Secularism, theism, atheism

Vineet George sent a sudden question, "Why do you think an atheist cannot be truly secular ?" I would welcome other views. This is only mine.

I think its a question of 'tolerence and condesension' versus 'respect'. An atheist 'usually' feels religion is a superstition, and the religious are superstitious. And he has an equal sense of superciliousness towards all religions.

A truly religious person, respects divinity - in his religion and in others.
and there can be greater dialogue and respect and beauty in the engagement.

There are pervertions in every religion - as in every political system, every institution, and those are a seperate fact which need to be addressed time and again. And they are - by Kabirs, and Meeras and Basavas.

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Bibek Anand, Mukesh Raman and 4 others

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Bibek Anand Perverts don't stay as religious ones but they are communal !

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Aparna Krishnan Anyway this is the soul of religion.
"Ashtaadasha Puraanaanaam Saaram Vyaasena Keertitham
Paropakaaraha Punyaaya Paapaaya Parapeedanam."
Through all the eighteen Puraanaas, Sri Vedavyasa Maharshi has instructed mainly two gospels: Serving and doing good to others is "Punya" (Meritorious) and being a source of trouble and grief to others is "Paapa"(Sin).

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Aparna Krishnan And as Gandhi said, "God is the concsience of the atheist". The differences are actually less and less as one approaches the heart of the matter.

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Aparna Krishnan nowadays i am tending to the view that most arguments are non-arguments ! its just that people mean different things when they use the same words. when it comes to the essence of the matter - where the heart lies - there may not be any real difference.

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Aparna Krishnan Also in a larger context, devotees of 'modern science' look at religion as a 'superstition' as it cannot be 'scientifically proved'. There is a sense of superiority here. Similarly I suspect 'many atheists' could beiieve could beleive that their atheism is a more intelligent choice than religion.

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Aparna Krishnan A truly religious person (forget the perversions for now - that needs to be handled) will bow to the sense of divine in all religions.

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Aparna Krishnan When Jesus said 'I am the Way', a friend suggested that what he meant was 'Love is the Way' or 'Sacrifice is the Way'. Idiots went around on conversion sprees, thinking they were saving souls.

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Aparna Krishnan No one can save the world from idiots !!

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Aparna Krishnan Corrections are needed and usually the insider has the best understanding of the community and relationship with it for enduring changes.

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Aparna Krishnan a true hindu will accept the divinity of all religions, and will not feel 'superior' to a follower of another religion. an atheist might feel superior to the 'religious'. there is always a problem there - in that. not so much as a clash of theories, which i do not care about, actually. but because they also look down on the simple reigiousness of the village people, who in the name of religion practice a far superior ethic of generosity than i have seen elsewhere. That to me is not acceptable at all.

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Swarna Latha (hindu, hindutva, like India are all conferred names with imprecise deinitions. so i would reword the above as "a true sanAtana dharmi will....")

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Swarna Latha 1. To me an Atheist is actually to be venerated by other lesser mortals, because the term implies that they have transcended the kind of 'religious needs' of theists. 2. i wish to know if (hindu) atheists agree with such a statement (surely they must!) - "Hindu atheists accept Hinduism more as a "way of life" than a religion. They are unlike other Hindus in their religious outlook, but they share the same cultural and moral values "Manage

Swarna Latha Yes, Vineet, an atheist can be a true sanAtana dharmi!

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Aparna Krishnan i'm no sure if an atheist can be part of hinduisim. i think even gita and the upanishads have built into them the sense of the Supreme Principle, to which we surrender. 'Karmanyevaadhi ... ' also for completeness (I think) needs surrender. As Gandhi says somewhere also - in Th Gita, Bhakthi is given primacy over Karma so that knowlege does not run roit. Prasad Krishnan ?

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Aparna Krishnan (But this is a purely technical point. Gandhi had expanded God to 'God is the concsience of the atheist' ... and these broader definitions are most relevent today.)

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Aparna Krishnan Swarna Latha, where are these quotes from ?

