Daily Times

Conflict is a never-ending drive, which has been an evident pivot of debates across different religions over history. From Stone Age till now, clashes among between the believers in God and believers in none have been affecting behaviours of thousands of human beings. Research studies revealed that most of the time, these religious conflicts drowned lives of a huge number of human beings; damaged and polluted environment for other living species and broke the systemic cycle of abiotic components in our universe. The conflict over the existence of God between the believers and non-believers or believers of parallel systems on one hand, while the intraconflicts among the believers depict long histories of beautiful professing to prove selves as right. This has repeatedly damaged the rhythm of the universe. However, looking in-depth, the scenarios of all differences over the existence of supernatural power or systems take us to the notion of economic drives and control over resources. But the factors that have been pushing the followers of these different religious ideologies, have emotional and psychosocial grounds, which cannot be neglected at once.

From Prophet Adam to Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), the lines of true Godhood were directed to follow the role of nature being part of it and having the agency to affect it. As the societies evolved, the channels of knowledge and thrives to get a grip upon resources and even the thrill of imposing one’s will to force the believers exceeding religion (transfer of prophethood obligation to the next) opted to nullify the principles of precedent or kept the followers of the preceding religion under strict censorship by imposing taxes on them. In case of denial, they had been put in severe punishment of exile or enslaved to serve the majesties, well-to-do cults of that time. Anyway, these religious ideologies had gone through the irony pages of the soaring history of fights and wars. There is no doubt that all religious testimonials urged to keep order and staged to go with justice in day-to-day affairs. But the matter of infinity of human species and leaving the series of one generation to next had left the problem of sustenance of believers of one religion to the next, where the problem of incompact ideas paved the way for conflicts over a belief system.

As a result, wars were to be fought, the race for territorial control was written to occur, the religious idea of one believing group would be disgraced and so on, other injustices were definitely to happen. After conceiving such Pascals and deceiving hope in a religion, intrareligion compatibility forced strata from different religions to become non-believers in God. Centuries passed to define these non-believers. Who are they? Why are they? How are they?

Rationality, arguments and scientific endorsements are the pillar of atheism

The term “Atheist” suited to define these non-believers as one of the admitted classes, who do not believe in anyone rather the natural system. Rationality, arguments and scientific endorsements are the pillar of atheism. They believe in total submission to the natural process instead of Muslims, Christians and Jews and other religions where God is the centre of all good happenings and mishappenings. The atheists are also different than Hindus and Buddhists. It is pretty impressive that many atheists have contributed valued roles in the areas of scientific inventions, academia and arts. But on the other hand, atheism has created several problems in damaging the normative order of human societies. For example, calculations regarding the magnitude of an expected earthquake would be possible, but the possible damage cannot be calculated using advanced technologies. Another example of mental level can justify the falsehood of atheism, that naturally we human beings are born with the same skulls and minds, while we think differently and work differently. If the mind is linked with the nature of a geographical location, why are minds of different people living in the same geographical horizon thinking differently? How can it go against the law of nature? These are the social factors, which indulge us in different thinkable viewpoints. Being sensible and carrying with psychological emotions, we would have to rely on supernatural power, after getting deceived by scientific revelation. The matter does not end here that atheism should be abolished or living with religion should be considered a crime. But the ultimate answers to day-to-day questions in humans mind need to be addressed by both the preachers of religions as well as the supporters of natural self-reliance process, “atheism.” Because half-filled and half-empty, both glasses are the same and still give rise to a thousand questions.

The writer is an Islamabad-based journalist