Paradise Lost

There is this new campaign in the UK and parts of Europe, run by atheists. They have been putting up adverts on buses, challenging the existence of God. The adverts have taglines like, "There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." These as expected have not gone down well with the believers. Christians around the world have been crying themselves hoarse to get the ads banned. One Mr Green of 'Christian Voice', has challenged the adverts on grounds of "truthfulness" and "substantiation", suggesting that there is not "a shred of supporting evidence" that there is probably no God.

Funny, that no other community has protested against this campaign as much as the Christians. Keeping in mind, that they consider themselves to be the most liberal and modern of all religions. In fact, I would have expected the more radical muslims or maybe even hindu groups around the world protesting against this campaign. But, everyone seems to have ignored it other than the church and its followers. What is the Vatican so paranoid about? They have been selling their propaganda around the world for the last 1500 years. Do they really believe that, little, harmless and nonviolent campaigns like these can shake the faith? Or maybe that is what they are scared of, the conversions and brainwashing, that spread the religion around the world, weren’t exactly according the preaching of the Holy Father, was it?

How often do we see atheists protesting against religious banners around the world? They too have their right to free speech and expression. They too can demand what kind of banners and posters they want to see. Why don’t they protest against temples, mosques, churches, synagogues and other places of worship? For an atheist, they are all a waste of space. He would be happier if they opened a bar instead, or maybe a health club, or a hospital, or a school for that matter. Why does he not contest the rights of a school to waste time in teaching children religion? You are only teaching them how to differentiate between people based on something you can’t see.

When will we realize that today, religion isn’t really helping? It’s become one of the major evils of our society. Imagine, Iraq alone had over 29000 people killed in 2008, in attacks by Islamic terrorist groups. India is second with over 3500 deaths, followed closely by Afghanistan and the list goes on. Islam is not the only religion with this problem, we have had IRA in Ireland, the Khalistani movement in Punjab, the Thugees killing in the name of Kali during the British raj, Jews butchered during the holocaust, more than half a million Muslims killed during the crusades. . . .

Maybe we now need to start evolving to live without a religion. Because the way things stand right now, the world is divided into armed camps ready to commit genocide just because we can’t agree on whose fairy tales to believe. And in the end, religion will kill us all.