Freedom of Beliefs

The story goes like this: An atheist goes to a fancy restaurant and asks for a cup of tea. The
religious waiter brings the tea and there is a fly in it. Angry atheist says, What is a fly doing in
my tea? The waiter says politely, Well, I think he is praying. The atheist grows angrier and
says, Prayer never solves anything, I cant drink this. Take it back. The waiter smiled and said,
You see? The flys prayers were answered.
I am not an atheist. I am not a blogger. I am not
a person who finds it amusing to hurt other
peoples religious sentiments. However, in light
of the continuous chant Hang the atheists that
is going around these days, I am just a citizen
who is attempting to understand this widely
misunderstood phenomenon called atheism.
In Bangladesh, nastikota or atheism has
been considered a derogatory remark for as long
as we can remember. Any self-proclaimed
nastik is automatically outcast from the society
and dealt with the harshest of social ostracism.
Even the Ekushey Padak winning celebrated writer Humayun Azad had to suffer because he
truthfully expressed his atheism publicly. The fear of being called a nastik is so widespread that
even among the most educated classes very few will publicly admit their slightest disregard for
religion. Therefore, any interpretation of religious dogma, no matter how outrageous it appears,
will be tolerated silently. Or else any protest against it would mean being branded as a nastik, a
sure death to any political or social aspiration. Most of the youths in Shahbagh movement were
not atheists, but as soon as they got the label atheists, somehow the movement lost sympathy
of many believers. An atheist is almost automatically seen as a bad person bound to burn in the
fires of hell for eternity, which is ironic, because atheists dont tend to believe in heaven or hell
anyways.
What I understand is that atheism is not a religion. Atheism is the disbelief of any existence of
God or deity. Atheists dont have religious scriptures or holy book, they dont have a prophet
or an idol, and they dont have a temple or a mosque. They believe in non-existence of all that a
theist would believe. In our country we brand together anyone who doesnt follow an organized
religion as nastik. In reality there are many forms of disbelief. You have your garden variety
confirmed atheists, then there are the ones who subscribe to no religion. You have your
spiritual ones or agnostic ones who believe in some form of higher power but no religion.
There are implicit ones, and the explicit ones. There is practical atheism and there is theoretical
atheism. There are existentialists, metaphysical atheists, there are people who believes in
monism and finally there are people like my friend who was an avid atheist in college, but
whenever his business is in trouble, he goes straight back to his folded jainamaz and cries to
Allah for mercy. In actuality, atheists neither follow any rituals, nor do they have any unified
custom or culture to preach. As a matter of fact, atheists cannot be considered as a collective
group, let alone with a collective doctrine since they never do anything collectively. There is no
one ideology or set of behaviors to which all atheists adhere universally. It is somehow the most
individual form of belief system. When Richard Dawkins published his seminal book on atheism
called The God Delusion, he was very angry at his publishers because they were marketing the
book saying, A must read. This is a bible for all atheists.
So who is an atheist? J yoti Boshu, Karl Marx, Mao, Lenin, Nietzsche, Humayun Azad and J ean
Paul Sartre come to mind. Of course, as famous intellectuals, they fit the profile. As a young boy
once I saw some highly educated communist party leaders talking of progressiveness and
atheism in the same tone. I used to think one has to be in the highly intellectual category to
proclaim themselves as atheists. Later in my life I realized, nothing can be farther than the
truth. Worldwide statistics of atheists show that anyone, regardless of their educational or
intellectual background can be or already is an atheist. The actual figures are quite scary or
impressive depending on which way one looks at it. In 2012 WIN-GALLOP poll of Zurich
published a report titled Religiosity and Atheism Index, which measured global self-
perceptions on beliefs, based on interviews with thousands and thousands of men and women
selected from fifty seven countries across the globe in five continents. According to that poll, 13
per cent of the worlds populations are confirmed atheists and 23 per cent are non-religious.
