There are many motivations for believing in something that our senses can't quite reach. One is just that, the idea that there is something more to this life than just life itself. Specifically, because we have a consciousness. I will save the idea of consciousness for another post. But with our conciousness comes an understanding of the world from a different point of view, namely, it allows us to ask the question: why are we here? While I can't know for sure, I don't see any reason to believe that there is such an answer. Why do we need a purpose? Is the life of a monkey any different whether it lives it in the presence or absence of a cosmological purpose? Is ours? Is our humanly purpose any more than to live a successful life, reproduce, give our offspring the opportunity to have a successful life, and aid in the survival of our species? What more purpose does anyone really need?
Of course, all this bears in mind the fact that most people on this planet have a "faith" in something divine, or at least outside of the physical realm in some fashion. So it seems that this is some trait that is inherent to who we are as humans, at least to some degree. But why is the case? Faith could be selected for in evolution, or it could be a by-product of another trait that was selected for, and our innate faith was linked to that trait through similar genetic combinations. As Dawkins puts in the The God Delusion, faith in a parental sense would be a desirable trait. If the parents of a child tell it two things, don't go to the river because of crocodiles and to dance in a circle to bring rain, a child will not be able to tell the difference between what is faith for good reason, and faith for the sake of faith. Evolution would select for children who trusted everything their parents told them, which would make them dance in a circle but would also keep them away from being eaten. Or it could be a side effect of something else.
But in modern times, with our current understanding of the universe and planet far exceeding what people knew even one hundred years ago, why do we still believe in something like a god? Indeed, an ever increasing percentage of Europeans are atheist, but in America and Islamic ruled countries, religion is as strong as ever. But why does anyone actually believe it? It's been almost 300 years since the advent of the scientific method being employed to discover things about our existence. We have discovered that the Earth is 4.6 billion years old, the universe is 14 billion years old, our solar system formed from earlier stars that died, and humanity has evolved along with all other life from a singular instance. We know about the laws of physics, thermodynamics, and mathematics that explain nearly all events we witness in the cosmos and everything we experience on this planet. We as humans rely on evidence to live life. Some of it is obvious to daily life, such as why we don't knowingly walk in front of a moving car (taking inertia, momentum, force, pain, injury, and death into account), to the not obvious, such as our understanding of electricity and magnetism. Before the advent of modern science, our evidence was based on experience. Now, there are many things we have come to accept through science that we cannot see or fathom, such as stars, galaxies, black holes, atoms, electrons, quarks, neutrinos, etc... But just because we can't see them doesn't make them any more relevant and important to our lives. As Horton the elephant would say, "A person's a person, no matter how small." And we experience their effects, which give rise to our own existence. So given all this evidence, what we see, what we do not see, what we experience directly, and what we experience indirectly, why does anyone believe in a god or have faith in something that cannot be seen, detected, or tested?
What reason do we have for believing in a god or gods? If all we have is text written by humans purporting to have divine origins, and a mass of people that believe it, why is anyone convinced? This question goes beyond asking for proof of God, but in the complete absence of proof of any sort, why is there faith in such a thing? Realistically, it probably traces to a time where people didn't know the answers that we know now, and so in order to explain these things they made up stories. These stories told a point. The story of Adam and Eve explains why bad things are in the world and what we must do to be good. The story of creation explains the perceived order in the world and the "purpose" of humans. But one must realize they are just stories, ones that were conceived four thousand years ago or more initially. To lose perspective of this is to lose both the meaning of the story and the answers that we know have in our possession. If someone was born today, with no influence from their parents or peers, they would probably come to learn the leading scientific theories of today explain most of the aspects to our life, and would probably find very little use for existing mainstream religions. However, there are many distractions to lead people to question the valid scientific theories in favor of something that is completely and utterly unsupported. I truly pity people who are so blinded by religion to not be able to appreciate the advances and knowledge we have acquired through science. Then there are those who believe God lies in areas which we can't explain, again relegating him to the gaps. But I think the first question I ask myself now, devoid of religious belief, is why I ever believed it in the first place.
Question of the Day: If God is truly beyond comprehension, what exactly can you have faith in?
"100,000+ civilian deaths so that democracy should be brought to the Middle East".
