LIST OF ARTICLES:
ARTICLE-1. SECULARISM VS RELIGIOUS "MODERNISM" AND EXTREMISM.
ARTICLE-2. SECULARISM - SOME CLARIFICATIONS & DEMYTHIFICATIONS
ARTICLE-3. THE ORIGIN OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF
ARTICLE-4. DOES RELIGION DEFINE MORALITY?
ARTICLE-5. ON THE FREE WILL DEFENSE AGAINST ARGUMENT FROM EVIL
ARTICLE-6. MIXING SCIENCE WITH RELIGION
ARTICLE-7. SCIENCE IS NOT FAITH
ARTICLE-8. MYTHS & FALLACIES OF APOLOGETICS OF RELIGION
ARTICLE-9. GOD,ATHEISM & SECULAR HUMANISM
ARTICLES ON SCIENCE VS. SPIRITUALITY & PHILOSOPHY
1. SECULARISM VS RELIGIOUS "MODERNISM" AND EXTREMISM
The frequent bitter exchanges between so-called modern Islamists and
secular free thinkers where former constantly accusing the latter of
undermining any chance of success in the fight against religious
extremism brings out a very important aspect of the school of thinking
that typifies the believing segment of Islam and the secular free
thinkers. A critical examination of where each stands and where the
real difference lies between their stands and what is the root cause of
this difference is in order. First, for the convenience of later
reference let me define some abbreviations:(Symbols may not be worth
thousand words like pictures, but perhaps will save hundred words!).
B-1: (Believers of the first category):
These are believing people who have strong views on religious issues,
are opposed to religious extremism but believe that such extremism is
due to misinterpretation of scriptures and they blame only the
extremists for the extremist acts. This school of believers may or may
not subscribe to secularism as a state principle. Some do, some do not,
but most do view religion as an important aspect of national life.
While most among this category are faithful believers of religion some
of them may not believe in all the religious scriptures literally but
nevertheless BELIEVE that there is nothing bad written or said in
Islam (or any religion) , hence they are lumped in this believer
category.
B-2: (Believers of the second category):
These are believers belonging to the vast majority of the ordinary
mass who do not know or care to know the verses and edicts (Fatwas)
let alone worry or debate about their veracity. They just practice
and follow the normal religious rituals routinely in a non-political
manner. They are usually placid in their religious pursuits and being
generally gullible are only aroused and misled by vigorous propaganda.
B-3: (Believers of the third category):
These are the extremists among believers who engage in extremist acts
and defend their extremist acts by referring to the scriptural
verses and edicts and claim legitimacy of their acts from these
verses and edicts. Sometimes they correctly interpret the verse and
sometimes they distort them to suit their extremist act.
SFT: (Secular Free Thinkers ):
These are people who are convinced through reading of scriptures
that the religious extremism is rooted in some passages of
scriptures (mainly Koran and Hadith). and that the extremists
derive their legitimacy/strength from the very existence of these
verses and are of the view that merely opposing the extremists will
not solve the problem decisively, since eliminating extremists will
remove the effect/consequence , not the root cause cause which is
giving rise to these extremists . A critical re-examination of the
scriptures and an objective awareness of it is the right way to
proceed to wards a solution, they opine.
The two groups B-1 and SFT have one important thing in common in
that they are both opposed to religious extremism/mists. Despite this
significant agreement between both these groups on this important
principle there is still much bitterness and caustic remarks are
exchanged between them (More so by the former toward the latter) due
to their disagreement in identifying the origin of religious extremism. I
personally feel pained by this division as it only helps the extremists.
Let us at least try to examine logically whose position is more/ less
justified in principle and whose position sacrifices principle for
pragmatic reasons and if there is any justification for that. It is
clear that B-1, SFT, B- 3 are all a minority segment of the population.
The normally silent B-2 are the majority. So what decides the relative
importance of the three minority groups is how strongly a minority
group can influence the normally silent majority B-2 and mobilize them
against any of the the other two minorities. It is instructive to
examine the relative hostility that exists between the three minorities.
Although both SFT and B-1 are opposed to B-3, B-1 is also hostile
towards SFT (Borne out by observations). This is exemplified by an
article by Mr. Fatemolla in NFB where he mentioned that the remark by
Dr. Kamal Hossain that "Hilla marriage is unIslamic" was wrong , which
provoked an angry backlash from Ms. Majid who criticized Mr. fatemolla
instead for calling Dr. Kamal Hossein wrong. This is further
exemplified by the obsessed and focussed criticism by Dr. Farooq in his
several articles in NFB of the " trivializers" of Ijtema (ie SFTs) as
being of no help in fighting against the extremists (B-3), and alleging
that it only helps the extremists. Interestingly the criticism of Dr.
Farooq was exclusively directed against the putative trivializers/
trivialization and quite mildly against extremists/extremism. It would
be a monumental injustice to EQUATE trivialization and extremism.
While trivialization (Setting aside the question of the felicity of using
such word) is only a verbal opinion by non-violent/non- aggressive
individuals, hurting nobody, on the other hand, extremism is
necessarily ACTS OF HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION that hurts
innocent individual ( Physically and emotionally) . It is the height of
insensitivity to even equate the two , let alone criticize the former
exclusively. In both examples cited B- 1 are assuming that the
criticism by SFT of the scriptural verses and edicts that spawned the
extremist acts of B-3 are also a criticism/attack of B-2 (The silent ,
non aggressive majority) or their faith . Why is it alleged to be an
attack on B- 2 ? Because it is said that B-2 have placed their
unquestioning faith in these scriptures, hence any criticism of
scriptures by SFT in order to explain the root causes of the behavior
of B-3 is automatically an attack on B-2 and is immediately condemned
( without caring to judge its merit) by B-1 and the focus of B-1 is
shifted obsessively on SFT rather than the misdeeds of B-3. SFT becomes
the main culprit, more than B-3. Now how logical is the assumption that
a criticism of some scriptures is automatically an attack on B-2? (Or
on the faith thereof?) . "Attack" is a very convenient term devised in
this context as it seems to legitimize a physical attack in retribution.
There is no logical way to conclude that quoting an objectionable
scriptural verse or edict to explain the acts of B-3 automatically
constitutes "attacking" B-2 or their faith. This simply does not follow
logic. This gratuitous allegation and condemnation of SFT by B-1 has a
deep rooted reason that I will speculate on later, in the final section.
By the way what is really meant by the word "attack", "hurt" etc, when
B-1 characterizes the views/criticisms explaining the cause-effect
relationship between the acts of B-3 and scriptures as attacking or
hurting the religious sentiments of B-2 ? (B-1 as well). Let us dissect
this frequent expression of angry response. Does faith being hurt mean
the faith is weakened? If so then it is a reflection of the weakness of
the person placing the faith and if the criticism weakens his/her faith
then it is an indirect vindication of the validity of the criticism. If
faith is not weakened by criticism then the meaning of "faith being
hurt" must be that the believer is mentally distressed that someone is
not agreeing with his/ her belief. In that case it indicates an
intolerance of any dissenting views and a frustrated ego to know that
others are not sharing in their favoured belief. There can be no other
meaning of "faith being hurt" in this context. Faith is internal in
one's heart, no words or actions can affect or change it(faith) and as
long as one is not persecuted for their faith, any critical discussion
of a faith should be a non issue for a believer, instead it should
provide the believer with an opportunity to test his/ her strength in
their belief in the face of a critical study of their faith by skeptics.
As I said above that the SFT group are convinced on the basis of
reading the scriptures that the problem is not merely due to a
malicious misinterpretation, but due to there being some truth to what
these extremists are quoting to defend their extremist acts/attitude.
SFT do not deny that malicious and intentional misinterpretations can
and do happen, but that they happen IN ADDITION TO many accurate
and sincere interpretations that do justifiably lead to such extremist act/
attitude. SFT often quote exactly from Koran and Hadith to illustrate
the verses and edicts that do justify some of the acts and attitudes of
the extremists. When they do so, B-1 often skirt around these quotes
and instead of falsifying the authenticity of such quotes angrily
retort back to SFT by saying that such quoting does not help the cause
against extremists/mism but only strengthens them by antagonizing the
common mass of followers (B-2) .Now this needs some careful
examination. First we have to settle objectively whether or not such
quotes are authentic. Authentic renditions of Koran and Hadith are no
classified materials. They are out in the public including the internet.
So it should not be even debated. Since this dispute can be settled by
facts alone that are available in public, no logic is needed to settle
this dispute and I will move on to the logical issues after giving one
example of such a dispute that can be resolved . Secondly the
allegation by B-1 that "quoting the relevant verses and edicts and
claiming them as the root cause of the acts of B-3 by SFT is an attack
on B-2" needs even more careful examination. Before even B-2 (who are
normally placid and indifferent) could know about the quotes of SFT,
the loud and vociferous condemnation by B-1 of SFT already polarizes
B-2 against SFT instead of B- 3 whose ACTIONS triggered the remarks
of SFT in the first place. Had B-1 not made such hue and cry against SFT,
B-2 would have gradually come to hear about the ACTS of B-3 and the
explanation of those acts by SFT on their own and would have probably
thought differently than the way they did after being polarized by the
frenzied allegations of B-1 against SFT. In fact B-2 deserve more
credit than given to them by B-1. In christianity it is the B-2 who led
the reform movements and got christianity out from the clutches of
religious extremism by getting rid of the dogmas in their mind and
adopting a more pragmatic and dynamic view of religion and leading a
life not obsessively focussing on scriptures, ignoring the questionable
verses and quotes from scriptures as irrelevant, but not
inconscientiously denying that they do exist as B-1 does in the case
of Islam. Thankfully they did not have B-1 to vandalize the this
spontaneous reform of B-2, or even if B-1 existed they did not
vandalize it by pitting SFT against B-2. In most other religions also,
B-2 acknowledged and ignored the negative/outdated part of scriptures
and moved on while still practicing religious rites and prayers and
focussing on the good aspects only. Thats what prevented a malignant
growth of B-3 in these religions, since B-3 thrives knowing they can
rely on B-2 to defend them by raising the bogey of "attack". When B-2
is informed and pragmatic, they can care less about "attack", since
they have accepted and ignored the negatives.
It is very likely that some of B-1 do not deny (In their heart) that
some such unfavourable verses and edicts do verily exist in the
scripture. The big difference between B-1 and SFT is in the STRATEGY
they adopt. I will not engage into a research as to whether such
negative verse, quote, fatwa etc are indeed an integral part of the
scriptures or unauthorized constructions of extremists to justify
giving vent to their extremist impulses, as that can be settled
through by facts and data that are out and available in the public as I
mentioned earlier. Instead I will focus on the principles and logical
aspects of these issues and draw inferences from circumstantial
evidence. Lets take two possible cases:
CASE 1: The negative verses/edicts, etc do not exist anywhere in the
scriptures and hence these fatwas are not in conformity with
Islam. B-1's stand is right in this case.
In this case obviously B-3 are committing some unislamic act in the
name of Islam. Now if that is the case, then why don't B-1 act as
zealously and aggressively as the B-3 against such anti-Islamic acts
in the name of Islam? After all, the violent acts of B-3 are
against what they sincerely "perceive" as anti-Islamic practices. So
why not B-1 act even more aggressively and vengefully (Jihad?) against
B-3 for acting in a way that tarnishes the image of Islam, specially
since they are so sure that such acts of B-3 are not sanctioned by
islam and many they think are downright against Islam and thus having
the moral legitimacy to act against B-3? After all, they can arouse the
sentiments of the majority segment B-2 convincing them easily (since it
is true) about the unislamic nature of the acts of B-3 and the
consequent damage B-3 are doing to Islam by claiming their actions to
be sanctioned by Islam etc.. That would sure galvanize B-2 into
action and form a formidable force of (B-1+ B-2) against B-3. B-3
would then be history in a short time!
CASE 2: The objectionable Verses/Edicts are indeed written and preached
in scriptures .
In this case Both SFT and B-3 are right! SFT are right in their
explaining the root cause of the extremist acts of B-3. B-3 are right
in correctly interpreting and following the scriptures. In this case
B-1 do not have strong moral strength to oppose and condemn the acts of
B-3 but only make an academic criticism lamenting such acts of B-3 as
unfortunate and due to a mistaken interpretations of the scriptures by
some misguided followers. There reaction is limited to a passive lament
only.In this case not being able to do much against B-3, B-1 channel
their anger on SFT as spoiling their (B-1) chance of any success
against their opposition to B-3.
Circumstantial evidence points to an absence of a forceful backlash of
(B-1+ B-2) against B-3 as expected if the first case was true, hence it
is the second case that is plausibly true in actual reality. So it
seems like there is indeed some truth to the allegations of SFT
regarding the authenticity of some verses and edicts.
Now I was mentioning strategical difference between the approaches of
SFT and B-1 above. B-1 believe that scripture is a fait accompli. By
that they mean that whatever questionable verses, exhortations etc that
exist in Koran and Hadith, they are here to stay with us, its a fait
accompli. Of course some of B-1 deny the existence of objectionable
verses and edicts while others do acknowledge tacitly the existence of
such. Even according to those among B-1,who do not deny them, to
challenge and rectify those verses/edicts is an extremely risky venture
and is doomed to defeat as it will infuriate not only the extremists
but also the placid B-2 (who can be easily aroused by religious
rhetoric, my observation). So forget about it. Don't even think of
challenging/questioning/revising them, they say. The next best strategy
is to blame it on the those extremist as having distorted/
misinterpreted the verses and made them up . This strategy has more
chances of success as it is directed only against a smaller (but
extreeeemely aggressive) subset of the religious community and this
strategy is risk free as it cannot be judged to be directed against B-2
or their faith. So it is clear that the important player in this
equation is the normally placid yet numerically powerful B-2. Whereas
the main imperative of SFT is to create awareness among B-2 about the
objectionable quotes of the scriptures and also a sense of antagonism
against the acts of B-3 for picking those unethical verses and edicts
to follow, the main imperatives of B-1 seems to manipulate B-2 and
create a sense of hostility against SFTs rather than against the
objectionable passages and the acts of B-3 inspired by such passages.
Once the rival SFTs are demonized, B-1 then aspire to adopt a gentle
persuasion approach to reform the B-3 (As few of B-1 are as aggressive
or forceful as B-3 are, so gentle persuasion is the only approach they
are capable of. It is in effect a capitulation of B-1 to the physical
prowess of B-3). It is ironic that neither the SFTs nor the B-1 can
take a forceful stand against the B-3, as it takes one rabble rouser (
can be from B-1 or B-3) to raise hell that Islam is being attacked and
mobilize the gullible B-2 to rally against SFT or whoever from B-1
dared to challenge B-3 in a forcible way. Gentle persuasion seems to be
the only viable ( which is also feckless as reality suggests) approach.
Although this approach seems more pragmatic to many, but as I mentioned
before it is due to a result of B-1 jumping too quickly in declaring
that the remarks of SFT are an attack on B-2, giving no chance for B-2
to judge for themselves the remarks of SFT (correctly quoted) , and
prematurely instigating them against SFT instead of rallying them in a
forceful movement against B-3. Ironically if SFT limited itself to
quoting the relevant verses and edicts only to explain the acts of B-3,
they would not be considered to be attacking B-3, and B-3 would not be
hostile against SFT for that (Although they are against SFT
ideologically) as B-3 are in agreement with SFT in this explanation. It
is most often the case that B-1 paints SFT as attacking the faith of B-
2 and thus muddy the whole situation and succeed in inciting both B-3
and B-2 against SFT. B-1 are wary about letting B-2 know about the
authenticity of the objectionable verses and edicts (Excluding the ones
that have been genuinely misinterpreted) fearing in that case that may
precipitate a spontaneous mental reform movement among B-2 and thus
ruining the dream of B-1 for a society and state with a religious
overtone ( Albeit not in the extremist way that B-3 aspire and act).
They have this obsessive dream of a nation that will pride itself in
its achievements primarily as Muslims ( Secondarily as Bangladeshis,
Pakistanis etc). Muslim identity is an obsession for them. Whereas most
nations of the world take pride in their achievements, if any, solely
as a NATION (Indians as Indians, not as Hindus, Americans as Americans,
not as Christians), B-1 like to take pride as a Muslim nation. Thus
since most of B-1 are against secularism, they don't want a mass mental
reformation like Christianity as mentioned earlier where reformed
public attitude towards scripture paved the way for the eventual
acceptance and glorification of secularism in the West. Islamic world
is far from that owing to the counteractive effects of B-1 to such
reform. So it is not the SFT who are actually ruining the struggle
against B-3, but the preemptive finger pointing by B-1 against SFT
which is ruining it. Since regardless of whether the SFTs are wrong or
right in their views about the edicts and verses, B-1 can always
constructively channelize B-2 against B-3 if they have the sincere
intention, ignoring the academic criticisms of some minority of SFT
instead of being obsessively focussed on them. After all, don't the SFT
and B-1 (And also B-2 if they are correctly guided) have a common enemy
B-3? Isn't it ironic that B-1,B-2, and SFT are ALL against the acts of
B-3, but all that happens is a bickering by B-1 against SFT and
dragging B-2 along with it, with B-3 gloating over this bickering.
2. SECULARISM - SOME CLARIFICATIONS AND DEMYTHIFICATIONS
In this article I would like to point out some fallacies and myths that
appear in the debates on religion and secularism with an intent to
convince opponents of secularism that secularism is not inconsistent
with religious beliefs and practices and is based on justice, fairness
and equality to all, an important Hallmark of religious teaching. I
will be only guided by logic to make my case. Only faith is not
amenable to validation/invalidation by logic. Secularism, on the other
hand, is not a faith and is certainly possible to (in)/validate through
logic. First a review of secular, religious and Human Rights concepts
is in order since they are all intimately connected in such a
discussion.
A. HIGHLIGHTS OF SECULARISM :
1) Allowing equal rights for free religious belief and practices to
followers for all religions regardless of the numerical ratios of the
religious followers of all the religions and the wishes
2) No preferential representation/recognition/rights/priviledges of any
specific religion in all areas of state principles and policies.
(regardless of the numerical size of any religion and regardless of the
wishes of the majority religion to the contrary). No preferential
representation can mean EQUAL representation or NO representation
Ideally NO representation should be the goal to minimize overhead and
possible breach by the majority due to their bias and privileged
position of power and numerical superiority. Only in limited cases
(Like religious holidays etc) can EQUAL representations be admissible.
The part referring to "regardless of the wishes of the majority" is
difficult to grasp by many. This is the essence of democracy where
personal wishes are sacrificed for an ideal/principle if the two are in
conflict.
3) Secularism DOES NOT IMPLY opposing/banning religion (practice or
belief) itself or REQUIRE one to be atheist (Follows from 2 & 3).
4) Secularism is not opposed to public performance of religious rites/
practices where it is permitted such that it does not interfere with
public life and is not in contradiction with civil laws that are abided
by followers of all religious followers. ( NO religion mandates
performance of religious rituals inside a parliament, in a public
square or praying LOUDLY etc. Any prayer can be done silently in the
heart and still meet the religious injunctions.)
5) Secularism opposes using religious beliefs of a certain religion to
influence or determine state principles or policies. It is also against
performance of religious services and rituals in OFFICIAL ceremonies
and events. Trivial instances like religious holidays (Which benefits
ALL religions ) or the example of "In GOD we trust" inscription in a
coin do not constitute a breach of secularism ."GOD" is a generic
English term (not a "christian" term) that can be fitted (with proper
interpretation) to any religious faith (or even atheism where GOD =
natural laws) and moreover inscription in a coin is not an issue of
policy.
6) Secularism opposes any human rights violation committed solely
due to holding a religious belief or practicing it where it is allowed by
secular civil law. (Reminder: denial of a privilege does not constitute
human rights violation ). If anyone does engage in such persecution,
they are obviously not truly representing secularism.
CLARIFICATIONS:
No religion mandates their followers to apply religious beliefs/
revelations to State or Public affairs beyond practicing it in their
personal lives. For example one can be true Muslim even Islam is
believed and practiced in private (Follows from a reading of the
revelations of all religions). None of the five pillars of Islam that
define a true Muslim require theocracy or is inconsistent with
secularism. Hence secularism is compatible with religion as a
private or collective ritual belief but not Islamic theocracy.
