Reinventing atheism: My resolution for my country

We have celebrated the 150th anniversary of publication of Darwin's seminal work On the Origin of Species and his 200th birthday
The impact of the work still reinvents itself in various avatars to influence life – from science to religion, or the absence of it. Darwin’s work is all poised to become the greatest tool yet in the hands of non believers – championed on both sides of the Atlantic by the likes of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Daniel Denett. By providing a scientific explanation of how life came about and evolved into its current form, finally the need for faith in an all powerful God to have designed everything with tools beyond human comprehension, has begun its ending. The statistics reveal an ever increasing number of non believers, despite desperate attempts from all faiths, to hold on to their ground.
The faithful seem to have metamorphosed from their original stance of believing in a supernatural being. The God of yesterday was an omnipotent, ever vigilant, rewarding – punishing entity, in the sky. In the current “more scientifically acceptable” form the hero of yesterday has degenerated into an impartial intelligent designer, who apparently retired the moment his task ended. With very little agreement in place about the form of this divine being, between the various religions or even the earlier and more modern proponents of the same religion – the disillusionment in faith is hardly surprising.
Atheism is not an entirely new concept in India. The search for the evidence base behind traditional custom goes back a long way in time. The earliest steps towards making the shift away from conventional beliefs in the world of millions of Hindu gods was taken by Gautam Buddha. The brave middle path preached by Buddha, unfortunately lost a lot of its atheist central concepts - as it spread and mingled back into several forms of Hinduism in medieval Asia. Jainism was yet another step in the same direction, marking ancient shifts from what would have been rigid, unforgiving faith in the Indian subcontinent of their time.
In the more recent times the work of Gora (Goparaja Ramachandra Rao) in Andhra Pradesh is important. The Indian atheist centre established in 1940s was a relevant but often ignored organisation. Besides there has been freelance atheists, so to say............challenging the usual swindling business of India’s numerous Godmen. Their voice still has to go a long way to match up to the mass appeal of the evil they aspire to uproot.
In the current climate the concept of atheism is very relevant in India. Almost essential for the survival of its people. Religion, more now than ever before, is the opium of the Indian middle class. And worse still it is a weapon that the more privileged, influential and manipulative sections of the society utilise to manufacture dissent within the middle class masses of the country. It challenges the functioning of a democracy – as it takes away the evidence basis of decision making. The nature of being led by traditional belief and passions is regressive, yet the predominant tool of opinionating in India.
In the age of resource limitation – the vast amount of funds that goes into building religious structures, and organising religious programmes, is inexcusable. And we have not yet started on the visible damages that militant religious extremism can cause. But that is common knowledge and we shall not go there. The purpose is to speak of the less visible but definite harm from any form of faith whatsoever. Human life, is too precious to be even touched, let alone harmed or lost by something so completely devoid of evidence base as religion.
India needs active atheism. To direct our energy and wealth to where it is most needed. To stop inequity at all stages – from the most backward villages to the advanced cities. To stop misleading Godmen and politicians. To destroy the breeding ground for damaging extremism.To emerge as the nation that bears its allegiance to truth alone.