On the question of God

The moment you fall in a dreamless sleep, everything goes dark, you would not realise, it  was dark unless you wake up and your senses work. If they don't, you might be still sleeping endlessly. But, the universe was apparently functioning without you. You might have a phd in physics, it still happens to you.

On the other hand, you wake up and sense the world, do your daily pooja religiously, pray to God for waking you up, appease the God when he might be angry and hope he will bring you wealth, health and happiness. You are deeply religious, align with your stars, offer part of wealth to God in lieu of more, so God also gives only when you give?

Few others do the extreme and hurt things that don't align with them. 

 Did he actually ask you to kill, loot and hurt in his name? 

Most of constructs surrounding religion and God came up to tame the mind for  the uninitiated and definitely not for the self actualising. That said, I have been surprised to see double doctorates and most intelligent of people pray and believe daily.

So why do they do it? Remember they know physics and biology and some more, as well as, a common atheist, in addition to being actually functionally useful to the society as a bonus. 

One of the professors, I most admire, consults big corporations on strategy and things that matter, does a course on self realisation in a premiere institution and he literally wows anyone who is fortunate enough to meet him, I was surprised and inspired to see, he has pictures of gods all over his desk and meditates. 

One highly educated doctor, helping the society, prays everyday before treating the patients for the day. 

So do they not believe in themselves? Do they not believe in science? 

One well educated, highly intelligent person is an atheist, he ridicules temples, god, praying and the anyone being stupid enough to believe in God. He simply sits around critiquing and commenting without being socially functional. 

Stephen hawking doesn't believe in God. I have read his books, I find them fascinating but yet I will not dismiss the concept of God. I do not believe in anything done in the name of God. I don't believe in star alignments. 

Ultimately I guess if one can concentrate similar to meditation, things would fall in perspective. But unfortunately people need to go to a meditation class or a yoga class to concentrate. To me, the concept of praying at a statue or a symbol is just to make you concentrate, you tell the God (basically yourself) that you need these things in life, you or many common people need that focal point to see what they want. If you can do that without looking out at symbolisms and , all credits to you and you can be an atheist. 

But to me, I am neither an atheist nor a fanatic. Praying helps me look inside me. To someone who has not read the theory of time or realivity, especially a kid, it is easy to ask him to believe in God, s/he can work out the logic later on. Don't make a kid an atheist without giving an alternate form of concentration and hope mechanism. 

Ultimately, I  believe in the social hypothesis for courtrooms, innocent until proven guilty. Also, it would be pretty exciting if there was indeed a God, may be answers to very question of universe could be interesting instead of just hot gases and chance.