Does God exist?

I was travelling by bus from college one day when the lady near me asked if the bus would stop at the Thiruvanmiyur bus stand or at the Marundeeswarar temple. I said Marundeeswarar temple. After a few seconds, the man next to me asked, "Marundeeswarar a? Anga enna Easwarar Marundhu viththara?" I replied matter-of-factly, " Illa avar Marundhukkaana Easwarar" and turned away, ignoring him. I had very little idea that I had started a very useless discussion with a total stranger who had resolved to try and make me an atheist before I got down. He had little idea that I wouldn't let him do so. He went on and on about what bakwas this whole God thing is, people would do good if they didn't believe him, why this "God" helped some people and not others and the usual bits that atheist talk. I went on and on about God is a way of making people have some fear not to stray from their path of Dharma and following the ways of life dictated by a religion would not kill one and our ancestors were not fools and they must have had some meaning in their words and usual bits that believers talk. I tried maximum to avoid His Ignorance and when my stop had come and he felt he was gonna lose, he started shouting to me till I got down from the bus and it left.

All this aside, Does God Really exist? The great poet Kannadasan, in his book "Arthamulla Hindu Madham" has put forward a wonderful argument. He says, a man does not require any brain to be an atheist. Anyone can say anything doen't exists as long as it cannot be proved. You don't need sixth sense for that.He can blame all his failures on his actions. He can be carefree that no one is there to question him. He can say what happens, how it happens but not so much as why it happens the way it happens. At the most he ll blame it on nature and will not be able to explain this "nature". Where as a believer needs not only to have a thorough understanding of what he does and why he does it, but also enough arguments to convince an atheist as to why he does it. Of course, the philosophies of the religion don't expect you to convert an atheist into a believer. But in this age of westernisation and the so-called "scientific" thinking, you cannot survive if you cannot substantiate. A believer must understand why he applies the Thiruneer or kumkumam(to keep his mind calm cool and focussed. Wet ash is found to have those properties) , why he rotates the temple in clockwise and not anti-clockwise ( Most our temples have been built facing the east and when we rotate clockwise we go along the earth's magnetic field and not opposing it, which is good for our body) etc.

A man's failures can be attributed to his deeds 25% of the time and the rest to wat one can call fate. If a job-applicant misses the bus to an interview, it is not in his hands. If he starts blaming it on himself (Of course he could have started early which is his contribution of 25%), he will feel more miserable. Instead if he has something called fate on which he can blame it, and feel that God would show him another way and maybe all would turn out well in the end, it gives him a sort of confidence and courage to still face life. Fate may be a figment of one's imagination but if there's something good that one can gain from it, so what if it is? There is something called a 90-10 principle. A man's day is decided 10% by what happens to him and 90% on how he reacts to it. A daughter pours coffee accidentally on her father's shirt. He can either choose to shout at her or say "it's ok" and change his shirt and go on with his day. In the former case his day starts with a bad mood, then he goes to his office, feels guilty about shouting at his daughter, not responds properly to his boss, has a bad day in office, returns home, has a difficult time talking to his daughter... well you get the idea. And you know what ll happen if he does the latter. So what makes one react to things differently? They used to say "Vithi avan thalaila vilaydirkku." You would have noticed yourself, some people reacting differently to the same things at different times. I don't know how to explain that beyond a point.


Born as a human being, and bestowed with a sixth sense, why do we refuse to extend our thoughts a little and wonder if this God IS really true especially since more than half of the people believe there is one, in some form or the other and since all of us are not able to explain all the things happening around us, what if there IS some supernatural power beyond our comprehension. How much thought and research has an atheist put in to claim that there is no God. How much of religious literature do you think he would have read, and with how much of mental maturity to accept our ancestors line of thought, and then still claim he is not convinced. If there are such atheists, this is not for them. For I appreciate their strong opinion. Of course, even I haven't done all those. But at least I don't blindly refuse anything. I leave way for the possibilty and if I don't have the time to research, I accept what elders say since they have not had any problems believing what they did. IT DOES NOT REQUIRE ANY BRAIN TO SAY THAT GOD DOESN'T EXIST BECAUSE I CANNOT SEE HIM OR THAT HE DID NOT HELP ME IN MY LIFE. (For that is not his job).

Whatever said and done, there is one thing I would like to tell all atheists. Imagine there s a locked room with a treasure inside(or not. Just suppose there is). There is no way of opening the room and finding out if it IS there. I believe it is there, and you say it is not since you cannot prove it. Why don't we leave it at that? Why do you try so hard to make everyone say there s no treasure inside the room? How is the existence of the treasure going to affect our daily life? I feel saitisfied to believe that there is a treasure and I am right. What if some day, by some means, the door can be opened and the treasure DOES really exist. Of course if does not exist, I will start feeling bad only from that day onwards. Till then I would happily lead my life, thinking that if ANYTHING happens to me there s a room full of treasure to help me and hoping that there is definitley a way to open the door. It gives me some confidence and a sense of back-up and I m forced to exercise my brain and put my mind to "more" use (than the atheist) in trying to reach that treasure and prove that I m right instead of letting my mind rot on the otherwise useless pursuits of life. Because I m sure there is nothing in this world that would give me eternal happiness as the treasure would.

In Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams wonderfully lets God himself prove that he doesn't exist. It is a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly intricate as nature could have evolved by purely chance. The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith and without faith I am nothing." "But," says Man,"the Nature is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED." "Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. The crux that one has to understand is, It is absurd to try and prove that He exists. For the basis of His existence is faith.