Atheist awareness week

[rug]

Mitali Saran | New Delhi
September 6, 2013
Last Updated at 21:26 IST

I believe. Not that anyone's asking - most of the world just assumes one does. Believing is such a universal human presumption that if you haven't a hope in hell of landing the top job in, say, the United States, or India, unless you have a declared religious faith.

I believe in science, in intuition, in justice, in humaneness, in respect, in being true, in washing one's hands before eating, in art, in honesty, in Nutella, in the essential health-promoting goodness of making fun of things, in the notion that if you play fair you'll sleep better.

But I don't Believe. You know, in god. When you're pronouncing a capital 'b' in Believe, you know you're talking god Digression: 'God' is one of those words, like 'blood', which, if you say it aloud,repeatedly and fast, suddenly reveal its alien oldiness and urr. Oldiness and urr are not real words, just the kinds of words that you might find in the entourage of the word 'god'-brawny words, clad in skins and carrying blunt weapons.

The reason I don't Believe is that…I just don't. I wasn't brought up either to, or not to. It's not that I had religious faith and lost it after a mind-numbing tragedy - I simply never could muster any. It obviously gives people comfort and purpose during turbulent times, but even in the worst moments of my life, when I have desperately needed to lean on something, I have not been able to find faith.

http://www.business-standard.com/article/beyond-business/atheist-awareness-week-113090601004_1.html

[cbayer]

1. Well done. Both poignant and humorous.

I hope there will be more like this this week.

[rug]

2. The headline puzzles me. The official "A" week was in March.

http://www.aweek.biz/

But I do like his essay.

[cbayer]

3. Hmm.... I can't find any other reference to it.

Maybe he's just a bad procrastinator, lol.

[rug]

4. Hermany Mehta wrote about earlier this year.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/03/12/a-week-2013-is-coming-up/

It would have been nice if somebody posted it here at the time.

Regardless, I am a great admirer of procrastinators.