If a State/Society/Regime that claims to be secular, but shows
preferential bias towards or against certain religion, or if a section
of the people engage in acts in violation of secular ideals then it is
the failing of that society or regime to enforce "strict secularism"
(mistakenly called "secular fundamentalism" by those opposed to
secularism:), not the failing of secularism as a principle, in much the
same way that law and order is not ideal in many countries where rule
of law is mandated by the constitution. Also a reminder that if any
religion "X" or its act in a way that comes in clash with civil laws
and place them in an advantage over other religions/ followers, and
the state oppose such acts, then the state is NOT violating secular
principles but is rather preventing "X" from violating the same since
not preventing so would translate into a bias against the other
religions Y,Z.. since secularism requires no preferential advantage be
given to any religion.
Secularism is a principle that applies to "state", not to an
individual. Only a BELIEF in a secular state is required. People don't
have to change or "be" anything different that what they are for state
to be secular One can continue to be religious or fanatic(if limited to
belief only), atheist whatever in their personal life under a secular
state, because a true secular state will allow all religious beliefs
and practices (equally). For example secularism was in effect in
Bangladesh until 1978. No one can say that Islam was in danger . Islam
was alive and well before 1978. Reverting to pre 1978 constitution of
Bangladesh would cause no harm but would only help to aquire
substantial mileage in the quest for religious harmony. Other examples
of compatibility between secularism and religion are USA, India and the
UK. USA does not hinder the religious practice of Christians, Muslims,
Hindus. There are mosques, temples, Ram Krishna missions in all major
cities. All religious festivals are held without hindrance. Muslims are
not forbidden to go to the mosque in India, or celebrate Eid etc. Now
one can bring in riots and prejudices. Those are social manifestations
of personal instincts. Those are the very realities that conscientious
Hindus in India have to address as well. We are talking about the issue
of secularism as a state principle as explained earlier.
The core principle of secularism is separation of church and STATE,
not between church and INDIVIDUALS/PRIVATE ORGANIZATIONS.
And the reason for this principle is very simple, common sensical
and fair. Any PUBLIC/STATE entity belongs to and often is supported
(through tax) by citiziens of all affiliations (Atheist, agnostic,
fanatics, Muslims, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Hundus..). So for a
public or state institution to promote or allow specific religious
practice & exhortation in a PUBLIC or STATE affairs or premises is
a tacit preferential granting of priviledges to that religion and an
explicit breah of secular principle. To be fair ALL affiliations should
be given equal priviledge. But since not all religious groups are
equally intrusive or interested in promoting their beliefs and rituals
(Some even detest such advertizing in public) that would be unfair
to them. Besides it would be an extra overhead to grant such
priviledges to ALL. So the sensible option is to not allow such
priviledges at all in public/state funded affairs and institutions.
Of course it is a truism to say (but nevertheless worth repeating
as it is also missed) that one is free to privately utter, preach or
deliver religious harangues in public places. So while it is
wrong for a public institution to preach or promote religion in,
there is nothing worng for a student in a public school to preach
or sermoinize to his fellow students outside the class. Private
religious bodies can and do rent public spaces for religious occasions.
We see that routinely in public institutions where auditoriums are
rented by religious bodies for religious festivities/ceremonies or
individuals privately sermonzing in open squares within a public
institutions. They are not breaking any secular law and those
incidents are not raised as issues by supporters of secular principles
, unlike the issues of prayer in public schools or putting up banners
or similar clear cases of breach od secular principles. The important
thing to realize is that it is not the religious signs or practices itself
that should bother anyone, but the insensitivity shown through breach
of secular principles (breach identified by clear guidelines). Nobody
should be and is bothered (at least externally) by any religious
exhortations, rites and practices when they are done within the
secular guidelines.
Regarding the "In God we trust" inscription on US currency, it is
against the principle of secularism in a puritanic sense. But that
may be the only exception with a good reason (Not for its original
decision to inscribe it, but for not doing anything about it now). Note
that "In God we trust" does not favour Christians. It applies eqully
to Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists (In a philosophical sense for
them, a Buddhist maxim says that whoever loves all creatures loves
God). The original founding fathers may not have atheists and
agnostics in mind, or may be they interpreted that all have some
abstract sense of a God (Even atheists view the laws of nature as the
Ulimate entity, a sort of God). Besides as I mentioned, this dictum
is general enough to accomodate all religions. More importantly US
constitution explicitly states secularism. So that effectively abrogates
the verse in the inscription, if at all one is concerned about the
inscription. At least it is not a divine abrogation, but a human one :).
Nevertheless, to take away the inscriptions now may be an extra
overhead as well. I don't think the cost may be worth it. UNDOING this
fait accompli has a cost associated with and will only benefit the
atheists. On the other hand doing something which is clearly against
secular principles, benefitting only a specific religion, and when "not
doing it" does not have any cost associated with it, hardly has any
reason to justify doing it.
B. NOTES ON HUMAN RIGHTS:
1) A denial of a privilege DOES NOT constitute a human rights violation.
2) Preventing and/or persecuting for exercising one's fundamental
rights (Freedom of expression, freedom of movement in public places,
freedom to practice one's Faith/Religion etc), DOES constitute a Human
Rights violation.
3) A human rights violation is invariably characterized by either
forcefully (Ultimately by physical means) preventing someone from doing
what they are entitled to do as a RIGHT (Reminder, not as a Privilege)
or by physically torturing someone as a punishment for having done
something they are entitled to do as a free person.
C. FALLACIES AND MYTHS ABOUT SECULARISM:
1) One fallacy is failing to see the cause->effect relationship in the
adversarial position of secularism and theocracy. For example let us
for the sake of generality assume two adversarial groups A and B (in
our case A=secularist, B=Theocratist )
Denote "-->" = An offensive/defensive action toward/against
A-->B-->A-->B-->A-->B-->A....
1-->2-->3-->4-->5-->6-->7....
Some fallacies conveniently look at some intermediate step (4->5 say),
ignoring the preceding sequence and declare B as the offender! For
example When US first launched the attack on Iraq in 1990 any
subsequent defensive maneuver by Iraq was labelled as an aggressive
posture. Failing to see the first offender is a common and convenient
fallacy. A similar fallacy is applied to secularism where secularists/
ism are portrayed as persecutor of religion. The fact is that
Secularism came long after the (revealed) religions arrived, hence it
couldn't have caused the birth of religion as a reaction to it. Rather
Secularism itself was the result of a reaction to religious persecution
of those whose only "offense" was dissension and refusal to accept
religious dogma. History is rife with examples of religious persecution
in medieval Europe and Arabia. We all know about persecutions of the
infamous inquisition. The burning of Giordano Bruno, the persecution of
Galilieo are glaring examples. Many free thinkers were tortured and
killed under Islamic theocracy also. Even today in most of the Islamic
theocracies in the middle east free thinking is not allowed and will be
suppressed by brutal acts of human rights violation. So it is the
persecution by the theocratists (A->B) of the free thinkers that caused
the historical emergence of secular ideas as a back lash. Secular ideas
never came to oppose religion itself. If it did then it would have
opposed ALL faiths and religions. Secularists never had anything to say
against Buddhism although a huge proportion of humanity practice
Buddhism since ancient time. Secularists are against religious
persecution/coercion, NOT religion itself.
2) A common fallacy against secularism is to try to place secularism in
parallel with religion as another doctrine/dogma aimed at destroying
religion itself (Again conveniently forgetting that secularism was
triggered by religious "persecution", not religion). The trick is to
append "ism/ist" to anything and promote it to a doctrine or to
interpret the "ism" in secularism as a doctrine. Taken to an absurd
extreme this fallacy can be applied to label anyone strictly neutral as
neutralist, anyone believing strictly in truth as truthist etc and by
extension anyone believing and practicing strict secularism as "secular
fundamentalist". Its like saying that neutralists are "fanatic"
believers of neutralism, that they are another form of fanatics etc. !
Clearly the expression "Secular fundamentalism" is an OXYMORON, IF
fundamentalism is defined as (From Merriam-Webster) :
" a movement in 20th century Protestantism emphasizing the literally
interpreted Bible as fundamental to Christian life and teaching "
Now secularism cannot preach literal following and teaching of Bible or
Koran, or...So In this sense certainly secular fundamentalism is an
oxymoron. On the other hand "Secular fundamentalism", can be a
meaningful concept, IF the second more general definition of
fundamentalism is used ( Merriam-Webster):
"a movement or attitude stressing strict and literal adherence to a set
of basic principles"
With the above definition of fundamentalism, "Secular fundamentalism"
as a meaningful idea can only be of neutral or positive connotation,
since in this case it only means strictly adhering to the principles of
secularism. Does any principle ever preach " non-strict" adherence? For
critics of secularism it doesn't buy them anything additional to use
such a definition, since it only means strict secularism, so it has no
additional value beyond that of secularism itself. Since this
definition of fundamentalism does not buy the anti-secularists any
mileage so this is not the sense in which it is used by them. The
definition which anti-secularists like to use is : " Use any definition
that makes secularism look bad and religion a victim of secularism" .
Here's what the official position is on this issue from secular
humanist website: ( Quoted from 10 myths about secular humanism at :
http://www.SecularHumanism.org/library/fi/cherry_18_1.01.html)
"Related myths are that secular humanism is the official religion of
the government, the media, the universities, and anyone else who
refuses to support a favorite dogma. All these claims make the same
mistake: they confuse neutrality with hostility. That' s a good tactic
if you want to create a persecution complex, but it disregards the fact
that neutrality toward different world views is the best protection
from persecution in our democratic society. Separating church and state
doesn't mean that the state promotes atheism and humanism, but that it
provides equal protection to all beliefs, as people of many religions
who are at the forefront of the battle to defend the "Wall of
Separation" will be the first to tell you."
3) Another fallacy is when an act that has nothing to do with
secularism or human rights violation is cited to denigrate secularism
as human rights violation. For example the case of the Women Turkish
parliament member Merve Kavakci is cited to illustrate the "excesses"
of secularists and by expressing enough outrage and loud condemnation
promote it to a human rights violation issue. But cold logic can
readily enable one to see that it was a case of denial of a privilege
and not a case of violation of basic human rights. Denying access to
the parliament for not conforming to a dress code does not prevent
anyone from believing and practicing their faith/ religion. A clever
ploy is the intentional use of the wrong expression to characterize
something to arrive at a desired conclusion. The wrong expression used
in the context of the Turkish parliamentarian being that "She was being
prevented from wearing hijab" or "She was denied the right to wear
Hijab" etc. Alert readers must have detected the fallacy of
mischaracterization. The fact was that she was denied admission to the
parliament. That was a denial of a privilege. She was free to wear
Hijab anywhere else. One does not have to be admitted to parliament ot
be a true Muslim. So that denial of admission cannot constitute
religious persecution or violation of basic rights. Similarly in
secular USA and in many other western countries one can see signs "No
shirt no shoes no service". Bare footed/shirtless people simply walk on
after seeing the sign. Human rights are not violated. They don' t
launch a political movement to fight this and cry human rights
violation. People not dressed properly for an interview are rejected a
job offer. Human rights are not violated. Women reject their suitors
for not grooming themselves nicely. Human rights are not violated.
School children are reprimanded and rusticated for not wearing uniforms
(In Bangaldesh also). This is just a principle in action that applies
to the school. Outside the school in home and public places that rule
does not apply (as was also the case of the Turkish female
parliamentarian). No violation of human rights are involved in these
situations. Only denial of privileges due to non-compliance of the rule
of game for enjoying the privileges. Merve Kavakci was denied
admittance to the parliament because she refused to comply with the
dress code by insisting to wear a scarf and still be admitted to the
parliament. She decided to fight against this denial which triggered a
political struggle between herself and the authority. As with most
third world countries political opposition is dealt with repressive
measures (Bangladesh is no exception, in fact much worse). This does
not sound like a human rights violation issue. If Merve Kavakci had
complied with the condition for the privilege or decided go back
leading her usual life not worrying about enjoying the privilege of a
parliamentary member then this would not have become an issue. It
should be remembered that Turkey is run by a military junta of a third
world country, not an ideal scenario of democracy. It is certainly
repressive towards OPPOSITION to its policies like all third world
countries (military or civil). REPRESSION of an OPPOSITION movement
to allow admission into parliament wearing Hijab maybe an undemocratic
political act as per western democracy. If the repression takes the
form of physical torture when the opposition was limited to verbal
protests then it would be a case of a human rights abuse, but the act
of denying a privileged admission in itself is NOT a human rights
violation. Any other case of repression may at worst be viewed as
undemocratic practices of Turkish regime typical of so many countries,
including Bangladesh (A civilian "democratic", certainly not a secular
fundamentalist nation), where officials, educators are routinely fired/
hired on the basis of their political affiliations, opposition is
suppressed undemocratically. So what is different for Turkey? To see
real violation of human rights one has to look at Saudi Arab or
Afghanistan or Iran, where women are punished for not wearing hijab/
veil in public and the repression is severe for not conforming to its
strict dress and behavior code (not just in privileged places but
public places and in private as well) , that nobody dares to even
challenge or question it. And we are talking about punishment, not
denial of a privilege. Most punishments are physical, the worst form of
human rights abuse and insult to the dignity of a woman. When an author
is issued a death fatwa merely for writing about their ideas and views,
that is a human rights violation. In Turkey at least one could
challenge and protest thereby attracting outside attention. Nobody
raises roof over Saudi Arabia's brutal repression since there is no
protest (out of fear), thereby not creating any noise to draw attention
of outside world. Outside world (Western, thirds world, ALL) condone
Saudi Arabia for economic reasons, as most countries have mutually
profitable economic ties with it and would rather not do anything to
lose such beneficial ties by irking the Saudis. Principles do give way
to pragmatism after all.
People are misled into believing that religion itself is being attacked
and followers of Islam are being tortured or prevented from practicing
Islam in Turkey. The fact is that 70% women wear Hijab in Turkey. None
of them are being tortured or being prevented form wearing Hijab. Those
who watch the Travel channel where Turkey is featured quite regularly
cannot escape noticing women wearing hijab freely in public places and
homes and Islamic traditions and practices reflected in people's life.
There are mosques and the sound of Azan is heard routinely. Islamic
customs are widely followed in Turkey in personal life unhindered.
There are 70,000 mosques in Turkey well maintained by the government.
Private practice of faith is not at all barred or discouraged and is in
fact practiced by the very same people enforcing the strict secular
principles. Turkey is a strictly (mislabelled as fanatically) secular
state and true to this spirit they don't allow any public/state
projection of Islam that has the potential of sowing the seed of
fanaticism.
The expression secular fundamentalism is misapplied. If at all, Turkish
authority have been rigid and not compromised their principle of not
allowing admission to parliament unless one stops wearing scarf. Unlike
Canada and US where authorities have been lenient towards these issues.
The example of Canada's allowing wearing turbans by sikh mounted police
was a gesture of good will driven by practical considerations as Sikhs
are a powerful ethnic component in Canadian society and Canadian police
would have lost a dedicated and efficient group of policemen if they
hadn't yielded. Same is the situation in US where practical
considerations (Plus genuine sensitivity) also inspired companies and
government agencies to grant privileges. They didn't have to. But they
did. It was not because it would have been otherwise a case of human
rights violation that Sikhs were allowed turbans or women were allowed
to wear hijab in certain work places in USA, but because it made
practical sense and goodwill is considered a nice aspect of culture.
Turkey could certainly follow Canada and USA' s example and be more
lenient toward granting exceptions and privileges. But the socio-
political reality is different there from that in Canada and US, so
they know best what is right for them. Certainly there are political
repression there like in Bangladesh and other third world countries
which amnesty international and other international bodies should
monitor and apply pressure to redress them. But calling the instances
of denying privileges as "Human Rights Violation" is pure rhetoric and
hysterical and motivated by the desire to vilify secularism itself.
4) A common fallacy is guilt by association fallacy. For example if a
COMMUNIST regime oppresses an individual or a group following a
certain religious faith (For whatever reasons. Usually it is due to a
perceived threat from those followers against communist ideals), it is
lablled as secularists oppressing religious followers just because communism
coincidentally also adopts secularism. Communism is a dogma like
theocracy. All dogmatists tend to be repressive and resort to human
rights violation to PRESERVE their dogma from perceived threat from a
rival dogma. Communism and theocracy are rival dogmas and hence they
are mutually inconsistent and antagonistic.
A communist regime will perceive "threats from religion" and vice versa.
Secularism is NOT a dogma , rather a reaction to a dogma (theocracy),
and Hence it is not incompatible with religion but is incompatible with
theocracy. So if and when a communist regime perceives a (maybe
unjustified) threat from a certain religious follower or a subset of
followers and resorts to repression, it is committing an act of
political repression in defense of communism, NOT secularism and it
should be characterized as political repression instead of "Secular
fundamentalism". Secularism does not advocate communism or capitalism
(it is indifferent in that regard, it only requires democracy) and does
not condone repressive acts of communists, or by anyone against another
solely due to their beliefs.
Similar arguments apply to other forms of Dogmatism, like racial
supremacist dogma ( As Hitler). All repression, persecutions that have
been committed were committed by Racial supremacist (Hitler), or
communist regimes, or simply politically oppressive regimes not
behaving democratically, none of which represents secularism, though
they may all be non-believers and believe in not mixing state with
religion, but that is incidental and secondary, dogma (racial supremacy,
state control of human life etc) is PRIMARY. Suppressing any opposition
from religionists or a rival secularist group is primary goal, so they
do not represent secularism (At least not in their repressive actions).
To accuse an atheist/agnostic of religious bigotry is illogical,
instead all bigotry for them must be based on race, culture, a historic
event etc ( anything other than religion) that placed them in
adversarial relation with the race, as Hitler's case shows. Hitler was
a RACIAL BIGOT. As a parenthetical remark let me add that all bigotry
in the final analysis is rooted in something other than religion/ race.
There is always a root cause of hatred (Cause being used in the "
efficient" sense as giving rise to an effect). In Hitler's case it was
rooted in the utter humiliation of Germany/Germans in World War-I and
where jews were suspected in collaborating with Germany's foes to bring
about such humiliation. But regardless, the extermination of Jews by
Nazis is the most disgraceful chapter in human history and is certainly
indefensible. And again it was not rooted in religion, or due to
atheism, but due to rivalry and hatred arising out a historical event
that gave way to the most base impulse in humans (aggression which is
further rooted in Biology). Human rights abuse is characterized by
persecution solely due to a dissenting faith or views, where the
persecution takes the form of physical coercion, like lashing a woman,
severing the head etc. Turkish policy of not allowing Hijab in
parliament, doesn't even compare a fig with this gross violation of
human dignity through infringement of one's bodily sanctity as
committed by the Talibans and Saudi Laws and other societies
enforcing strict scriptural Laws.
5)Another fallacy is to call individual attitudes toward religion,
beliefs etc ranging from skepticism, ridicule etc as "secular
fundamentalism" , "religious intolerance or extremism" etc. This is a
ridiculous stretch. An "attitude" or "view" cannot be promoted to any "
fundamentalism" or "extremism". After all, secularism did not arise
just because of "attitudes" of religionists, but due to what was "DONE"
by religious extremists to non-believers/dissenters. So individual
attitudes (finding religious beliefs and rituals irrational/funny, etc)
do not qualify for such strong labels as "fundamentalism" or extremism.
Such personal attitudes don't have anything to do with secularism, so
associating the word "secular" with such attitudes are clearly
tendentious. Some abstract and "conveeenient" definitions of "secular
fundamentalism" doesn't help to detract anything from secularism or
justify linking the word secular with individual attitudes and mindsets
that are unacceptable to religionists. I stress again that non-
believers/secularists have never "DONE" anything repressive to
believers/religionists SOLELY due to their holding a religious belief
or practicing their belief in a non intrusive manner.
Anti religious bigotry of one religious member towards another may be
due to ignorance or prejudice but anti religious "sentiment" of
atheists/agnostics/skeptics, if any, is certainly not due to ignorance
or prejudice, but due to a reaction to religious bigotry and oppression
towards them. Without such oppression there is no reason for them to
be anti religious and Non-believers/dissenters can never harbour any
hatred towards any belief system in much the same way that no one
hates any belief in fairies, unicorns, Thunder Gods, snake Gods etc .
Its only when the belief system is backed up by coercion, persuasive
attempt of imposition, physical persecution towards non-believers that
a back lash (secularism) is provoked among the non-believers. No
secularists ever look down on/condemn Buddhists for wearing Geruas,
Hare Krishnas for shaving their heads and singing chants etc. No
secularists would be offended to see a woman wearing a scarf, a man
wearing a cap and Islamic dress in public etc. If followers of all
religion limited themselves to religious practices in a non imposing/
unobtrusive manner without any persecution/coercion then secularism
would never have been born as a principle (Or rather counter principle,
to defend against the INVASIVE actions of religious dogmatists.
Christianity and Hinduism has virtually erased its past coercive nature,
Islam has not.)
