Is Religion Such a Ridiculous Idea?

You may count me as an atheist. Some reasons:

• I don't think all nature leads to any conclusive evidence of it having been created by a sentient/intelligent creator, or being maintained by one. I don't think that for a moral society, we need constructs like God.
• I don't consider religious rituals the only good or even the best way to bring camaraderie or cohesion among people.
• I don't consider spiritual experiences as necessarily religious.

But hello my atheist friend! Wait a moment before considering me one among you. Here's how I am not exactly like you:

• I don't think religion is a stupid construct, let alone being a vile one.
• I don't think science conclusively proves the absence of an intelligent creation.
• I don't consider religious people stupid in any way. I know extremely intelligent (and wise) people who are religious. And I don't count it as their failing.
• I don't reject the good deeds, qualities, thoughts of people just because they place it in a religious context.

Faith, like food habits, are not all cerebral in nature. They are handed down to us from our culture, and by the time we get the intellectual choice to question them, they would have played too critical a role in our making -- both in good ways as otherwise -- for us to have a total freedom to forsake them.
In fact, if one is a true sceptic, he will refrain from judging and ridiculing others, or passing blanket statements about someone's faith. When this restraint is broken, your atheism is no different than those religions you so eloquently ridicule.

On World Bicycle Day

I wish to join in to try and spread the message of clean commute using bicycles. On a broader canvas, I would request you all to give a serious thought to minimalistic living, to question the edification of consumerism as the driver of economy and prosperity.
Sharing two pictures.
 

The cartoon depicts how cynics would see vanity even in your simplicity. To many, showing off wealth, physical beauty and such is acceptable, but being proud of your simplicity is not. I have experienced something similar, and found that experience an immensely humbling one. On the one hand, it gave me the realisation that I shouldn't have too much expectation about the influence that exemplary behaviour can have in spreading a positive message. How far a good message can spread depends far more on how receptive people are to them. Good, positive thoughts and messages have to struggle against people's ego and judgements about you to spread. On the other, I have realised that good behaviour isn't vindicated only when its message is spread. It's a vindication by and of itself. So, it's correct to do the right thing. If it doesn't scale, it's most likely due to the negativity of the naysayers, not necessarily due to any inherent limitation of what you do.
 

Grocery. The second picture is something I am very proud of showing off. My neighbour Arun Awasthi took it for me when I returned after doing grocery one Sunday morning. And I feel, this picture shows what I consider bicycles really good for. Apart from all the other good things they are -- clean, cheap, healthy -- they are quick, light, manoeuvre-able machines and very useful!
At this point, I wish to tag several of my friends who have inspired me very much through their use of bicycles. They all are eminently successful people in their lives, capable of lavish exteriors like most, but had the courage and ingenuity to prefer simplicity and sustainability over vanity:

1. Pritesh Ananth Krishnan
2. Ananthakrishnan Gopal
3. Ganesh Shankar
4. Niranjan Roy
5. Sethu Madhavan
6. Ashish Verma
7. Satvik

#worldbicycleday #ResetWithCycling