I have a number of brown friends who are staunch, one might even say devout, atheists but you’d never know it because they are very private about their beliefs. I find this a bit perplexing because they are quite outspoken on most other personal and political matters, but when it comes to matters of religion and God, these desi atheists (==> daytheists) are still in the closet because of the social costs involved in exposing themselves.
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Stamp celebrating the founder of India’s Atheist Center |
Very Favorable: 7%
Mostly Favorable: 27%
Mostly Unfavorable: 19%
Very Unfavorable: 33% [Link]
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That’s even more negative than American opinions about Muslims, both amongst born-again Christians and amongst non-Chiristians! In fact, more Americans would be willing to vote for a gay candidate than an atheist:
Atheists “are seen as a threat to the American way of life by a large portion of the American public,” … In a recent NEWSWEEK Poll, Americans said they believed in God by a margin of 92 to 6 … and only 37 percent said they’d be willing to vote for an atheist for president. (That’s down from 49 percent in a 1999 Gallup poll–which also found that more Americans would vote for a homosexual than an atheist.)… [Link]
Surprisingly, tolerance for atheism might be higher on the desi side. While I don’t have comparable poll numbers, atheism has a long history within India as a philosophical movement, going back to 600 BC:
Carvaka, an atheistic school of Indian philosophy, traces its origins to 600 BCE. It was a hedonistic school of thought, advocating that there is no afterlife. Carvaka philosophy appears to have died out some time after 1400 CE. [Link][Amartya Sen says:] “Sanskrit had a larger atheistic literature than exists in any other classical language. Even within the Hindu tradition, there are many people who were atheist.” [Link]
In fact, some prominent Hindutva figures are actually atheists:
Well-known personality, Veer Savarkar, who was president of Hindu Mahasabha, was an atheist. He is credited for developing a Hindu nationalist political ideology he termed as Hindutva (Hinduness).
Bal Thackeray, the founder and president of the Shiv Sena, has publicly proclaimed himself an atheist after the death of his wife.[Link]
There’s a long tradition of atheism on the Indian left as well:
The Atheist Center was founded in 1940 by G. Ramachandra Rao, a university professor who adopted the name Gora for himself and tried to win Gandhi over to atheism… the keynote of Gora’s prose is a majestic confidence that the death of god leads directly to moral and political solutions: “The problem before atheists is to find out a method by which economic equality is achieved while preserving the freedom of the individual. That is, taking democracy and socialism together.” [Link]
Atheist Centre, right from its inception, gave highest priority to fighting the evil practices of untouchability and caste distinctions. In the teeth of severe opposition, Atheist Centre took up the programmes of inter-dining and intercaste marriages to fight the heinous custom of untouchability. Gora made it a point to stay only in an untouchable locality when he was invited to address a meeting at any village. An inter-dining programme was also organised in the village on the occasion. It was a deliberate attempt to usher in social change in a traditional society. [Link]
And even politicians are sometimes willing to take a stand as proud secularists:
… no less than thirteen Cabinet ministers [out of a total of twenty-nine] chose to make their pledges using the secular phrase “solemnly affirm”. as opposed to the usual for of “in the name of god”. [Link]
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p>Given all of this, I have some questions: Is it actually easier to be an atheist in India than in the US? Why do ABD atheists fear social sanction if they let their freak flags fly? Is this one of these ABD things, where religion is seen to stand in for culture, and therefore SouthAsian American identities are actually more constraining than SouthAsian ones? If you’re a theist, do you think of atheists as different? If you’re an atheist, do you feel constrained? I’d be happy to receive some cross-cultural education on these matters.
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Gallup poll on the characteristics of Presidential candidates |
Very true! At least some vedantic schools of thought just differentiate between people who adhere to the Vedas and those who dont, both of which traditions are acceptable in Hinduism but dont define atheism as we do today.
You do have a point there if atheism is purely the belief in a supreme controller/creator/God. In that sense, most Indic religions do in fact believe in something greater but it does not neccessarily have to be the same as a creator typical of the Abrahmic religions. For example, the Jains believe in attaining this knowledge or understanding of the world(which probably translates into some form of ‘Mukti’. Not sure how this is different from the Buddhist concept of Nirvana but my knowledge in sufficient, maybe someone here knows better) but I don’t think they believein a God as we think of God.
But it does make a difference. Things percolate from the literate down to the masses. There are certain questions that can only be raised in a religious culture even if they ostensibly sound religion-neutral. “What is the meaning of life?” for example. No Asian ever asked this question (they do now because we’re all globalized). Pagans were content to inquire how they must live their lives. The meaning of life question presupposes that the world has a purpose and meaning, a concept that is derived from religion – God created the world with a purpose and meaning and it is our life’s quest to discover what this meaning is. Many western athiests think along these lines (as opposed to the notion of leela).