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Swarna Latha ^
Explore Hinduism
By Bansi Pandit

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Swarna Latha Aparna, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism_in_HinduismManage

Atheism in Hinduism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Atheism (Sanskrit: निरीश्वरवाद, nir-īśvara-vāda, lit.…

EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

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Naveen Manikandan Periasamy "Can a atheist be a Sanathana Dharmi?" - It is a very complicated question to answer. I can say for sure that the Charvaka school of Philosophy is fake, but certain ideas in eastern philosophy(Buddhism for example) has blurred the lines between altruistic-atheism and theism. Theism cannot be brushed aside as irrational. If a debate were to happen about the intricacies of creation/big-bang there will be equally persuasive arguments from both sides and it will can drag on forever. If atheism embodies tolerance, altruism, rejection of hedonism, animal welfare, common morality and truthfulness then it is something very close to Sanathana Dharma.

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Aparna Krishnan yes, and it actually does not matter so much ...

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Naveen Manikandan Periasamy Aparna Krishnan From a societal level it may not, but from a personal level it might.

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Aparna Krishnan the concern today is societal. but then unless one is at a certian inner state personally, one;s societal engagement can stay compromised. the sthithapragnya state is necessary.

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Naveen Manikandan Periasamy Swarna Latha Wikipedia is a poor source of learning about Hinduism and it's different school of thoughts.

At best it can be a good sources of finding the names of different schools of thought and their stalwarts.

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Naveen Manikandan Periasamy I know many atheists - some of them colleagues, who turned Vegan purely out of their rationality based ethics - a simple truth that blocked by dogmatic theistic minds who celebrate and justify animal cruelty as a religious/traditional practice. Usuallythese are the atheists who set exacting standards for rational argument and logic. The rest are just Marxists, hedonists and nihilists passing off as rationality loving atheists. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMa-0Fjn2sUManage

Sam Harris - The Problem with Atheism

This is Sam Harris' talk from the AAI 07 conference in Washington, DC. Introduction by Julia Sweeney.

YOUTUBE.COM

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Aparna Krishnan compartmentalising and labelling does not help. some of the very atheists you are mentioning here might also submit to the marxian analysis. yes, i have personally knowm atheists who have been very very high in their moral paradigm, and who have set a standard for life.

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Aparna Krishnan in practice i think the practical difference is narrow.

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Naveen Manikandan Periasamy Aparna Krishnan Marxism to a certain extent, yes, but not the other two mentioned above. Many Marxist/Communist sympathizers see marxism/communism as a solution to a depraved and exploited society. This is because they tend to ignore or are ignorant about the origins of marxism and the full purview of the philosophy and it's underpinnings.

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Prasad Krishnan I haven't gone through all comments above. Quick comments : Materialism (not the economic variety, but the idea that there is nothing here except matter) is incompatible with any Dharma or religion which holds that the individual is something other than the body. The central idea of all human endeavour, morality and moral behaviour is that the individual is more than the body. Thus pure materialism is incompatible with morality. Since atheism (in general, AFAIK) embraces materialism, it too is incompatible (philosophically speaking) with morality (even though atheists disagree with this). In particular atheism is incompatible with Hinduism. But this is not the typical idea out there because only miniscule number of people have the time or interest in dwelling into both Hinduism and atheism/materialism philosophically.

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Shashi Enarth Dear Aparna, I do believe that religion is much to do with superstition (if not everything to do with it) and yet I would not want to be called supercilious or condescending ... just as much as you dont like being called superstitious. But why should we forfeit the right to make a point about secularism even if appears dichotomous (talking about every religion being given the same space when we believe no religion should be perpetuated the way it is. Dont have to dig deep for evidence -- we have the conversion filth raked up all over again).

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Aparna Krishnan shashi, i think my position is not stated clearly. for one thing, here i speak for and of my village people (my own religious beleifs could be different, and are irrelevent.)

i have seen that village people are fundamentally and deeply religious in a very simple way. and in that religiousness, which includes the mahabharata and sri krishna, and a 1000 stories to anchor their ethical framework on, rests a intricate and integrated format they call dharmam. which they live by. their dharmam tells them to share their last meal - and gives them the strength to. therefore i revere their dharmam which gives them their strength. i would never have the strength to share my last meal. and i think that strength comes from their code called 'dharmam'.

i think we need to understand that religiosity, which is the soul of all religiosity maybe. and which is the soul of india.

my own religious or godless state is immaterial. just as i am utterly immaterial. we need to understand the common people of india, who are the salt of the country, and only to share those details i write.

