Article 4 : Does science make belief in Allah/God obsolete? Absolutely ! – speaks an eminent scientist : Today we have scientific explanations for the natural phenomena that mystified our ancestors for thousands of years, and many scientists and philosophers, therefore, rightly believe that we no longer need to appeal to a supernatural fictional Allah/God for explanations, thereby making Allah/God redundant and obsolete. As for the irrational people of different faiths, many of them believe that science, by offering such explanations, opposes their mis-understanding about the creation of the universe. As science denies this fundamental mis-belief, they conclude that science is their enemy. These different points of view share a common conviction: that science and religion are irreconcilable enemies. Are they….? I do mainstream research; I publish in peer-reviewed journals; I present my research at professional meetings; I train students and postdoctoral researchers; I try to learn from nature : how nature works is the question I always ask myself. In other words, I am an ordinary scientist. I am also a believer in the fictional religion. I shamelessly attend church; I blindly sing in the gospel choir;; I routinely pray regularly to I don't whom ? I try to do justice and walk humbly with my fellow humans. In other words, I am an ordinary person of a fictional faith. To many people, this justifiably makes me a contradiction—a sane scientist who insanely believes in a fictional Allah/God. But to many more people, I am someone very ordinary believer just like them. While most of the media's attention goes to the strident atheists who rightly claim that the classical religion is foolish superstition, and to the equally stupid religious creationists who deny the clear evidence for cosmic and biological evolution, however, there are many hypocrites like me who have no difficulty in accepting rational scientific knowledge and holding to an irrational, fictional and medieval religious faith ! As an experimental physicist, I require hard evidence, reproducible experiments, and rigorous logic to support any scientific hypothesis. How can such a person base his belief on the mere fiction of a supernatural faith? In fact there are two questions here: "How can one believe in an Allah/God without evidence ; and, why do I, of all the people, believe in such absurdity ? On the first question: can a rational scientist believe in a fictional Allah/God without any rational or scientific proof ? Scientific statements are exact and are based on facts. Einstein's theory of relativity correctly describes the behaviour of visible objects in our solar system. Extremely careful measurements have proved that this statement is correct. By contrast, religious statements are not provable. I might say, "God created us and wants us to make love with one another." I cannot think of anything that could prove that statement rational as the very idea of an Allah/God is mere an irrational fiction. The general statements like "She sings beautifully." "He is a good man." "I love you," are all, in one or the other sense, scientific statements which, scientifically speaking, express our feelings and value judgements. One must conclude then that an attitude of scientific observations with philosophical rationalism and common sense/reason is, indeed, the only sane and useful way of looking at life. What about the second question: why do I believe in God? As a physicist, I look at nature from a particular perspective. I see an orderly, balanced universe in which nearly all physical phenomena can be understood from a few simple mathematical equations. I see a universe that, had it evolved slightly differently, would never have given birth to stars and planets, let alone bacteria and people. Many good scientists have concluded from these observations that a set of circumstances and forces must have been at work in the evolution of the universe with such a wonderful, complicated, and life-giving properties. Many of these good scientists are atheists, while others are agnostics. I, hypocritically believe in God because I do not have the courage to do otherwise. Not that I am afraid of the sanctions of the too authoritarian Church threatening me with excommunication and consequent expulsion from the university professorship, or of assassination / poisoning by a Christian fundamentalist belonging to the very secretive « Society of Jesuit » or interference in my married life leading to divorce due to the manipulation by an expert social agent of the secretive Christian organisation called the « Opus Dei ». But with these considerations I justifiably feel that idea of a God, however fictional, is a guarantee sufficient for protecting me from the evil that the Christian Church and its various evil and secretive organisations habitually do against heretics. They may not be burning women as witches and atheist professors as heretics today as they did with millions of European women and men in the religious Dark Ages of 16th Century Europe, believe you me, they are still capable of much evil in thousand more subtle and sophisticated ways. The Jesuits, for example, are secretly working in more than 100 countries of the world, they now use and abuse psychology and psychiatry, they can artificially create mental disorders and force people into a « voluntary » suicide as is happening in UK and France : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/humanist_international/message/101. You may call me a hypocrite but being a hypocrite is, of course, better than being burnt at the stake, literally or metaphorically, is it not ! Does this mis-belief makes me a better person or a better physicist than others? Hardly. I know plenty of atheists and agnostics who are both better people and better scientists than I. I don't think that this belief makes me any better than I would be if I did not believe. Am I free of doubts about God? Hardly. Questions about the presence of evil in the world in the very presence of the so-called omnipresent loving God, the suffering of innocent children, the variety of religious thought, and other imponderables often leave me wondering if I am in my right mind, and always leave me conscious of my ignorance, if not of outright stupidity. Nevertheless, I do believe, more because of my ignorance of rationalist science than anything else ; but ultimately just because I don't know what else to believe. Believing since childhood has created a space in my mind which must be filled with some hotchpotch, of this or that religion ! ................... In the greater interest of civilization, all articles in this series may be reproduced or published in any language. Article 1: Does science make belief in Allah/God obsolete ? Necessarily, it does - speaks a physicist Articlw 2: Yes, of course - speaks a psychologist <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/humanist_international/message/115> Article 3 : Does science make belief in Allah/God obsolete ? No, and yes - speaks a Christian Priest… !<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/humanist_international/message/116> |
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Sign the Petition : Release the Arrested University Teachers Immediately : An Appeal to the Caretaker Government of Bangladesh
http://www.mukto-mona.com/human_rights/university_teachers_arrest.htm
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Daily Star publishes an interview with Mukto-Mona
http://www.mukto-mona.com/news/daily_star/daily_star_MM.pdf
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MM site is blocked in Islamic countries such as UAE. Members of those theocratic states, kindly use any proxy (such as http://proxy.org/) to access mukto-mona.
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Mukto-Mona Celebrates 5th Anniversary
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/5_yrs_anniv/index.htm
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Mukto-Mona Celebrates Earth Day:
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/Earth_day2006/index.htm
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Kansat Uprising : A Special Page from Mukto-Mona
http://www.mukto-mona.com/human_rights/kansat2006/members/
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MM Project : Grand assembly of local freedom fighters at Raumari
http://www.mukto-mona.com/project/Roumari/freedom_fighters_union300306.htm
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German Bangla Radio Interviews Mukto-Mona Members:
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/Darwin_day/german_radio/
Mukto-Mona Celebrates Darwin Day:
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/Darwin_day/index.htm
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Some FAQ's about Mukto-Mona:
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VISIT MUKTO-MONA WEB-SITE : http://www.mukto-mona.com/
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"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
-Beatrice Hall [pseudonym: S.G. Tallentyre], 190
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