REDEFINING RELIGION - 2
O fools, awake! The rites ye sacred hold
Are but a cheat contrived by men of old
Who lusted after wealth and gained their lust
And died in baseness-and their law is dust.
-- Al Ma-a'arri
EQUATING SCIENCE WITH RELIGION
There has been continuous attempts and efforts to equate Religion with Science, probably, since the days of Renaissance, when awakening of rational knowledge was on its course and great rational thinkers in Europe had been questioning the unfounded dogmas preached and imposed by the church in relation to the ideas of creation, ruler of the universe and regulator of results of human actions by a supreme being called GOD.
This revolt gave us great rational thinkers in Europe like Anaxagoras, Diagoras, Democritus and so on. In a similar manner Charbak system of philosophy and skeptics like Al Ma-a'arri (An Arab skeptic philosopher and free thinker), evolved in the Indian and Islamic world. It was necessary to counter the intolerant and suppressive nature of the Church, Hindu Pundits and Mullahs respectively. The worst part of the scenario was, even the Kings and the then rulers also patronized this religious institutions and treated free thinkers to be criminals of the society who objected to many ideas of these religious institutions. This led to the unfortunate destruction of lot of original works and manuscripts written by lot of rationalist thinkers besides preventing others to dare initiate new ideas and (not forgetting) the pathetic and heinous executions of some great human beings of human history. These dangerous priests actually invented those stinking religions with their filthy Gods, who had certainly shown humanity the hell if not the heaven, in their own interests.
This tyranny of the Religious Institutions over Rational thinkers in the medieval period is well known to all of us. But truth and knowledge refused to remain clandestine within the minds of these great thinkers and they had to convince the world of their new found ideas of truth with proofs and evidences perceivable by common man. This proof and evidence based knowledge involving measurement, quantification was characterized as scientific inquiry or simply, science. This kind of human inquiry slowly started replacing dogmas, doctrines etc. by laws, principles, models etc., concerning the nature and the universe as a whole. But only those objective facts had been proved and explained beyond doubt which the religious institutions thus far held as different like the shape of the earth, the planetary movements, occurrence of various natural phenomena etc.
This gradually considered being the triumph of science over religion which triggered a tendency amongst the intellectuals to equate science with religion and a large section of the society started questioning the validity of all the teachings of these religious institutions. They thought science would lead them to a better enlightenment about the humanity, nature and universe as a whole whereas these institutions would mislead in knowing and understanding the truth. So religion became a villain and science the new hero and thus a new world order which started being thought as the only path to knowledge.
If a man says ninety-nine things which are hard to apprehend and verify and the hundredth thing he says, is verifiable and found to be false, we have a general inclination to declare him to be a liar unless he provides verification, proof and evidence of those previous ninety-nine statements he had made. We may not be at fault because science has taught us not to believe in anything unless it is proved scientifically, little realizing the fact that even Stephen Hawking believes in a 'Black Hole' which has not been proved with exhaustive evidence till today.
So, Religion had committed serious crimes, which include torture, tyranny, killings, genocide, and causing general suffering to the masses in its name. Therefore in one hand it had been misleading humanity by its wrong notions of world view and grinding the human race by inducing infighting and hatred, on the other. Therefore it was dangerous for humanity and we had better kept a safe distance from religion and abandon it to obscurity; the sooner the better. Such was the advice of the skeptics of the time onwards.
SEPARATE RELIGIOUS THOUGHTS FROM ITS ABUSES
I have destroyed and condemned the knife left behind by the crook, that was used to stab my brother last night and he was hospitalized; but the doctor used another knife to operate and save my brothers life today. It is the knife which was used twice but with different purposes. The point is clear, it is the usage which determines the property of an entity and its users have to be blamed or praised just as science is not to be blamed for helping to drop nuclear bombs at Hiroshima-Nagasaki and inventing Kalashnikovs, Scuds and Patriots that can wipe out chunks of humanity in minutes.
The facts, truth and properties of a knife can not be known and thus if that knife really can benefit human in any way, if I condemn it simply because that killed many people and nearly killed my brother until an authentic source informs me that the same knife has saved my brother's life during the surgery. Then again question arises about the intention and quality of the teacher who decides how his disciple must use the knife and mind you the knife is a powerful weapon which is capable of both killing and saving the life of a man.
Therefore an intelligent person, in my views, should first have an open unbiased mind, then he should consider selecting a proper teacher, use his own honest judgment to study from other sources what are the aspects of the knife that can benefit humankind and learn also how it can harm humanity and in fact how its abuses did harm in the past. Once it is done, he can truly guide the society and teach people how to use the knife to benefit humanity. Then, of course, if he finds the knife does not have any value in relation to humanity with respect to its utility, one is free to abandon it. But if he is not willing to carry out this exercise he is not competent to comment anything about the knife except the facts and history about the knife's activities, both good and bad, if he is respectfully honest. Otherwise his words are not to be taken seriously. However, if the knife has both good and bad value (as usually it is, always) it will continue to both serve and harm humanity according to its usage. Read Religion for Knife in the above context and see the same logic applies to the use of nuclear science in building a Reactor or a Bomb.
A SYSTEM OF INQUIRY
Religion sometimes is called man-made; then in the same breath it can be said science, philosophy, psychology, fine arts, physics, chemistry, even our society are all man-made. Everything, like political system, the social laws, courts of justice, the governments all are man-made. So, what? Who else would make it? Should any system of human inquiry not qualify to be authentic because it is man-made? I think it is the other way round i.e. it should be authentic because it is man-made and not God-made (and thankfully it is not).
Now coming to the question of the introduction of religion into human society and the intention of its introducers, which is again as blurry a theory as the origin of the human itself? It will be a long debate to establish why and how religion was introduced in our society and probably end without any agreement. Then it boils down to the same old cacophony of my religion, your religion, his religion, superior, inferior, coercive conversions, spreading hatred in the name of religion etc. etc. I simply refuse to empower those unscrupulous agents (the demonic clerics) of religions to be the guardians of my 'Religion' and like to undress their brand of religion and strip it naked to see if any truth lies in it, which naturally necessitates peeling off the sugar coats if any to reach to the core. If I install a dullard school dropout (if not a prodigy) to teach physics in a lecture session of 'wave optics' of a post-graduate physics class, the problem obviously lies with me and not with the man. And with all probability, if he is backed by powerful lobby of the college or he himself possesses muscle power, he would continue to spread nonsense among the students and initiate a wave of rubbish instead of optics.
I personally feel the problem of a negative view may partly be addressed by considering Religion as another system of human inquiry relating to human, their relationship with each other and the universe, their actions and their underlying principles or inner laws of nature which are somewhat cryptic and not straight through or linear. It requires trial and error methods to arrive at great majority of truths, sometimes requiring analytic reasoning and also holistic views to comprehend very many abstract ideas. In such exercise, I seek excuse from a personal GOD as His interventions, I suppose, had always disturbed the process of the inquiry and tend Religion to send into the mystic darkness of the Churches, Mosques and Temples
"I intend to continue this article and it will be highly encouraging if I receive comments (positive or negative), but do not want to indulge in debates at this moment until I finish it. But I will certainly consider the comments made or opinions expressed against my article while writing my future episodes."
With Love and Best wishes to all.
Surojit
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