Also, Spinoza may be in a class by himself, but the Enlightenment thinkers were unable to shed the religious theoretical framework. They just used secularized language to mull over the same things, in pretty much the same way as the religionists did. In fact they owe almost all their major thought to Augustine – the feeling of alienation, quest for meaning, etc.
AMFD ponders: >>How can I become a Hindu?
Just accept the idea that nobody can or should get something for nothing, either in the material world or in the spiritual realm.
Once you follow this, you can call yourself Shaivite, Charvakite, Atheist, Nastik, Vedantin whatever. You’ll be a Hindu.
…Who was an atheist. Now I wonder if this is an argument against my argument or an argument for my argument or an argument tangential to my earlier argument.
M. Nam
The question is a fascinating one : Is it easier to be an atheist in India than in the US? But before answering it, we should analyze the question itself.
What do ‘atheist’ and ‘atheism’ refer to, really? To ‘someone who does not believe that God exists’ and to ‘the belief that God does not exist’. But what does ‘God’ refer to in these sentences? There are two options here: either ‘God’ refers to a being who is outside the universe, who created this universe and whose will governs it; or ‘God’ refers to one of the many pagan deities: Zeus, Hera, Krishna, Shiva, Kali, Quetzalcoatl, etc. From here onwards, I will use ‘biblical god’ to refer to the first kind of God and ‘pagan deities’ to refer to the second kind of God.
Let us turn to atheism in the first context: the belief that the biblical god does not exist. Within the western culture and its Christian religion, this is a major issue. For more than fifteen centuries, people have believed that a human being who does not acknowledge that he is the creature of the biblical god and has been born on this earth to obey the law of this god, is an evil individual who is in control of the devil. Faith in the biblical god’s plan for humanity is the focal point of Christianity. Its absence is considered to be the work of Satan and the antichrist. Therefore, atheism has always been one of the crucial problems within the western culture. Today, one might no longer refer to the devil, but the background belief is the same: atheism is evil.
Peculiarly, people have begun to believe that a westerner who says ‘I do not believe that the biblical god exists’ inhabits a completely different world from a westerner who says ‘I believe that the biblical god exists.’ Naturally, this is not the case. It is only within the framework of Christianity that such statements are of extreme importance. Once one looks at the issue from outside this framework, it becomes clear that there is no major difference between the two individuals. The fact that the atheist thinks it is of great import to say that he does not believe in the biblical god shows that he still inhabits a deeply Christian world. Basically, western atheists are theists in disguise. That explains why one finds rabid atheists such as Daniel Dennett or Richard Dawkins, whose fanaticism reminds one of John Calvin and Martin Luther.
Now, turn to the second context, that of the pagan traditions (‘pagan’ is used in a neutral sense here as ‘those traditions which are not Christian, Judaic or Islamic’). Here, it has never been of great import to ascertain that deities either exist or do not exist. Pagan intellectuals like Cicero doubted the existence of the deities; nevertheless they participated in all kinds of rituals and sacrifices to the deities. When asked, they said they simply continued the tradition of their ancestors and that it was irrelevant whether or not the deities really existed, since this was an ancestral belief.
When the Europeans travelled to India in early modern times, they faced similar situations. The Brahmins, whom they considered to be the ‘priests of Indian religion’, would question the existence of the deities, but nevertheless preside over pujas. To the Brahmins themselves, this was not a major issue (of course, it was shocking to the Christians). One could find all kinds of instances of people who were great bhaktas, yet challenged the existence of the deities (Shankara being one example).
Consequently, atheism does not even make sense, strictly speaking, in the context of the Hindu traditions. It simply does not make much sense to ask someone ‘do you believe in Krishna?’ or ‘do you believe it is true that Kali exists?’ Therefore, it has never been a big deal to claim that no deities exist. Hence, it should be easier to be an ‘atheist’ in India than in the West.
Yours,
Jakob
Well 3 comments here. [1] As i have been studying the post wwII literature in US, i find it amusing that more jewish commentator were on the atheist/agnostic bent, Lately mostly after the culture shift towards right a lot of them began throwing the Judeu-Christian culture adhom. I was reading Dennis Pragers debate with Sam Harris as a case in point for this arg. [2] Most eastern cultures have had a long tradition of accepting alternate religions. eg Adwaitas have existed for a long long time. Where as this is a bizarre legacy of the west(islam used to be a western religion till recently) where alternatives were not given space. Some how other \’religions\’ have got space but not Atheism. And one has to argue that its the theist who are responsible for creating atheism by definition. [3] Most atheist are libertarian leaning. which scares the shit out both conservatives and liberals.
Consider war on terror is a big issue of our day. For Christians it means acknowledging all the same stuff that they are bad mouthing islam for in Christianity.