CONCLUSION:
I think I have provided convincing arguments to make the point that
secularism is not only compatible with religion, but is also conducive
to religious harmony and an efficient and streamlined state machinery.
Whereas Theocracy is loaded with potentials for religious persecution
and tension between religions, violation of universally agreed on human
rights and extra overhead to the state. Even if only the cost vs.
benefit view is adopted, then certainly secularism is preferable over
theocracy.
3. THE ORIGIN OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF
(Also in http://www.egroups.com/messages/eshomabesh/2541)
This is a general discussion on the roots of religious belief without
focussing on any specific religion. Let me provide an advanced
clarification in anticipation of possible angry retorts like "Faith is
a personal matter, you don't have any right to criticize it" or "You
have no right to hurt other's religious sentiment by questioning their
belief" etc. In response to the first anticipated criticism let me
state that, YES, certainly faith is a personal matter. No one has any
right to PREVENT others from believing in a faith. But an objective
examination of the possible CAUSES of faith and pointing out any
irrational aspect of faith DOES NOT indicate intolerance for the faith
itself or prevent anyone from believing in it in the same way that we
consider a child's belief in fairies irrational but still we don' t
condemn or criticize them for their belief or prevent them either. The
second criticism requires a careful response. We can summarize the
situation as (A is a believer in a faith "X" and B is a skeptic, but
not intolerant of "X".)
A: I believe in "X". .
B: Belief in "X" is irrational because [...], and hence I don't believe
in "X".
A: Any criticism of my belief amounts to hurting my sentiment. Besides
your not believing in "X" is as much a belief as my believing in "X".
B: If you call my "not believing in X" a faith ( lets call it faith "Y")
, then by the same logic your "belief in X" amounts to not believing in
"Y" and automatically implies irrationality of "Y" and hence is no
different from my not believing in "X" and hence I have equal rights to
be insulted for your implication of the irrationality of my faith "Y",
although I will not exercise my rights.
The above hypothetical dialog illustrates the spirit of my discussion.
I have no intention of hurting or there can be no logical way for me to
hurt anyone by my contrary opinions, views or reasoning. Besides what
is meant by a belief being hurt anyway?. Let us dissect this frequent
expression of angry response. Does faith being hurt mean the faith is
weakened? If so then its a reflection of the weakness of the person
placing the faith and if the criticism weakens his/her faith then it is
an indirect vindication of the validity of the criticism. If faith is
not weakened by criticism then the meaning of "faith being hurt" must
be that the believer is mentally distressed that someone is not
agreeing with his/her belief. In that case it indicates an intolerance
of any dissenting views and a frustrated ego to know that others are
not sharing in their favored belief. There can be no other meaning of "
being hurt" in this context. Faith is internal in one's heart, no words
or actions can affect or change it and as long as one is not persecuted
for their faith, any critical discussion of a faith should be a non
issue for a believer, instead it should provide the believer with an
opportunity to test his/her strength in their belief in the face of a
critical study of their faith by skeptics. Having established the
preamble let me go on to my main discussion.
Often people who have absolute faith in a given religion justify their
believing in that particular religion by saying that the world around
us is so orderly and that the mystery of life and death, the amazing
complexity of human body, mind etc are impossible for human to create/
understand, so there must be a grand designer, i.e GOD. They are
confusing belief in religion with belief in GOD (the "creator" of this
universe). Belief in a religion is much more than believing in GOD, it
requires believing blindly in all that is preached in that religion,
for example that the holy book of their religion is literally the word
of GOD, that all the miraculous events mentioned in their holy books
are true and that all that are instructed/taught in their holy books
are absolute and should be followed and all the divine revelations of
that religion be believed without question. All these require blind
faith since these cannot be verified/justified by logic or rational
thinking or objective evidence. The sense of awe and mystery that led
them to postulate a grand designer, is erroneously extended into
justifying a belief in these additional human constructs besides the
universal human instincts of the perception of a grand designer.
One important point (which is self-evident but seems hard to come to
grip with) is that although an instinct of God and Life after death is
a universal one and is not necessarily a result of indoctrination or
belief in other humans, any belief in the revelations of a particular
religion on the other hand really stems ultimately from a belief in
other humans and indoctrination. Since few have direct oracular
experience regarding divine revelations, most of those who have firm
belief in them have placed a firm belief in what they have been told
through preaching by fellow humans, reading books (Printed by humans)
etc. If someone believes in the revelations due to a direct divine
experience (Which no other person can verify) totally on their own and
not having been told about them, then that would indeed be a sound
basis for a firm belief. But even in that case if that person told
others about his/her experience ( and it would be a truthful account,
excluding of course hallucinatory experiences/ illusions etc) and
others believed in him/her, then the belief of others will be a result
of belief in a human, unlike the person who experienced the divine
revelations directly. So from this it is quite clear that all the major
religions are based ultimately on belief in humans (This chain of
belief in humans ending ultimately in the prophets, also humans). This
chain can be symbolized in the form below:
"A believes in B who says that he believes in C who says that he
believes in D who says that....... who SAID that he believed in Z who
said that God said that....(revelations)"
(For this instance imagine there are billions of people between A and Z
and 1400/2000 years have passed between Z and A. ).
The entire edifice of revealed religion and divinity is based on this
chain of belief in humans.
Another important point to remember is that one can be led to believe
in the existence of some Supreme Entity because of the very reason
mentioned in the beginning i.e, the sense of awe and wonder at the
beauty/complexity of the Universe and the consequent hypothesis that
there must be some super being that is behind all this, but the same
reason may not motivate one to believe in any one of the existing
religion. Often those who don't believe in any existing religion are
labeled as atheist/Godless whereas in reality they may be equally or
more awed by the mystery of the universe and have their own concept
of a Super Entity (Not necessarily an entity with the attributes defined
by those religions). As mentioned before belief in a given religion is
a result of blind faith. This blind faith is caused by being born in a
particular religion where one is indoctrinated from birth about the
authenticity of their religion and the rigid religious surrounding
where one grows up and witnesses everyone around him/her following/
believing in the same religion and preaching other religions to be
inferior/wrong, which instills a blind and biased faith which is
ingrained in their mind firmly and becomes an absolute truth to them,
losing not only any ability to critically examine its rational basis,
but shuddering at the very thought of such a critical assessment as
being taboo and a mortal sin. It illustrates the idea of memes, which
are equivalent to viruses of beliefs and ideas that spread from one
individual/group to another. If someone born in a certain religion is
brought up in a totally neutral environment (As far as religion is
concerned) but otherwise same way as others and is introduced to ALL
religions when they are adult the odds are that he/she may choose ANY
one of those religions (NOT necessarily the one he/she was born.
Assuming also that this info of which religion he/she was born into is
also kept unknown to him/her) or may not even choose any at all. So
there is no absolute reason for believing in any given religion.
Regarding the incidence of spontaneous conversion from one religion
into other, that happens between all religions so there is nothing
preferentially absolute about any given religion either. Individual
incidences of conversion from Religion-X to Religion-Y or from no-
religion to Religion-Z does not exclusively establish the rationality
of any religion, because cross conversions occur between all religions
in differing degrees..
There is a flaw in the way one arrives at the notion of divine creation
by a conscious being in the image of a human albeit with superhuman
attributes (i.e God) just out of a sense of awe at the level of
complexity of life (Human in particular). We are seeing an end product
of an evolution that went on for over 4 billion years before arriving
at the form what we see today. If a human being sprang up from scratch
to its advanced form in one swoop, it would indeed be a miracle. But
starting from a single celled organism 4 billion years ago and
progressively becoming more and more complex/organized, incrementally
adding more and more features through the process of natural selection
and mutation(A trial error so to speak), taken over an incredible
length of time of 4 billion years, if one pause to think of this
process, it may not seem that incredible or miraculous after all. It is
true that how from a complex organic molecule, the first cell with a
complete characteristics of reproduction, protein synthesis and genetic
transmission developed is still, a mystery. But a mystery is not a
miracle. One may have noticed that when one watches a baby grow up day
by day the transformation from a baby to grown up doesn't strike him/
her at all and happens in a natural way vs one who saw the baby once
and then came back after a long gap to see the baby grow up to an adult
is struck by the transformation. If one had the longevity of a billion
years and watched the simple primitive organic molecule evolve bit by
bit to complex molecules, then to cells to complex cells, then to
primitive life forms and eventually to human and other species over
this length of time this would also appear quite natural. One simply
has to appreciate the power of evolution in the process of self
organization and complexity over an extended period of time. We are all
familiar with this self organization process in daily life on a much
compressed scale when we see the finished product which amaze our eyes
to see it being made from raw ingredients barely resembling it in
beauty and symmetry. It can be an artificial product like a jewelry, or
a natural one like the ice crystals formed out of raindrops etc showing
amazing symmetry and beauty. It is the Law of Physics that is the grand
designer of everything including Life. It is the Laws of Physics that
manifests itself in biogenesis and evolution at the cell level. We don't
know how or where did The Laws of Physics itself come from.
Postulating an uncreated and ever-existing GOD who created the Laws of
Physics is not any more profound than the simpler and more likely
postulate of an uncreated and ever- existing Laws of Physics that gave
rise to the entire universe with life through the materialization of
the laws.
Let us now list and examine some other possible root causes for belief
in religion and God by most people (Common to all religions):
A. Reasons rooted in wishful thinking and personal needs
B. Reasons rooted in illogical conclusions drawn from events in life
C. Reasons rooted in Social Needs
D. Reasons rooted in the evolutionary history and neurophysiology of Humans.
Although D is the most fundamental level of explanation of the origin
of religious belief, it is instructive to also view it in the higher
levels as in A-C, which themselves are rooted in D. Let me expand on
each cases above.
A. Reasons rooted in wishful thinking and personal needs:
1) Fear of death and loss of loved ones. The wish for a life after
death. Humans find it extremely hard to accept that death means a
permanent destruction of their body and mind and loss of their loved
ones. There is a yearning innate to humans as an instinct for a
permanent life and/or to join their deceased loved ones. This yearning
to live for ever beyond this world reflects a deep rooted love for one'
s self, in other words a kind of narcissism. The fact is that it is the
collective survival of the human race that is meaningful. Each
individual is just a link in the infinite chain of the continuity of
human species. Each death of an individual is replaced by the birth of
another life. One should look at their individual life as playing a
meaningful role in maintaining this continuity. Each generation
inherits the fruits of the advances and knowledge of its predecessor
and passes it on in a value added way to its successor and human race
as a whole is forever progressing further and further, and eventually
may spread beyond the planet earth to the outer reaches of the universe.
As scientist Daniel Hillis says "Its haughty of us to think we're the
end product of evolution. All of us are part of producing whatever is
coming next". (" Third culture - Brockman", page-385). Here's another
moving quote by the famous Carl Sagan in his death bed: (As appeared in
the March 1997 issue of Parade magazine):
"I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some
thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But much as I
want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural
traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that
it is more than wishful thinking.
The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there
is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's
little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability,
is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief
but magnificent opportunity that life provides."
2) Problems/Crisis in life and a sense of helplessness when no solution
is found, or a sense of frustration/outrage at the injustice and
unfairness that exists. A belief in God who will take care of all the
problems and will mete out justice in due time provides a sense of hope
and comfort and a driving force to continue on with life amidst this
helplessness/frustration. Also the hope that all unfulfilled dreams and
material aspirations that were not met in this world may be fulfilled
in the life hereafter in heaven. After all, heaven is described as the
place where all one's desires and lusts (virgins, ambrosia, jewelry,
delicious foods etc) will be met and provided.
3) The need to fill the inner spiritual vacuum and an inherent
spiritual need of human to understand the meaning of this world and
life. This is behind a Hindu meditating, doing yoga, a Muslim offering
prayer or a Christian reciting a hymn etc. This inner spiritual vacuum
arises out of a sense of helplessness and being overwhelmed by the
vicissitude of life where it seems like one has no ultimate control of
anything about their own life, nothing happens as one wishes and one
goes through ups and downs that seem to be hard to explain and thus one
develops a sense that there exists a force that acts mysteriously and
their lives are guided/ controlled by this mysterious force and then
they resort to some form of worship, meditation as a symbolic means of
uniting with that force or gaining enlightenment about it. But the
point here is that belief in religion /God and ritual worshipping is
not the ONLY or the BEST way of filling this inner spiritual vacuum. A
very appropriate way of filling this is through the pursuit of and
eventual acquisition of knowledge and truth about nature. Carl Sagan
couldn't have said it better. KNOWING that there exist billions of
galaxies, each galaxies containing billions of stars, and billions of
stars containing planets and sun and earth being only one out of those
billions star-planet duo is in itself a spiritually fulfilling
experience. (In his ABC Nightline interview few months before his death)
. Knowing how species evolve from one another and how life develops
from a minute sperm to a full grown life form, how the complex
molecules self organize into a living DNA structure, all these
knowledge gets one closer to an understanding of the deep mysteries of
nature. After all, these meditations/prayer of a ritually religious
persons are intended to attain enlightenment, isn't it? If nature is
the creation of some supreme deity then the mystery of nature (Reading
the "mind" of God as Stephen Hawking puts it) by harnessing the full
power of the wonderful gift of nature that human possesses: Intellect.
Since in ancient days human didn't develop the mental faculty of
pursuing knowledge and truth through reasoning/ observation/scientific
methodology, meditation/ prayer was the only means of resorting to this
urge to experience and be close to nature, and this has continued in a
vestigial way up to this day specially by those who don't have the
perseverance and are not intellectually prepared to pursue the route of
seeking knowledge through scientific study or have a total blind faith
in a given religion.
B. Reasons rooted in illogical conclusions drawn from events in Life:
4). Recovering from a serious illness or problem. Seems to be too
unlikely without a divine intervention. Human instinct is not to accept
randomness and chance factor in nature, but instead to find meaning in
everything, a meaning that helps to give one an illusion that he/she is
not just any product of nature, but something special that is being
watched over. And hence the need to invent a personal God.
5). Sudden acquisition of wealth and happiness when subconsciously
realizing that he/ she didn't really deserve it. Rather than treat it
as a pure chance/luck there is an inherent desire to thank Someone/
Something for this fortune for being "Chosen" by that Someone/Something
for such special favour and hoping that by expressing gratitude to that
Someone/Something, He/It will protect him/her from losing this sudden
unexpectedly gotten material happiness.
It is an interesting irony that one person's good fortune convinces him/
her about the existence of God whereas millions of humans routinely
face misfortunes which should have provided more forceful reasons to
the contrary. After all, the existence of God cannot be justified by
one person's fortune.
C. Reasons rooted in Social Needs:
6). A desire to have a sense of belonging. It is a human instinct to be
part of a bigger whole out of a sense of insecurity and a need of a
social safety net This is also rooted in our animal ancestry where
packing instinct is observed. Religion offers that sense of belonging
and community feeling through church/mosque/temple etc where people
congregate and share fellow feeling and through religious based social/
cultural festivals/activities. This reason explains adherence to
religion as a custom, not God as a belief.
All of the above really point to a belief caused by a "need" , not a
belief that results from a genuine and dispassionate endeavor for
seeking the truth. Also there is a myth about "explaining" all the
inconsistencies/contradictions that exist in a religion (in its
scripture,revelations,tenets) when it is pointed out by critical
thinkers to a blind believer of a religion. One who has formed a belief
blindly, can in no way objectively and critically form an "explanation".
Their explanation will necessarily be an effort to justify and explain (
to their convenience) what they already have placed blind faith in
unconditionally. Any explanation, which is only for consumption by the
members of that same faith and does not convince any one else hardly
qualifies as a rational explanation but merely serves as a placebo to
the members to assuage their doubts and as a form of artificial
affirmation. Even those believers who are often bothered at first by
some inconsistencies surrender to some perceived "scholars" in religion
to do the explaining for them so they can rest assured with no doubts
in mind. They will not try to critically examine the merit of those
explanations as they are merely seeking a POST HOC affirmation of their
a priori absolute faith and are just content with the fact that someone
with a much higher "scholastic" mind (scholasticism limited to divinity
that is) is doing the explanation which they are desperately in need of
for the affirmation of something they have staked their belief in, and
would rather not face upto any serious inconsistencies of their faith
and retract from it as the resulting disenchantment would be
devastating to their emotional psyche . Oftentimes believers in blind
faith respond to critics of their blind belief (atheists/agnostics/
freethinkers) saying their critics are biased themselves and their
disbelief in the blind faith is itself due to their bias against the
believers. One has to be very careful here. Atheists/ skeptics/agnostics
exist BECAUSE OF blind believers and NOT the other way around.
It is the constant claims and persuasive attempt to force the belief on
others that created the skeptics/atheists etc as a counter reaction.
Believers of blind faith do so out of a need and has great stake in the
preservation and propagation of the perceived truth of his/her belief
and hence would defend any criticism of it without caring to judge the
merit of the criticism. On the other hand a disbeliever of a blind
faith has nothing to gain just by not believing and criticizing any
claims of truth of the blind faith holders. His/her non-belief is a
result of the analytical thinking preventing him/her from accepting a
belief irrationally just because they are being told so. Far from
gaining anything from the non-belief they rather take on potential risk
of back lash by the blind believers as well as depriving themselves
from the pleasant feelings generated by the blind belief. Anything that
has a rational basis will never be rejected/criticized by a rational
person. On the other hand a rational person can sometimes have a blind
faith (until conclusively proven wrong by evidence and logic) and will
honestly admit that the blind belief is due to a wishful desire and
since it has not been proven wrong by evidence or logic might as well
believe in it (But not trying to propagate it through imposition on
others). So the bottom line is that a rational person who decides not
to believe in a blind faith can never do so out of any bias. Check the
link at htp://www.skeptic.com/990126.html for an interesting debate on
belief in GOD and the link http://www.world-of-dawkins.com/religion.htm
for an interesting view of a scientist on the belief in religion. For
another interesting review of a talk by an Indian doctor on God vs.
human brain check http://www.godless.org/sci/ramachandran.html
D. Last but not the least, Reasons rooted in the evolutionary history and
neurophysiology of Human:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the view of the origin of religious belief at the most
fundamental level. A revolutionary understanding of cognitive science
pioneered by Noam Chomsky and other linguists and cognitive scientists
was that the instinct of language is ingrained universally in human
brain that enables a child to learn a language instinctively without
being taught. The fact that religious (or more appropriately mystical)
feelings are also quite universal and appears independently in
different cultures and is a universal phenomena. That points to a
possible similar neurophysiological root of religious belief. There
seems to be an inbuilt mechanism in nature to evolve a defensive
system in the face of new challenges for survival and propagation. It
is plausible that belief in religion came about due to an evolutionary
process necessitated by the appearance of consciousness in human
species. Due to this consciousness human were able/forced to wonder
if there is life after death, developed the yearning for not to die and
the yearning to not let their dear ones die. These desires and
yearnings are not the usual necessary ingredients of the two key
elements of evolution, viz, random mutation and natural selection for
survival, but are an unexpected feature of human species. Due to this
new element of consciousness human species needed a new factor in the
survival of the species process besides mutation and natural selection.
Belief in religion and faith is this new element. Without a belief in
life after death, or in GOD's existence suddenly the driving force of
life for humans with limited intellect would seem to disappear and
there would be total chaos and anarchy and eventual destruction of
human species. Since lower animals don't have the consciousness to
even worry about death or life after death they go about leading their
normal life cycle (eating, living, propagating etc) whereas for human
this awareness creates a need for a driving force (meaning of life) to
continue the normal life cycle without major disruptions. So the belief
in religion was an inevitable outcome of the emergence of consciousness
in full form ( intelligence) in the human species. It is also the
speculation of sociobiologists that faith/religion provide a valuable
tool of survival in the cultural evolution. It creates a strong
cohesive force among the members of a given faith and increase their
collective odds of achieving longevity as a group. There is also
another survival aspect of religious belief, which is: The most
successful religion (measured by number and/or growth rate) is not
necessarily the one which is true or best in an objective sense but
which is the most successful in maintaining cohesion among its
followers and gives them advantage over the other religions. It is
possible that this successful religion may commit wrongful acts on
the other less successful religion/ faith. My above views would find
support in the writings of early philosophers as well as recent
anthropolgists/biologists. John Fiske, the American philosopher said in
his 1899 book "Through nature to GOD" : Would it not be strange if
suddenly, after humans crossed the magic threshold to speech and self-
awareness, the appearance of religion in all primitive cultures would
have had no survival value? (From p-381, The Whys of a Philosophical
scrivener - Martin Gardner). Anthropologist Lionel Tiger says "Religion
probably has a genetic basis. To guard against the paralysis of deep
depression. When facing the inevitability of death, natural selection
responded to this problem by wiring into our brain a moderate
propensity to embrace sunny scenarios even when they are not supported
by the facts" (p-381, Gardner). Another anthropologist Pascal Boyer
makes a similar point in his book: "The Naturalness of Religious Ideas.
