ONLY A TRUE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION CAN MAKE YOU A HEALTHY ATHEIST

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 Again, A dialectical statement where I have used Hegelian dialectics to make a contradictory fact of life. What do I mean by this? It is pretty simple really. The statement is very self-evident. Many often people who are Atheist say this that If a child is not given any religious instruction in the childhood, he will reject all religions when he turns 18. I disagree with the statement. Here are all my assertions. And like my habit, I will try to state all my assertions in a sermonic fashion and then if I felt like writing more, give a logic to justify my claims. 

1. What do I mean by a true religious education? A true religious education should teach the disciple a vision of positivist, rationalist and most importantly hopeful sight. It could begin from a fixed religious text, a guru and a fixed set of rituals, but it should after a point, transcend beyond these categorical thinking to include all possibilities and even the ultimate hypothesis should be rejected, i.e. Accept the teachings of the religion even without the ontological presence of God. Something which Upanishads and Buddha intend to do. What Lao Tzu wants to teach you! What Zen masters kept saying through silence. A true religious education will liberate the individual like anything. In GK Chesterton's thesis of Christian Atheism, we find the hint for such a religion. I do not mean only Christianity is such religion. Any religion can be that. The only requirement is it should be philosophically sound enough to be able to merge the ultimate duality of religion, that is the duality between Atheism and Theism. 

2. What should be the goal of a true religious education? I think I covered that there itself. The goal of a true religious education should be an amalgamation of formal education and psychological therapy for life. 

3. Who is a healthy atheist? A healthy atheist is someone comfortable with his own atheism. He does not get deterred when life and its harshness strike and he faces trauma and fear of death. He is not insecure about his atheism. Hence, he does not go preach anywhere to anyone that there is no god. He is not a preacher. He is even open to the possibility of complete uncertainty and chaos. He may also be open to be someday completely proven wrong and God existing. He is Buddha. He knows even if there is God, this does not solve anything. He does not see God as an essentialist category. He is not utilitarian about God. He does not need God to derive his Moral values. He knows if there is a God, it only shows that there are still heights for human endeavor to achieve. 

4. Why this paradox? This paradox exists because the world is suffering. Any upbringing which is mentally stressful and not assuring makes the child vulnerable for a lifetime. It has pure psychological basis. A five-year-old need not know that there is no God. It is very harsh a truth for him. A borderline trauma. But he should be nurtured to have a healthy relationship with this fact that there is no God. Or at least, this that there is a high probability that there is no big other or ultimate truth of life. A mentally healthy person is one who can be a healthy atheist. An unhealthy person can be of any extremes, Over-religious, borderline Schizophrenic to Radical atheist, intolerant to religious people, highly anxious with the presence of religion in public life. 


I think I have made myself clear. Over the years, my relationship with this fact has grown better. There is no god. But I am not too emotional about it now. I do not stress on rational thinking and logical reasoning to give the ultimate truth of life. I know it cannot. Because there may not be one at the first place. I am comfortable with the fact that some people are very unhealthy mentally about their relationship with God. There are fanatics, emotional, hyper religious, communal and so many other retarded people. I just hope our education system can adopt a true religious education which is an amalgamation of formal education and psychological therapy. A classroom experience should be like a therapy session combined with formal education. 


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