Why I am an Atheist

by Bhagat Singh

"Study" was the cry that reverberated in the corridors of my mind. Study to enable yourself to face the arguments advanced by opposition. Study to arm yourself with arguments in favor of your cult. I began to study.

I studied Bakunin, the Anarchist leader, something of Marx the father of Communism and much of Lenin, Trotsky and others the men who had successfully

independence, because I could not do otherwise. The day we find a great number of men and women with this psychology who cannot devote themselves to anything else than the service of mankind and emancipation of the suffering humanity; that day shall inaugurate the era of liberty.

But man's duty is to try and endeavor, success depends upon chance and environments.

According to me, any man who has got some reasoning power at his command always tries to reason out his environments.

Any man who stands for progress has to criticize, disbelieve and challenge every item of the old faith. Item by item he has to reason out every nook and corner of the prevailing faith. If after considerable reasoning one is led to believe in any theory or philosophy, his faith is welcomed. His reasoning can be mistaken, wrong, misled and sometimes fallacious. But he is liable to correction because reason is the guiding star

of his life. But mere faith and blind faith is dangerous: it dulls the brain, and makes a man reactionary.

Moreover do you know that the greatest sin in this world is to be poor? Poverty is a sin, it is a punishment.

vanity"? If it is, I stand for it.