This was a question on Quora.
Let’s analyze:
An Atheist is usually defined as someone who does not believe in God.
Now of course ‘God’ needs to be defined. In the Abrahamic religions, God stands for a personal God who is separate from human beings. In Judaism, Yahweh declared Jews as his chosen people. In Christianity, God the Father sent his son to earth to save humanity. And in Islam, Allah sent the last and final prophet, Mohammed.
Now in India, a personal God is not considered the Ultimate. In India, the Ultimate, is all pervading, not personal. It is called Brahman, Paramatman or simply Tat (That), yet it is form and nameless. It is the life, awareness and true Being or Self of everything in this manifestation. It is That, what is unchanging in midst of this changing universe. Science discovered the one energy underlying every appearance. India’s wisdom discovered that this energy is conscious and blissful (SatChitAnanda).
Now, Brahman is not imaginable, it cannot be grasped by the mind, but since it is our essence, it can be felt, and be realized as real. To be able to realise it, the scriptures, like the Bhagavad Gita, give some methods, like jnana or bhakti or karma yoga.
Here comes in the personal God. To feel love (bhakti) for That, which is formless and invisible, it is helpful to direct it towards a form and name, which acts like an access point, i.e. Shiva, Devi, Krishna, Ram, Ganesh, etc…
In Hinduism you need not have an Ishta deva. You can do Jnana Yoga (trying to get to the one truth by enquiry of ‘who am I?’) and many more paths are there. You are basically a Hindu when you acknowledge that there is a conscious basis to that universe, including your own person, that is immanent and even beyond. And of course it would make sense to try to connect to that, more so, since the Rishis claim it is possible…
Unfortunately, in the West, the Hindu concepts are not known. So, when people lose faith in Christianity, they reject also ‘God’. They do not know that the personal God, who loves some and doesn’t love others, is not the real, ultimate truth.
This article goes into more details: https://mariawirth.com/the-problem-with-god/
by Maria Wirth