Interestingly, in this chart, the first two countries with most atheists are from Asia...China and
J apan! I am personally always skeptical of these polls and their findings. However, even at a
huge error margin, the truth is that a large amount of atheists and non-believers exist in this
world. These millions of men, women and children all across the globe are real people in flesh
and blood just like us. What we must ask ourselves now is that when we say Hang the
Atheists, do we mean we should hang all these millions of human beings as well?
In these days most Europeans consider themselves as either non- religious or atheist. It is not
surprising, given the fact that Europe sustained torturous reign under Christianity for over a
thousand years. Our Taliban religious fanatics would be considered baby fish compared to the
Catholic Spanish inquisitors. In the name of God, they mass murdered the dissenting
population, raped women for purification, forcefully converted rest to Christianity and ended
nearly seven hundred years of Muslim presence in Spain almost overnight. Sounds familiar? The
biggest mistakes of liberals are thinking that ignorance is harmless. In both Pakistan and
Afghanistan, once there was a huge middle class liberal intelligentsia that oversaw a peaceful
and prosperous nation. Once they were driven out of the country by religious fanatics using fear
and intimidation, the gap was filled with warriors, bigots and religious fanatics, and the rest is
history. Fear is a powerful method of zealots. Do we really want the same fate for Bangladesh?
The funny thing is that everywhere in the world, in every era, these religious fanatics committed
mass genocides and tortures in the name of righteousness. Most of these foot soldiers of God
truly believed that they are doing the right thing and heaven will be waiting for them. So when
the fifteen-year-old skinny madrasa boy is burning a CNG with a pregnant woman inside or
holding a placard in bad English saying, Hang the atheist and blger, we might wonder behind
all that criminal mask, there might be a presence of naivet that honestly believes killing atheists
will get him the gorgeous Hurs. The road to hell is paved with good intentions!
Atheists are anti-Islam. This is a statement with inherent logical fallacy and convoluted
emotions. Yes, there are atheists who are anti-Islam, but so are many Christians, Hindus and
J ewish people who would do anything to defame Islam. If we hang the anti-Islam atheists, must
we not hang all the Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, and Sikhs too? Being an atheist, just like
being a Christian does not automatically make a person Islamophobe. Otherwise as a country,
Bangladesh would not be having such a wonderful relation with J apan, where most of the
population is considered to be an atheist or a non- believer. All atheists are not highly moral
people either. Some individuals who choose to call themselves atheist may also choose to
behave like fanatics. If an atheist attacks Islam with his sharp words, he is no better than the
ignorant mollah who attacks a Hindu temple with his sharp sword in the name of Allah. Atheism
also does not guarantee anyone automatically to be considered as a free thinker or an
intellectual. Most free thinkers I have seen all across the world were believers of some form. It
is neither a zero sum game nor is it a mutually exclusive argument. One of my friends wrote on
facebook Atheists are peaceful people, which is yet again another example of logical fallacy.
Atheism does not justify fanaticism, nor does it assure pacifism. It is just a word that means not
believing in any God. Otherwise, the average atheist is just a human being with imperfections,
hunger, emotions, love, hate and aspirations like any other person.
Now that we have carefully busted the myth of atheism, we must concentrate on our collective
conscience. If we ought to aspire ourselves to be successful as a secular modern nation, we must
think deep to define the word secularism and try to find a way to include all forms of belief
systems, including the ones who choose not to believe. Lakum deenukum waliya deen. To you
be your religion, and to me mine. (Al Quran. 109:6). Live and let live. We dont have to believe
what atheists believe, but we must accept the difference in belief systems. We must ask
ourselves, is secularism only confined to including established religions? Is it not a system of
including all kinds of belief? Are we so arrogant to say that the path to peace and enlightenment
is through killing off dissent? When will we learn to accept our inherent differences? Shobar
upore manush shotto, tahar upor e nai.
I am not an atheist, but I dont want to hang one.

The writer is a graduate from San Francisco State University and Disegno Academia di Firenze.
He currently teaches Architecture at North South University and consults for international
organizations like Habitat for Humanity, SAFE and ActionAid.