It also means looking at issues of international politics logically. The US has no logical reason to support israel on every issue accross the board. I mean what kind of a system is US supporting when a brooklyn or russian born has the right to be an israeli citizen and not some one from west bank. And logically US should be putting more money in helping south america in terms of foreign aid. They are poorer and they are in us\’s neighborhood and there is a good chance of getting a saner society there.
It also tends to annoy the balance of power diplomats in both parties, Does the US want democracy in middle east? then why tolerate Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan?
I tend to lean republican on most issues but these are the issues because of which i have never given them any money. Once when i was called for making a political contribution I asked them the caller same questions as above and the guy got all wound up and made accused me of being a far out leftie. To which I replied, \”but wait i havent even started on the war on drugs\”
I have never, ever met an American who went out of his or her way to attack atheists (other than the general “evil secular liberal conspiracy” paranoia). I have met many, many American Christians who go out of their way to take swings at other faiths, whether at Jews, Muslims, Hindus, or whatever. I think most Americans dislike atheists in the same way they dislike Communists; an abstract concept that they don’t connect with individuals within their community. This is partly because atheists just present less of a target — there are no atheist temples, atheist ritual wear, atheist prayers, atheist festivals, or atheist countries out there (well ok, MAYBE The Hated French) to design propaganda around. Nothing much really unites “atheists” as a group, except their lack of spiritual beliefs. So for most American Christians, atheists are more background noise than something one actively hates. Not so with other religious minorities.
Now granted, there is a strain of American Christianity that gets very angry about science, but I think that’s a different issue. One does not have to be an atheist to accept things like evolution, the Big Bang, or plate tectonics (of course, I realize that both extreme atheists and extreme religious people will disagree with that statement).
The thing is, Western atheism seems to be teetering on the edge of a colossally stupid cultural shift, in which people actively try to go from “background noise” to regulators of tradition. A more aggressive attitude towards atheism is evolving (reflected by the fact that nowadays not being vocal and demanding about one’s lack of religious belief is being “in the closet” apparently). I dearly hope that American atheism backs away from this Dawkins-style attitude, because the inevitable result will be to radicalize more Christians who will then come down with both feet on science and on religious tolerance in this country.
I don’t have time to go through all the comments,but relating the survey data and our experiences makes the premise of the question slightly off. National surveys take average measurements that compress a lot of detail out of view. When the thing being measured is very isotropic then they are more immediately reflective of experience, but the more anisotropic things are, the more complicated things get. India and the US are very anisotropic places in this regard. We all have our own particular microcosmic societies that straddle a particular tiny subset of the possible parameter sets of geography, class, education, race, urbanism, religion, gender, you name it. Very few of us operate our lives in a representative sample. So the temperatures being measured here (demographics of belief and levels of mutual tolerance and regard) vary widely from microcosm to microcosm while still adding up to the national average.
21 sneers at it, but I encounter intolerance and disrespect from Atheists far more often than from other religionists—and far more than anyone has encountered it from me. That’s b/c the vast majority of my friends and associates are Atheists or agnostics, so it’s simply more likely. There is nothing intrinsically tolerant about Atheism—-regardless of the rationality of its basis, once taken up it can just as easily turn into dogmatic group disdain if the group can acquire enough density and fencing.
Personally I think Atheism is great. I think everyone who wants to be an Atheist or agnostic should be one—religion would be a lot better off if it wasn’t saddled with fake believers, for one thing. It’s real honesty. If you don’t have the personal feelings, experiences, and cognitive touchstones that instill belief, why the hell should you have it? Don’t. I can’t speak for India, but I suppose that inasmuch as my attitude is grounded in my deep religious belief and my religious belief is grounded in the desh, there are probably lots of other religious desis who feel the same way, and perhaps that has added it up to a slightly more tolerant environment on this issue. I think reincarnation and much longer conception of time might be at play in this regard. Personally it makes me feel a lot more mellow about everything than I think I would otherwise.
Apologies for the typos, on a phone. Ennis. :p
Saheli Wrote:-
Why should it be Why should I tolerate some ones cockamamie gobar about a virgin birth, or being reincarnated or thinking that a man turned turned the kaba other way? I mean it was one thing if it was a private practice people indulged in their own space its ok, but its not. Religion seeps in many aspects of social and political life. eg why do the religious organizations get away with different tax liabilities than other 501s. When I see public money being thrown into religious practice and complain about it the response from politicians is we will support your religous belief too rather than curtailing it. This is what has happened in Edison NJ, Where the township wastes money in Christmas celebration, Diwali Celebration, Iftar parties and other nonesense. Its perfectly ok if these folks were to spend their own money but why spend taxpayer money.