Grounds provided to Parliament for invasion: false and proven incorrect The UN process to clarify that falsehood: rejected, against the will of the international community Bush regime ideology: shock and awe in line with the 'Program for a New American Century'
Yet democracy (the later justification for war) was ignored. Democracy is still compromised by this demonstrated military culture that resists transparency. Democracy needs press freedom, judicial fairness and accountability, and transparency.
Democracy is not just a one-off vote. It is a culture, an accountability, an openness, a protection of the innocent. It is the freedom of the press to uncover hidden injustices. It should also be legality.
Was this war legal?
Were the actions without a 2nd UN mandate legal?
Was Abu Ghraib legal? Would we ever have been told about it, if it hadn't come to light? Or the rape and murder at Haditha?
Was the aerial bombing from great height a disproportionate action endangering the Iraqi civilian population? Would we ever have countenanced it against our own UK or US civilian populations?
Was the suppression of information like this legal?
Was the UK or US government aware of some of this information, and if it suppressed it, and acquiesced in its implications and violations, was it acting illegally its roles and responsibilities as an occupying force with responsibilities towards the civilian population?
Who killed the innocent civilian Baha Mousa? Which UK soldier did that? Why wasn't he prosecuted? Why did colleagues collude in a cover up?
Is the Ministry of Defense properly accountable or does it collude with the hiding of relevant information that should be part of accountability in a democracy? Why was it alright for the Ministry of Defense/British Aerospace to be engaged in weapons deals with Saudi princes, which involved illegal bribes, when the Saudi regime is non-democratic and has a bad human rights record?
What I'm really saying is: first Tony Blair said imminent attack from weapons of mass destruction was the reason for ignoring the UN processes already in place. Then, when this claim was shown to be doctored and false, the argument shifted to 'bringing democracy to Iraq' (as if Saudi Arabia and countless other trading partners couldn't be invaded on that pretext as well).
But, the democratic majority of the UK ad USA opposed the invasion without the legality of a 2nd UN mandate. Democracy also involves, legality, openness, transparency, accountability.
Countless known crimes in this terrible history of events have gone unaddressed and uncared for. People's intimate family lives have been shattered.
Perhaps the greatest crime that has gone unaddressed was the decision - against international opinion and against our own nation's democratic opinion - to invade Iraq and unleash chaos.
The Iraq War was a disaster and it did nothing for the "war on terror", motivating new martyrs, and totally losing the battle for "hearts and minds".
So I am wholly under-impressed by people who try to portray journalistic truths being brought to light as if *they* are the ones in the wrong.
Our culture is way too militaristic. Our soldiers - like *all* soldiers of courage, including Iraqi soldiers - deserve recognition for individual courage in an invidious situation. But was it worth the 100,000 dead mothers, children, sisters, grandparents, innocent people? Was it worth our own dead soldiers?
And how many more British and American soldiers will die in Afghanistan before we pull out, which the politicians know we must, yet they fear the losing face, and so other soldiers will die needlessly I fear. Indeed it's a weekly death count. As is the continuing civilian death toll there, when innocent people get strafed at weddings, or just wiped out by drones, and so the killing (and on the evidence of the past) the cover up goes on.
If we devoted a fraction of the money we spend on militarism to education, health, and help for those in need, of any faith or creed perhaps we might start winning hearts, and demonstrating democracy. Perhaps we'd stop the hypocrisy of invading countries in the name of democracy while remaining trading partners and colluders in regimes that are non-democratic and oppressive.
If Wikileaks contributes in some way to greater accountability in the future, then maybe politicians will take the responsibilities of war and its (in this case unplanned) aftermath more seriously.
But surely, we live in a democracy because we vote once every 4 years? If the people we vote for then go against the clear democratic will, and worse still, if they should ever break international law in going to war then what exactly are we exporting (apart from more arms) to the countries we claim to democratize?
I'm an atheist (well Wittgenstenian agnostic would be more accurate, but that's more a philosophical than a practical scepticism - I believe in evolution because I read it in a book, in a culture that takes certain books as being good sources of knowledge, I assume without proof that the table doesn't disappear when I look away from it, I don't need personal proof or comprehension of how carbon-dating works for my belief in it to be rational, until I acknowledge, philosophically at least, that I've got plenty of views that rest on grounds that are at least as shaky as religion). But I do lecture in philosophy of religion, so I have some insight as one who has dealt a lot with catholicism, but isn't part of it (and thankfully didn't have the kind of upbrining that would leave me emotionally traumatised by it).