For an excellent on line article on the Biological roots of religious
belief check the site
http://www.SecularHumanism.org/library/fi/hunt_19_3.html
In the recent book: "The God Part of the Brain", Philosopher of Science
Matthew Alper proposes that beliefs in God, the afterlife, mind-over-
matter and superstitions have a physiological origin and may be encoded
into human DNA, evolved as a defense mechanism to help people cope
with the anxiety that comes from being aware of our own mortality. This
explanation of religious faith is not new. The new thing is that Alper
has made the most convincing and irrefutable case so far of this view
which is based on the results of the latest research on neurology and
sociobiology coupled with Darwinian metaphysics. It has got rave
reviews from sociobiologists and philosophers. Readers are finding it
hard to refute it. One reader got too carried away in his review (under
Barnes and Nobles website) and wrote : "The Birth of a New Science:
Neuroreligion. All 6 billion plus inhabitants of Earth should be in
possession of this book. Matthew Alper's tome should be placed next to
the sacred writings section in the libraries, bookstores and dwellings
throughout the world. Matthew Alper is the new Galileo. (Watch your
back Matthew!).."
For an online glimpse of the premise of Alper's work see
http://www.godpart.com/premise.html
Modern neurological research also points to a purely neurophysiological
cause of all religious mystical experiences. Here's an article
http://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/9/3/498 that
typifies the modern view from neurological research. For an insightful
tour of human mind and the biology of religion refer to the book "
Mystical Mind: Probing the Biology of Religious Experience" by
Neurophysiologist and psychiatrist Eugene D' Aquilli , and last but not
the least the monumental tome with 844 pages: "Zen and the Brain"
written by Dr. James Austen, a Neurophysiologits from the Academia
who has also practiced Zen meditation himself. All point to a
neurophysiological basis of all mystical and religious experiences.
Finally, there is also an inner instinct to have a father figure in
life providing an imagined guidance and inspiration and a sense of need
to be subordinate to such an entity and be protected by and accountable
to (As symbolically expressed in genuflection during prayer,
prostration etc). In real life this manifests itself in the need to
have big brother, a father or a leader. This part of human instinct is
also derived from our animal ancestors. Even animals display this
submissive posture to the superiors (Dogs to humans, subordinate
animals to the leader of their pack etc). The primitive human
worshipped imaginary powerful beings identified with thunder, fire,
mountain etc (Anything that projects power higher than human). with
increased understanding about nature and more control over it human
needed some other powerful entities to replace those. Since nothing on
earth seems to be too powerful and beyond human control so human had
to invent some imaginary super being to be subordinate and accountable
to and protected by.
Let me end with a relevant quote from Einstein: "I cannot imagine a God
who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes
are modeled after our own-a God, in short, who is but a reflection of
human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the
death of his own body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts
through fear or ridiculous egotism." (Made in 1932, appeared in the
book, The Quotable Einstein, page-150)
4. DOES RELIGION DEFINE MORALITY?
It is the common claim of religious believers that sense of right and
wrong can only come from religion/God/spirituality and that anyone
secular is devoid of any moral virtue. So by their criterion it follows
that scientists/philosophers who hold secular beliefs or are atheists
have no virtue at all and virtues are monopoly of religious believers
only. It must be emphasized that Theists declare it as a rule that "
Morality cannot be enforced/defined without religion" whereas Humanists/
rationalists never declare it as rule that "morality can ONLY be
defined/enforced WITHOUT religion. They only affirm that morality is
POSSIBLE independent of religion, and that immorality is also possible
WITH religion. So even if there exists immorality among some atheists
or some secular society that does not change the fact that morality
in some other non- religious society/individual can also and do exist,
and similarly even if there exists morality in some religious society/
individual that does not change the fact that immorality in another
religious individual/society can and do exist despite religion. Let me
summarize my points as follows:
1. One exception breaks a rule.
2. Theists declare it as a rule that "Morality cannot be enforced/defined
without God of the religion"
3. There are moral societies (e.g societies based on Buddhism) and individuals
not based on God of the religion. Thus rule 2 is broken.
First let me state an incontrovertible fact - that there are theists
who commit immoral acts and there are conscientious non theists who
behave morally. This fact already shows a basic weakness of the view
that religion has monopoly on morality. Theists might say that "if a
person was a TRUE follower of religious belief, then he/ she would not
have committed any immoral act and the fact that a "theist" committed
an immoral act only proves that his/her conviction in religion is not
strong or sincere." Whether or not they were true believers in religion
the fact still remains that they were not "non-theists". And since
there are "non-theists" who also behave morally so the immediate
conclusion is that religious belief is not a necessary prerequisite for
being moral. There are those who say "Only strict adherence to
religious injunctions/scriptures can guarantee a peaceful society, free
from crime, oppression, injustice etc. And any violent and extreme acts
of radical followers of the religion is discounted by saying that they
are not true followers of religion and true followers of religion would
never have engaged in such acts. The flaw in these assertions is that
it can be simply argued that strict adherence to the law of the land is
adequate to ensure peace. And if everyone followed the rule of law then
that would suffice to make a society free from crime and injustice. The
fact that a strict theocratic state has less crime is not because
people are so conscientious through deep belief in the true spirit of
religion that they refrain from wrong doings but because severe
punishments by the theocratic state machinery are enforced and serve as
powerful deterrents. In other words it is not primarily a fear of God
that helps to prevent crime in a theocratic state, but a fear of human.
Had there been any slack in the enforcement of law or if left to the
people's religious conscience then those societies would be full of
crimes and all sorts of immoral acts. The theocratic system of laws did
not succeed in eliminating the evil instincts in the heart of the
followers, only succeeded in putting a lid on it with the potential for
that lid to rupture any time as is sometimes reported in those
societies. On the other hand those secular non- theocratic states who
have managed to enforce the civil laws effectively also are free from
crimes, example is Singapore, Communist China ( Before the openness).
In fact it is ironically true that , autocracy in any form helps to
enforce law in any society. Since theocracy is a form of autocracy it
tends to give one an illusion that it is religion that is ensuring the
peace in the society, where in fact it is the draconian enforcement by
humans of a (theocratic) authoritarian rule which which is responsible.
If one thinks carefully It will be evident that religious injunctions
actually REAFFIRM what humans already intuitively know to be wrong or
right through the faculty of conscience. CONSCIENCE is as much a part
of inherent human instinct like any other . Like all human instincts it
is rooted in the evolutionary biology of human over millions of years.
Natural selection (acting on the profound laws of Physics over a long
span of time) gives rise to those human instincts that help in its
survival and propagation as a species. In more modern biological
language, conscience is the inhibiting effect of our cerebral cortex on
the primitive impulses coming from our reptilian part of the brain (
limbic system). It has been observed quite extensively by psychologists
and neurologists that a serious damage to the cerebral cortex impairs
the judgment faculty of humans and a conscientious person can become
less conscientious while still functioning normally otherwise. These
primitive instincts are also biologically rooted and are traced to the
biological imperatives of aggression, dominance, mating and propagation
needed for evolutionary survival. For lower animals only these baser
instincts are necessary for their survival and they didn't evolve
conscience (no highly developed cerebral cortex). Only humans evolved
this faculty as evolution "chose" (randomly of course) humans to the
most evolved species. Human species has the highest Encephalization
Quotient (E. Q = 7) which is a measure of how large the brain is
compared to the size that is required for a basic survivial. Humans are
not limited to the basic survivial impulses of lower animals, but have
memory, experience and knowledge all aquired through the extra amount
of brain (mostly cerebral cortex) that helps him to judge his
surroundings and make informed decisions, sometimes in contradiction
to the basic urges.
So the assertion that morality is not rooted genetically is also not in
accord with the contemporary view of biology. Our instinct of
conscience developed long before the the relatively recent arrival (in
evolutionary terms) of revealed religions, so stating that conscience
( or sense of right and wrong) is a result of God's revelation is an
anachronism. The revealed religions of Islam and Christianity came long
after the Greeks already were familiar with and discussing the concepts
of morality. All aspects of morality that religion preaches had been
taught by Confucius, Buddha, and other ancient sages in different
civilizations independent of divine preaching of morality. Besides it
contradicts simple common sense that if indeed God was the only source
of morality then the complexity of human brain and its evolution and
its well known role in judgment faculty would be totally redundant and
unnecessary. After all God could just instill that faculty without this
unnecessary structural complications in our brain which is known to
affect our judgement faculty and hence sense of morality.
We can see there is an inherent fallacy in basing right and wrong on a
divine entity. For example the usual explanation of religion declaring
some action "X" as wrong (X= rape/stealing/murder etc) is that God, as
the source of all righteousness cannot allow such an evil act "X" to be
committed. Why is "X" evil? Here a satisfactory answer is not possible.
Any attempt to explain why "X" is evil will defeat the premise that an
evil is what God decrees as evil. So according to the religious
believers, ultimately an evil is what God "decides" to be evil
( criterion for such decision is supposedly unknown to human). There is
no human criterion that can explain why something is evil. In other
words to be consistent they have to admit they cannot explain in human
terms why rape/ murder/theft etc are evil other than saying that it is
only evil because it is declared so by God. By the same token if these
acts were allowed and declared moral then to be consistent a blind
follower of revelations could not have challenged that and accepted
them blindly to be moral as declared by God, he/ she would not need any
justification/explanation in human terms as to why these acts are
allowed or declared moral. But in reality if an apologist of religion
is asked as to why these "evils" are not allowed, invariably the answer
will be "God can never allow such acts since they are evil". So
unwittingly they engage in circular reasoning and betray their own
instinctive human perception of right and wrong in defending why these
acts are not allowed by God. if things are neither right nor wrong
independently of God's revelations, then God cannot choose one thing
over another because it is right. An apologist might argue, for example,
that God would never condone such killing, raping, stealing, and
torturing, for God is all good. But if goodness is a defining attribute
of God, then God cannot be used to define goodness, for, in that case,
the definition would be circular - the concept being defined would be
doing the defining - and such a definition would be useless. Hence at
the root of all these conceptual contradictions is the deeply rooted
human instinctive notion of right and wrong (conscience) independent
of God's revelation which a theist invariably appeals to when arguing
about morality and its divineness as we saw above. So this instinctive
notion of morality must be more fundamental and precede any belief in
revelations and thus debunks the claim of theists that concept of
morality can only be rooted in religion.
Religion seems to provide a deterrent by the threat of punishment in
hell and reward of heaven to naive minds. But the same can be and is
achieved in any civilized society by the civil laws. The reason a
person with no strong conscience does not commit a rape in public is
NOT because it is forbidden in religion BUT because he will be arrested
immediately and thrown to jail or sent to death row. In old days, in
some societies, laws and penal codes were not established or
effectively enforced and integrated as part of Government/State
machinery as it is now. So in those societies religious injunctions
were the only deterrent against such uninhibited acts of "wrong" . In
societies where there were other human methods of checks and balances
this concept of divine arbiter to settle morality was not relevant or
necessary. For example a large population of the world are Buddhist
society. Buddhism is based on Godless morality. Even before Buddhism
the morality of ancient Chinese was based (and to a great extent is
still based) on the teachings of Confucius which in turn is based on
human values, not divine. Even the ancient Incas and Mayas had evolved
a highly organized society without the help of a revealed religion.
Good people do good because they want to do good - not because they
will personally benefit from it or because someone has forced them to
do it. People who do good solely for personal gain or to avoid personal
harm are not the ideal good people. Someone who saves a drowning child,
for example, only because he was offered a reward or was physically
threatened does not deserve much praise. Thus, if one's only reason for
performing good actions is his/her desire to go to heaven or his/her
fear of going to hell - if all his/her actions are motivated purely by
self interest - then ideally it should not qualify him/her for heaven
because he/she acted out of pure self-interest and hence not a good
person worth the reward, since heaven is for truly good people, who
would be selfless. Thus the the religious concept of heaven/hell and
morality leads to a contradiction. Besides, the threat of divine
punishment cannot impose a moral obligation, for might does not make
right. Threats extort; they do not create a moral duty. Thus, if our
only reason for obeying God is the fear of punishment if we do not,
then, from a moral point of view, God has no more claim to our
allegiance than Hitler or Stalin. Morality then literally becomes an
unquestioning compliance of divine commands.
As mentioned earlier religious believers assert that a secular/Godless
person has no sense of virtue or right or wrong. Hence according to
their views, followers of philosophies (Buddhism, Confucius, Shamanism,
Shintoism, Bahai etc, none of which believes in God or divinity of any
kind) do not have or are capable of forming the judgment of right or
wrong. But in reality these people do indeed show sense of right and
wrong. and are just as capable of private moral behavior as theists.
Thus belief in a certain God does not seem to be a prerequisite. It is
true that some universal moral standards are required for the proper
functioning of society. But it is incorrect to assume that God/
religion is the ONLY or BEST possible source of such standards. Early
and medieval Philosophers such as Plato, Kant, John Stuart Mill, George
Edward Moore, and John Rawls did make convincing arguments that it is
possible to have a universal morality without God and we see this is
true in practice in any societies not based on revealed religions.
Morality/virtue etc is an evolving personal and group code of conduct
that seem to reflect the most efficient way of maintaining personal and
group stability and peace in a community of people with clash of
interests and values. Morality is a product of natural selection through
trial and error, guided and dictated by the fundamental laws of nature at
work. This is easy to understand since after all, human species itself is a
product of evolution via natural selection, so morality, which is an
integral part of human species must also necessarily be part of that same
natural laws at work. So even if religions had not been revealed or
emereged by whatever means, human species would come up with
some forms of moral code by some alternate mechanism. Thats what
evolution (laws of nature fundamentally) mandates for human species.
Morality is part of simply being human, whether or not one believes in
a higher personal God of the religion or spirituality. Human beings have
proven themselves capable of devising and then abiding by their own
rules independent of religious decrees ( As the examples I have cited
earlier show), within which an individual or society can pursue their
varied interests with differing values yet maintain general peace and
stability, then there is no longer any need to posit any perceived
higher moral authority. The Universal Declarations of Human Rights is
one such example of the reflection of the common shared moral values
of humanity. Only when someone posits a law higher than what is
already agreed to by humanity solely on the basis of common sense
perception of what is good and effective for humanity, need any
questions be raised --for it is only THEN that an explanation or
justification of such a moral base is necessary. The burden of proof
belongs on the one who steps outside the ordinary and common
sense way in which morals are derived --not on the one who
continues to keep his or her morals, values in conformity with that
democratically established.
5. ON THE FREE WILL DEFENSE AGAINST ARGUMENT FROM EVIL
This is a discussion based purely on logic. Any counter views or
criticisms are welcome as long as they are also based on logic. A logic,
by definition, cannot contain a statement of faith. For example
statements containing "God knows that.." or, "God wants/doesn't want..."
, etc are based on faith, not logic, and thus such statements are not
admissible in a logical discussion. The words omnipotent = all-
powerful, omniscient = all-knowing and omnibenevolent = all
compassionate are attributes often applied to God, that he is all-
powerful, knows all that can be known and is infinitely compassionate.
We are often told that God knows all things throughout the entirety of
time and space. Everything that can be known, he knows. Everything in
the past, present and future is known to God. And he is all
compassionate. I will argue that all these attributes run into conflict
with the notion of free will unless at least one of the attributes are
sacrificed. Religion says that God gave us free will, so that we may
make our own decisions, decide our own futures, with no coercion from
God. Whether we do good things or bad things is entirely up to us, God
just sits back and watches over us knowing ahead of time ( through
omniscience and prescience) each and every action that we will do. The
problem is if God knows today what we will do tomorrow, then we cannot
do anything other than what God knows we will do tomorrow, otherwise
he will be wrong and not be omniscient. But then if could npt do anything
other than what Go already knows then where is the free will? If God
knows what someone will do in future then that implies that something
(by God or any other factor) must have determined what that person will
do. Free will only makes sense if one can choose one action from several
possible ones solely based on his/her own will. But we just saw that
only one action can be chosen, the one that God knows today that
we will actually do tomorrow, and no other. So free will does not exist
in its strict definition. In other words if you truly have free will
then you should be able to do something that even God cannot know ahead
of time. True free will should have the ability to prove even's God
knowledge of one's future action to be wrong. But such free will then
is obviously incompatible with another attribute of God, viz omniscience.
So either way a logical contradiction arises.
As a last attempt to resolve this inconsistencies of attribute of god
with one can argue, well, god can actually through omnipotence, endow
himself with omniscience or rob himself of it if and whenever he
chooses to, in other words, he has the switch whiche he can turn on and
off at will to gain or loose omniscience anytime. And for our freewill
to work he CHOSE to be not omniscient about our lives. Omnipotence
allows god to become omniscient if an when he choses to, and hence
these both attributes are not really incompatible. Now leaving aside
the question as to how the one who argues that way came to know about
this remarkable switch of God, let us instead examine this argument more
closely.
Let's say god decided to turn the switch on so he indeed became
omniscient. So God now knows everything about the future of anyone,
anything. But suppose now he wanted to change the future of someone.
Can he do it? NO! because if he could then in that case his knowledge
about the future of that person just before he changed that person' s
future would be wrong, which would cause God to loose omniscience. In
other words, God CANNOT as a choice turn the switch of omniscience on
AND change someone's future while preserving omniscience. So God looses
omnipotence in that case for not being able to exercize this particular
sequence of choices. So the contradictions between these two attribute
cannot be removed by this choice of omniscience clause. Now let us
discuss and debate the usual arguments of Free Will Defense of Theism.
Theists posit that God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. The
argument from evil (AE) against the existence of God can be summarized as :
1. God is omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipotent.
2. God being omniscient, knows the existence of evil.
3. God being omnibenevolent, has the intention of eliminating the
presence of evil.
4. God being omnipotent, can eliminate the presence of evil.
5. From 2,3 and 4, we can deduce that the presence of God imply the
absence of evil.
6. There IS evil.
7. From 5 & 6,therefore,we deduce that God as defined in (1) does not exist.
The usual response of the religious apologetics against the above
argument from evil by skeptics is the free will defense, summarized as :
Free Will Defense (FWD) of theism against AE :
1. God had two choices : create beings 1-a)with free will or 1-b)
without free will (law of excluded middle).
2. The creation of beings with free will who can commit evil (1-a), is
BETTER than creation of beings without free will (1-b), who can only
commit good
3. God always does what is BETTER i.e choose (1-a)
4. Therefore, in view of 2 and 3 above, God cannot but create beings
with free will with the capacity to commit evil.
Unfortunately, this defense makes three critical mistakes. The first
mistake, which is the most obvious, is the assumption that free will is
better then the capacity to do no evil. It is rather difficult to agree
with the idea that all the evils that man has ever committed are all
justified by the freedom of free will and the trade off between free
will and evil is that obvious. Only very few who has not never suffered
the consequences of evil or are themselves perpetrators of evil can say
without any qualm that free will (with a baggage of capacity for evil)
is preferable to no free will (with no baggage of capacity for evil),
since they are the biggest beneficiaries of free will, not the victims.
Another argument by defenders of free will argument is that without
freewill and the ability to choose evil human becomes become a like a
robot. But then calling a perfect human a "robot" is a personal
subjective use of a label. By the same token if all humans with free
will abided by the rules of God (Which God wishes anyway) and and didn't
commit any wrong then they would equally well become robots. Just
like robots obey the computer commands, humans would obey the divine
commands. There is no profound difference between the two. By that
logic all humans will become robots in heaven since no evil will exist
there. Besides there is an inherent inconsistency in the concept of a
perfect being (GOD) crafting an imperfect product (human). Imperfect
products can only come from imperfect designer. Finally the word "
better" in (3) above is being argued by humans (apologists). How are
they to know what God thinks is better?. They are judging better in a
post hoc fashion, i.e predicting a cause from the effect! If humans had
not committed any wrongs then the post hoc logic could have been
changed to, God being perfect is not allowing anyone to commit any evil.