Interestingly in India, EV Ramaswamy Naicker and Ambedkar are both dubbed (unthinkingly) ‘humanists’, ‘rationalists’, etc. But of the two EVR had a better appreciation of Indian tradition of thought than Ambedkar who today in the light of all we know about colonial consciousness (thanks to the work of Jakob, Balu and their colleagues) seems to have been in the grip of the Indological mode of thinking. This of course in no way lessens the many good things they did. When Ambedkar wrote to Savarkar and EVR (among many others) on the eve of his ‘conversion’ to ‘Buddhism’ he received very thoughtful responses. Ambedkar of course knew Savarkar much better than he knew EVR (Marathi, Ambedkar’s regard for the courage of the extremists and the founder of the movement Savarkar, Savarkar’s reformist credentials – anti-caste/untouchability/religion etc.). Savarkar advised Ambedkar to think again because by turning to ‘Buddhism’ he would at best be taking a high jump and not a long jump; the problem of casteism and untouchability was not going away. EVR was even more direct. He was not about accept defeat in his battle for reform by turning to some other tradition and would not mind dying a Hindu!
Neal – wow, you’ve never come across the evangelical or just generally conservative rants against “secular humanists” trying to take over schools, turn your kids gay and so on? Ever read the bestselling Left Behind books? It’s been a couple of years since I left the States, but are the culture wars really over?
As a de facto atheist (i.e. nonbeliever but don’t identify or go around preaching as an atheist because I don’t think it’s within the capacity of human intelligence to know either way, and I do respect – and spend my life studying – people who are religious) I do have to say that Americans who identify explicitly as atheists can be kind of in-your-face about it. Perhaps it’s just because anyone who feels strongly enough about part of their identity to broadcast it and be activist about it is, well, going to be in your face. I’ve known atheists who were incredibly obnoxious and reserved their strongest venom for agnostics, “fence sitters” they called them, and I know atheists who are remarkably nice about it and reach out to liberal religionists all the time.
Amen to that
SP – Those rants do exist, but I’ve never actually seen them personalized. I realize this is entirely anecdotal, but I grew up in a very conservative part of Central Florida, where the Deep South Bible Belt tradition was still very much alive. I was friends with a whole lot of religious people, simply because they were the vast majority of people at the school. They would go on about “the government imposing its views” and the like, but it was never directed at a real person (well, maybe politicians, but I don’t think of that as “personal” abuse). But pity the Jews and Muslims at my school. Hell, I’m sure they were saying stuff behind my Hindu ass too. Now again, this is probably a sampling issue more than anything else — it’s not like atheists stick out from other Americans the way most other religious minorities do. But I think the personal stuff matters more than the stock political rants against impersonal social forces like secular humanism.
All of that said, I don’t doubt that atheists get some shit thrown at them by religious folk, especially if they go all Sam Harris about it. And that’s wrong. It shouldn’t be like that. But, as a religious minority, I’m much more worried about the implications of a really aggressive religious minority position than the largely sleeping majority.
One celebrated Indian whose name hardly ever comes up in the context of Indian atheism was Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. Perhaps because few people outside the Bengali community have heard about him. Yet he may have had one of the most profound and long lasting effect on the Indian social, cultural mind set – influencing among others, Gandhi and Tagore. Vidyasagar was a fearless educator, nationalist, social reformer and renaissance man extraordinaire. An expert in the Sanskrit language and thoroughly conversant with Hindu religious texts, he introduced widow remarriage, facilitated women’s and low caste Indians’ entry into mainstream educational institutes and fought both the Brits and the Hindu obscurantists tooth and nail, often under the threat of death. He was also an unapologetic atheist, although he didn’t waste much breath fighting the “god” question with believers.
Vidyasagar’s atheism has been discussed quite widely in Bengali writings but unfortunately all the links I can find in English, do not mention this aspect of his life.
The Wiki entry here:
A blog post which sheds a bit more light on the matter, here.
I don’t know if you have seen the Beyond Belief videos, but most of the speakers were quite tolerant of religion and appeared to subscribe to Jay Gould’s NOMA principle. Dawkins, of course, was angry as usual, but he has good reason to. Evolutionary biologists like him have come in for the most flak from religious people, and have been accused of all kinds of vast conspiracies inspired by Satan. I am sure any scientist who is being told how to do science by a bunch of religious nuts will get as angry on religion as Dawkins. What society needs to do is not try to rein in Dawkins but to rein in the nuts.
There was one guy from the Templeton Foundation at the Beyond Belief conference who made the same threat in a very Vito-Corleonesque-lets-be-reasonable tone. My reaction was that if the world really wants to go back to the Dark Ages, perhaps the best thing for scientists to do in that case would be to let it.
