others can’t understand this.

 

I don’t have friends. So, it’s hard for me to talk to people, to theists, about this. If I could, though, I don’t think there would be much of a conversation. Nothing that they could say (at least in my imagination) would be enough to convince me of this magical being sitting in the sky pupetteering each and every one of all of our actions.

 

Seems like a waste.

 

Anyway.

 

I’m rambling.

 

I’ve rambled for five hundred words now, and not really said anything concrete. I was just trying to write out a feeling I had. I’m hoping I write better about this, in the future.

 

I think I will.