So this kind of defensive reasoning by humans for God is convenient and
self serving to justify a foregone conclusion. God never himself argued
this way justifying evil (either in Koran or Bible or anywhere). A
human can never know what God wants or thinks and argue on God's behalf
unless God says it himself in any revelation. The word "BETTER" above
is a highly subjective judgment call and only favours those who can
benefit from a free will with capacity for evil. Also another tacit
assumption is that without evil there is no good. That without the
potential to commit evil there would be no meaning of good and no one
would appreciate what good is. And since evil is committed through the
exercise of free will hence free will is necessary for evil which is
necessary for the meaning of good. But then the question arises why
does God instruct human not to commit evil and to do good and threaten
punishment for non-compliance and reward for compliance? Obviously not
all human will commit good, if they did then evil would not exist, and
the meaning of good will cease to exist. So for the meaning of good to
exist and for human to appreciate it some evil must be committed. So
God has to make sure that some do commit evil. So on one hand God is
instructing all to commit good and stay away from evil and at the same
time he is required to maintain some evil to make the sure the concept
of good survives for human so as to inspire them do it. In that case
blaming/punishing human for committing very same evil that is required
to be committed to maintain the value and meaning of good for others
would be a logical contradiction for a perfect/omnipotent/ omniscient/
omnibenevolent God. An omniscient God would know all the crimes and
wrongs to be committed by anyone ahead of time (omniscience implies
prescience) and in that case expressing anger (as reflected in many
verses of Koran and Bible referring to punishment in Hell) after it is
committed while knowing beforehand that it was coming is contradictory
to omnibenevolence. Furthermore if one insists that some evil is
essential for good to exist, then that implies that evil should not
be prevented, only reddressed. So it is imperative that a disease be
not prevented, only treatment. Similarly it becomes imperative not to
prevent occurrence crime, but reddress it (punish,condemn) after it
has happened, becasue prevention would make evil nopn-existent and thus
render "good" meaningless. So we see that this argument for evil as
essential for "good" leads to a contradictory situation.
So God as envisaged in the revealed religions
suffers from two inherently contradictory desires, which is not
consistent with the attributes of a perfect being. Besides if good and
happiness requires the existence of evil and suffering then why is
there no evil and suffering in heaven which is supposed to be a place
of perfect goodness and happiness? Most importantly, is it consistent
with an omnibenevolent being to require that evil be committed on
children, innocent men and women (after all evil is defined as wrongs
perpetrated on the innocent, not on the wicked) just so that the
victims ( if they survive) or those who were spared can appreciate the
good? It violates all common sense and any moral standards that one can
conceive of. Some apologists say "Well, God's intentions are beyond
human comprehension, standards and common sense", but that's an
assertion of no substance, because if God's intentions is truly beyond
human comprehension then one can say nothing about God, one way or
the other and the apologists (who are human) have no basis of defending
God either or to contradict what their opponents are saying. Moreover
this kind of reasoning has inherent inconsistencies. One cannot make
an argument based on ignorance of facts. The whole point of this
debate is to refute or prove that God exists. Now one cannot refute
the argument which says that God cannot exist because of the
incompatibilities of the various attributes that define God
by arguing that "God" works in mysterious ways!. "God works in
mysterious ways" assume God exists which was supposed to be proven
in the first place. More importantly one cannot start out with
logic trying to prove God exists and give up logic halfway and
appeal to "mysterious" logic to arrive at the conclusion that
God exists. One could as well have started out with the conclusion
that God exists, and that would have as much validity as invoking
a mysterious working halfway. Mysterious logic can be made to
arrive at any conclusion by either side.
The second mistake is the tacit assumption that free will necessarily
entails a choice of evil, ie. if we have free will then it is
impossible to avoid evil altogether, free will must involve choice of
either good or evil. Thats how the apologists explain the presence of
evil as an inevitable consequence of free will. But thats a fallacious
presupposition. Free will is the capacity to choose. A choice is
picking between many options. By saying that free will necessarily
entails evil they are implying that our options are limited to either
good, or evil, that a choice only between many goods are not possible,
i. e there cannot be more than one good options. But we know thats not
true. We come across many situations where there can be two good
options along with one or more evil options. So free will can entail
choices between good. What is really an important prerequisite of free
will is the FREEDOM to choose from whatever choices are given to us,
period. What choices are given to us do not determine the freedom. So
evil as a choice is not essential for freedom. Even with presence of
free will we don't have the choice of doing many things. We can't
choose to make ourselves disappear, or to fly or float in the air
without any mechanical aid. If we can retain free will even without
such abilities then surely we can retain our free will even if deprived
of the evil options. If God is all-powerful, then why does he not
eliminate all the evil options and only provide good/neutral options to
choose from using free will?. He could have provided options between
goods of varying degrees and/or neutral (i.e which doesn't benefit or
harm). Since evil do exist then either God if he exists, is not all-
powerful or he does not want to see evil disappear. In that case he(God)
cannot be all compassionate. We can also imagine many scenarios in
which free will is compatible with an omnipotent God and no evil. For
instance, God could use magical power to "physically restrain" those
who intend to commit evil. Perhaps they would find it frustrating, like
the repulsive force between two magnets, he could feel a repulsive
force restraining him to do the evil, but their "free will" to do harm
would nevertheless remain intact. After all free will is a subjective
mental perception. As long as one can feel in their mind that they can
make a will without interference then free will exists, regardless of
whether the will is actually fulfilled or not. But since such magical
prevention of evil does not happen then again that proves that an
omnipotent God if exists cannot be omnibenevolent. Let us further
analyze free will (or its absence) carefully. It seems that the manner
in which humans are endowed with freewill is contradictory to the
concept of fairness (Another necessary attribute of a perfect God). If
right or wrong choices by humans were made under conditions that humans
had complete choice on then it is understandable that humans could be
held accountable for their choices. But we know that the acts that
people choose to do are very much dictated by their minds/personalities
which in turn are dictated by their genetic inheritances and the effect
of environmental stimulus on the neural connections in their brain that
occurs since birth, both of which an individual has no choice on. If
genetic plus environmental influence makes one more prone to commit an
evil then he/she would have to struggle harder to stay away from it (or
maybe impossible to stay away from it in case the influence is so deep
that he/she cannot even judge right and wrong and views morality as
blind rules imposed unfairly by society and religion) whereas in a
human whose genetic+ environmental influence made him/her less
prone to commit evil and more prone to do right then it would require
much less effort to stay away from evil (As it comes "naturally" regardless
if morality is set by society or religion). So there IS some element of
programming in human nature and hence there can be no true 100%
free will. A true free will which enables one to choose right from wrong
would make sense if all humans were born with a clean slate that can
only be written with conscious choice at each step, in other words if
they had the choice as to what personality/mind they could have. But
genetic inheritance and environment's effect on the neural connections
of the brain cells invariably makes the slate pre written and humans
don't have any choice on how their personality/mind will evolve,
instead it is decided for them by gene and environment by the time
full consciousness develops in them. If God is to hold each human
accountable for their acts at an individual level then it behooves him
to endow more freedom to each human being than there seems to be.
The third mistake of the FWD apologetics is the omission of natural
evil (i.e epidemic, plague, earthquake, floods etc) that are not
committed by human. If god exists, he made everything, including
natural evils or has the capacity to prevent it. It is therefore an
evil on his part to allow it. The Free Will Defense cannot justify this
natural evil by their usual argument. Sometimes the natural evil is
explained by saying that it is the punishment of God for the sins of
human. Which human? The greatest casualty of all natural evils are
mostly innocent children, women and men. The evil doers in most cases
escape unhurt. The natural evils happen quite randomly and kill people
with no selective bias. Good and bad people alike fall victims to it, a
situation that can be nicely explained the absence of God and by nature'
s random acts. The great Lisbon earthquake of 1755 killed the all the
worshippers in the churches that gathered to commemorate the death of
a noted saint, as well as many innocent women and children. But it spared
many brothels. Another defense of the natural evil is that it is for a
greater good. Good for whom? Not the millions who died? And when
does the greater good take place? No greater good seem to have
followed much of the natural disasters. Of course there can be some
beneficiaries from the miseries of others. But is that compatible with an
omnibenevolent God? Another response by the apologists are: "What we
perceive as evil in this world is a result of our limited knowledge and
these evils are part of a grander scheme of God and are not really evil,
but part of a greater good that we can't see. God has reasons behind
everything". Now in the name of " limited knowledge" these apologetics
are asserting something that require extraordinary knowledge, like
knowing that God has a reason behind all evil. A limited knowledge
cannot lead to this profound assertion!. They are being inconsistent
within themselves by saying this. Besides if we accept this argument on
faith, then one can also argue back that what we perceive as good in
this world can also be an illusion and can be part of a greater evil
that we can't see with our limited knowledge. This argument is equally
acceptable as a faith. So this kind of reasoning can be always applied
no matter how much evil is observed. If evils only happened to wrong
doers and innocents were always spared from suffering without exception
then this kind of reasoning would immediately point to God's justice
and fairness in action. In absence of such ideal situation the
reasoning is modified and appeal is made to the limitations of human
comprehension to justify the far from ideal situation of evil and a
hidden reason behind it. This kind of reasoning is so opportunistic
that it would always provide an explanation of any given reality, in
favour of the benevolence of God irrespective of the amount of evil and
suffering that is observed. Is there any level of evil and suffering
that would convince a believer that God is not omnibenevolent after
all? Certainly not, because the level we see now is already quite
substantial and is consistent with the non- existence of God and a
random act of nature. So it all boils down to believe in an
omnibenevolent God first and then use all kinds of "post hoc" (after
the fact) arguments to "explain" away the observed evil and suffering.
So this apology also does not hold under close scrutiny and thus free
will and the existence of evil by humans is incompatible with the
concept of an omniscient/ omnipotent/omnibenevolent God.
6. MIXING SCIENCE WITH RELIGION (NFB, Oct 6 2000)
I see an attempt in this forum by some readers to link science with a
religious verse and claim originality of religious verses on the
discovery of scientific truths. This is a flawed attempt, as I will
argue below, that is often made by apologetics of all religions.
If one likes to see science in anything they can see it anywhere. One "
Joe Schmoe" may have said "All is relative" before Einstein's theory of
relativity was known. By this stretch of imagination that Joe can
legitimately claim that he already knew about relativity and claim
originality. Any vague phrase, puns, allegories, quote etc by humans,
scriptures etc can be customized and made to fit any scientific
principle when that scientific principle is phrased in a very general
way for popular consumption, hiding the underlying precise sense and
formulation of these principles. By claiming these scientific
principles were already contained in the revelations one is basically
denying the painstaking research has helped unravel the complex
workings of the laws of nature and reality.
None of these scientific discoveries were inspired FROM, dependent
ON, or UTILIZED, any of the religious revelations. If religious revelations
could not and did not lead to any of the discovery of these scientific
truths in a stand alone way then by any criterion and logic they cannot
be used to vindicate science. There are many unanswered questions in
the basic understanding of the universe. Why can't the verses of
scripture throw any light on them? For example we don't at this time
know for sure if the universe is closed, open or flat. No body has
dared any prediction to that effect based on any revelation. But if the
Answer is ever found out by science I am sure someone will dig out some
vague words of a verse from some book of some religion and claim to "
see" the answer there that science has finally managed to find. Its
always AFTER the fact that these semblances are found. It has never
been found BEFORE the scientific discovery. Is that a coincidence? I
don't think so. Nobel laureate Physicist Dr. Abdus Salam warned against
people trying to explain Big Bang using verses from Koran, saying that
the current version of Big Bang is the best known scientific
explanation for the creation of the universe. What if a better
scientific explanation than Big Bang is found tomorrow? Should the
verses be changed to accommodate the new scientific view? Obviously not.
It shows the inherent contradiction this leads to. Religious
revelations can never vindicate or falsify science. The truth or
falsity of a scientific principle lies within science itself. Religious
scriptures cannot speak of any scientific principle. Religious
revelations are absolute directives and narratives for humans to follow
as faith unquestioningly. Many revelations clearly contradict many
accepted scientific principles. No scientist of any repute have ever
tried to substantiate scientific principles by religious beliefs.
Most scientists and theologians would rather not mix faith with
objective and rational field of science. Koran/Bible/Gita etc are not
books of science. Any coincidental vague semblance between a verse and
a popular phrasing of a complex scientific principle is solely due to
the very general and vague wordings admitting of any interpretation
that one chooses to impose on it. All one needs is some vague reverse
fitting argument to connect the two. One can find Quantum Mechanics in
Tagore' s poems if they really insist, or relativity in the Buddhist
Monk Nagarjun's writing. Just seeing what one likes to see because of a
preset belief in the revelations of a favoured religion doesn't make it
so by any objective criterion. Faith and logic are incompatible. If
faith could be validated by logic (correctly applied with
incontrovertible evidences) then it would not be labelled faith but a
universal natural principle/phenomenon. Faith that religious
revelations contain scientific fact can never be justified by facts,
evidences or logic. Some superficial similarities using only words
cannot qualify for a proof or evidence. One must be reminded that the
mark of a genuine proof, evidence and logic is a consensus that crosses
all racial, ethnic and religious boundaries. That is not to say that a
consensus is the only criterion of validity, but consensus necessarily
follows from logic, evidence and facts. A sound logic using facts only
can validate any conclusion. A fact by definition is an
incontrovertible observation based on sense perceptions. That's why the
laws of science are universal. We don't have an Islamic principle of
Relativity, or a Hindu Quantum Mechanics or Christian Law of Evolution.
All these scientific principles are convincing to scientists of all
denominations. The logic and evidences speak for themselves, no
belief in any religion is required for the acceptability of scientific
principles. A majority of the scientists and theologians agree that
science cannot be corroborated by religious revelations or vice versa.
Only a handful of scientists (Almost all of them of questionable
credentials, some with mediocre credentials) and zealous followers and
apologetics of religious seem to be obsessed by the effort to link the
two, which of course they are entitled to with full rights as a free
human being as are the skeptics and more moderate followers who
disagree and point out the flaws in this effort. There is some inherent
inconsistency in this approach to validate religion by science. First,
we know that in almost all religions this attempt is made. They are all
equally convincing (or unconvincing, take your pick). So, there is no
rationale to accept the reasoning of one religion over the other, on
grounds of pure logic. Since all the religions are based on the
assumption that the others are wrong (in the sense that their holy book
is the only one containing the word of God) they can not all be right.
But since the reasoning used to validate revelations with science are
no better in one religion than the other there is no basis of selecting
one as right. Follower "A" of religion "X" will of course only accept
the reasoning to link religion "X" with science. Follower "B" of
religion "Y" will believe in the reasoning of religion "Y" to link
their revelation with science and so on. A valid logic and evidence
linking any religion with science should be accepted by ALL, i.e by any
follower of any religion, or a skeptic/non-believer. But that obviously
is not the case. So none of the reasoning in any of the religions are
based on sound logic or argument. Now let me raise the issue of the
need to assert the "perceived" link between religion and science. First
of all faith in a religious revelation is unconditional. One places
faith in the revelations due to being born in that religion and due to
reinforcements by society, surroundings and culture etc. ( This is a
good example of "meme" in action. One can read the idea of memes in
Richard Dawkin's "The Selfish Gene" or Susan Blackmore's "The Meme
Machine"). Some examples and references of various "A"s from various
"Y" s trying to find science in their respective revelations will follow
later in this post. Once one stakes their faith in their revelations,
the next step is to look for confirmations, reinforcements of that
belief. It is a self feeding mechanism whereby an apparent similarity
between a revelation and science strengthens the faith which in turn
motivates one to "search" for more similarities and the reinforcements
add up in a runaway fashion. Now the question is even if one chooses
to reinforce this faith by " seeing" the similarities, do they need to
declare that similarities to anyone? I would argue NO. If the faith is
strong in one's mind then announcing the supposed similarities between
revelations and science is not needed to strengthen the faith. A strong
faith does not and should not require a public affirmation or sanction.
Now if these announcements are made to convince others about the
validity of the revelations then the obvious conclusion is that it is
not succeeding. It is not convincing many of the moderate religious
followers, let alone the skeptics. Majority of the scientists are not
convinced (even for the religion that they are born in). Some of the
few pseudo and mediocre scientists that do try to prove the truth of
revelations with science do so out of some vested interests and are
actively funded and supported by wealthy religious organizations or
individuals. Others quote the similarities in a metaphorical sense to
emphasize that science is encouraged by revelations which is noble in
intent but flawed by any logical criterion. A motivation to pursue
science is better obtained by exposing the young minds to the beauty of
nature and universe through popular science books, movies, field trips
etc. My purpose is not to disrespect religion or its revelation, but to
question the attempt to reconcile the two in an illogical way. They can
be irreconcilable and yet can continue and thrive as separate ways as
long as one does not get in the way of the pursuit of the other. Below
are some examples of attempts to validate (or reconcile) religious
revelations with science covering a cross section of religions. I am
excluding Islamic attempt since there is no shortage of that here.
More than one readers have aggressively tried to sell that. All the
following appear quite convincing, but not enough to pass logical
scrutiny to validate their respective revelations and make a logical
person believe in them. If one has to accept the " reasoning" for the
divineness of revelations any specific religion then in good conscience
one has to accept the divineness of the others as well, since they are
equally valid in their reasoning:
1. Genesis and the Big Bang : The Discovery of Harmony Between Modern
Science and the Bible - Gerald L. Schroeder
2. The Science of God : The Convergence of Scientific and Biblical Wisdom
- Gerald L. Schroeder
3. Thinking About Creation : Eternal Torah and Modern Physics
- Andrew Goldfinger
4. Vedic Physics - Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Subhash Kak (For online details
of this book see http://www.goldenpub.com/)
5. The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern
Physics and Eastern Mysticism - Fritjof Capra [ A best seller first
appeared in 1975 by a top Theoretical Physicist]
6. http://www.ozemail.com.au/~vsivasup/science/index.html (Modern Physics
& Hinduism)
7. http://www.hvk.org/hvk/articles/articles/articles/0798/0043.html
(Sankhya Philosophy & Physics)
8. http://www.saigon.com/~anson/vbud/vbpha014.htm (Science and Buddhism)
9. http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/7348/physics_metaphysics.html
7. SCIENCE IS NOT FAITH (NFB,Thu, 08 Feb 2001)
Mr. Babul Ahmed's article ("Is faith in the Unseen illogical and
unscientific?" ,February 7) reveals some misconceptions about science
and scientific methods. Apart from numerous inaccurate statements and
erroneous facts it is a goldmine of fallacies and inconsistencies . I
will attempt to address those fallacies . The greatest fallacy lies in
the claim that science is based on "faith". Second fallacy is the
simplistic conclusion (implicit) derived therefrom which can be
summarized as:
1. Science is based on or requires faith.
2. Science has been proven right.
3. Islam is based on faith.
4. Hence by 1 and 2 above ISLAM is also (or at least CAN BE/WILL BE
PROVEN) right.
I will address the fallacy of step 1 after addressing the fallacy in
step 4. I am sure Mr. Babul didn't mean to say that Christianity is
also right, although according to his "logic", since Christianity is
also based on faith, HENCE christianity must be right. In that case he
has to conclude that both Koran and Bible are the literally the word of
GOD which a believer in Islam will never agree with. Hence I am correct
in assuming ISLAM in step 3 and 4. Why stop here?. What about the
Dogan people of Mali? (check http://www.cyber-north.com/ufo/dogan.html,
http://home.earthlink.net/ ~pleiadesx/chaptr5.htm). Their faith tells them
that their saviour lord resides in DOG STAR (Sirius B in astronomical
term), and so their faith is also right. I must announce for those who
have not heard about these Dogan tribes, they can claim more legitimacy
about their claims than any other religions, since they correctly
predicted the existence of Sirius B even before it was astronomically
detected by the astronomers of US Naval Observatory and they correctly
predicted the orbital revolution period of dogstar around Sirius . By
the same reasoning hundreds of other faiths of the world can claim
legitimacy of being RIGHT. One can substitute "ISLAM" in step 3 and 4
above by faith "X" and the logic will not be changed. All the books of
faith, Vedas, Koran, Bible, etc are right and the words of GOD by this "
logic" since that is the faith of all its followers. I think it is
already clear what this fallacious argument is leading us to.
Now I want to address the misconception about science and scientific
method. To make a one line statement that "science is based on faith"
is totally misleading and unconscionable for a scientifically literate
person. Quacks and pseudo-scientists often make such statements with
impunity as they don't know or understand science. SCIENCE IS NOT
FAITH. If a scientist ever uses the word "faith" he/she is using it in a
metaphorical sense to imply a set of PREMISES/ASSUMPTIONS that
underlie all scientific methods. Even allowing such usage of the word "faith",
the very suggestion implicit in Mr. Ahmed's article that scientific
faith is no different from Religious faith is what constitutes the
greatest fallacy. For the "faith" of science is a VERY DIFFERENT animal
from the "faith" of Religion. The faith of science is a set of premises/
assumptions as mentioned earlier based on OBJECTIVE criterion of
symmetry, simplicity and OCCAM's RAZOR etc and of course
OBSERVATIONS, all of which cross all racial/cultural/religious boundaries.
