I’m not a Hindu.

I started off as one, when I was very little. My father told me stories of gods and monsters and I always found them fascinating. I always had fun listening to them and I was always excited by how clever the gods were compared to those dumb demons.

But as I grew up, I began questioning things about religion. It started off as random, but interesting questions, like…

Where does god stay?

What does he do all day?

Who gives him food?

Does he ever pick his nose?

Also, if there are different religions, where the hell are gods from other religions living (No, I never, for a second thought that my religion was the one true religion and followers of other religions were going to burn in hell for being faithful to their religion)?

But then the questions began to evolve.

If God is that powerful, why doesn’t he stop all the bad guys from doing bad things?

Wait, why did he make bad guys in the first place?

When did we decide he was a ‘he’ and not a she?

At which point I decided, you know what, these questions are too heavy for me, and I’d rather not answer them. These questions exist, and clearly, there are no real answers. So, it’s probably safe to assume that the question - whether or not god exists - should be a question we only deal with when we die, and we’re in the afterlife. We’d probably have a better understanding of things then.

I think these questions pissed my father off a fair bit, but that’s a story for another day.

Anyway, from this point on, it was pretty easy to get to -- God clearly is a made up entity because humans obviously have an innate need to believe that we have to come from somewhere. It’s not enough that we were born from (more or less) loving parents, we need some kind of magical entity sitting in the sky, birthing humans and overlooking the whole thing.

For the past, many years, this is what I’ve known. Not ‘believed’, known.

Humans have lived at least 2,80,000 years more than any of today’s gods have.

That number, 2,80,000 years, that’s just a random number I picked up. Humans have lived far longer than that.

Just to give you some perspective, Hinduism, apparently, has been around for less than 5000 years.

So, really, what logical reason do you have to believe in gods?

And because of all this information about the non-existence of god, my life has felt…

No different.

The existence or lack of the existence of god, literally, has no effect on how humans behave. I’m still the same, petty, stupid, self-centered human being I was when I still believed in god. There are even bigger assholes out there in the world. Life goes on.

And yet, the fact that arguments about god, on several occasions, has led to groups of people cutting, maiming, beheading people, and raping women, even. This is shocking. It reprehensible. It’s fucked up.

I know of many Hindus who are quite vocal about how they want Muslims to suffer. I don’t know many Muslims, but I’m certain a large portion of them want Hindus to suffer as well.

We’re living in a fucked up world, where imaginary entities in the sky are making people hurt each other.

I don’t know what to make of this.

Originally published in Ashwin's Dispatch, a monthly newsletter sent out by me.