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(A response to Raihan)
(Part-II) [To read Part I, click HERE. To read Part III, click HERE.] As it was recorded in hadeeth, when the death news of Prophet Muhammad reached Omar (later, the second caliph of Islam), his immediate reaction was a straight and categorical denial. No, this could not happen. The loss of Muhammad rendered Omar so grief-stricken that, opening his famous sword from its cover Omar went on announcing, �I shall kill any one who says the Prophet is no more!� The people were terrified as they knew the reason why Omar was behaving so crazily. Omar (a convert) loved and revered Mohammed so much that he was unable to accept the plain truth every human has to die. It was Abu Bakar who later came and pacified Omar. This is a classic example from the history that sometimes belief could be blind and do not follow any rationale. Prabhir Ghosh, the prominent Bangalee rationalist from India cited an interesting analogy in his book, �Ami Keno Iswar-e Biswash Kori Na� (�why I don�t believe in God�). He came across a village man who was fond of telling everyone he would met that Hema Malini, the glamorous Indian film heroine, was madly in love with him and it�s just between the two of them. No outsider knew about it. People called the man a �mad person.� That�s because although both the man and Hema Malini were real characters, common sense and rationale told the listeners- the story was fake. �If so, how come we ourselves believe in an entity called �God� that no one has ever seen, no one knows how he looks, or where he lives or what gender that entity belongs to. Yet you are cursed as a �sinner� if you do not believe in the nonsense tale of God/Goddess.� Probhir commented. Why does it matter to you if someone believes in one God or millions of them? One may ask me. Indeed, it doesn�t. It�s none of my business, because as I said earlier, no two people may mean the same thing by the word �God.� Look at below what Nobel Prize-winning physicist (and atheist) Steven Weinberg had to say about it:*5 �Some people have views of God that are so broad and flexible that it is inevitable that they will find God wherever they look for him. One hears it said that 'God is the ultimate' or 'God is our better nature' or 'God is the universe.' Of course, like any other word, the word 'God' can be given any meaning we like. If you want to say that 'God is energy,' then you can find God in a lump of coal.� But when someone tries to establish belief in an undefined, unseen God as �the most rational and uttermost certain,� I shall raise my objection not just because I am a non-believer but- it�s also a question of intellectual honesty. Ignoring such an artfully designed propaganda will only help them grow more as a convenient tool to confuse common people. Through a lengthy conversation with his so called �friend,� some of the logics Raihan tried to show in defense of belief in �single creator of the universe� (and also why it�s a superior and �rational option�) are listed below. I request the readers to take a careful look at them before they read my responses. Raihan is also requested to correct me, if anywhere I go wrong in quoting him in English translation. Wherever available, I quoted Raihan�s occasional English phrases from the original Bangla article and it is characterized in Italics.
Broadly speaking, the logics shown by Raihan
try to address three main issues: 1) why atheism is �irrational� in contrast
to theism (belief in a religion) 2) why belief in single creator is �the
most rational option� and 3) why science doesn�t dismiss the belief in
God. Issue-1: Raihan tried to show- 'atheism is irrational in contrast to theism (belief in a religion)' One of his main logics is- �Most great scientists and philosophers are some kind of believers.� My response: a) Although I already discussed it in part I of my rebuttal, let�s recapitulate the connotation of the noun �atheist,� as it is mentioned by Chaz Bufe in the American Heretic�s Dictionary: Atheist n A person to be pitied in that he is unable to believe things for which there is no evidence, and who has thus deprived himself of a convenient means of feeling superior to others. Given that an �atheist� virtually includes anyone who doesn�t subscribe to the belief system pertaining to God/Goddess, as held by an organized or conventional religion, I shall call Raihan�s claim just an invention of his own mind. First, just like his ramblings about the �atheists� despite knowing the word is multifaceted, here also Raihan didn�t tell readers what he really meant by �the most great scientists and philosophers.