EASY ATHEISM AND ATHEISM IN EARNEST
I do not know what these atheists are. They do not believe in the spiritual principles of perfection but have ample faith in the material principles of pleasure. Indeed, compromise with carnal compulsions of the flesh characterises these atheists ever. They dare not reject the pastimes of fleshly pleasure even though they dare declare the non-existence of God. Such verbal denial comes easier than the affirmation of God and Truth in terms of living the renunciate's life of purity and self-abnegation.
Is true atheism that simple or is it an acceptance of matter and a denial of the Spirit? It all depends on your definition of the term and your standpoint thereof. For the rank materialist of fundamental assumptions of self, surroundings and society atheism can be the rejection of gross materialism masked as spirituality as the Semitic religions preeminently project. Scientific atheists delve deeper but, finding no trace of the Spirit in their investigative research, often erroneously arrive at the sweeping irrational conclusion that God does not exist. Others, more guarded on their inferences, suspend judgement on this contentious issue and prefer agnosticism to a deliberate atheism.
Rationality cannot be the sovereign principle in human life for it covers but a meagre portion of the human personality. Emotions cover a greater ground and so do dreams and aspirations, hopes and longings where reason plays second fiddle and the heart assumes the role of the sovereign conductor. No wonder atheists take recourse to the fine arts and music besides science to appease their human appetite for sensory satisfaction. Religion also largely caters to such stimulation and satisfaction of the senses through its rituals, music, art and architecture centring the deity. So far there is no clash of interests between the sacred and the secular. But when it comes to imposition of doctrinaire principles on the flock that the Semitic religions indulge in, atheists run into a collision course with these irrational adherents of faith. And it is good that they should do so. After all, the Enlightenment of Europe owes much to this massive movement of reason as the directive principle of modern science and the technological civilisation thereof.
The question arises, though, whether these European movements of reason and doubt took cognisance of the Vedic Dharma and its supremely rational enunciation on matter and the Spirit as they pronounced their definitive verdict on the same from their Continental standpoint. The answer is clear that they had not in their self-sufficiency of assumed scientific supremacy over the so-called savage civilisations of the Orient. Here these original proponents of modern atheism will have to eat humble pie once the Sanatan Dharma makes its ground in real earnest all over the western world, penetrating the consciousness of the intelligentsia and the commoner alike.
Stalin had said that religion like conscience can neither be stilled no silenced. This, coming from the most vicious Communist tyrant the world has seen, must bear some significance on the fundamental cravings of the human spirit and their ultimate relation to Truth. Such utterances of historic personalities with stupendous exposure to human reaction to imposed atheism cannot be discarded as casual talk of the hour but must be given due credence in the discussion on this contentious issue of theism and atheism.
Atheism in Europe has historically been a necessity for the emergence of science from the shackles of doctrinaire Christianity. The Dark Ages, born of the doctrinaire impositions of the Church that banished reason and scepticism from Christendom, bore its enfant terrible in the rise of reason that locked horns with its progenitor. Hegelian dialectics had borne the antithesis to its earlier thesis and the synthesis has since then ever been resolving unto fruition. This has rationalised Europe and, by default, America. The culture in these continents is hugely different from the Oriental culture of a fine blending of science and spirituality, barring, of course, the theocratic Islamic states which have slid into irrational decadence consequent on subscription to their holy texts ahead of all scientific discoveries that have falsified much of their scriptural assumptions held sacrosanct as divine articulation.
The atheism we see all around is essentially of two kinds :
1. earnest atheism in the absence of material evidence of the Spirit (haha) ;
2. easy atheism by way of shallow thinking along the same lines, parroting their preceptor's pronouncements.
Written by Sugata Bose
I do not know what these atheists are. They do not believe in the spiritual principles of perfection but have ample faith in the material principles of pleasure. Indeed, compromise with carnal compulsions of the flesh characterises these atheists ever. They dare not reject the pastimes of fleshly pleasure even though they dare declare the non-existence of God. Such verbal denial comes easier than the affirmation of God and Truth in terms of living the renunciate's life of purity and self-abnegation.
Is true atheism that simple or is it an acceptance of matter and a denial of the Spirit? It all depends on your definition of the term and your standpoint thereof. For the rank materialist of fundamental assumptions of self, surroundings and society atheism can be the rejection of gross materialism masked as spirituality as the Semitic religions preeminently project. Scientific atheists delve deeper but, finding no trace of the Spirit in their investigative research, often erroneously arrive at the sweeping irrational conclusion that God does not exist. Others, more guarded on their inferences, suspend judgement on this contentious issue and prefer agnosticism to a deliberate atheism.
Rationality cannot be the sovereign principle in human life for it covers but a meagre portion of the human personality. Emotions cover a greater ground and so do dreams and aspirations, hopes and longings where reason plays second fiddle and the heart assumes the role of the sovereign conductor. No wonder atheists take recourse to the fine arts and music besides science to appease their human appetite for sensory satisfaction. Religion also largely caters to such stimulation and satisfaction of the senses through its rituals, music, art and architecture centring the deity. So far there is no clash of interests between the sacred and the secular. But when it comes to imposition of doctrinaire principles on the flock that the Semitic religions indulge in, atheists run into a collision course with these irrational adherents of faith. And it is good that they should do so. After all, the Enlightenment of Europe owes much to this massive movement of reason as the directive principle of modern science and the technological civilisation thereof.
The question arises, though, whether these European movements of reason and doubt took cognisance of the Vedic Dharma and its supremely rational enunciation on matter and the Spirit as they pronounced their definitive verdict on the same from their Continental standpoint. The answer is clear that they had not in their self-sufficiency of assumed scientific supremacy over the so-called savage civilisations of the Orient. Here these original proponents of modern atheism will have to eat humble pie once the Sanatan Dharma makes its ground in real earnest all over the western world, penetrating the consciousness of the intelligentsia and the commoner alike.
Stalin had said that religion like conscience can neither be stilled no silenced. This, coming from the most vicious Communist tyrant the world has seen, must bear some significance on the fundamental cravings of the human spirit and their ultimate relation to Truth. Such utterances of historic personalities with stupendous exposure to human reaction to imposed atheism cannot be discarded as casual talk of the hour but must be given due credence in the discussion on this contentious issue of theism and atheism.
Atheism in Europe has historically been a necessity for the emergence of science from the shackles of doctrinaire Christianity. The Dark Ages, born of the doctrinaire impositions of the Church that banished reason and scepticism from Christendom, bore its enfant terrible in the rise of reason that locked horns with its progenitor. Hegelian dialectics had borne the antithesis to its earlier thesis and the synthesis has since then ever been resolving unto fruition. This has rationalised Europe and, by default, America. The culture in these continents is hugely different from the Oriental culture of a fine blending of science and spirituality, barring, of course, the theocratic Islamic states which have slid into irrational decadence consequent on subscription to their holy texts ahead of all scientific discoveries that have falsified much of their scriptural assumptions held sacrosanct as divine articulation.
The atheism we see all around is essentially of two kinds :
1. earnest atheism in the absence of material evidence of the Spirit (haha) ;
2. easy atheism by way of shallow thinking along the same lines, parroting their preceptor's pronouncements.
Written by Sugata Bose
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