Finding the Cure for Today's Social Ills
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is no God, no conception of God, no order of God, then where is religion? If there is no government, then where is the law?
Interviewer:  Well, there wouldn't be any law. It would be an outlaw society.
Śrila Prabhupāda:  Outlaw—everyone is an outlaw, manufacturing his own concocted system of religion. That is going on.
Just ask—in any religious system, what is their conception of God? Can anyone tell clearly? No one can tell. But we shall immediately say,
veṇuṁ kvaṇantam aravinda-dalāyatākṣaṁ barhāvataṁsam asitāmbuda-sundarāṅgam kandarpa-koṭi-kamanīya-viśeṣa-śobhaṁ govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi
“I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, who is adept in playing on His flute, whose blooming eyes are like lotus petals, whose head is bedecked with a peacock’s feather, whose figure of beauty is tinged with the hue of blue clouds, and whose unique loveliness charms millions of Cupids.” [ Brahma-saṁhitā  5.30] Immediately, we can give a description of God.
If there is no idea of God, then what kind of religion is that?
Interviewer:  I don’t know.
Śrila Prabhupāda:  It is bogus. People have no conception of God, and therefore they have no understanding of religion. That is the decline, and because religion is declining, the human beings are becoming more and more like animals.
“Animal” means that one has no memory. A dog comes when there are some eatables; I say “Hut!” and he goes away. But again he comes—he has no memory. So when our memory of God is reducing, that means that our human qualities are reducing. In the Kali-yuga these human qualities will be reduced. That means that people are becoming like cats and dogs.
Interviewer:  Here’s the second question: “The traditional charge against Vedic culture is that it is fatalistic, that it makes people slaves to the belief in predestination, and that it therefore inhibits progress. How far is this charge true?”
Śrila Prabhupāda:  What is that progress? Is a dog’s jumping progress? Is that progress? A dog is running here and there on four legs, and you are running here and there on the four wheels of the automobile. Is that progress? That is not the Vedic system. According to the Vedic system, the human being has a certain amount of energy, and since the human