Look at the sky!

Look at the sky!
Look at the sky!

Viral Pathak

“I am an atheist until the plane begins to fall”! This is a very famous saying probably by an agnostic who was in search of atheism! In the book ‘Einstein’ by Walter Isaacson (a wonderful biographer – if you haven’t read his books then I would strongly recommend to read one) he said that even though Albert was brought up in a very liberal Jewish family yet Albert was attracted to religion. He created his own hymns to please God which he used to proudly sing! But Albert Einstein was also a highly misquoted person – all religious people try to paint him as religious man, which he wasn’t. (FYI: Einstein didn’t fail in Maths or Sciences; He was a brilliant student) Albert subsequently became irreligious. He enjoyed in unravelling the facts of nature.

Jews are famous worldwide for their trading skills. And a trader always weighs his risks! Einstein used to joke that his agnostic uncle used to visit a synagogue as you never know! Why take the risk?!

Religion has become a political tool and there is no need to get engrossed by it. Go out and look at the beautiful sky. I feel that we humans are religious probably because we never tend to look up at the beautiful sky in bewilderment and try to understand the pattern. In a way we can say that we are lazy so instead of questioning the phenomenon we preferred to create a “God” or perhaps “Gods” and assumed that everything is taken care by him/ her/ it. Perhaps this is the easiest thing to do instead of questioning the phenomenon.

The greatest enemy of religion is science and reasoning. After all in religion all you are asked is to follow a pattern without being able to question its very existence. And my dear friend, religious fanatics se dar nahi lagta lakin science ka naam leke religious texts ko justify karne wale se bahut dar lagta hai! (Not afraid of religious fanatics but terrified by authors who try to justify Religion on the basis of Science)! These people quote individuals instead of supplementing it with verifiable proof.

We have a tendency to blindly “endorse” things – Saurav Dada used to enter the cricket field by first putting his left leg out, so should I do the same to win the gully cricket match? I mean learn from dada his prowess in off-side shots not how he enters! I enjoy A R Rahman’s music irrespective of who he worships or how he worships; I enjoy watching Aamir Khan irrespective of why he divorced his first wife! I mean his acting skills have nothing to do with his personal life! SRK may be happily married and I respect that but that doesn’t mean I have to endorse his ‘famous story line, a cult in Indian film making the great Chennai Express’!

But sadly we have this “endorsement” attitude that makes us ape stars. Bhai Sachin wahan ja ke pooja kiya (Sachin Tendulkar prays at a certain temple) so I should do it there too! Just look at the sky, nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, even if your God lives in Sun it will take at least 8 minutes to send his signals! After all I believe that you have faith in basic science. The beautiful twinkling of stars that you can see now is millions of light years away from us! And even if you believe that your God is up in our atmosphere then my dear friend International Space Station is yet to encounter one! Yet you may argue that your God is probably in some other planet within our solar system then bro NASA’s Voyager mission is again yet to find one! And if he is living in a nearby galaxy then you my dear friend, you are doomed, even if you pray his signals to help you will probably reach here in millions of years! Moving back to Einstein’s agnostic joke, my dear friend in any case your prayer may reach several minutes to millions of years to reach him/ her/ it, so why waste time?!

Richard Dawkins in his book “The God Delusion” has presented a situation of World War II when soldiers reached a virgin island they provided the tribals with food and clothes. These tribals treated the white soldiers as God! They thought that these white people are God and when they pray God used to do the shipment! Probably we too are the same tribal people with a different definition of God.

Leonard Susskind, Brian Greene, Lawrence Strauss, Michio Kaku, late Richard Feynman are some of the people who are making physics available for common people like us. There are different theories on universe from Standard Model to String theory. Each looks more promising than the other. There may be many universes or multiverses forget about galaxies and imagine the scale on which scientists are thinking! Or we may be living in a holographic image! Or may be perhaps even inside a blackhole!

And yeah, be an atheist even when the plane begins to fall!

Views are personal.

Viral Pathak
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1 COMMENT

  1. “In a way we can say that we are lazy so instead of questioning the phenomenon we preferred to create a “God” or perhaps “Gods” and assumed that everything is taken care by him/ her/ it. Perhaps this is the easiest thing to do instead of questioning the phenomenon.” The core meaning of this statement is very popular for me when i discuss on sustainable e
    development and climate change issue generally with past generation middle class people. The main problem with followers of religion is that they leave every problem’s solution on god. They never want to utilize their rational mind and that’s why i can generalize that most of the revolutionary minds are atheist like Bhagat Singh.( But i consider buddhism and hinduism a philosophy and not religion).

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