� How will he answer if I claim the otherwise i.e. from what I know, most great scientists and philosophers in the history were and even now are some kind of a non-believer. And I shall give proof in support of my statement. First look at the list below that include philosophers, writers, scientists, leaders/activists� from as early as 500 BC to the modern era. Please note this is not a comprehensive list; nor is it arranged chronologically since doing so will take too much space and time. Famous nonbeliever artists/writers/philosophers: Anaxagoras (500?-428? BCE),Democritus (460?-357 BCE), Epicurus (341-270 BCE), Mark Twain, Leo Tolstoy, P.B. Shelley, Bertrand Russell Ernest Hemmingway, Isaac Asimov, Aldous Huxley, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Voltaire, Arthur C. Clarke, Freidrich Nietzsche, George Bernard Shaw, Helen Keller, John Stuart Mill, John Lennon, Henry Louis, Karl Popper, George Orwell, Vincent Van Gogh, Jean Paul Sartre, Sidney Hook, David Hume, John Lenon, Paul Kurtz�. Non-believer politicians/leaders/activists: Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Madison, Susan B. Anthony, Jawaharlal Nehru�.. Non-believer scientists: Einstein, Charles Darwin, Carl Sagan, Francis Crick & James Watson (both jointly discovered of DNA structure helix model in 1953), Thomas Edison, Richard Dawkins..... What about scientists of our time? According to an article published in the nature*6 (the esteemed British science journal) in 1998, �disbelief in God and immortality among NAS biological scientists was 65.2% and 69.0%, respectively, and among NAS physical scientists it was 79.0% and 76.3%. Most of the rest were agnostics on both issues, with few believers. We found the highest percentage of belief among NAS mathematicians (14.3% in God, 15.0% in immortality). Biological scientists had the lowest rate of belief (5.5% in God, 7.1% in immortality), with physicists and astronomers slightly higher (7.5% in God, 7.5% in immortality).� The results were as follows (figures in %): BELIEF IN PERSONAL GOD 1914 1933 1998
Personal belief 27.7 15 7.0 Personal disbelief 52.7 68 72.2 Doubt or agnosticism 20.9 17 20.8
BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY 1914 1933 1998
Personal belief 35.2 18 7.9 Personal disbelief 25.4 53 76.7 Doubt or agnosticism 43.7 29 23.3 ____________________________________________________ Unlike the above survey where subjects have been selected randomly, at times there have been conducted pre-designed surveys, often sponsored by some form of religious foundations, whose only target is to feed the readers with what most of them wish to see and read: �Scientists believe in God!�
b) What was said above by Ernst Mayr*7 �considered to be one of the most influential biologists in history�of the Harvard University, most probably summarizes views held by most atheists. But a folk like Raihan seems to hold the opposite views about the atheists. He mistook many great nonbelievers for a �believer.� For example, Raihan failed to distinguish or even notice, what Einstein really meant when he invoked the name of �God� in his remarks (often quoted improperly), �Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind," �God doesn�t play dice.� Does Raihan know about Einstein�s following statement?*8 It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. Will I be wrong, if I say, Raihan, lied too? Equally Raihan quoted Carl Sagan in a way that, to many it may sound Carl Sagan was a religious man. Look what Carl Sagan said in Pale Blue Dot. How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, "This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant"? Instead they say, "No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way". A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Indeed, to most people both Einstein and Carl Sagan were known as �atheists.� Yet we know, they had their own views what is often called a �cosmic view� of the universe and nature. As an explanation to the question how/why people become atheists, Raihan says following: 'Almost in 100% cases, a person becomes atheist as a result of (weakness of) traditional beliefs, religion (even without understanding it properly?) and the evil acts of certain theists. This is an irrational and deadly wrong decision.'