Wee need to realise that the Catholicism isn't a monolithic entity, but a collection of quite diverse subcultures and belief systems. It's easy to miss that point because of the organisation's insane political-party like insistence on presenting an 'absolute front' to the world, hiding the debate that goes on behind the scenes.
But this is an organisation that on one hand condemned 'revolutionary socialism', while on the other hand was the main instigator and supporter of revolutionary socialism in numerous pockets of South America. It's the organisation that took an appeasement stance towards fascism (I won't enter the debate on how Pope Pius should be judged - yes he did do a deal where he gave political support to Mussolini in return for the Vatican City, and yes he did arrange the smuggling of thousands of Jews out of the country - whether one justifies the other is going to be a long debated question), and it's also the organisation that had thousands of priests and bishops end up in concentration camps for deying Hitler even though their leader remained silent.
It's the organisation that gave - at best, and contrary to its far more liberal position on science pre-20th century (Galileo was largely a political dispute, with the most powerful layman in the catholic church getting shafted after a change in pope) - a very cold shoulder to Darwin's discoveries, while one of it's most famous offshoots, the Jesuits, celebrated the discovery of natural selection as providing a crucial discovery for how humanity arose (and one, which in their view, was better in keeping with their ideology of humanity as essentially an intelligent/privileged animal instead of a 'God' in itself).
It's the church that issues horrific 'official statements' about homosexuality (less offensive under the current pope, admittedly), but has inner city churches in most western cities that are proudly gay-friendly regardless of what 'Rome' might think. It's the organisation that works hand in hand with some of the most oppressive regimes, while also sheltering freedom fighters of all creeds, with many priests in East Timor and South America being tortured and killed because they wouldn't give up their beneficiaries' hiding place.
Like any large organisation, the Catholic church is heavily factional, with economic 'left and right' and social 'conservative and progressive' factions. This last came into public view at the Vatican II conference, initiated by the South American revolutionary socialist wing of the church, who wanted the church to move beyond poverty relief to tackling the causes of poverty, including corrupt governments and capitalist systems. The progressive tide reached a fairly impressive height but was then utterly crushed by the conservative factions who united with the sole purpose of opposing the movement, until the only outcome of Vatican II was minor decentralisation and that the mass is now read in english instead of latin, with the original ideological underpinnings having disappeared entirely.
Following that, the conservative factions united to try and ensure that the 'threat' that initiated Vatican II never gained political power again - they were fine with them being tortured and killed while fighting for justice in far-away lands, but taking it to the church's seat of power had been a step too far. As bishop positions became vacant, traditionally progressive seats were systematically replaced with conservatives, resulting in the anti-modern quagmire that is the 'official' Catholic ideology today.
But the church is still factional, and any analysis must begin from that. There are pro-gay factions, pro-Marxist factions, factions who want the nuns to run things (given that they've got the better track record so far), factions defined by Kantian ideology (bizarrely condemned by the previous pope - you'd think being the church of Immanuel Kant would be something you'd sell yourself on) and of course the conservative factions that dominate the official policy. A monolithic view is never a sufficient one when it comes to Catholicism.
"Niqab's predate Islam and stretch back to Babylon where they were worn by Arab women of ruling class as a symbol of wealth to rub it in the noses of poor Arab women".
Western culture involves a degree of openness and honesty, and it is generally considered unacceptable to mask your face whilst interacting with another person 'face to face'. The clue is in the name. By showing your face you display to another person that you can be trusted you show willingness to be recognised such that if you ever did them wrong, they could identify you in the future. A smile on a friendly face by a stranger makes people feel happy. If we cannot see the faces of others in public then it is a cause for concern.
Religion equals ignorance and oppression and is never benign. The evidence for that iseasily seen in the infighting around Western women who may want a spot on an executive committee in that brand. Ultimately the women who wear such items of clothing are doing so to proclaim to the rest of society that they have absolutely no desire to integrate or take advantage of the freedoms that women have in western society (in comparison to say Saudi Arabia). Either that, or they are being forced to wear the Burka because their husband doesn't want them to integrate or take part in wider society. Which ever way, I find the whole matter pretty disrespectful and quite sad really.
Most of us if honest will admit that in the very recent past our ancestors were poor, illiterate and unsophisticated. They existed in theocratic tyrannies and were bullied by vile control freaks. That is hopefully a thing of the past. Our decent cultures have bent over backwards, regressing us in order to not cause those coming from the developing world insult.