These assumptions/premises are agreed on ( unless observations and logic
contradict it) universally by scientists of all culture/ race/religion
who follow the scientific method. For example Euclid's geometry is
based on some "faiths" (i.e axioms) which are agreed on universally,
since these axioms are themselves universal and objective. It is the
greatest acheivement of the last couple of centuries that scientific
method has emerged that binds human thought in a universal way crossing
the racial/religious/ciltural barrier helping to advance human species.
To summarize, the "faith" of science is characterized by "universality"
and "consensus". Whereas the "faith" of Religion is a biased one
limited to its followers only, not characterized by universality and
objectivity, or consensus. It is a "faith" rooted in a wishful thinking
that suits to one's personal desire and aspirations. A scientific "
faith" is based on the desire to pursue the TRUTH. The faith that is
chosen is the one that is judged by objective criteria to have the
highest likelihood of leading one to the the OBJECTIVE TRUTH (i.e
verifiable). So the scientific faith is not absolute but ad hoc and
provisional and subject to revision unlike the religious faith which is
based on the highest "feel good" effect and is usually a result of
indoctrination and is absolute, not changeable. One is based on
humility, the other on arrogant claim of absoluteness.
So what is this scientific method that I have been referring to? It is
very relevant to this discussion and so let me summarize it:
A scientific method in a nutshell is the process of using observations
and logical reasoning, along with some plausible assumptions that are
not in contradiction with any existing scientific law, to formulate a
tentative hypothesis/theory and then make predictions based on such
a theory which is then tested/verified from evidence at which point the
theory becomes a law.
To summarize the steps, scientific method comprises of:
1. Observations.
2. Making some plausible assumptions(premises) based on objective
criteria, like Occams' Razor (i.e symmetry, simplicity, beauty etc.)
3. Logical reasoning (Using mathematical analysis and) 4. Formulation
of a theory based on steps 1-3 and other established laws of science.
5.Prediction based on 3 and 4
6. Testing (i.e verify/falsify) the prediction by evidence which can
be either through the results of experiments(repeatedly in a controlled
setting) or through enough observations in nature.
IF (Falsified) THEN go back to 2 and make a different set of plausible
premises and continue from step 3. ENDIF
7. If step 6 is verified in more than one instance by evidence and
observations then the theory is considered to be a law of nature.
As a further check on its validity, steps 2-6 (observation, assumptions,
reasoning, formulation of theory, prediction and its verification
through evidence and future observations) are subjected to rigorous
peer review crossing all cultural/racial/ religious boundaries. All
these steps are so objective that there is little scope of disagreement
(except in step 2, and except errors that can be corrected) no matter
which affiliation a scientist belongs to. Any sustained disagreement,
if any between scientists are in the predictions whose conclusive
verifications are yet to be found. The disagreement in the predictions
are due to the fact the same observations can be used to arrive at
different predictions by equally valid reasoning, but making different
plausible assumptions. So both the scientists are following the
scientific methods but can still be in disagreement. The final arbiter
is evidence if and when it is available. Evidence is not always
available due to limitations of the technology when the required
experiment or observation demands extremely high sensitivity. A point
worth noting is that step #3 is not a static one. New mathematical
techniques/theorems are discovered by mathematicians which allows
scientists more advanced and alternate reasoning based on the same
observations to arrive at alternate theories as well.
A noteworthy point is that scientific method is an iterative and self-
correcting method. i.e science has the built-in capacity to falsify
itself and to rectify as well. It takes just one exception to
invalidate a scientific theory. It is quite ruthless in this regard. It
has to be, in order to filter out pseudoscientists and to ensure
integrity of science. It takes a series of sustained verifications to
validate a theory. A very important point to note is that to challenge
or dismiss a scientific theory one has to follow the scientific method
as well, i.e only scientists can falsify another scientist's theory.
For a non-scientist to question and dismiss a scientific theory based
on his/her cherished faith or bias is disingenuous/ inconscientious (
even more so if it is an established law). It is more disingenuous for
a layman to make a statement like" Science CAN NEVER know that..."
etc. It requires more depth to declare what science cannot than to
declare what science can.
Some common fallacies that apply vis a vis science and faith is:
1. When a blind believer refers to a disagreement between two
scientists and exclaim "Since they(scientists) don't agree among
themselves THEREFORE we are correct" ! If A says B is wrong or vice
versa, that doesn't make C right! As I emphasized above science has the
built in mechanism to self-correct and it is not possible to falsify
science from outside of science.
2. When a blind believer says: "Science has its limit, it cannot answer
all questions, therefore one has to look at religion to find the the
answers.. The fallacy is that believing in something doesn't make it a
knowledge. So answering a question purely based on faith and wishful
thinking doesn't constitute an answer to a question that science cannot
answer.
3. When a blind believer accuses Scientists/Science of arrogance and
accusing them of claiming to know it all. On the contrary it is the
scientists who base their entire pursuit on the premise that they can
be wrong. Religious followers never admit the possibility of their
being wrong.
4. When a faith is equated to knowledge. True knowledge is verifiable
and requires critical thinking and observations. Faith does not need
either except just a wish to believe and is not verifiable. Of course
the the knowledge referred to here is " divine" knowledge. Besides,
divine "knowledge" cannot really be called knowledge in the real sense
of the term, because it is nothing but faith. Religious faith (Divine
faith) has two parts. One part of that faith is believing in the
existence of God and Life after Death. This part is a universal
instinct not rooted in hearsay or indoctrination and is closest to a
scientific faith, although still not the same. Humans from any
background, race/culture/religion, theist/atheist/agnostic alike have
this intuitive feeling of some unknown CAUSE of the universe and a
desire for immortality (Who wants to die and who doesn't yearn to meet
their departed loved ones?) The remaining aspects of divine "knowledge"
(Like revelations, day of judgment, heaven/hell, contents of the holy
book etc) is solely based on faith in a "chain of hearsay" and
indoctrination . This chain can be symbolized in the form below:
"A believes in B who says that he believes in C who says that he
believes in D who says that...... who SAID that he believed in Z who
said that God said that....(revelations) "
(For this instance imagine there are billions of people between A and Z
and 1400/2000 years have passed between Z and A. ).
The entire edifice of revealed religion and divinity is based based on
this chain of belief. Of course a "historical" knowledge of what many
important historical personalities between "A and Z" said or did or
what important events occurred between the times of A and Z that
significantly affected the history lives of later people in that chain
can be called a divine knowledge, but that is more appropriately a
historical knowledge. And one need not be a believer of such a faith
to possess that historical knowledge. Believing in something cannot
constitute a knowledge, unless the object of the belief is defined
unambiguously and then verified objectively resulting in a consensus
that crosses all religious/cultural/ethnic boundaries. Unlike religion,
science is not based on faith through indoctrination ("memes" in modern
sociobiological parlance). Science is a genuine knowledge acquired
through scientific method which I have described above. It is not a
dogma that clings to its veracity doggedly like religion.
8. MYTHS & FALLACIES OF RELIGIOUS APOLOGETICS
Myths and contradictions of apologetics of religion:
#1. That their Holy Book is "perfect" because it is the
word of God.
[ A perfect book should not suffer from flaws that only an imperfect
book of human origin can suffer from. Some flaws that contradict perfectness:
(One flaw is enough to render it imperfect):
- A perfect book cannot contain verses that lend itself to multiple
interpretations,ambiguities and controversies). It should have been written
clearly enough to guard against such possibilities and should have been
above all controversies.
- A perfect book cannot be hard to interpret/understand as is claimed
by believers, when they try to refute the criticisms against certain
verses for its negative connotations. Perfection implies clarity
by unanimous judgment.
- A perfect book should have mentioned the principles of science, if any,
not in such a vague and ambiguous way like some verses that the believers
claim to contain scientific facts of embryology and astronomy etc.
It is inconsistent that text books written by humans contain scientific
facts can be so clear and precise while a perfect book written by
God can be so vague that there is no unanimity among
humans as to its scientific accuracy whereas scientific facts written
by humans in science books are unanimously agreed to by humans
of all religions and beliefs. Also as a perfect book, it should have answers
to all unanswered questions in science. It should at least certainly
have the "Theory of Everything" in a succinct yet precise way since
it is the most profound insight about nature that human can ever
attain. Physicists all around the world of all denominations have been
searching for it.
- A perfect book by God should not contain cursing words of God against
humans (As in some verses).
- A perfect book, cannot be accepted as perfect only by a subset of
humanity (followers of a certain religion), a truly perfect book
should have been ecognized as such by all of humanity. Perfection
should be an objective concept .]
#2. That many verses of the Holy Book has to be judged in the light of its
of its time when it was written and not judged by today's standards.
[ Well, then it is certainly not a timeless book, which it should be if it
has to be a perfect book as is claimed. If the Holy Book (or its certain
verses) only makes sense or has relevance in a certain period of history
for a certain group of people then it is by no means a perfect book
written by perfect God. It is of no more significance than handbooks or
folk wisdom of various cultures/sects/tribes. There are many books or
wisdoms of ancient civilizations (Chinese, Greek, Mayan, Egyptians etc)
that can also claim relevance for their times and contained many useful
info and scientific facts as well, in equally vague manner. A perfect book
has to apply for all times. Also if the purpose of the verses are to
provide solutions to a problem specific to a time and a society, then it
is failing as a perfect book, since a perfect book should apply for all
times and for all of humanity. Yes, it is true that certain verses do
exist that satisfy these requirements, but then a perfect book should not
contain even a single verse with limited applicability in terms of time
and society to which it applies.]
#3. That all the criticisms by skeptics of negative verses in Koran are due
to inaccurate translations or misleading interpretation. Koran is hard to
translate as many verses are very subtle or complex and require great
amount of knowledge in Arabic and Islamic background.
The above can be better rephrased as:
a). Koran is hard to understand.
b). Arabic is a difficult language.
c). It is difficult to translate Koran into other languages [ by a) and b) ]
d). One has to be well versed in Islamic history and Tafseers (Interpretations
of Quran by scholars) to fully understand Koran
[First of all, (a) is contradicted by Koran itself. Verses 44.58,
54.17, 54.22 clearly says "we have made Koran easy to understand so
they may pay heed". Now is there anyone to challenge that the above
translation of the three verses is incorrect? (a) is also
contradicted by the assertion in #1 that Koran is a perfect book.
A perfect book cannot or should not be difficult to understand.
(b) is contradicted by Koran since 44.58 also says that Koran was
made easy to understand by revealing it in Arabic (Thy tongue).
Secondly any language is not difficult to its native speakers, or to
one who has learned it well enough to be professor of Arabic in a
reputed university of an Islamic country. It can be hard for all
others. So (b) is irrelevant since all the major translations of
Koran were done by native Arab speakers or Arabic scholars. Now
lets see the logic behind (c) and (d). Firstly, the believers who
propagate these views cannot be any more knowledgeable in Arabic
than the respected translators like Dawood, Shakir, Pickthall, Yusuf
Ali to challenge their translations as inaccurate. And once the
translations are accepted as accurate,it cannot represent a factual
error. Of course a translation will not always carry the poetic,
aesthetic and emotional appeal or value of the original, but even a
mediocre translation certainly cannot reverse its objective meaning
or alter any factual content which is what has to be done to a verse
to make it look negative and thus controversial if it is not
genuinely so. There is no reason for a perfect God to make its
meaning so enigmatic and open to misinterpretations. Often when a
verse is quoted in a religious discussion the common remark heard is
"You have to read the " correct" translation. Sometimes Yusuf Ali is
cited as reliable in these debates, sometimes another, depending one
whose translation best suits one in a given context. Two interesting
observations to make here: First, the person making the above
remarks is presumably not as versed in Arabic or Koran as these 4
authors are. So they are in no way to judge who is the best among
the four or that some of them are inaccurate. Second all these four
authors are recognized without dispute as well versed in Arabic and
Islam (Some were professor of Arabic in Islamic Universities etc)
and all are Muslims themselves and cannot have any hostile
intentions against Islam and if their translations were judged to
have been intentionally distorted to hurt the image of Islam then
even a single copy of their translations (Let alone millions of
copies sold) would not have seen the light of day and they would be
outcast (possibly killed) by now. So to reject the translations of 3
in favour of 1 by someone who is not even as well versed as any one
of these four scholars is highly questionable. For any reader not
familiar with Arabic the translation that the majority of these four
translators agree on should be taken as most reliable, even if the
fourth one appears to be more favourable to Islam's image. Choosing
one interpretation over another as the correct one has no compelling
reason behind it. After all no particular translator was approved by
GOD or prophet as the only authorized interpreter!. If Koran is the
word of GOD then for anyone to say Koran is not easy to understand,
only few "knowledgeable" person can truly understand it is plainly
contradicting the word of GOD ! Finally, (d) suffers from two main
contradictions. As perfect book, Koran should be self-sufficient, no
supplementary reading should be required. A perfect book should
contain all the knowledge that one needs to know. No human knowledge
(History, science etc) should be a prerequisite to understand a
divinely written book.
Consider the following 5 points
(1) God says Qur'an is easy to understand (verses 44.58, 54.17,54.22)
CONCLUSION: A person with average knowledge of Arabic should
understand Qur'an and should be cognizant of the FACTS and
INJUNCTIONS mentioned in it, athough he may not appreciate the
poetic/aetshetic/phonetic quality in it.
(2) An average knowledge of English is required for someone who is
cognizant of a FACT or an INJUNCTION in Qur'an to express it in
English ACCURATELY (Like "4" cannot change to "3", or "yes" cannot
change to "no" etc.)
(3) A translation by a person with average knowledge in Arabic and
English may not convey the poetic/aesthetic/phonetic quality of the
original, but CANNOT alter/twist the FACTUAL CONTENT of it.
(Follows logically from (1) and (2) above)
(4) Yusuf Ali, Shakir, Pickthall 's knowledge of Arabic was much better than
average. All of them had at least an average knowledge of Englsish, and at
least Pickthall had better than average knowledge in English being an
English born.
(5) The translations of Yusuf Ali, Shakir, Pickthall aggree with one another.
CONCLUSION: THE TRANSLATIONS BY EITHER OF THE THREE
TRANSLATORS ABOVE CAN NEVER CONTAIN ANY FACTUAL
MISREPRESENTATION OF THE ORIGINAL VERSES OR DISTORT
THEIR INTENTS.
Regarding the advice on reading the Tafseer before reading Koran, it
is again contradictory to verses 44.58, 54.17,54. 22) saying Qur'an
was made easy to understand by God. Moreover verse 25.33 says that
Qur'an itself is the best explanation of the truth.If anyone who
says Qur'an is not easy to understand and so should read tafseer is
contradicting the words of God. Secondly when God revealed Qur'an
he did not mention that one should wait until tafseers are published
before reading the Qu'ran. The Qu'ran was revealed in easy language
as claimed by God and was meant to be read/followed/ understood
right when it was revealed. God never mentioned any tafseer by a
designated author as the authentic interpreter of Qu'ran. A faith in
Qur'an as the word of God and Muhammad as its messenger is only
needed. Moreover the tafseers that the religious apologetics refer
to were written long after Qur'an was revealed. If Tafseer is a
must for a proper understanding for Koran then it implies that
betweent the time Qur'ran was revealed and the Tafseers were
written Qur'an could not have been understood properly by anyone.
That defeats the claim of Koran as the self-contained guide for
people of all times.
The requirement that one should read tafseers to understand
Qu'ran is a dictum issued by humans, God or his messenger never
issued this dictum. So believing in this dictum cannot be part of
the belief in God or Koran. Belief in, but an additional artcle of
faith. No human has been divinely appointed to write an
interpretation of Koran.
Finally it is worth noting that if someone points out some good
points about a verse, no religious apologist ever makes any of the
statements (a),(b).. etc although they should be equally applicable
in principle, i.e if someone is possibly mistaken about a negative
verse for not reading the Tafseer, then by the same criterion, one
is no less likely to be mistaken about a positive verse if read
without Tafseer. Not only that, the same apologists who dismiss
any criticism of religion/scriptures if it is based on translated
quotes of scriptures on grounds of impossibilty of being translated,
would feel no qualms in citing translated verses to defend and
glorify religion and it's scriptures. It seesm like the aplogetics
want to have it both way. The fact that all the Tafseers that
apologists refer to are written by apologists themselves point to
the de facto definition of Tafseer as a favourable interpretation
of Quran. Many scholars well versed in Arabic who had studied Quran
but were critical of it are never recognized as scholars and their
interpretations are never accepted as tafseers by apologists.]
#4. That all the negative verses of Hadiths) are results of
intentional distortion of ill-intentioned people and do not truly
represent the views of the prophet.
[Well, if one rejects the bad things written in Hadith as lacking authenticity,
then there is no logical basis for accepting the good part as being authentic
either. One cannot by any logic pick and choose in Hadith based on which one
one likes or dislikes. One has to either accept the entire Hadith or reject it
in its entirety since there is no objective criterion to decide which part is
authentic and which part is not, if at all one claims that hadith is a mixture
of both authentic and inauthentic parts. There is also no objective criterion
to decide who is right between those who claim that the bad parts of hadith
are concocted and good parts are true and those who claim vice versa or that
both parts are authentic. Also there is no scope for arguing for a misleading
interpretation as is the case in Quran, where many verses are poetic and
metaphoric, since the wordings of hadith are quite straightforward and
unambiguous. So to be consistent one has to either accept the entire hadith
as authentic, or reject it's authenticity entirely a. Any other stance is a
contradiction and is only to suit one's biased view. Finally it must also be
mentioned that all the Hadiths that are quoted by its critics are quoted from
Sahih Hadith which is comprised of only the authentic ones, after carefully
throwing out the distorted hadiths in the first place. ]
#5. That science vindicates the Holy Book. The Holy Book already contains
many of the findings of modern science. It is a miracle that the verses
in it are essentially accurate in discussing many scientific ideas even
though they were revealed long ago when science was not as developed as
today, and the ideas of DNA, gene etc were not known then.
[ Apologists contradict their own tenet by arguing that "modern science
proves the Qur�an" because to say that, they have to accept science,
not the Qur�an, as the ultimate truth, and use the former to judge
the latter in contradiction to the tenet that the holy book is the
ultimate source of the truth (see myth #1) If a perfect book written by
perfect God did intend to reveal a scientific idea, it should not have
been vague and metaphoric, but accurate and scientific enough that
it can be put in a physics/chemistry/biology textbook without the need
of any change. Not a single verse in the Holy Books contain even one
scientific term, like atom, electron, Theory of relativity,
Uncertainty principle etc. A "perfect" book cannot be lacking in so
much precision And regarding the defense of the vagueness of the
verses for being thousands of years years old, point can be made
whether God knew about science then. How can perfect God be
constrained by lack of scientific knowledge millenia years ago to
reveal scientific ideas more precisely? And as a perfect book, it
could at least be as precise as a popular science book, if not as
precise as a graduate text book. And most importantly, if the verses
already contained scientific facts, then why as a perfect book, it
needed the human knowledge of science to realize that they contain
them? Why didn't the verses instill a scientific realization on its
own, without having to wait thousands of years for the development
of science (by mostly non-religious people) for its appreciation? It is
also interesting to note some double standard that exists among
dogmatic believers in religion. On one hand they claim that religion
is beyond scientific analysis but on the other hand they would not
shrink a bit in jumping to cite any scientific principle to validate
their religious beliefs specially when some revelations/verses are
vague and general enough to be easily fitted to a paraphrased form
of a scientific principle. The most interesting thing is that the
miraculous working of God is invoked when science cannot explain
certain things while at the same time crediting scriptures as
containing scientific truths when a vague semblance can be found by
a stretch between a verse and a fact explainable by science. So both
the success and failures of science are exploited to prove God's
miracle. Quite convenient! ]
#6. That a secularist/atheist is biased against believers/religion and that
secularism/atheism is no different form any religion since they preach the
"dogma" of secularism/atheism. Secularists have vested interest in their
opposition to religious belief.
[ The myth here lies in the fact that a non-believer asserts his
disbelief not as an attempt to promote or propagate a new dogma, but
only in response (reaction) to believers' insistence that their
belief is correct and their attempt in imposing it on the rest. The
believers act proactively and are in the offensive whereas the non-
believers/skeptics act reactively and are in the defensive. The non-
believers would not have to resort to the critical study/research to
debunk the believers had the believers not taken their belief
outside of their private life and tried to thrust it on others.