My comments: Let�s consider four famous atheists from the modern history: Einstein, Darwin, Freud and Karl Marx. According to Newsweek special issue (Nov.28, 2005),�Darwin had a plan to enter the ministry prior to his fateful voyage on HMS Beagle in 1831. Among other things, he carried a copy of Bible with him in his voyage. He was 22 at that time.� Can we say �it was evil act of certain theists� or �lack of understanding of the traditional belief� (as Raihan wants us to believe) that made Darwin an atheist? Where do Darwin�s such characters as sharp & meticulous observation capacity, clear & logical thinking and brilliant analysis fit here? Same goes true for Einstein, Marx and Freud. We have every right to disagree with Marx�s, Einstein�s or Frued�s theory but saying that they became atheist �as a result of evil acts of certain theists� or due to �their poor understanding of traditional belief� is totally insane.
Any rational being cannot push him/her toward the uttermost uncertainty. As the saying goes, one person�s food may turn out to be another person�s poison. From a believer�s point of view, an atheist may seem to live with �the uttermost uncertainty,� but an atheist himself/herself feels otherwise. To the contrary of Raihan�s opinion, an atheist feels happy and dignified to think s/he is led by own conscience, and not by fear or the temptation of reward from any unseen and undefined deity. Isaac Asimov, an atheist & the brilliant science fiction writer, once commented, "I have never, in all my life, not for one moment, been tempted toward religion of any kind. The fact is that I feel no spiritual void. I have my philosophy of life, which does not include any aspect of the supernatural and which I find totally satisfying. I am, in short, a rationalist." That�s an atheist�s view. Enjoy, live and let others live. �Since this life here and now is all we can know, our most reasonable option is to live it fully,� comments Paul Kurtz, one of the most prominent living secular humanist philosophers in the world. Raihan defends monotheistic view by saying, There is NO alternative rational choice at all. A human have NO other rational option than (it shouldn�t be save. �Jahed) believing in the Creator. Because NONE can escape death � the Ultimate Channel. My answer: I shall let George Bernard Shaw take over since he already answered it in a beautiful manner: "The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one." To answer a similar question, Robert Sapolsky*9, an author & a neuroscientist at Stanford University, comments: �I'm taken with religious folks who argue that you not only can, but should believe without requiring proof. Mine is to not believe without requiring proof. Mind you, it would be perfectly fine with me if there were a proof that there is no god. Some might view this as a potential public health problem, given the number of people who would then run damagingly amok. But it's obvious that there's no shortage of folks running amok thanks to their belief. So that wouldn't be a problem and, all things considered, such a proof would be a relief - many physicists, especially astrophysicists, seem weirdly willing to go on about their communing with god about the Big Bang, but in my world of biologists, the god concept gets mighty infuriating when you spend your time thinking about, say, untreatably aggressive childhood leukemia.� Raihan says- 'It�s of course rational to assume existence of something unproved but it�s irrational to assume zero existence of something and then trying to prove it�s non-existent.' My response: Who said atheists �assume zero existence� (�there is absolutely nothing behind the grand mystery of our universe�)? All they rule out is the possibility of any particular deity or super being. Why should an atheist disprove a propaganda s/he never said himself/herself? Issue-2: Raihan repeatedly tries to establish the view that belief in one creator is a superior and better option. He (or his friend) asks, How many president does a country have? How many Secretary General does the UNO have?
When one creator is enough, why go for several? More than one creator will raise the issue of �weak God.� �Belief in multiple Gods will raise the possibility of conflicts and fights among them.
Belief in one creator is the The Ultimate Stage of Rationality and Free-thinking
My response: A country has a president, vice-president (incase, the Prez falls sick, or dies off),ministry, cabinet. UN too has deputy secretary general(s) alongside one secretary general. Does your �one creator� theory have room for vice-creator? What if, I say �the chief creator became extinct long ago and now it�s the vice-creator who�s running the universe?� How will you disprove me? Anything could be said of an undefined creator. Am I right? You tried to prove monotheism a better option over polytheism. But your logic such as the �possibility of conflict among Gods/Goddess� don�t just stand out. Say, I want to worship only one God, but of the millions (Hinduism alone is said have 330 millions Gods/Goddess�), how do I know, which one is true? Look at the example below*10: �There is a book by Michael Jordan (not the sports figure) called The Encyclopedia of Gods. This book lists over 2,500 deities. Challenge the Christian to say how he knows that at least 2,499 of these deities don't exist. Whatever argument he gives, tell him it doesn't work, because he is not God. Tell the theist that he must immediately become a Zeus-worshipper, or spend all eternity in Hades. No matter what argument he gives -- including invoking his own God -- it won't work because a person would have to be omniscient in order to say with certainty that there is no Zeus. Same with Allah, Odin, Jupiter, Ra, Mithra,Baal, Zoroster, etc.
