By Obaid Ullah Khan

Latest surveys of the religious demographics of the world show that around 33.3% of the world’s population belongs to Christian faith which is the largest religion in the world at present. At second position comes Islam which enjoys the adherence of around 21% of the whole mankind. Surprisingly third place goes to the No Religion or in other words Atheism that comprises of 14.09% at present as figured by Wikipedia. So being an Ahmadi and a member of the most progressive religious, social and comparatively a reformed community in their social behavior, in the world, it is hard to avoid the subject of Atheism. To ascertain the hollowness of the ideology of Atheism, one ought to assess their arguments, behaviours and mindset. Refutation of every argument, they hold against religion, requires a lengthy discussion and debate. But here, I just want to discuss an overview of their ideology and its impacts on its followers.

Religion and No-Religion are the different aspects of social philosophies that have a common subject, i.e. humans, their behaviours and mindsets individually and collectively in a social manner. What role Atheism plays in shaping the lives and mindset of its adherers? With only difference of some practical rituals called prayers, both school of thoughts, religion and no-religion, stick to some ideology in one sense or another and propagate their ideology. Although religious people preach their ideology with more zeal and zest and even at the cost of their personal interests to get the pleasure of their God while the atheists show no such enthusiasm to preach their ideology and are not ready to sacrifice their interests. The urge to please God, His attributes in this world and the belief in the hereafter, thus continuity of life, induce a high potential and a fearless approach, to call a spade a spade and sticking to the principles, in the religious people, a quality proportionately lacking in an atheist generally. On practical side this potential has a strong impact on religious people in shaping their behaviours and attitudes. A less vibrant and hypocritical approach towards their ideology, where atmosphere is not suitable, is a common tendency in the atheists unlike the religious people who despite persecutions and oppositions do stick to their belief generally and offer sacrifices for their ideology. Besides all this, the atheists always show a tendency to prove their superiority over religious people in all respects. As religion’s main emphasis is always on morality and humaneness, so to counter this issue they have adopted a policy, to strengthen their belief, which is based on a mere rhetoric of morality and humanism.

On the contrary there is no sanctioning force of morality for atheists. They have no ideology in this respect to adhere with. In an endeavour to overcome this deficiency, they always pretend to be the flag bearers of humanity and morality. But there is no hard and fast definition of morality and humanity in their lexicon. These values only matter until and unless their own interests are safeguarded or there is no fear or tribulation. Atheism can be compared with an impotent and infertile person or a barren land which contains no fresh flowing water of divinity for becoming a source of goodness and fruitfulness for the world. On the positive side, they are not the source of constant nuisance and pain for the world like stagnant, contaminated and intolerable smelly water as false and misguided religions are a source of suffering for the world these days in many respects. Humanity has never seen any good from Atheism rather they have never had any significant role in the history of mankind except the Russian Revolution. In that sole incident, history witnessed the brutality of Atheism and the concept of NO-Religion. This showed if they were given any chance of getting hold of power, they would exploit it far more atrociously than the so called religious people. They oppressed the views of religion and showed that they had no respect for democratic right of freedom of speech and no tolerance for difference of opinion. This attitude is simply an outcome of the absence of a sense of answerability to a Being called God, Who sees their intentions and before Whom they will be accountable for their deeds. This can be observed and proved even now. Try to debate with any atheists in favour of religion and you can find out how bigoted they are in their ideology to avoid religion. Most of them, like other religious bigots, cannot digest difference of opinion and always try to show that any person who is a believer or has any kind of faith is nonsensical and an idiot. They advocate reason and rationality but have their own standards of reason and rationality and would never endorse any rational argument, even how strong it is, to be rational if it is against their view of denying religion or God. They would not accept any argument or reasoning which supports religion or existence of God and would declare it irrational. No doubt much of these unethical attitudes are also found in mainstream religious people but atheist cannot be exempted with these shortcomings as well. With only a difference of degree and magnitude, the presence of these tendencies in both kinds, religious and atheists, reflect that these inapt behaviours are not a result of following any religion but just natural human behavioural tendencies to support the ideas and doctrines that are not supported by arguments.

The atheist doctrine preys on the mythology and irrational approach by the mainstream religions and dogmas that exist in the present day world that opposes reason rationality, laws of nature and science, especially the Christian mythology and fiction has a prime role in promoting Atheism in the world and it holds its origin from Medieval era of the Church Rule and denouncement of Science. That is why the major weapon of Atheism against the mainstream religions is Science against mythology and fiction. But when they are confronted with a religion like Islam especially as interpreted by Ahmadiyya School of Thought, which holds the view that Science and Religion must not contradict each other, otherwise one has to be misinterpreted or misunderstood, their main weapon of emphasizing on Science becomes useless. Then they have no solid arguments to present other than to hide behind the simplicity and naive approach of majority of followers of any religion. In fact majority of mankind is not as intelligent and deep thinking as a small minority of humans is. The atheists conclude that this less intelligence of majority of mankind is the result of following religion. If this theory is right then Soviet Union with policy of No Religion must have outsmart all other religious world especially USA with their enhanced intelligence after relinquishing the religion. But history has shown otherwise.

Humans are given faculties and capabilities that vary human to human. Some are given strong bodies and some are given high mental faculties but a weak physique. That is why an athlete cannot be compared with a chess player. Even in bouts different weight categories are set for participants with similar weight groups. Atheists, being slightly more intelligent and learned, compare themselves with the less learned and less thinking majority of the public in the field of knowledge, to establish their own superiority over the masses. This foul comparison of the apples and oranges make them arrogant with a sense of superbia, which is the enemy of the wisdom. Their speeches and writings are full of verbosity and their main emphasis always remains on pointing out flaws in the society and the shortcomings of the general behaviour of masses and attributing all these to religion. Psychologically, it is another way to satisfy, their ideology against religion and a sense of intellectual superiority over the majority. They hardly talk about any wise solution of the problems and sufferings of the society or mankind. Their evaluations of the problems are usually correct but their inferences and conclusions are generally astray and misguided. Most of these atheists are just nerds and bookish and have a less practical role in a society.  Playing a vibrant role in social works and services related to the day to day requirements of individuals and societies are followed by social knowledge and experience which is essential to acquire true wisdom and to understand the true standards of reason and rationality, a quality that is usually lacking in atheists. They have a least tendency to lead people in their social approach because leadership requires from a person to be a practical role model in the society with lofty manners, while atheist are less practical and more bookish in their approach. This is another reason that majority of atheist are not found in politics, social services and business etc. rather one may find them in science labs, educational institutes and libraries. But it must not be misunderstood that these jobs as has been related to atheists are of less importance or less graded but the shortcomings of atheists are that they are not fit for social services and practical role models to lead people. On the contrary all true sages and divinely guided religious leaders not only educate their followers but they become role models and embodiments of their divine ideologies and morals with a condescending attitude that attracted general public towards them. It is instilled in the human nature that it can only be changed and reformed by witnessing and accompanying role models who are embodiments of righteousness, ethics, morality and truth in their daily practical and social business. No mere bookish knowledge or mere ideology can bring about any change in humans and societies. In fact this lacking of role models in a religion makes its followers to deviate from the real teachings of a religion and to become puppets in the hands of those who exploit religion for their ulterior motives rather to use it in spirit to reform the people.

So the spreading of Atheism in this age is not due to the any goodness in their message or ideology but courtesy to the lack of true religious values and role models in the mainstream religions and a surge of lust, overwhelming hearty desires, encouragement of these urges through an out of bound media and gaining a false pleasure in which religion is always a strong hurdle.