“Religion plays less of a role in the US than it does in India”
I and many others who are based in the south would disagree with the above statement. It is my opinion that religion plays a greater role here than it has ever played in India(including the early 90s Rath Yatra period). Here even urban populations are heavily influenced by religion, a senario that I have yet to see in Bangalore/Madras/Hyderabad/Pune.
Interesting topic, and thanks for the many links to Indian atheists. When I was researching for my theatre piece Southern Discomfort ( basically tracking my journey as an atheist from Singapore to South Texas), I found some factoids about Vidyasagar, but not much else. I agree that most Americans, when they think about atheism at all, just lump it in with Communism. What I did find interesting in audience discussions after my performances was that several couldn’t wrap their minds around a) my unashamedly hardcore atheist beliefs… everyone tried to convert me! and b) their subtle disappointment that as an Indian my rejection of Christianity ( yep, my parents converted when I was a babe) didn’t lead me to mysticism and their idea of Orientalist spirituality.
As for whether atheists are more or less belligerent than faith-ists in discussion, it’s all relative. Personally, seeing this country slide lazily and noisily towards religiosity in government keeps me very angry all the time. My philosophy is ” Don’t get me started, y’all.”
Shimi, Are you anywhere near the Houston area? If so, you and I are in the same boat.
forget the atheists. I wholly want God/s. I gotta meet the bugger and bring down the lathi on his sanctimonious arse. Asuras for president.
Ruchira, thanks for writing about Vidyasagar, and the links. WB government has taken some initiatives to carry forward his ideals. I saw some fund raising efforts at last year’s NABC. (bottom of page).
I intended that less as a threat than a point of concern. But I think it’s a real one. The only significant religious minority group that aggressively stands up and tries to tell the majority of Americans how to think about faith traditions is atheism. I just think that most Americans will generally live and let live (with occasional grumblings), but will side with extremists when they perceive a threat. That’s not good for anyone. I still get chills thinking about the sudden growth of intolerance between the 9/11 attacks and the gradual decline of the Iraq War’s popularity. I don’t want that to come back.
Interesting links, and I’ll look at them more at home.
Every once in a while there is some religious survey that proclaims a high rate of religiosity in India. I think the figures might be skewed by true atheists describing themselves based on their parentage. For instance while I am personally an atheist, I usually say Hindu or would put down Hindu because that is my heritage.
I am sorry, I did not intend to suggest you made a threat.
My impression is that it works the other way round, that is, people who are willing to question religious dogma end up being atheists. Atheism is not an institution, and each atheist end up being so for his own personal/psychological reasons. Also I feel faith traditions need to be constantly questioned, and we might still be burning witches/widows if not for such gadflys(someone mentioned Vidyasagar above). I think people make a mistake when they see atheism as another religion or movement competing with others. I don’t think I ever saw anyone who was identified as an atheist on CNN expressing what atheists in general think of an issue. But I constantly hear Bill o’Reilly, Coulter, etc, impute all kinds of opinions to the godless atheists.
Well in that case I think they will make a big mistake. Religion will survive and believers will always outnumber atheists. People constantly overestimate the fragility of religion and underestimate that of science. A century ago people believed that if it turned out the earth was created before 23 October 4004BC teatime, that would spell the end of christianity. Today even staunch believers admit the earth is billions of years old, and yet claim the infallibility of the Bible. Irrationality comes naturally to mankind, even scientists are not immune from it. It common that a scientist will fall so much in love with his own theory that he would only very reluctantly reject it in the face of evidence. That is why science is such a fragile endeavour and it is essential that it be protected from the extremists, not vice versa.
To # 58
If you are part of civilized society, you have to toelrate religous beleifs just as your atheistic beleifs are You say that because you are atheist , your tax money should not be spent on religous stuff. By your logic, if you choose not to have children, should your tax money not be spent on providing education( such as public school funding), which is a corenerstone of civilization? I would be interested to know
Risible, are you perhaps thinking of Hedgewar?
I dunno SP, I read it in one of Ashish Nandy’s essays. I am too lazy to google for it.
It simply does not make much sense to ask someone ‘do you believe in Krishna?’ or ‘do you believe it is true that Kali exists?’
Jakob, you know Nirad Chaudri, another famous “atheist” amnong the brownz, claims exactly the opposite, that Hindus believe Puranic lore is literally true. Also what to make of “Vedic scientists” who claim the aircraft in the Mahabharata War actually demonstrates Hindu superiority in ancient technical accomplishment. I agree that there are allegorical traditions, e.g., the Adhyatma Ramayana, for much the Rama story is the framing appartus of an exploration of Advaita-bhakti.