Atheists/skeptics/agnostics exist BECAUSE OF blind believers and
NOT the other way around. It is the constant claims and persuasive
attempt to force the belief on others that created the skeptics/
atheists etc as a counter reaction. A critical thinker hardly ever
tries to debunk the belief's of Tibetan Monks or the Shaman priests
of Japan. Most skeptics and critical free thinkers direct their time
in refuting the claims and preaching of persuasive members of
revealed religions. So one has to be very careful here. Believers of
blind faith have great stake in the preservation and propagation of
the perceived truth of their belief/dogma and hence would defend any
criticism of it without caring to judge the merit of the criticism.
On the other hand a non believer of a blind faith has nothing to
gain just by not believing and criticizing any claims of truth of
the blind faith holders. Their non- belief results from analytical
thinking and thus they cannot accept a belief irrationally just
because they being told so. Far from gaining anything from the non-
belief they rather take on potential risk of back lash by the blind
believers as well as depriving themselves from the pleasant feelings
generated by the blind belief. Anything that has a rational basis
will never be rejected or criticized by a rational person. So the
bottom line is that a rational person who decides not to believe in
a blind faith can never do it out of any bias against the believers
since there is no apriori reason to be biased against believers just
as an adult who does not believe in a fairy tale is not considered
to be biased against children. The relationship between believers
and non-believers is of a cause-effect nature. The non-believers
have no agenda/dogma to propagate, their only raison de etre is to
defend against the persuasive preachings of believers and to refute
their arguments defending their dogma. Similarly atheism cannot be a
religion, since atheism is nothing but a denial of theism (a-theism,
the a- part indicates a negation). A negation of a dogma cannot be a
dogma itself. Without theism, there cannot be atheism. A dogma is a
stand alone belief that does not need another for its existence. So
atheism cannot be a dogma. Also dogmatic believers describe Secular
Humanists as another form of "fanatics" who are trying to
fanatically promote their secular agenda etc. This is the height of
fallacy and sophistry. One thing that has to be understood and
emphasized very clearly is that humanists are committed to PREVENT/
RESIST acts of human rights violation. Fanatics on the other hand
are bent on PERPETRATING human rights violation. Human rights
referred to above are clearly defined universally and in the
Declaration of Human Rights Charter of United nations. Prevention/
Resistance is a reaction to perpetration. Humanists came into
existence becauseof the dogmatists. Consider this. Long ago a
believer called B-1 formed a certain belief (due to a divine oracle,
an epileptic seizure, temporal lobe stimulation, whatever). Now look
at then diagram below:
B-1 (Somehow forms a belief "X")
|
| B-1 Preaches "X"
B-2_____|_____N-1 (B-2 accepts"X",
| N-1 rejects)
| B-2 Preaches "X"
B-3____|____N-2 (B-3 accepts,
| N-2 rejects)
| B-3 Preaches "X"
B-4___|____N-3 (B-4 accepts,
| N-3 rejects)
etc..
So at the end of this three preachings we have a set of believers B=
(B-1, B-2, B-3, B-4..) and a set of non-believers N = (N-1,N-2,N-3..)
. Now what we see is that members of the set B now randomly picking
on the members of set N to try to preach again or to criticize them
for not accepting their belief, for example B-4 trying to preach/
criticize N-2 etc. This provokes a backlash by the members of N and
they also try to debunk randomly the preaching of the members of B,
for example N-3 debunking B-2 etc. The end result is we have a
tension between two groups as a whole, B vs. N Now pause for a
moment and think. Who do you blame for this adversarial polarization
into two groups B and N? What is the root cause? It is clear that
the N-'s are hanging free like a leaf with no trees below them (no
preaching by them), whereas the B-'s are each creating a tree
beneath them and becoming the root of that tree. Its the B-s' who
are causing the birth and contributing to the growth of the set B
and N by trying to preach their believes onto others. Now there are
two sides to this. The only way to avoid this bickering between B
and N would have been if none of the B-'s ever tried to pick on the
N-'s to try to preach again or criticize them for rejecting their
belief. Such is the case with Buddhism, Hinduism, Taosim, Shamanism,
Bahai etc, in fact none of the religious beliefs except the three
Abrahamic religions have this two polarized groups with tension
between them. The other ideal way to prevent this polarization would
be to stop preaching at all. If B-1 kept his belief and never tried
to preach there would not have been this group polarization. So Mr.
Aly, when you complain against a free thinker of attacking your
faith, try to stare at the above diagram and understand who is the
real culprit here., who really tried to impose their belief on
others.
#7.) That non-belief in a faith is itself a faith, i.e rejecting a belief in
God is a faith too like believeing in God.
[ Non-belief requires logic, belief requires faith. So non-belief cannot
be a belief as they require two fundamenatlly different premise.
Belief in a faith is generated within (one's heart) inspired by emotional
needs of individuals. A non-belief is generated not by a need, but
by a reaction against preaching of a faith which cannot be justified
by logic an evidence. If every rejection of a faith is characterized
as faith, then one can literally create infinite number of faiths
by proposing all kinds of assertions like fairies, unicorns etc exist,
or that there is life on the sith planet in star-X, an alien landed in
one's backyard etc etc. Faith cannot be generated soley through
negation. A faith needs to be a positive assertion postulating a
truth about a belief.
#8. Apologists often react to critcisms of religious oppression by saying:
(a) Atheists have also comitted atrocities in the name of secularism,
like Stalin, Polpot, Hitler (Although he was not proven to be an atheist,
etc.. (b) Why do you blame only religious political parties for terrorism?
Look at all the secular political parties also engaging in terrorism,
bomb blasts, extortion etc..
[ (a) The logical fallacy in this retort is that the killing in the name of
religion was exclusively targeted at the non-believers or believers
in other religions. But the crimes of those historical atheist leaders
were not targeted exclusively on theists or believers, but to political
and ideological adversaries subscribing to a different socio-political
philosophy. If their crimes were truly in the name of secualarism/
atheism then logically the targets would only have been followers of any
religion. But that was not the case. Their vicitms had some other more
significant identifying attribute for them to be the target of atrocities.
(b) Here the fallacy is in charcterizing the acts. When a secular
party engages in acts of extremism they don't do it IN THE NAME OF
SECUALRISM. No party exists in the name of secularism (It may contain
secularism as ONE OF many platforms). When goons of all politcal
parties engage in terrorists acts they don't do so to make a statement
in favour of secularism or to bash religion itslef, but to unleash
their vendetta on rival political parties. On the other hand the
terrorists acts of religious based parties are not limited to retaliation
against rival parties only, often it is committed as a protest against
secular ideals/policies/cultures and/or in support of religious dogmas.
That clearly distinguishes the religious extremists from all other
political extremists (Again there is no secular extremists).
#9 Theocracy is compatible with Democracy:
This is claimed often by apologists of Islam in particular by
insisting that running a state based on Islamic rule is consistent
with democratic ideals.
That Democracy and theocracy are mutually incompatible can be
seen by considering the following series of statements about
Democracy, secularism and theocracy. One must guard against
sophistry used by advocates of the alleged compatibility whereby
they redefine democracy, theocracy etc in a way that suits their
preferred religion, and of course such convenient definitions
deviate significantly from their widely understood and accepted
senses. I am listing the features that are widely accepted and
understood give and take some minor faetures not imporrtant
to the debate.
1. Democracy = A system ensuring equal status and rights of
all in any state affairs irrespective of religion(including the
various sects and non-believers within each), race, language,
gender etc formalized through a constitution. No preferential
position of any group over others or preferential status of
any group in the affairs of state should be given. State
affairs should be participated and represented by all
according to some neutral criterion. State should be run by
an elected political party representing the people who would
run the state implementing various policies that can vary from
one party to another, but should never violate the constitution.
2. Secularism = System where no preferential position of any
religion and its followers over other religions and their
followers or over non-believers is allowed in the running of
state(public) affairs. It enforces a separation between state
and all religious institutions. So secularism is a subset of
democracy as defined in (1) above, hence democracy necessarily
implies a secular state. Note that secularisn DOES NOT require
"atheism" (A common myth is that it does), which means
democracy is compatible with "theism" where theism is meant as
the set of religious beliefs and rituals held and practiced
by individuals or groups privately such that they do not affect
in any way the rights, status and freedom of any other
individuals or groups belonging to a different religious belief
or no religious beliefs at all. It must be emphasized that
secularism implies both: (1) equal status of ALL relgions
(regardless of relative number of each) in public affairs in a
multireligious state and (2) Separating state affairs from
religion (Which applies even in a monoreligious state). Both of
these two aspect are vital and necessary aspects of secularism.
3. Theocracy = Control and governance of a state by one special
religion based on the injunctions of scriptures of that religion
and thus necessarily places that religion in a priviledged
status over others, and affects the rights, status and freedom
of followers of other religions, and non-believers as well.
4. Since (3) fails to satisfy the criteria of secularsim set in (2), and
since secularism in turn is a necessary condition for democracy
so theocracy is not compatible with democracy as affirmed.
Now one may ask isn't democracy just what the majority wants?
Not necessarily. Democracy is what the majority wants within a
given range of options, such that both the options and its
ranges are compatible with the criterion set in (1) and (2) above.
One of the important lessons of history and science is that people
collectively can be and have been wrong. We know Hitler's Nazism
was wrong even though at that time majority of Germans favoured
it. The majority of Germans don't now. Besides none of the options
within the range should be such that choosing it would permanently
rule out other allowed options in future.
Democracy cannot permit any step that would defeat the very
spirit of democracy even if the majority wants it. So democracy
is not just rule by public poll or mandate without any
concommitant conditionals that need to be met as well. One
important conditional is pluralism, representativeness. A
theocracy of one religion can only be supported by the dogmatic
apologists of that religion. It leaves out the non- dogmatic
moderate followers of that religion, all followers of other
religions, and all the non-believers of all religions. So even if
the dogmatic folowers of a religion as majority advocate
theocractic rule, that would fail to meet the representativeness
and pluralism criteria of democracy. The hallmark of democracy is
the willingness of the majority to abdicate a preferential status
when it contradicts representativeness and pluralism. Even in the
extremely unlikely scenario when EVERYONE of a monoreligious
state at some point in time desire to have theocracy,
establishment of theocracy would still be against the notion of
democracy. since the very establishment of theocracy would
permanently block any reversion to non-theocratic rule (since
theocracy forbits any other form by its very dogma) in future
when such homogeneity in thoughts may not exist. Democracy, which
should be based on timeless and objective criteria and principles
fair to all groups, should also be flexible as well to anticipate
and accomodate changing human needs and views. Theocray does
not. It simply prescribes an absolute dogma. All it's putative
flexibilities and dynamism are within a much narrower range,
since they cannot budge from the primacy of their religion over
others, which already contradicts the ideals of democracy and
pluralism. Hence theocracy cannot be allowed in a true democracy
because it contradicts the criteria of democracy and secularism
as outlined in 1-2 above. Besides theoccray is absolutist in the
sense that it officially denies equal status to any other system
of belief, by the very fact of its claim to be divinely preferred
religion. All religion claiming to be best by a divine decree,
cannot in principle accord the same status to another religion in
state affair, and hence once elected it will necessarily prevent
any steps, using force if needed, to revert to any other options
by force. Secular political parties, although each believing to be
the best, ultimately leave it to the poeple to decide who is the
best in a relection after being elected. The same is not true for
parties favoring theocracy, as they are obligated to God for
enforcing a theocratic rule. Re-election is an oxymoron when rule
by divine law is viewed as absolute, not consitional on public
mood or change of heart. An election, if any, of a party
advoctaing theocracy under a democracy, has to be a one time ruse
to get to the power once so it can be perpetuated. The same is
true for a communist or any dogmatic form of government, which
is not compatible within a democratic framework.
#10 Eating Pork is banned in Quran because pork is bad for health
(specially at the time of revelation)
This is incompatible with myth #1. A perfect book cannot be mistaken
in prioritizing health hazards. Smoking is even worse for health than
eating pork. Why wasn't smoking prohibited ? And regarding the
relevancy of time see myth #2.
#11 Human knowledge is limited. So how can you rule out the existence
of God?
[ By the same logic how can you rule out the non-existence of God?
If you have to appeal to human ignorance or limitations then nothing can
be said one way or the other, one has to shut up completely in that case.]
#12 a). Secularists who criticizes religion, often quote the verses out
of context are nothing but hatemongers and
b) The religious extremists act on their own, religious scriptures
and its apologists have nothing to do with the extremists.
[ a) Well, by the same token the apologists of religion who criticize
the secularists and humanists by quoting them out of context
are hatemongers too.
b) Well, religious extremists do claim to be inspired from the
verses of the scriptures. So if their acts cannot justify anyone
characterizing the scriptures and the apologists) as spreading
hate, then it is an even greater stretch to contend that
the critics of scriptures are hate-mongers, since their criticism
never inspires any counter acts of extremism against the
apologists. Even if such counter acts of terrorism had occurred,
the critics of scriptures could equally well contend that the
counter extremists have nothing to do with their critciisms of
scripture, and they don't represent the critics. So it would be
hypocritical of apologists to accuse the critics of spreading hate
even if such counter extremist acts had occurred. Since such
counter extremist acts never do happen, it is DOUBLY
hypocritcal for the apologists to characterize the critics of
scriptures as spreading hate
#13 When disaster strikes non-believers or criminals, then apologists
describe it as a condine punishment from God, but when a similar
disaster strikes religious people, it is described as God's test for the
believers to purify their heart or if the disaster kills them, then to
send them to heaven.
The fallacy here is that the argument made in this manner
is not falsifiable or verifiable, since the occurrence of both
possibilities can also be explained by random factor as well.
This type of argumnet attempts to have it both ways ]
#14 Apologists often react to criticisms of verses of scriptures by saying
"Why focus on selected verses only to project the negative, there are
so many good ones too, why not focus on them?"
Here the apologists unwittingly concedes to a tacit admission to the
fact that there indeed are negaive verses. Well, they are right that
there are indeed many positive ones too. But the point is that the
scriptures are meant to be positive, thats no news worth announcing.
A book that is claimed to be the supreme guide for mankind cannot
but be positive. But it is an issue worth bringing up if it instead
contains objectionable verses that can lead to acts of oppression if
followed up by extremists. Such verses do need to be critically examined
if and when they inspire acts of extremism. There are verses that
would not be acceptable or considered politically correct even in daily
mundane affairs, and hence inconceivable in a book that should be
held to a much higher standard as a supreme book instilling sublime
values to humans.
#15. God sent prophets and books at different ages to redeem
humans make society free from evil.
If the purpose of "Almighty" God to send each prophet was to warn humans
or to save mankind and redeem society from evil then he has failed to
achieve that goal and had to send more than one prophet and book. And
then to claim that this is the last prophet and no more book will be revealed,
the implication is that society will become perfect and there will be no more
evil after the last prophet and book. But then why is the existence of hell
still mentioned in the scriptures ? The very existence of hell implies there
will necessary be evil. Indeed looking around we still see the presence of
evil in society.
#16 God gave us the free will to choose good and reject evil, free will is a gift
of God, without that we humans would be machines:
Sounds good prima facie. But then the same apoloigists would want to
rob humans of the option to exercize the free will by imposing religious
rules on their lives forbidding anything that is considered evil in religion.
They seem to do exactly opposite to what they praised as a virtue of God,
i.e granting the free will and the option to choose good from the evil.
9. GOD, ATHEISM & SECULAR HUMANISM (NFB, July 18, 2001)
In this article I intend to discuss the widely used notions of God,
theism, atheism & secular humanism and point out some confusions
and misconceptions that are quite common among many and. I will take
a closer look at these notions, attempt to clarify some of them,
specially atheism as is (mis)understood and propose that the use of
the term atheism be de-emphasized or limited to a very strict narrow
sense when it truly applies. Before I proceed I will state a
postulate (reflecting the status of contemporary human knowledge), a
fundamental fact and a list of some some abbreviations and
definitions for ease of reference later.
POSTULATE: The laws of Physics can provide a plausible explanation
of the creation of the universe and life through evolution
(Leading Biologists and Physicists are unanimous about this, for
example Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins and James Watson of
DNA fame, who said in his lecture at the London Institute of
Contemporary Arts in 1985: "In the last analysis, there are only
atoms. There's just one science, Physics; everything else is social
work").
The above postulate is a generalization utilizing Occam's Razor the
wealth of knowledge acquired by Cosmologists and Biologists, mostly
in the last decade of 20th centurty that most laymen are not aware
of. Dawkins nicely explains how the argument from design is
obsoleted by the evidence of evolution in his online article :
http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/dawkins_18_3.html The work
of Physicists Hawking, Thorne, Andrei Linde, Lee Smolin et alia shows
nicely how the observable universe can arise out of nothingness (ie.
vacuum) through the complicated outcome of Quantum Fluctuations and
cosmic evolution. For evolution of life on Earth, the important
point to realize is that a huge number of small incremental steps of
natural actions(dictated by Laws of Physics) acting over over a long
long time can give rise to an order or pattern that appears
extraordinary to a human observer watching it at ONE INSTANT of
time. Why is it that the Laws of Physics itself is such that it
leads to marvelous designs in nature when it (Physics Laws) acts
over a sufficient length of time under the right conditions? This
question has no answer, period. No amount of references to God/Allah/
Brahma/Koran/Gita/Bible/Sufism/Gnostcism/Upanishad/Physics/Biology,
what have you will be able to rescue us from this ultimate
ignorance and answer this question Saying that "God" designed it
(i.e the laws of nature) that way is NOT an EXPLANATION, but a
pretentious way of phrasing this ultimate ignorance in a way that
seem to rescue one from this stigma of ignorance. But it is a
trivial observation that such utterances do not add any substance to
alter what humanity AS A WHOLE knows or does not know about the
ultimate reality. The Laws of Physics are given to us by nature, on
an as is basis, there is no Physics of Physics (Metaphysics) to
explain why the laws of physics are as they are. This leads us to
the following incontrovertible fact of nature reflecting our
ignorance about the ultimate reality:
A FUNDAMENTAL FACT AND MYSTERY: The origin of the Laws
of Physics (i.e the ultimate reality) is not understood or explainable by
humanity as a whole. It IS the ultimate mystery.
Individual or group claims of knowing the ultimate reality (Through
various schools of mysticism, metaphysics or religion etc) do not
qualify for acceptance (like the laws of Physics whose
acceptibility crosses all boundaries creatd by humans) to the whole
of humanity crossing all boundaries as a solution/explanation of the
ultimate mystery.
A COMMON SENSE OBSERVATION: If ever humanity can ever
graduate to the level of knowing the ultimate reality (i.e the origin of
the Laws of Physics) then the route to that knowledge of ultimate
reality has to be via The Laws of Physics itself, since the Laws of
Physics already provides a plausible (in fact the most plausible)
explanation NOW of the creation and evolution of Life and the
Universe.
List of abbreviations and definitions used:
----------------------------------------------
GOD-R : Various RELIGIOUS notions of God described in the
doctrines of major religions as personal(i.e in concerned with each
human's life in a personal way), with super-humanlike attributes
like omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence (super is
symbolized by the "omni-" prefix) and other attributes specific
to each religion.
GOD-S : Various SPIRITUAL notions of God formed independent
of any established religious doctrines, as being the root cause or
the ultimate reality behind the creation and evolution of the universe,
Anyone who feels a sense of mystery,awe and spirituality observing
the universe is invariably led to some kind of concept of a mysterious
ultimate reality or creator. Examples are the Naturalistic God of
Spinozza, Process Theology of Teillard de Chardin, Omega Point
(promoted to a Physics concept) of Frank Tipler, OR any other
impersonal concept of God that anyone might form personally
independent of religion. So there is a wide gamut here. Not all
notions of God-S is conceived in the sense of a creator, those that
do conceive of a creator do so not in the sense of a creator
WILLING the creation of the universe like the personal God-R, but
creator as an impersonal natural cause, they are labelled Desists.
Some notions refer to God as a creative force or process that is
not any separate entity from nature, but as part of nature (In fact
nature itself in its holistic manifestation) as well. God here can
be an immanent (i.e extending throughout the observable universe)
or a transcendental (i.e beyond the observable universe) one.
Believers of an immanent God-S are labeled as Pantheists. Those who
believe in a transcendental higher level of causality above the Laws
of Physics (God-S) are known as platonists. (More precisely
Neoplatonists).
