Am I an Atheist?

“Are you an Atheist?” was the question posed to me by my sister this Sunday afternoon, which set my mind pondering on myself and my religious inclination (or the lack of it).

Those who know me for a fair amount of time will tell you that, I Never perform my prayers, go to mosque only twice a year, never talk or get involved in any religious discussion, never read the holy book etc. Just to summarize, I do not do anything that is related with religion.

So then, that answers it right. Doesn’t it? No is my answer - much to the disappointment of all those pure religious people who believe doing above actions only means “believing in God” and the absence of the same equates to Atheism.

Pardon my writing skills, I won’t be able to phrase out my inner thoughts with respect to religion, but I will walk you through different stages of my life and try to create an image that will best reflect my views on religion.

I have done whole of my schooling in a Muslim community school, where prayers were compulsory, RI (Religious instructions) subject was given high priority and other religious functions were conducted regularly. And you won’t believe me, I was almost always the topper in RI, sat in the first row for prayers, and an active participant in other religious functions.

But as years went by learning and knowing more of the religion, few self realization questions arose in my mind, such as “Why should we pray?”, ”Why should we read the holy book” etc. Firstly, “The book” is in a language that we don’t understand, yet most of the people keep reading it over and over, again and again, like a competition on who reads it most number of times –but all without understanding anything!!!.

Now, some will argue that Translated versions of “The Book” are available. Ok, so one reads the translation once, twice, thrice and understands it fully. Then why read it over and over again?
Forget “The book” – What about prayers? Again I have the same reason, that first of all we don’t understand the meaning of what we are praying, but go on doing that numerous times a day. And by the way, we people laugh when we see the “brutes” worshipping sun etc by bowing down, dancing etc in movies. In what way are our prayers different from their rituals?

Ok, so here comes a strong statement in support of religion and its rituals. “God created EVERYTHING, and so we show him our gratitude of the same”. Hmm that’s a good reason. Let’s say you did some invention and then that invention is soo gratified by you, that it keeps on telling you that “You are the greatest, you are most generous, you are most intelligent” etc all day. And recites these 100’s of times daily, and reads your autobiography daily and bows down at your feet 50 times a day and so on, rather than doing the job that it was invented for. And at the end of the day ask you to do their job. And imagine you created millions of such inventions, and they all do the same. What would be your say then?

As I used to pray and also notice others do their prayers, I realized that we (Including myself) were not praying with the feelings of gratitude and praising and thanking God, but were just performing some warm-up kind of exercises as a formality and ritual. I felt bad about this, and decided I won’t pray for formality sake and parental and community pressures.

During the same period, I also came across a proverb which read out “a helping hand is better than praying lips”, and this became my personal motto. Don’t follow religious meaningless (atleast for me) formalities, but “Be Good and Do Good”.

Then during the college days, I got friends of different communities and I used to take interest in their religious thinking and there was a period when I used to go to Churches and Temples more than Mosque in a year. But again, all through this, I kept realizing that most of us were doing these stuffs as a formality. But one thing common among all religions is the underlying fact that they urge you to be good and do good deeds. This strengthened my earlier motto, but I also had lost trust and hope on God and believed in self-help and hardwork alone.

It was during the third year after joining work, that I realized the power of God. I noticed Gods support and direction in all that I did and achieved. I used to get magical answers, directions, personal and financial growth etc. I developed a close bonding with God within my heart. I believed that whatever happens is done by God for some good which we as humans may not realize immediately. Whenever something good happened I always thanked God, multiple times, and whenever I needed help or felt down and out, I seeked out to the Almighty for help.

I still, truly and wholeheartedly believe in God and thank him and reach out to him for everything, but all this, within the heart. I do not perform prayers nor do I read the holy book. I go to mosque only twice a year. But that doesn’t make me an Atheist. It’s all in the heart. Whether others know about it or not? Whether I perform some religious rituals or not? Etc does not matter because God knows it all.

So to conclude, “Am I an Atheist?”, the Answer is No. I believe in God, but at the same time I believe in doing all that we can ourselves and lay our trust in “Him” for the results. Sometimes the result may be in our favor and sometimes not. But for the long run, Gods knows what is best for each and every one of us and we need to accept the same and thank him for everything – be it within heart or in public.

Disclaimer:
All views expressed in this blog are solely my own views & opinions and do not in any way intend to represent anything good or bad about any religion nor any individual.
Note: Wherever I have mentioned “We”, it’s inclusive of “Me” also.