Probably ABDs tend to be atheists because
I don’t think we can make this claim without data. There might be an indifference tio Hindu practice among some, but that doesn’t imply atheism. There are also over a thousand temples with “Sunday schools” teaching Vedanta. In mixed-religion marriages, I rarely have witnessed an entirely civil ceremony. Usually there is a mixing of the two traditions involved, in the Unitarian manner.
When I lived in Trivandrum, I was often approached by friendly Keralites asking verbatim: 1. “What is your good name?” 2. “What is your religion?” I had never been asked that flat-out by strangers before, and I still wonder exactly what it was about. The askers were usually Christian. Were they expecting me to answer “Christian” (because of my pasty skin) and do some international Christian bonding? Were they inquiring about my family’s heritage, or my religious beliefs? Sometimes I answered “Jewish” (ancestors) and less often “atheist” – I was always afraid the latter answer would invite contempt.
Aren’t these polls reaffirming stereotypes by excluding “Man”, “White” and “Protestant” ? I am curious, actually, to know the % who wouldn’t vote for any of those three, even if merely for comic relief. Never underestimate jokers. Australia had to especially prevent ‘Jedi’ from becoming a state acknowledged religion when in their latest Census report greater than 50,000 penciled in ‘Jedi’ as their personal religion.
Ruchira Paul, I live in San Antonio. I’m with Jump-Start Performance Co. The topic of atheism was touchy enough ( I wrote it at the height of the whole Madalyn O’ Hare disappearance drama), but the whole layer of being Asian as well, and a former ( if unwilling) Christian really messed with people’s heads… in a good way.
The answer is Duh Yes. It is similar to when people ask me Are you a muslim? and before 9-11 it was asked more often by muslims. I had a full beard back then and my answer was well no i just get razor burns.
My teen brother likes to wear a smallish beard, so has gotten a few odd stares (mostly from the older crowd). He’s not religious, but likes facial hair. My parents want him to shave it off, just to be safe. He’s not religious, but likes facial hair. Also, I’ve noticed that the Bangladeshis (immigrants and 2nd gen) here on East Coast are a bit more covered up, bearded, and whatnot than the ones I’ve seen in LA, Phoenix, and Chicago.
It is much easier to be an atheist in India than in the US. In India if you announced that you were an atheist, most parents would just sigh and as long as you got good grades and were respectful to the auntyjis, you were ok. American parents are very very worried that their kids will grow up to be different in any way and would shunt their kids off to the psychiatrist at the first sign of atheism. Most American parents, I mean, I’m in academia and suspect most of my colleagues would die of shame if they had a kid seen going to church.
“For instance while I am personally an atheist, I usually say Hindu or would put down Hindu because that is my heritage.”
Absolutely – that’s because of the importance of “sociological Hindus” and “sociological Muslims” in the Indian context. Religious identification becomes a matter not of personal belief but of identification with a “community,” and it’s sort of similar to the way in which many Jews who may be nonbelievers will still identify as Jews.
“I’m in academia and suspect most of my colleagues would die of shame if they had a kid seen going to church.” Hmm….I’m in academia too and I see a lot of academics embracing “liberal religion” for themselves and their children.
It seems that it easier to be a Daytheist if you are a desi Hindu man than a desi Hindu woman. Speaking only from the perspective of knowing Guju middle-class (non-Brahmin) families in India and in the US, I’ve notice that the women are supposed to be the spiritual caretakers of the family. I even remember the priest at my wedding asking me to affirm that while my husband didn’t get the same request. Many of the rituals are engaged in solely by the women and are so much a part of women’s social life that a rejection of religion is not only obvious, but can make a person a pariah.
Smokie – you’re dead-on. Women as the keepers of tradition is a constant theme in desi culture, unfortunately.
This is a very interesting discussion. I have never living in the US, so I can’t really comment on the acceptance of atheists in that country.
Personally speaking, I have been an atheist for 17+ of my 32 years, and whether in India, or in Europe, I have never hidden it (well ok, I don’t exactly proclaim it when visiting a historical or otherwise famous place of worship), and have faced no prejudice.
Despite being an atheist, I believe that faith in an external power and adherence to basic tenets of organized religion is useful for the human mind, and has played an important role in the development and progress of civilizations. I do not require in such a faith, but that doesn’t mean I would want other people to lose their respective faiths. So I would certainly not try to “convert” or argue with other people about their faith and challenge it…. unless of course they are challenging mine. So the question of an aggressive “outing” doesn’t quite arise.
Talking about atheism in the context of Indian Philosophy, Advaita Vedanta, according to my understanding of it, seems to lead to atheism. The ultimate in Hinduism (and Buddhism) appears to be Maya, or illusion. So if life, the gods, mythology etc are all illusion, then isn’t that similar to what atheism is? Several (not all of course) specialists also opine that Swami Vivekananda, a staunch believer of Advaita Vedanta was apparently also an atheist till the end. I like the concept. The requirement of faith is met by gods, mythology and temples; if one wants to delve deeper, comes the karmic philosophy, rebirths etc; and further deep down it says all this is mere illusion. I’d say the concept of Sanyas actually derives from a realization of this pointlessness, rather than the desire to escape the cycle of rebirths. As a biologist, I interpret Maya as genes trying to replicate themselves (see Richard Dawkin’s Selfish Gene for a great discussion of this biological concept).
