Is God Dead? (An Introduction to Kya Ishwar Mar Chuka Hai? ) Dr. Ramendra, 1998, pp. 30, Price Rs. 10 (US $ 2)
This
English work is a short introduction to my Hindi book Kya Ishwar mar chuka hai? (1985, Second revised and expanded edition 1995). In this book I have defended atheism mainly by showing that the idea of god obstructs the growth of knowledge and morality.
"Is God dead?" --this is the literal meaning of the Hindi title of the book. This small, Hindi book was written by me in June 1981 as a student of M. A. (Philosophy) in Patna University.This book was not written by me for scholars and academicians. I wrote it keeping in mind an average educated person. Therefore, I did not assume any prior knowledge of philosophy on part of my readers. It was intended as a "popular" work. Because of this, I deliberately avoided discussing the "ontological argument" of Anselm, which, I think, only sophisticated "philosophers" (theologians, in fact) could have imagined. On the other hand, I have discussed the argument that I encountered most often in my discussions, though the argument is not found in the books of philosophy of religion. In short, the argument goes as follows: "Everyone believes in the existence of god, therefore, god must exist." The other arguments discussed by me in the book, namely, "the causal argument", "the teleological argument" and "the moral argument" are generally discussed critically in books of philosophy of religion. I could have related these arguments to philosophers like Descartes and Kant. Similarly, I could have related the criticism of these arguments, as well as "the problem of evil", which I have used as the main argument for disproving the existence of god, to philosophers like Epicurus, Hume and Bertrand Russell. However, I did not cite any philosopher or scholar in support of my views, or document my book, because, as mentioned earlier, it was not intended as a scholarly work, but as a popular work. Besides, though many of the arguments used by me were used earlier by distinguished philosophers, I had used them after making them my own. I wanted to take full responsibility for the arguments used by me. In short, I wrote the book as an original, argumentative work for general readers.
Though I have not documented the text of my work, or mentioned any names of philosophers and scholars in it, the book contains a small bibliography in which I have mentioned the names of Bertrand Russell’s Why I am not a Christian , Gora’s An Atheist with Gandhi and John Hospers’ An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis . Besides, I have mentioned Dr. Y. Masih’s scholarly work in Hindi titled Nireeshwarwad Bhartiya aur Paschatya ( Atheism Indian and Western). In the first edition of the book, which was published in 1985, I had not discussed "the argument from special events and experiences". I added this argument in the second revised and expanded edition published in 1995. I also added the name of Dr. A.T. Kovoor’s book Begone Godmen in the bibliography. (I was acquainted with all these books before I wrote Kya ishwar mar chuka hai?)
This small English book was originally published by the Buddhiwadi Foundation. Later , it was published on the website of the Secular Web where any one can read it for free. Some printed copies are still available with the Buddhiwadi Foundation.