The theist may nevertheless give you some good reasons for not believing in that particular deity which, if conversely applied to his own beliefs, will demolish them entirely." Let�s look at Raihan�s another comment below: Most people believe in God Because it is Logical, Rational and MOST Likely the TRUTH Let�s see what Mark Twain*11 said below about the �most people�s belief.� The issue, obviously, is not �most people� versus Mark Twain. It is rather, if the statement has any logics and rationale in it. "God is the immemorial refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, the miserable. They find not only sanctuary in His arms, but also a kind of superiority, soothing to their macerated egos; He will set them above their betters."
"Man is a marvelous curiosity . . . he thinks he is the Creator's pet . . . he even believes the Creator loves him; has a passion for him; sits up nights to admire him; yes and watch over him and keep him out of trouble. He prays to him and thinks He listens. Isn't it a quaint idea."
[Letters from the Earth]
Why do people need to follow religion? Raihan answers: The sole purpose of religion is to lead a person toward God. �. Realization of God�s existence makes a person honest, decent and humble. My comments: Since your �God� is an undefined entity (we don�t know if it�s a matter, organism, or just energy), you may need to restate your sentence: The sole purpose of religion is to lead a person toward confusion/doubt. A common misconception prevailing among uneducated and na�ve believers is people cannot lead an honest and decent life without sticking to a religion. As I see it, often atheists lead a more dignified, fulfilled and happy life than many theists. (Recall our own examples: Prof. Ahmed Shariff, Prof. Huymyun Azad or Aroj Ali Matubbor). If submission to God alone were to make people honest, humble; then I guess majority of the world�s crisis would have been solved by now. So, for Raihan, Dream leads to God! 'In dream, virtually a dead state, how can we travel so fast and far? Recall scenery, conversations of the past?' Admittedly, we have to yet to learn details about brain and its functions. Yet neurobiology is making tremendous progress these days. Seeing or traveling in sleep to distant places happens because there exist specialized neurons (nerve cells) called memory cells in the brain just like the way we have memory cells in our immune system that remembers body�s first encounter with a germ/antigen (reason why vaccination works). These cells record your everyday experience- places you visit, people you meet without your realizing them consciously. Any time our memory could be invoked by a stimulus. Yet we notice, if you saw a place ten years ago and that place now is non existent or looks different without your seeing it, you may still see the old place in your dream. There is nothing mysterious in it. That mind travel faster than light is an unscientific statement. Of course, creative imagination is different. Again, a mind totally devoid of any memory, I guess, is not able to imagine anything. [To be concluded in Part III. Apology to all readers for the unexpected length of the article.- J.A.] _____ New
York References:
1. https://gold.mukto-mona.com/Articles/raihan/Theism_and_Atheism.pdf 2. https://gold.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/rationalist_day/shariff_azad.pdf 3. http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2005/12/the_appeal_to_s.html 4. http://myweb.cableone.net/silentdave/proving_a_negative.htm 5. Dawkins, R. 2006. The God Delusion. Bantam Press. Ch. 1. 6. Edward J. Larson and Larry Witham. 1998. Leading Scientists Still Reject God. Nature 394, 313 7. http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/04-07-05.html 8. Same as 5. 9. The New York Times (Science Section), January 4, 2005 10.http://myweb.cableone.net/silentdave/proving_a_negative.htm 11.http://jmarkgilbert.com/atheists.html
About the author: Jahed Ahmed is the co-moderator of www.mukto-mona.com, an online network of humanists from South Asian and other countries. He holds a Master's degree in Biotechnology from the Mysore University, India.
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