That’s also true for Jews, and I imagine most other religions as well.
Makes sense to me, but I’ve met many atheists whose faith in “reality”/”science”/the material world is unshakeable. Some atheists believe in absolute Truth, material realities that exist outside their perception. Some atheists have much in common with religious True Believers. And some don’t.
My understanding of atheism is that one can be atheist and still accept supernatural phenomenon. The focus of atheism isn’t necessarily that everything must be proved, but rather it is a rejection of the idea of a supreme being that controls everything.
Nina, I’m going to guess that the people asking the questions did not have an ulterior motive. People in India tend to ask questions that westerners consider a little too personal, but not necessarily thought of as that by the person asking.Other questions people ask, just after you’ve met them might be details about your job, like how much you are making, personal questions about your family. In the west, if i did the same with somebody i met, it would be considered a little too personal.Also, in the US, i can have a conversation with somebody for a few hours without really getting their name or telling them mine, which kinda seemed odd to me when i first got here, because for me (and i guess for a lot of other people in India), getting each others names would be something you would like to do first. People are generally very friendly in India, and conversation starters might just seem a little too strange for some people. Just my two soles…
It also comes from the fact that a westerner is someone they are not used to and thus are more curious. I have had a non-desi friend of mine from here travel with me in India and the questions he got asked were a lot more personal and surprising that people were asking those kind of questions, but I never got asked those questions. To think of it, I have never been asked the religion question though I have spent a lot of years in India – I guess I am implicitly assumed to be Hindu or something.
One could believe in Angels but not G-d?
After reading the wiki page, apparently I was thinking of “weak atheism” which allows more flexibility than “strong atheism.” I never new there was a distinction.
Calling all Daytheists!
I’ve actually recently embarked on a mission to find other skeptics and critical thinkers (including but not limited to daytheists) in the minority community, with a focus on the desi community (since that’s what my background is).
I haven’t done a lot yet but come visit the Masala Skeptic site and provide your comments, thoughts and ideas and see the progress I have made.
Maria
Sriram wrote:-
Don’t know about others, but I and many others dont buy supernatural phenom etc Otherwise whats the difference between perpetual motion, dowsing rods and what else have you and saying that a man was born of a virgin, or a river literally flows out of a dieties hair.
I do buy that atheist are into compassion, feeling of awe, a desire to be part of something greater, unifying humans and nature (in a socio political sense) but I don’t see that as supernatural.
A person could be atheist for a variety of reasons: Theraveda Buddhists and Jains are atheists for religious reasons. They believe in other supernatural phenomena, eg, reincarnation, but not in God. Even if we are talking only about ‘rational’ atheists, Sam Harris the self-anointed Jedi knight of rational atheism has occasionally expressed a belief in the plausibility of reincarnation (much to the amusement of other skeptics).
Also, the line between natural and supernatural is partially semantic. If indisputable evidence is found for phenomena such as ESP, poltergeists or telepathy, a rational person will have to believe in them. But again, now they will be natural phenomena, and open to scientific inquiry just like all other phenomena.
The case of religions is different as all of them make implausible, and more importantly, empirically unverifiable claims. If a religion ever made an empirically verifiable prediction, and it was verified, and there was no other explanation for the phenomenon except that the religion is correct, a rational person will have to convert.
Faith is not a critical requirement for Hindus so I find it curious that the author of this post & many of the commenters are surprised by how nonplussed most Indians are about atheism/doubt.For example most Tamils are observant, albeit non-vedic rite, Hindus and yet regularly elect the atheist DMK & AIDMK parties.
Reply to comment 74
Dear Risible,
In his belief that Hindus take the puranas and other traditional stories to be true descriptions of the world, Nirad Chaudhuri is merely reproducing the colonial stance towards the Hindu traditions. Take the famous quote from Macaulay’s minutes, where he says that one should not teach “History, abounding with kings thirty feet high, and reigns thirty thousand years long,–and Geography, made up of seas of treacle and seas of butter.” This makes sense only if one presupposes that traditional stories are meant to be descriptions of the world. Well, they are not descriptions of the world. So it is Macaulay and Chaudhuri who make asses of themselves by saying such silly things about the Hindu traditions.
