**Atheism vs Theism**

 

🔥 **Atheism vs Theism** 🔥

## Denial of the Existence of God by an Atheist

Believers wake up very early in the morning, even while it is still dark, and with deep emotion perform various religious rituals before their chosen deity—such as devotional songs, hymns, rosary recitation, storytelling, worship, offerings, sacred food, meditation, and chanting. They offer long prayers saying: “O Lord! Grant us wealth and prosperity, keep us healthy and free from disease, give us children and grandchildren, provide us with business or employment, help us pass examinations, make us win court cases,” and so on.

They pray just as an orphaned child cries out to his parents when suffering from hunger, thirst, cold, or heat. Yet no one listens. The condition of these God-believing devotees is similar. Every day, for hours, they describe their personal and family sufferings, shortages, worries, and sorrows in a pitiful voice before an imagined God; they plead and weep, yet none of their troubles are removed. If God truly existed, then surely the sufferings of all these devotees would be removed. But they are not. From this, the atheist concludes that God does not exist.

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## 🌷 Affirmation of the Existence of God by a Theist

First of all, it is necessary to understand what *prayer* is and when prayer should be offered. Those who do not know the definition and characteristics of prayer are the ones who raise such doubts.

A Ṛṣi has defined *prayer* as follows:

**“After making one’s fullest personal effort, seeking the help of God or a capable person for the accomplishment of noble actions is called prayer.”**

— *Āryoddeśyaratnamālā*, Verse 24, by Swami Dayanand Saraswati

For example, if a porter or labourer who carries loads does no work himself, stands idle with folded hands, and asks others to place the load on his head, no one will be willing to help him. Similarly, if a student neither listens attentively to his teacher’s lessons, nor writes them down, nor memorizes them, nor follows the teacher’s good instructions, but when the examination approaches, keeps repeating “Guruji, Guruji” and asks the teacher to pass him—what wise and just teacher would give marks and pass such a student who made no effort at all? None.

In the same way, before helping a person who prays, God expects certain things. For attaining wealth, strength, health, long life, children, and the fulfilment of other desires, God has prescribed specific methods in the Vedas. Those who pray without properly knowing these prescribed methods and without practicing them in daily life are like the porter or the careless student mentioned above. God, who is like a teacher, does not fulfil the desires of such a person who prays without proper method and effort, because God is supremely intelligent and perfectly just.

Prayer performed without pure knowledge and pure action is one-sided. No matter how much one prays without properly studying, understanding, and practicing the truth of the Vedas and other true scriptures, such prayer does not qualify as true *prayer*.

Those devotees who limit prayer merely to going to a temple, seeing an idol, bowing before it, applying a tilak, drinking sacred water, offering leaves and flowers, presenting food items, chanting a name, turning a rosary, singing a couple of hymns, bathing at a pilgrimage site, or performing some charity—their prayers also do not succeed. Such worshippers do not connect prayer with righteous actions. They do not practice in daily life the God-like effort that God expects from those who pray. This becomes the reason for the failure of their prayers.

It is astonishing that a person who indulges in violence, falsehood, theft, adultery, intoxication, lack of self-control, laziness, negligence, and other evil actions—which lead to unrest, disease, fear, grief, ignorance, death, and disgrace—still asks God for happiness, peace, fearlessness, health, long life, strength, valor, knowledge, and fame. How is this possible? Never.

If a prayer made after full personal effort still does not succeed, then according to scriptural principles there can be three reasons: **action (karma), the doer (kartā), and the means (sādhana)**.

(See *Nyāya Darśana* 2.1.58: *na karma-kartṛ-sādhana-vaiguṇyāt*.)

When all three—action, doer, and means—are complete and virtuous, prayer is certainly successful. Conversely, if there is any deficiency in even one of these three, then no matter how much one prays, the prayer will not succeed.

For example, a sick person goes to a skilled physician and asks to be cured. The physician examines the disease and instructs the patient about which medicine to take, in what manner, how many times a day, and in what quantity, and also explains what foods to eat and what to avoid, along with guidance on daily routine and behavior.

If, despite these instructions, the patient does not take the medicine in the prescribed manner, that is a defect in **action**. If the patient follows the medicine properly but remains filled with anger, laziness, negligence, worry, fear, or despair, that is a defect in the **doer**. And even if the patient is capable, but the medicine is fake, inferior, or insufficient, that is a defect in the **means**.

In the same way, if the prayer of a God-believing theist does not succeed and his sufferings are not removed, one should not conclude that God does not exist. Rather, one should infer that there is some deficiency in his personal effort—meaning a defect in action, the doer, or the means. By identifying and removing these defects, the prayer will surely succeed.

Therefore, from the above discussion it is proven that God does exist and does remove suffering. However, God does not remove the suffering of every person who merely prays; He removes the suffering only of those devotees who pray to God in the true prescribed way, accompanied by sincere effort.

*[Authored by Āchārya Gyaneshwar Arya Ji, from “Īśvara kī Siddhi”]*

Reproduced by Dr. Vivek Arya