When you ask what values are being protected? Can I submit that our culture and society holds dear that facial expressions and facial contact between humans is one of the key components of human interaction. We also believe that men are capable of looking at women's faces without turning into lustful rapists, equally women can reveal their own faces to men who are not their husbands without automatically becoming the "whore of Babylon".
Islam is not tolerant and peaceful.
Islam is not a religion, nor is it a cult. In its fullest form, it is a complete, total way of living. Islam has religious, legal, political, economic, social, and military aspirations. The religious element is a mask for all of the other components. Islamisation begins when there are sufficient Muslims in a country to agitate for their religious privileges. When inclusive, tolerant, and culturally diverse societies agree to Muslim demands, some of the other components creep in as well.
As long as the Muslim population remains around or under 2% in any Western country, they will for the most part be regarded as a peace-loving minority. As they become more populous, they will begin to proselytize to other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups. They then will petition the government to allow them to rule themselves under Sharia Law, in places such as Sparkbrook in Birmingham, Manningham in Bradford and Tower Hamlets, London.
Today's 1.5 billion Muslims make up 22% of the world's population. Their birth rates dwarf the birth rates of Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, and all other affiliated believers or non-believers.
As they increase the size of their population, Muslims become militant as a means of complaining about their conditions. Any non-Muslim action that offends them results in uprisings and threats. Take for example what happened in Denmark with the Jyllands-Posten newspaper cartoons of Mohammed and of course the persecution of Salman Rushdie in the UK.
Islam has shown its propensity for violence right from its early days. It reacts with violence, committed in the name of Allah, at the slightest provocation. A cartoon, a book, a chat room comment. Even the death of a terrorist, by security services, before he or she can detonate their bombs prompts a violent response.
In Pakistan, blasphemy is punishable by death and is frequently carried out, not by the state, but by angry mobs objecting to some slight against Islam, the prophet or Allah. Two Government ministers were murdered for suggesting that the blasphemy law should be repealed. A young Christian girl with learning difficulties was 'framed' by someone in her community who accused her of burning pages of the Qur'an. She was arrested, tried and sentenced to death. Eventually she was released but then hounded out of her village and has had to seek refuge abroad.
The slaughter by Islamic terrorists continues on a daily basis. In this past week terrorist attacks against Christians in Pakistan claimed 80 lives and scored even more injured. Of course, the awful and tragic events in Nairobi have yet to become completely clear. The body count stands at 70 dead and 200 injured. It will rise.
In Nigeria, Boko Haram, after having enforced Sharia Law on the northern part of the country is seeking to extend this to the south. Africa is now the main fighting ground outside the middle east for al-Qaeda and its affiliated organisations.
When a visitor comes to your house it is beholden of them to respect your views and way of life. Islam does not do this. It demands that we introduce halal food into schools, very often without telling non-Muslims that this is what their children are eating. It demands that we accept that women should be free to walk around veiled and then expect us to communicate with them.
This country is a country of immigrants. In the last 100 years we have seen people arrive here from all corners of the earth: Jews, Africans, Caribeans, Chinese, Indians, Eastern Europeans and many other variants, and nearly 3 million Muslims in less than 20 years. Unfortunately, it is this latter group that has been the focus of so much attention and communal disharmony.
A lot of people that have a naturalistic worldview still want to have rituals or spiritual congregations or other aspects that are found in religion. "Atheism" suggests a belief system. In fact it is the absence of one. I don't "Believe" in atheism. I disbelieve in religion.
I find the bias here and elsewhere in favour of "Faith" absurd, offensive and just plain wrong. Over the centuries, and still today, Religion has been responsible for more evil than any other phenomenon. The idea, propagated so often, that to believe in religion - any religion - is more desirable and commendable than not to believe is preposterous. Mr Jonathan Sacks says "Nor do I believe that you have to be religious to be moral". I would put it otherwise. It is possible, maybe, for a devout believer in a Religion to be moral - but the chances are that such a believer will not be. Because it is Amoral as well as intellectually unsupportable to believe in dogma. A dogma that disallows for no logical modern reason the consumption of certain foods. A dogma that forbids the consumption of Alcohol. A dogma that removes the foreskin of newly born male children or the clitoris of young girls. A dogma that pretends that a wafer and a glass of wine turn into tissue and blood. A dogma that forbids the cutting of your hair. A dogma that declares that those who lose their faith should be hunted down and punished. A dogma that turns stories for which their is no scientific evidence into fictitious real events that are supposed to guide or instruct us. A dogma that denies the scientific evidence of evolution. Or prohibits abortion. Or contraception. Or allows (or disallows) polygamy. Above all a dogma that holds out that in the afterlife you will go to Heaven, if you are good, and Hell if you are bad. And that in that heaven virgins await you or in that hell flames.
Man does not need mumbo-jumbo to know how to behave. The secular ethic requires us to think freely about what is right. Not to turn to some ancient tome for guidance. Man has it within him to live a good life of his own volition. And, as Christopher Hitchens put it:
“We are not immune to the lure of wonder and mystery and awe: we have music and art and literature, and find that serious ethical dilemmas are better handled by Shakespeare and Tolstoy and Schiller and Dostoyevsky and George Eliot than in the mythical morality tale of the holy books.”
"Islamic Science" is an oxymoron much like "Mongolian Civilization".
In both cases, it is one group described by the former, conquering many groups described by the later, thereby acquiring the later's attribute without processing it in the first place.
One only has to look at the Islamic center of learning to see this. Baghdad and Cairo were respectively Persian and Byzantium before their conquest. The fact that they were the centers of learning was in spite of Islam instead of because of it. On the other hand, if we were to look at the historic home of Islam, Saudi Arabia, we can see almost no scientific output.
The relation between Islam and science is best described by the great Islamic scientist and historian Ibn Khaldun in his seminal work the Muqaddimah:
"The Arabs dominate only of the plains, because they are, by their savage nature, people of pillage and corruption. They pillage everything that they can take without fighting or taking risks, then flee to their refuge in the wilderness, and do not stand and do battle unless in self-defense. So when they encounter any difficulty or obstacle, they leave it alone and look for easier prey. And tribes well-fortified against them on the slopes of the hills escape their corruption and destruction, because they prefer not to climb hills, nor expend effort, nor take risks. In that connection, "non-Arab" meant non-Arab by descent. Such non-Arabs had a long (history of) sedentary culture which, as we have established, causes cultivation of the crafts and habits, including the sciences. This situation continued in the cities as long as the Persians and the Persian countries, the 'Iraq, Khurasan, and Transoxania, retained their sedentary culture. But when those cities fell into ruins, sedentary culture, which God has devised for the attainment of sciences and crafts, disappeared from them. Along with it, scholarship altogether disappeared from among the non-Arabs (Persians), who were (now) engulfed by the desert attitude. Scholarship was restricted to cities with an abundant sedentary culture."
The lack of Islamic scientists cannot only be explained by stinginess of their governments. The Russian and Indian governments aren't known for their generosity in that field either, but these countries produce many scientist anyhow. Also, the fact that Israel spends so much on research is inherent to the Jewish culture that values learning, so it has backing among the people.
The success of Islam in the "Middle Ages" was due to the fact that the Islamic warriors conquered many high civilizations in a short time. From the Jews they learned writing and encoding scriptures, from the (then Christian) Egyptians architecture and agriculture, from the (Christian) Syrians state organization, from the late (Manicheistic) Mespotamians astronomy, astrology and geometry, from the (late classic and Christian) Greeks philosophy, logic and scientific thinking, from the Mazdaist Persians medicine and hygiene (Jundishapur), and from the Hindu's mathematics (algebra was an Indian invention).
Many of these scientist were forced to become Muslim in order to survive. That's why the world knows them as "Muslim" savants. But due to religious dogma, that vast wealth of knowledge was suffocated after 1200. It's significant, that of the two big 'Muslim' minds of that time, Ibn Rushd was of Jewish ancestry, and Ibn Sina of Manicheist Persian. After 1200, when the religious pressure increased, Greek, Armenian and Jewish scholars fled to Europe, and helped develop the Renaissance. There was a reason why they chose to move to Europe.
The concept that Europe was in the "Dark Ages" before that time is, in fact outdated.
Even in the "Middle Ages" many monasteries and convents were places of active learning and research. How could Thomas of Aquino have been allowed to declare the search for a synthesis between Christianity and Arestotelian logic? Could Copernicus, Galilei, Da Vinci and many others, in spite of being banned by the Church, have been able to develop their scientific research if they came right out of the Dark Ages? The reason is, that although the Church has shown its ugly side many times, Christianity as such, as well as Judaism, allow for independent thinking. However, Islam does not.
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