One attempt to make sense of Hindu and other traditional stories is calling them “allegorical.” The problem is this still assumes they are somehow descriptions of the world, which can be either true or false. The notion of allegory merely transforms them into oblique descriptions. The stories are still misunderstood as sets of beliefs about history, geography, human relationships, etc.
The question is this: How come Europeans (and colonial Indians) have mistaken these stories for descriptions of the world? This happens, I think, because the Hindu stories are approached as the equivalents of the Bible and the Koran. The latter texts are descriptions of the world, which claim to be true, since they are viewed as God’s revelation of His will for humanity. In Christianity and Islam, this is what Truth refers to: God’s will. From this perspective, atheists deny Truth, because they deny that the world embodies God’s will.
If we want to understand the status of stories in the Hindu traditions (or the status of atheism, for that matter), the first step is to realize that these traditions do not revolve around beliefs or doctrines that can be either true or false. Therefore, the claim that the deities do not exist and that all these stories about Krishna, Shiva, Kali, etc. are false is a category mistake. It attributes predicates of truth and falsity to objects to which these predicates simply do not apply: namely, pagan traditions.
Yours,
Jakob
Risible,
More interesting than your (and most of the commentators’) simplistic understanding of the term religion/theism etc., is the unquestioning acceptance of the opinions expressed by the West’s favourite spokespersons. Now Nirad Babu was certainly a well read man and knew much more than English, being a scholar of Sanskrit and Bengali. That’s a lot more than you can say for India’s eminent ‘historians’ and ‘scholars of the humanities’. But Nirad Babu was also a proud nativist an unapologetic Hindu and was contemptuous of India’s post-1947 sarkari scholars. His view of the need for religion is close to the ‘noble lie’ theory that sees religion as something to keep the plebs in line, while the elite who know it all know to take care of themselves. So Nirad Babu’s opinions need to be seen from that point of view. The noble lie theory of course is Western in more modern times, but read your Chanakya and you will find some there too. But that still doesn’t tell us what people believe in.
Hi Jakob,
1. In his belief that Hindus take the puranas and other traditional stories to be true descriptions of the world, Nirad Chaudhuri is merely reproducing the colonial stance towards the Hindu traditions.
I think he was responding to (colonized?) Hindu commentators who tended to preference the Upanishads over the Puranas which, yes, they described as ‘allegorical’. To Chaudhuri, this was elitist thinking, and did not represent the way people thought of these stories. He claimed that many Indians thought these events actually did happen. I am skeptical of this claim, but how does one go about refuting it?
More interesting than your (and most of the commentators’) simplistic understanding of the term religion/theism etc., is the unquestioning acceptance of the opinions expressed by the West’s favourite spokespersons.
Stop bloviating. Didn’t you learn in your vedapathasala that cryptic insults (in this case to tout some blithely self-assured knowledge of the “truth” which you think you possess) is a symptom of arrogance? Or perhaps you think your usually pointless, gossipy anecdotes about Indian personalities demonstrates some superiority in refinement.
The noble lie theory of course is Western in more modern times, but read your Chanakya and you will find some there to……………….
yeah yeah, whateva
I have read Chanakya and you, sir, are certainly no Chanakaya.
I think you may be confusing Maya with the \”noble lie theory\”. After all, it was Krishna (the Lying, kanieving, dishinest \”trickster\” according to the typical western Donigerisma) who natchaoed the simple-minded Yashoda around his finger. Was Krishna taking advantage of Yashoda? Hindus have never seen it in that manner.
People inhabit different realities and, of course, any would-be Chanakya or Krishna would latch on to that fact. This is miles and miles away from a \”noble lie theory\” of \”Religion\”. Chankaya is certainly not explaining \”Why\” there are all these multifarious traditions, around him. Nor does he fell the need to justify the presence of diversity, as the abrahmaics are wont to do. He is only explaining how to navigate yourself among the diversity.
Thank God I’m a homosexual and not an Atheist! Phew! That was close.
I’m late, as usual, but wanted to add a few things:
I think any discourse on Atheism in India would be amiss without at least a passing mention of India’s most famous godless shaheed. I referenced his essentially deathbed defense of Atheism here.
By this defintion, would sadhus be considered Hindu?
Antahkarana and Emma, props for doing what you want to do without having to justify your actions to the anyone. I have to constantly explain to people that my teetotalism is based on personal motivation and, not by some overarching dogmatic diktat. The idea that one can go through life governed by personal morals and without citing an organized religion as an impetus for his/her actions is still unsettling to some I know.
Neal, I know I should have said something after you posted it on your blog two months ago, but your essay on Dawkins is excellent. Proselytizing, whether it’s Christian, Muslim, atheist, etc, isn’t conducive to a free and democratic society and objective, rational thought should be the only agenda of science.
Anyhoo, enough gasbaggery from me. Here’s my favorite quote on the subject, courtesy of Salon: