Posted on: 13 Jul 2018
Shri Anil Antony asked:-
An atheist quoted part of the Swami's divine message on Quora forum and given arguments as given below. Kindly give Your replies to him. Mainly he say that there are atheistic countries which are more disciplined and flourished than that of theistic countries.
[Quote from Swami's discourse: Social justice cannot be maintained if the existence of God is not accepted.
Scott Berry: That’s a nice assertion you’ve got there. It would be a shame if something happened to it — like looking at countries with high rates of atheism and low rates and comparing the rates of social justice.
Quote from Swami's discourse: Atheist, claiming self-discipline even without concept of God, is only example of just hypocrisy, hypocrisy only. If there is an opportunity to escape the legal punishment, atheists are the first to do sin since control other than human law does not exist at all in their view. Once the existence of God is established, Nivrutti stands from that point itself. Hence, the medicine is only Nivrutti (plus sign) and Pravrutti is the central neutral food (zero sign). The wrong knowledge of atheism is like poison (negative sign). You must note that both medicine and poison are chemicals only and look alike. Atheism is only creation of opportunity to do sin in a talented way to escape legal punishments in the world. Therefore, the job of the propagator of spiritual knowledge starts only with the introduction of the concept of existence of unimaginable God to punish any sin.
Scott Berry: “I don’t want to look at social justice rates at countries in the real world. Let’s talk about something else.” You had indicated that social justice can’t be maintained without belief in God. I noted that real-world data doesn’t indicate that this is true. So now you want to talk about non-real-world theory that you think sounds reasonable, but, again, isn’t borne out by what we see in the real world.
What I did say, or have implied:
1. In the past, when people have made statements that something was supernaturally caused, they’ve been wrong over and over.
2. I don’t see any good reason to believe that things are supernatural this time around without good evidence.
3. I haven’t seen any good evidence, just assertion.
4. Your original point, that you can’t have social justice without accepting God, is clearly wrong.
Quote from Swami's discourse:: In developing the children to lead justified life in future, the concept of God and spiritual knowledge is the basic foundation.
Scott Berry: You can have that as your foundation, but it leads you to incorrect conclusions. So you end up with people who say that it’s very important that you not work on Saturday, because it’s a sin. Other people think that’s silly: it’s Sunday that you can’t work on, because that’s a sin. And you might think both of them are silly, but their basis for calling something a sin is just as valid as your own. But if you instead have an actual real-world basis to your morality, like “You wouldn’t like that if someone did it to you, so don’t do it to them,” it works out better for all concerned.
Quote from Swami's discourse: If one can escape the punishment here by cheating law of court, what is the harm if ethics are violated?
Scott Berry: Trying to imply that atheists would be evil if they thought they could get away with it is offensive and flies in the face of what we see in the real world.
Quote from Swami's discourse: If unimaginable God, unimaginable hell and unimaginable procedure of punishment from God are absent, there is no fear at all to do any sin provided one can escape punishment by cheating courts here
Scott Berry: You’re selling yourself short, and failing to understand religions more generally. In Christianity, for instance, it’s a pretty mainstream view that if you believe in Jesus as a savior, all your sins will be forgiven. Why don’t you go start a thread on Christianity saying how worried you are that if they don’t think that they’ll be punished for their sins, they can’t be moral?]
Swami replied:- Believing in the existence of God doesn’t mean that you have to believe everything told in the scripture without analysis. There is always possibility of pollution of scripture. Work on Saturday need not be taken as the word of God. I am stressing on the basic point of existence of unimaginable God, who will punish a sinner in unimaginable ways even if he escapes the Law here. If this fear doesn’t exist, naturally, the question comes to the mind of anybody that why shall not I do the sin and enjoy here if I can escape the punishment here through tricks or bribe. You may be an honest person in not doing the sin even without the concept of God. But, you can’t promise that everybody will be like you. Moreover, even the theist gets the above question in his mind and will be provoked to do the sin. I don’t find any loss if the sin is done and if you escape the punishment here, in case God doesn’t exist. After all, what is the loss in such choice of accepting God? You told that atheistic countries are more disciplined. Such statistics is very difficult for analysis of precision. External discipline may not indicate internal peace also. Somebody may be a secret sinner suffering secretly appearing disciplined externally. However, if such imaginary country exists without sin in spite of no belief in God, such country must be appreciated. In such case, let the people not bother about God and God will also not equally bother about such country. God is not fond of projecting Himself for the sake of fame like a devilish human being. All His efforts are only to control the sin and see peace maintained in the society and if such aim is achieved without His efforts, He will be very happy with such country. But, when there is more possibility for a thing to happen, there is more chance for that thing to happen. When there is less possibility for a thing to happen, there is less chance for that thing to happen. This is universal law and you can’t play with this concept like playing with football to this and that side as you like. Moreover, the concept of unimaginable God is proven by genuine miracles shown by human incarnations in this world. You are closing your eyes and drinking the milk thinking that nobody is seeing you! You can’t play with such universal concept in individual level, which will end in chaos of this world.
It is not correct to say that God will cancel the sins if somebody worships Him. The result of worship expected by Him is reformation of the soul, which is not to repeat the sin practically. Without reformation, never the pending sin gets cancelled. Devotion to God may help in the earlier achievement of reformation, but not cancelation of sins directly by devotion. We never said that the world is unreal in view of the soul. It is only unreal to the absolute unimaginable God. It becomes real even to the unimaginable God when He is mediated. Hence, speaking about non-reality of the world in our view is wrong and irrelevant.