The neighbourhood I grew up in never required me to think about atheism. Indeed I never knew about existence of such dis-belief untill I came to college. I always thought that everybody believes in the God irrespective of the means they chose to achieve Him. But as I matured as scintific rational individual my opinion and definition of theism were modified. I not only happened to come across numerous atheists but I also participated in unending debates over this with them. I found that most of atheists are well-educated well-to-do intellectuals who have plenty of scietific and rational reasons to be an atheist. This post is not an attempt to pursuade - which would be futile even if it were to - or diatribe against atheists but explantion of why I continue to be theist even after being an logical thinker.
Many atheists believe that theism is same as being religious. This is downright incorrect as belief in the God does not require you being the religious. This simply rules out any rituals, superstitions or traditions of any religion that you might disagree with. I will spare religions like Islam where following prescribed practices is mandatory to belief in the God.
If you noticed, then you would have realised that I did not use phrase "belief in existence of God" since definition of existence is simply controversial in this context. One critical point that many atheists miss is that they argue about "existence" of God based on postulates of modern science and logic. Being myself an engineer I am not averse to these propositions but it must be understood that there may exist other branches of philosophy - as the science is one of them - where these laws do not hold and without any knowledge of them we cannot define existence of such entities in scientific manner. God may "exist" without being proven to exist with modern science. On an hypothetical note, what if we are all part of grand experimental setup by some God? Will we ever know? May be not, since "knowing" based on observation, interpretation, knowledge, reasoning may not be what you percieve it to be. In one of the science fiction book, Issac Asimov postulates that universe is as much test setup for some other entity(ies) as bacterial cultures are for us. Do we know that bacteria themselves might be forming scientific theories about their existence and changes in their environment (planned by human scientists)? This is may sound too far fetched but is there a way to disprove it? We may never know. And I for one, don't even care.
One of the famous argument against omnipotent God is weather He (or She) can create a stone so heavy that He cannot lift. I would say, why not? You may consider me irrational or point out inconsitency in the act as implied by the statement. But hey, who says that God has to be cosistent as your science defines it?
Given that our definition of modern science are inadequate and perhaps inapplicable to Him, how do we go about dealing with this issue? You cannot prove or disprove Him. Thus you end up being agnostic. But then as someone wisely said, an agnostic is simply an atheist who doesn't has courage to accept so. I tend to agree.
Given this, there are aplenty of reasons in believing in Him.
Believing in God makes you explicitly aware of your acts which would please Him and which would not. You subconscioucly try to follow these and live a good life. You can be good of course, and have your own set of rights or wrongs, but then you are knowingly leaving a margin for wrong since, first - rights-wrongs are relative and subjective terms when you define them yourself, and second - you don't belive that you are answerable to anybody which means that you may change positions. Of course, many people commit most heinous of acts in name of God, but that is wrong interpretation by them and is out of scope of this discussion.
Believing in God gives your life hope, aspirations and faith which are necessary for a person throughout his life. It also gives you little margin for making errors since you are not exactly and sole maker of your life. You may consider this as 'blaming failures on destiny' but done with reasonable faith and not always, I percieve this to be okay as it lets you live happily instead of in constant worry. As a well-to-do professional you may not believe in destiny but for millions of poor people in India who sleep empty stomach everyday with only one faith, it is only thing they can relate to.
Believing in God also gives you company in despair and adversities. It also makes you humble in your successes since you are not lone doer of everything. While atheist has to express ignorance on occurance of scientifically-yet-unexplained events and observations, a theist has opportunity to depend on the divine explanation. It has a very subtle influence on mental feelings of human which faith supports.
Why then we sell ourselves to dry reasoning, specially if denying that would do more good or atleast no harm than accepting it, and deprieve ourselves from spiritual bliss that one encounters in faith. Remember that your don't have to be religious or perform any rituals to be theist. After all, not believing in God is itself a belief of one kind. Just for this, I prefer to be scientifically irrational for my own good, and for the good of the mankind. Which I think, is more rational than rationally adamant stand of being worldly irrational of an atheist.
I refuse to prove that I exist since demand of proof implies lack of belief and without belief I am nothing.
- God
For me as theist, reasoning starts with existence of God. How can I then question the postulate that is the beginning and end of all other postulates? On what independent frame I stand and in what words I chose to question the very entity that is reason of existence of those instruments in first place?
Browse these interesting links too ...
God, Arguments for God, Arguments against God
Update (April 14):
What is atheist's equivalent to praying to God? You may argue, there needn't be any. But consider this. You are about to take most important examination of your life - or so you think - and you work extremely hard. A theist would, parallelly pray to Almighty for success. This does not mean that theist will rely on God to clear his exam for him. He understands that God helps those who help themselves. He will work as hard as he can. But then, there is alway uncertainity, and genuine apprehension about "what if" factors. A theist would usually overcome those by praying to God. I am not able to figure out what would atheist do? He will work as hard as he can, of course, but is there nothing else? Okay, consider that exam has been taken, and one is loosing sleeps over results. There is nothing you can do now. A believer would still pray to God. What would non-believer do? I can't think of anything, but guess that he would fridget, get itchy, worry etc. How does a atheist counter eternal "what if" fear? For this reason itself, to keep your sanity under stress, I think belief in God helps. After all, even if you are 100% confident about results, there is still legitimate uncertainity untill you are confirmed.
Update (16 September, 2009)
http://www.jesusandmo.net/2009/09/15/logos/
Browse these interesting links too ...
God, Arguments for God, Arguments against God
Update (April 14):
What is atheist's equivalent to praying to God? You may argue, there needn't be any. But consider this. You are about to take most important examination of your life - or so you think - and you work extremely hard. A theist would, parallelly pray to Almighty for success. This does not mean that theist will rely on God to clear his exam for him. He understands that God helps those who help themselves. He will work as hard as he can. But then, there is alway uncertainity, and genuine apprehension about "what if" factors. A theist would usually overcome those by praying to God. I am not able to figure out what would atheist do? He will work as hard as he can, of course, but is there nothing else? Okay, consider that exam has been taken, and one is loosing sleeps over results. There is nothing you can do now. A believer would still pray to God. What would non-believer do? I can't think of anything, but guess that he would fridget, get itchy, worry etc. How does a atheist counter eternal "what if" fear? For this reason itself, to keep your sanity under stress, I think belief in God helps. After all, even if you are 100% confident about results, there is still legitimate uncertainity untill you are confirmed.
Update (16 September, 2009)
http://www.jesusandmo.net/2009/09/15/logos/