NOTE: I have excluded "The Set of Physical laws" as being one variant
of God-S which is usually included as a concept of God-S in the
philosophy literature. The reason I am excluding it is that otherwise
the term "atheism" would cease to have any meaning since
my definition of an atheist is one who views the "Laws of Physics as
the ultimate reality" and does not believe in any higher level of
causal reality than Physics.
THEIST: Believers in God-R (dogmatists and moderates). Dogmatists
are the hard core believers who actively preach it, criticize the non-
believers in God-R etc. Moderates are really closet God-S (creator
of the universe) believers who finds it socially convenient to
adopt God-R (Either due to inheritance or due to not being able to
think critically about the whole issue of God-S with so much
possibilities) to reflect their belief in an ultimate reality. They
don't care much for the dogma that goes with God-R and are quite
passive in their belief. Majority fall in this category. Theists
insist that morality is derived/inspired from belief in God-R.
INFIDEL: Anyone who does not believe in God-R. Includes Deists,
Pantheists, Atheists, Agnostics, noncognitivists etc
ATHEIST: A disbeliever of both God-R and God-S.
INFIDEL-1: An infidel who believes in some form of God-S like deists,
pantheists, process theologists etc.
INFIDEL-2: An atheist (atheist and Infidel-2 will be used interchangeably)
AGNOSTIC: An infidel who is neither strictly infidel-1 or infidel-2(Atheist)
but accepts the possibility of either being valid stand.
NONCOGNITIVIST: One who does not accept the notion of both God-S
or God-S as logically defined notion, so does not take
any position. Noncognitivism is a result of strict rationalist
appraoch to reality
SHR : Secular Humanists/Rationalists. They are infidels who insist
that morality must be and is inspired from a love for
humanity and not from some divine source.
OBSERVATIONS:
1. Belief in God-R usually is preceded by belief in God-S (as a root
cause of the universe, a creator in a general sense) which is more
intuitive. A failure to understand or visualize God-S satisfactorily
prompts many to a belief in God-R which seems to provide a closure
by providing a simplistic solution to the ultimate mystery. A belief
in God-S in turn is inspired by the ignorance stated in the
fundamental fact/mystery above.
2. All SHRs are infidels, mostly infidel-1, a small subset of them are
atheists (Infidel-2). The term "atheist" has been widely misapplied by
theists (often intentionally) to label all SHRs, not just atheists
(Infidel-2). The perception ingrained among theists and critics of
infidels that Infidels claim that the existence of God is DISPROVED
is mistaken. They don't. Rather they claim that the existences is
NOT PROVEN. Thats quite distinct logically from the former assertion.
3. Both Theists & Atheists bring a closure to the sense of mystery,
awe & spirituality at the creation of universe by providing their own
explanation. Theists "explain" it positing that the creation of life
and universe is an act of the religious God, which is really not an
explanation, but a simplistic statement of faith in the unknown.
Atheists bring the closure by explaining the creation of life and
universe as a very accidental, random event of nature that can be
explainable (if not fully now, eventually) by the laws of science.
They don't believe in any higher level of causality above the laws of
Physics. Infidel-1 leaves some room for an eternal sense of wonder as
no closure is postulated, merely a speculative view about a higher
level of causal reality than Physics that seems to make a some
provisional sense about this ultimate mystery. Their speculative view
is not meant to be an absolute statement of faith.
4. Definition of God-R posits a humanlike consciousness (i.e mind ) ,
that can affect humans at a personal level (incurring God's mercy,
wrath etc,hence the term personal God of religion).
5. Although the Laws of Physics as the root cause or the governing
set of laws for the observable universe and life does not seem to
have a human like consciousness like God-R, its manifestations do
display a primitive semblance of consciousness, e.g the Cause-Effect
duality inherent in it gives rise to patterns and regularities in
nature that seem to reflect the work of a cosmic mind. A beautiful
rose or a snowflake, an angry man, a passionate love, a violent
storm, an epidemic, all seem to be the work of some cosmic mind, so
Laws of Physics (which is really the root cause of the seven
phenomena just mentioned ) do "seem" to have a mind. But thats all
there is to it. It is just a semblance of a mind. A mind that we are
so familiar with from our human experience. After all, a mind is a
perception of some cause/ effect duo involving a human. For example,
a certain action or word provokes anger in a human. We associate
this cause-effect duality with that human's mind. Similarly when a
depression is formed it provokes a cyclone. There is a close
resemblance. In fact the reaction of a human mind is ultimately
explainable in Physics terms (Only in principle though, since in
practice the complexity of human brain with trillions of neurons
will make it impossible to provide an exact analytical explanation),
at least there is no reason to believe that anything beyond the laws
of physics is causing such "action/word ---> angry response" cause-
effect duo. By Occam's razor natural cause is the more likely agent
in causing this. In fact all human emotions, feelings are rooted in
the natural laws. There is no need to invoke any divine spiritual
force or agent in it. Biology is sufficient to account for that.
Besides such emotions are not confined to humans only, it is only
accentuated and more refined in us. Even sharks are documented as
responding to the caressing touch of human. Dolphins are well known
to display sense of affection. Humans (even theists) rarely assign
spirituality to animal emotions. It is considered natural (biological).
Biologists today are unanimous about the biological (hence
ultimately physical) roots of emotions and feelings in humans
(mainly in the wiring of the brain , which itself is due to a
combination of genetic code and environmental stimulus) there is no
divine mystery in it (other than the fundamental mystery of the
origin of the laws of Physics), though it is fascinating.
Notion of God-S does leave some room for more than just a mere
semblance of a mind than that of pure natural laws. Here since the
root cause of the laws of Nature is left as unknown(speculative),
that leaves some room for a possibility of the occasional
manifestations (i.e a projection, shadow sort of) of its attribute
through the workings of the natural laws or its hitherto unknown
extensions.That may have a more personal appeal or effect on humans
and may seem to be the work of a cosmic/transcendental mind. Such
manifestations are as yet not documented conclusively. But for
individuals who privately vouch for spiritual and supernatural
experiences, that may provide a personal ground for attributing
their experiences to such manifestations of a higher reality,
specially if all natural explanations are ruled out. (Out of Body
experience for example do have natural explanations and hence cannot
be treated as such manifestations). Now let me discuss closely the
issue of the belief in God or lack thereof as it is usually stated
and the inherent fallacy in them.
Now consider the Statements S-1 & S-2:
S-1 : God exists. (Theists)
S-2 : God does not exist . (Infidels)
When theists state S-1, it is clear that God-R is implied, but when
Infidels state S-2, they don't clarify if God-R or God-S is implied.
Theists exploit this ambiguity to interpret a denial of both God-R and
God-S to suit their agenda of dehumanizing SHRs. Now lets assume
God-R is meant in S-1 and S-2. Let us consider the logical validity of
these two statements. Is it possible to assign a truth value (True/
False) to this statement? A statement must be a proposition to admit
of a True/False attribute. A statement must be constructed out of
well-defined and unambiguous set of terms to qualify as a
proposition. Is God-R in S-1 and S-2 well-defined and unambiguous?
NO. The fact that theists emphatically claim that God-R is clearly
and unambiguously defined in their religion does not make it so,
since those claims do not pass the criteria of logic as universally
accepted and reflective of the advanced human rational faculty.
Every definition of God-R runs into problem with attributes of
omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence, shapeless yet with
humanlike consciousness etc and make it an ill-defined concept. Most
importantly no criterion can be set for the objective test of the
presence/existence of such an ill-defined concept. Let me give an
example where a well-defined non-existent concept whose existence
can easily be verified if it really existed. Take a fairy for
example. It is defined as a fair woman with wings anatomically
attached to her arms who can fly. Now this definition is certainly
conceivable with no ambiguity. If one is ever conclusively and
unanimously observed and tested scientifically to rule out
hallucination or magic then we can say fairies do exist. The faith
in fairies will then be promoted to a truth verified by observation.
We don't need to go into further details of whether such fairies
talk, eat, or share any other human attributes. As long as it meets
the requirement of a female body with anatomical wings with the
ability to fly we can agree to its existence. Until a fairy is
observed in such a conclusive way an assertion of its existence is a
well-defined proposition and is a faith in a well-defined concept.
By the same token the assertion of its non-existence is also a
logically constructed proposition and a faith as well. As a side we
remark that the faith in non-existence of fairies is more plausible
than in its existence by Occam's Razor. Now come to God. God is not
such a faith in a well-defined concept, because its very concept
suffers from logical contradictions with the defining attributes of
omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence etc. These contradictions
have been well known to logicians and philosophers. These
contradictions are nicely summarized in the site:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theodore_drange/incompatible.html
We also cannot decide how to test God if we ever see him/it or
experience his/its presence with the definition of God-R. The most
widely preached notion of God-R resembles an invisible human with
infinite strength, compassion, knowledge etc. But insisting on
invisibility as an essential attribute of God while still attaching
humanlike attributes like mercy, strength etc, the theists are
mixing and matching contradictory attributes in their notion of God
to be even amenable to a sensible logical debate or a scientific
analysis. Existence or non-existence of a concept or entity that is
ill-defined at best with contradictory attributes is not even a
meaningful question. It is like defining a fairy as a fair woman
with wings attached anatomically that can fly but is never visible
to a human eye!. For God-S its not much of a problem since it is
defined in an abstract way that suffers from no internal
contradiction like God-R and is not CLAIMED or PREACHED but
posed as a response to God-R. God-S is really not a faith, but a
possible VIEW of the ultimate reality. God-R on the other hand is a
concept which is a result of CLAIMING and PREACHING of a FAITH . A
theist might challenge the alleged contradictions of the definition of
God-R and argue : " well how about if a person shouts to God and says:
God if you are really there, split the moon in half for 3 seconds and
put it together after that, every time I request you to do so , if he
then indeed sees moon-splitting every time he makes a request then
would it not justify that God exists and is a well-defined concept ?"
The theists usually cite such alleged miraculous events that are
claimed to have happened to some chosen messensgers of God . But as
miraculous as it may seem it will still be considered his personal
belief by others (except those who blindly believes in such claims of
miracles). And even if in the unusual case when all others in the
world also see the moon being split when that person makes the request,
it will be concluded that the person possesses a supernatural psychic
ability and a is freak of nature. It still would not prove the
existence of God-R because the notion of God-R is not just defined by
such a miraculous event, or any freak of nature or by a very special
psychic ability of ONE human. The notion of God-R is too logically
inconsistent to admit of any logical or scientific proof whatsoever,
hence it will remain as an illogical belief forever reflecting the
inherent insecurity and desire of humans for immortality. And
immortality that can only be bestowed by some superhuman entity, not
by another human.
So when an infidel states S-2, it indirectly grants legitimacy to S-1
as a proposition which it is not. Hence S-2 is not a logically
acceptable proposition either. Remember the famous retort of Nobel
Laureate Wolfgang Pauli when reviewing a theory "Why, this theory is
so bad it is not even wrong!" ? If a theory is not clear enough to
admit itself of a logical way to even falsify it, let alone verify
it then it is nothing but gibberish. Even a wrong theory needs to
pass some minimum criteria to be worthy of a review and judged
wrong! Similarly a statement must be constructed using well-defined
unambiguous words to possess a true/false attribute. Now lets
closely examine the consequences of stating S-2.
Theists(dogmatists) paint infidel-1 SHR as necessarily atheists, to
malign and dehumanize them to the gullible mass(mostly moderate
theists) by the implication that infidel-1 denies even God-S. The
moderate theists buy into the dogmatists' propaganda that a non-
believer of God any kind (Which includes God-S in whatever variation)
cannot posses any sublime qualities like morality, sense of humility,
spirituality, beauty etc. Theists loathe any non believer in God-R
and since Infidel-1 are the majority among SHR, they resort to this
misrepresentation of SHR as atheists to alienate them from the
moderates. Of course a small subset of SHR do indeed proclaim
themselves as "atheists" (Infidel-2) . We will address them later.
To summarize, here is how the logic goes:
1. Theists identify (intentionally or by mistake) all SHR(Infidels) as
Atheists (Infidel-2)
2. Atheists are known to deny the existence of God of any kind (God-R or
God-S)
3. Theists believe that belief in at least some kind of God is needed for
morality/sense of spirituality etc.
4. Therefore theists (including moderates & dogmatists) conclude that
infidels-1 (i.e all SHRs, since Infidels-2 are by definition
non believer of any God) are devoid of morality/sense of
spirituality etc .
We can now see the fallacy in the final inference of Step 4 as it is
based on an erroneous premise in step 1 (That all SHRs are atheists,
which need not be true). Note that even if we agree that atheists
are devoid of any sense of morality or spirituality (which itself is
baseless and prejudiced) the conclusion in step 4 would still be
fallacious as it bases on the erroneous premise in 1. One can
certainly argue about Step 3 (Which implies as a corollary that
atheists are devoid of any sense of spirituality) and question its
validity. which I will go into later.
Now it must be understood that the assertion that "atheists deny the
existence of God" is more often made by theists to describe Infidels
who only make such assertions to describe themselves only in
response to a theist's claim to the existence of religious God. In
other words this statement of denial of the existence of God was
forced upon those who disagreed with the theists' claim about the
existence of God-R. There was no atheists before theism. Although
the assertion S-2 of Infidels is a logically flawed one like the
theists, as I pointed out earlier, it nevertheless is not due to a
well thought out dogma by them but due to a skeptical rejection of a
dogma of a religious god thrust upon them by the theists. In their
haste in expressing their rejection they overlook the logical
inconsistency of the manner of expressing their rejection. So it is
clear that the root problem stems from two logically flawed
statements S-1 and S-2 and not clarifying if God-R or God-S was
meant in S-2, thereby providing the theists an opportunity to
mischaracterize SHRs. Now imagine religion was never born, no
prophets, no revelations, no theists (hence no a-theists) etc. What
would human mind then think of the ultimate mystery of the universe,
life etc? There would sure still be the myths about some imaginary
Thunder Gods, Zeus, etc (i.e images of powerful force controlling
human lives and nature). There would certainly be rational minds
dismissing such myths but who would no longer need to proclaim
themselves as atheists or assert the non-existence of God (Because
there are no theists to provoke such reaction). The rationalists of
our real world of religion/God are the same as those of a
hypothetical world of no man made religions except that they carry
the extra baggage of having to take a position against religious God
preached by theists. Many of these SHRs who are infidel-1 are not
careful enough in expressing their position and unwittingly identify
themselves as "atheists" (i.e infidel-2, although some SHR are true
atheists by their own proclamation, thus falling into the trap of
theists who hastily pigeonhole them into atheism and thus advertise
them with relish as immoral, lacking in spirituality, finer human
qualities like love, beauty etc.
Now let me critique the views of true blue atheists, and see how
justified is their view. As noted earlier atheists not only reject
God-R but also reject the idea of any order, design or mystery
behind the creation of life and universe, which to them is nothing
but an accidental event in nature, and they view the laws of nature
(Physics) as nothing but a human construct to map reality in human
terms and believe that universe and its creation can be totally
understood in terms of these laws of Physics (if not fully now,
later). They reject a transcendental reality (in contrast with
platonists who believe in a higher level of causality residing in a
transcendental realm). This view of atheists is flawed and is not
consistent with reality. I will argue for platonism (more precisely
neoplatonism) as a more plausible belief as does Sir Roger Penrose of
Oxford. If at all the laws of Physics and the theorems of mathematics
were merely a human mental construct to map reality then it would be
purely ad hoc and no predictive power would be expected. But the
very fact that many abstract theories in Physics and mathematics are
formulated well in advance of any experimental applications but
eventually do find applicability in nature, as well as predicting
many natural phenomena correctly, is an indirect indication (I
emphasize, not a proof) to a transcendental realm of the Laws of
Physics and Mathematics. In plain words, platonists assert that
there is a higher level of causality above the Laws of physics and
that the known Laws of physics/Theorems of mathematics are a
projection of that transcendental reality (Platonic world, God-S
which gives rise to the laws of Physics), whereas atheists assert
that the buck stops at the laws of Physics, that there is no higher
level of causal Reality above the laws of Physics. They dismiss
laws of Physics and mathematics as purely constructs of human
consciousness which does not point to the existence of any
transcendental realm. It is important to note that at this level we
are talking about metaphysical views that are not logically
verifiable or falsifiable but are nevertheless not logically absurd
or inconsistent like belief in God-R. The insistence of atheists in
denying a higher level of causality above the laws of Physics is to
me a less plausible position than platonism as it does not reflect
the inherent limitations of human mind by making such strong DENIAL
(Which requires superhuman knowledge, or omniscience, since it is not
logically provable). The position of platonists asserting a higher
level of causality is a more plausible one (As it is indirectly
suggested by observation as I indicated), but is also a belief,
since it is not logically provable either. The most consistent
position is forgoing any belief by combining platonism with atheism
into agnosticism by admitting of either possibility ie. that it is
possible that there may not after all be a higher level of causality,
or that there may be, WE MAY NEVER KNOW. Who says that
permanent ignorance is not logically admissible ? :)
Anyway coming back to the issue of mischaracterization by theists
of Infidel-1 as atheists to dehumanize SHR so that they can be
marginalized as atheists. Thats because it is easier to paint
atheist with a lack of spirituality and morality. Is this
presumption about infidels (specially atheists) as being devoid of a
sense of lmmorality, love, beauty justified? We do meet quite a
few atheists who show their extraordinary humility, kindness,
selflessness and filial piety etc. Besides if we understand that it
is all biological at the root, no matter whether one is theist,
infidel-1 or atheist, one is as likely to posses such fundamental
emotions as anyone else. It is just determined by biology and
whatever belief in the ultimate reality cannot determine it. Why do
theists (and even some infidel-1) strongly insist that non-
believers of any kind are devoid of any sense of morality, beauty,
humility etc. ? Well, its quite easy to understand this attitude in
the case of morality since theists posit morality as being derived
from God-R. Hence that obvious conclusion by them. That is a flawed
conclusion as well and has been refuted by many. (See for example
http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/schick_17_3.html or
http://humanist.net/essays/morality.html for some excellent
discussions of human basis of morality). Regarding the lack of
humility/love/beauty etc (with which some infidel-1 also think about
atheist) the reason is that with no belief in mystery or unknown,
they argue that a human mind becomes totally existentialist,
focussing on the material gain as life offers no other meaning with
its finite existence. Again this is flawed too, as even sense of
beauty,humility,altruism etc are all biological in root as
evolutionary biology has discovered. Nobody is beyond biology, not
even the atheists. Of course there are hedonistic existentialists
who may not care for arts, beauty, humility, but that is due to
their inherent genetic makeup, not due to their well-thought out
view of the ultimate reality.
A final point. In fact God-S inspires even a higher level of sense
of awe/ beauty than God-R, as God-S and science are intimately
linked and science can help us to dig further into the mystery of
the universe and thus help to bring human mind closer to the
ultimate reality, if there is one. Making a definite statement S-1
(in the sense of God-R) or S-2 (in the sense of God-S) to "explain"
or "deny" respectively and bring a closure to the mystery of the
universe is a recipe for killing this sense of awe/spirituality
Addenda====
Subject: Re: Koran inspired me says British PM Tony Blair
From: Atanu Dey
Date: 2000/04/07 (SCB)
In the 'World as Will and Idea,' Schopenhauer writes:
"Temples and churches, pagodas and mosques, in all lands and in all
ages, in splendour and vastness, testify to the metaphysical need of
man, which, strong and ineradicable, follows close upon his physical
need. Certainly whoever is satirically inclined might add that this
metaphysical need is a modest fellow who is content with poor fare.
It sometimes allows itself to be satisfied with clumsy fables and
insipid tales. If only imprinted early enough, they are for a man
adequate explanations of his existence and supports of his morality.
Consider, for example, the Koran. This wretched book was sufficient
to found a religion of the world, to satisfy the metaphysical need of
innumerable millions of men for twelve hundred years, to become the
foundation of their morality, and of no small contempt for death, and
also to inspire them to bloody wars and most extended conquests. We
find in it the saddest and the poorest form of Theism. Much may be
lost through translation; but I have not been able to discover one
single valuable thought in it. Such things show that metaphysical
capacity does not go hand in hand with the metaphysical need. Yet it
will appear that in the early ages of the present surface of the earth
this was not the case, and that those who stood considerably nearer
than we do to the beginning of the human race and the source of
organic nature, had also both greater energy of the intuitive faculty
of knowledge, and a truer disposition of mind, so that they were
capable of a purer, more direct comprehension of the inner being of
nature, and were thus in a position to satisfy the metaphysical need in
a more worthy manner. Thus originated in the primitive ancestors of
the Brahmans, the Rishis, the almost superhuman conceptions which were
afterwards set down in the Upanishads of the Vedas."
