Atheism: the new cool

writer: Vibhu Pandey

I have my roots in Banaras, India. In fact, I recently shifted to Bengaluru and this is the first time I am living away from Shiva. Beside many obvious things that distinguishes youths today, I noticed one thing only after coming to Bengaluru, sold by the name ‘I am an atheist’.

Being gregarious, I had the opportunity to interact with many of my coevals since I shifted here. Amongst all the materialistic possession which in the name of almighty many don’t boast verbally, one thing that is considered as intellectual possession is being atheist and some go all the way in this case, almighty is of little help here indeed!

Disclaimer : I respect individual’s choice.

I do admire the men-of-principles, but very few can stand like a rock in the matter-of-principles. This I think is the basis why religion exists in the first place, training the conscience for the corrupt. Following a religion inherently means the person’s conscience is adhered to follow some principles, which shall never break in the matter of situational crest(or trough).

Also, the importance of religion should not be forgotten for civilization of homo-sapiens, we became civilized only when we agreed to follow basic protocols. Such a large scale polarisation of thoughts would never have been possible without ‘some basic principles which every individual in the community believed in and hence agreed to follow’, basically- a religion.

Principles are based upon moral values, experiences and inspirations. These engraved attributes itself depend locally upon community, so a non believer in religion R who inherits religion R, talks in R, walks in R and more importantly, thinks in R. The person may never be a student of R school of thoughts but possesses values as alumnus of that school.

If you have enough will to live a life of principle without using some existing framework, you consider yourself above them, they are just a mere constraint, go on and the world will cherish you. Japanese constitute a great example, they are known for their code-of-ethics but a jaw dropping 57% consider themselves as religiously unaffiliated. Don’t forget the point of inherited values!

Standing by the principles with self fabricated conscience in every circumstance is demanding in its true sense. Atheism is demanding in its true sense. Don’t swank about being atheist. Don’t make atheism: the-new-cool, just don’t.