About Me (in Sri Lanka)

Sri Lanka is a Buddhist country, although there are visible Hindu, Christian and Muslim minorities. I had the pleasure of knowing a young Buddhist student monk before going to live in Sri Lanka.

I was impressed by the young monk's description of Buddhism as more a philosophy than a religion. Even as a non-believer in God, if not especially as a non-believer in God, this characterization of Buddhism appealed to me.

Alas, there was in reality a Buddhism in Sri Lanka, as I would discover, that was in fact an amalgamation of Hindu-Buddhist superstition and other cultural practices peculiar to Sri Lanka. What a disappointment!

This was part of my story until 8 years ago, when I left Sri Lanka for the UAE (preceding post).

Unlike in the UAE, the religious powers that be in Sri Lanka were not in the least bit coercive. Although Buddhism was unofficially the religion of the state, there were no punishments to be feared under Buddhist teaching. Such a level of liberalism might not be found in an Islamic Sharia state.

What everyone could enjoy in Buddhism as practiced in Sri Lanka were the wonderful elephant pageants, dances and drum festivals associated with it, known as perahera.

While suffering under the burden of separatism inspired terrorism, the associated military conflict and a poor economy, there were extensive personal liberties afforded in Sri Lanka, reflective of both a Buddhist and, similar to India, secular political tradition.

Sri Lanka was in fact fertile ground for that less than virtuous off-shoot of atheism otherwise known as Marxism. The Marxists, as I'm sure many would agree, simply replaced one form of tyrannical devotion with another, hardly an ideal manifestation of atheist expression.


Dalada Maligawa temple, home to Buddhism's tooth relic.
The two and a half years I spent in Sri Lanka were rather carefree from the perspective of being a non-believer. In homage to the culture, I attended temple or church or other religious functions as occasion might have required. Even Muslims in Sri Lanka were a comfortable lot to intermingle with. Religion and the religious in Sri Lanka seemed largely without hangups.

By this time, it had already been several years since I had thrown off the yoke of religion, and that ironically enabled me to appreciate the cultural richness supplied through a variety of religious traditions.

The preceding part of my story continues in Japan.

The Fun Part... About Me (in the UAE)

This should be fun, unless the government stops me! The government in question is the UAE's, where the order of the day is the religion of Islam.

The fun part is that by blogging my faith I can express a world view that I ordinarily have no choice but to keep a lid on. There are so many things to talk about that I don't really know where to start. For the sake of the reader, however, I'll keep each post topic-based and brief.

The topic of this post is to introduce myself, as an atheist.

This is me, 47 years old in Dubai, UAE--what an incredible city! This is my story. I'll tell it in reverse.

Last things first, I exist here in the UAE as a wallflower, which is quite easy to manage.

The law is Islam--there is no separation between church and state, not even a pretense (unlike in the USA, my home of origin). But it is a don't ask, don't tell sort of place. (Oops, I'm telling now.)

There is a defacto freedom and liberalism here--but with no guarantees. So, you just live your life and keep your fingers crossed.

I am a wallflower--I don't practice my faith. As a teacher the question comes up in class on occasion. When it does I answer frankly, "I don't believe in any religion." Some quizzical expressions appear, but nothing is really made of it. It basically returns to don't ask, don't tell.

Religion, mostly Islam, is everywhere, but largely non-intrusive. It is easy to ignore. There are Christians, Hindus and that majority of humans who do not really follow any religion although they pretend to. In any case, no one bombards you with religion.

Unlike them, however, I doubt that I could practice my faith here if I so desired--and I do in fact desire to. Why not! It is what I believe and what I understand to be the truth. Why should I not want to express it in some overt form and share it or share in it with others?


  City of the future--Dubai (DIFC)

My closest friend is Hindu. While I can respect both him and his faith, for it is reflective of what in my eyes is a very creative and colorful cultural tradition, it (Hinduism) is nonetheless as illogical and nonsensical as any religion, which... well I need to save any further commentary on that for another post.

With my Hindu friend I have occasion to express and argue my point of view. That is my one, very limited opportunity to share and, for a brief moment, bask in my atheist world view.

Part 2, in Sri Lanka...