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Aparna Krishnan the perversions in religion are simply perversions - needing correcting !

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Kannan Thandapani Being an atheist or religious has nothing to do with morality or secularism or animal welfare or human welfare. It seems to be a typical correlation-causation mix-up.
And in saying, Hinduism doesn't have a tradition of atheism, you are doing a disservice to Hinduism.

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Kannan Thandapani Aparna - These Siddha songs are not exactly atheistic, but challenge many of our beliefs and superstition, And these are also part of our tradition. I hope you'll somehow read them...tough to translate

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Kannan Thandapani

26 November 2011

என்னைக் கவர்ந்த சில சிவவாக்கியர் (சித்தர்) பாடல்கள்

ஓடிஓடி ஓடிஓடி உட்கலந்த சோதியை

நாடி நாடி நாடிநாடி நாட்களும் கழிந்துபோய்

வாடி வாடி வாடிவாடி மாண்டுபோன மாந்தர்கள்

கோடிகோடி கோடிகோடி எண்ணிறந்த கோடியே.

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Naveen Manikandan Periasamy "being an atheist or religious has nothing to do with morality or secularism or animal welfare or human welfare." - if it refers to my comment, that is not what I have suggested. It was addressed to a question on whether/when an atheist can be called a Sanathana Dharmi. I may have misunderstood the meaning of Sivavakkiyar's reference to Idol worship, but the way I interpret it it doesn't look like a blanket condemnation of idol worship as a superstition- he could be referring to retrograde forms of idol worship. How are we to understand the intentions behind Siddhars like Bohar who consecrated the Murugan idol in Pazhani and the numerous other Siddhars who consecrated Shivalingas in Kalahasti ? Are they all products of superstitious minds or have we retrofitted history to suit our religious beliefs ?

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Kannan Thandapani My comment was for the overall thread and not only for any specific comment.

Other Siddhas may have had entirely different views - was there ever a uniform/unidimensional Siddha tradition? Sivavakkiar himself may have contradicted himself in other poems. We can interpret to our preference but these poems have a high irreverence (if not outright dismissiveness) for vedas, mantras, idols and caste. I am just presenting this set of poems as a sample to say that our tradition has many streams, including questioning of other streams. Challenging tradition is also inherent in our tradition. It is not a bad thing, is it? [Not that we need the backing of tradition to challenge it, wherever it is necessary.]

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Naveen Manikandan Periasamy Yes, there were no uniform views among the Siddha/Rishi traditions, but fundamentals were the same. What may appear as contradictions in his poetry may be evolution and refinement of thought process over time. Was he only a poet when he composed the above quoted or was he a Siddha? there is a big difference between the two. There have also been many fabricated and discredited works of Tamil literature which criticize/malign the Vedas - one example is Ezourvedam composed by Jesuit Priest Roberto de Nobili and was later passed off as an original ancient Tamil text. Siddhas never preached any extreme forms of religion or irreligion - including condemnation of idols, vedas and mantras. Caste though is a different matter. Questioning traditions has always been a part of our tradition and that is what Tarka Shastra and Purvapaksha is all about. There are accepted methods and procedures to question and criticize traditions, friction happens only when people like UR Ananthamurthy urinate on idols and EVR periyars put chappal garlands on Pillayar idols.

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Aparna Krishnan I think UR's was a childhood episode, and subsequently his work and ooutlook became more sensitive. such negatives, if the person has outgrown them, are best buried.

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Belu Bhargav George · 3 mutual friends

Even as s/he thinks religion is to superstition, an atheist can be respectful to others faith and belief. while a “truly religious” person can turn out to be tolerant and supercilious towards others faith/belief. I think secularism is much to do with the temperament of a person and thus each individual, irrespective of whether atheist or religious need to pass the test of secularism on the yardstick of ‘temper ‘. Invariably the’ temper’ gets conditioned and has a potential to be swayed .But in testing times what comes into play is the quintessential temperament of a person which gives her /him the makeup he vouches to have. An atheist generally comes with cleaner slate and thus better appreciation of divine creation with a fine dialogue and beauty in engagement

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Secularism, theism, atheism

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