At the age of may be 7, I have no personal recollection, I have only heard the stories from my parents, I dismantled the family vacuum cleaner in the middle of the night because I was curious about how it works. A week or so later I built a miniature vacuum cleaner using 2 ice-cream cups, a motor taken out from an old toy, drinking straws, a toy windmill, and toilet paper for filtering; all somehow held together with large quantities of superglue.
Soon after, I was exposed to my first concept of intelligent life other than human beings through a cartoon series called Transformers (currently there are three very well CGI animated movies derived from the original series, quite entertaining, I recommend everyone to watch them). According to my parents, my first question was to ask how do they work (of course that was the case with almost everything I saw around me), to which my parents replied that they didn’t really know and I instantly decided that when I grow up, I will make walking, talking and thinking robots like the Transformers.
Till this date, my entire life has been directed towards that goal, to learn, understand and research on how intelligence works (currently I’m obsessed with simulations of swarms and how intelligent behavior patterns emerge). In pursuit of that passion I have focused on the sciences throughout my school years, studied Computer Science (for my Bachelor’s degree) and have got back to completing my Master’s degree (again in Computer Science) after 8 years of working in the industry. The purpose of these 8 years was to save enough resources to fund my stay in Europe while I concentrate completely on my Master’s studies.
As I grew up, I’ve been intrigued by science, its methods and the answers it provides. I have been inspired by the scientists and engineers who have dedicated their lives to pave the way forward. I look at the mountain of knowledge piled before me by hard working men and women, some scientists, some engineers, some not, from the entirety of human existence; and think to myself, “I want to climb that mountain!”, understand every nook and carny my little 1.5 kilograms of grey matter can allow… Or at the very least climb to the top of the tiny part of that mountain that is my specialized field of expertise and lay down one small brick… Stand on it, piss around it, mark my territory, and claim that “THAT” is my brick!
Human civilization cannot function without proper governance, because of its extreme dependence on infrastructures such as transportation, roads, highways, railways, airways, airports, waterways and docks; clean water supply, electricity, sanitation and sewage just to name a few; and not to mention the intricacies of international relations.
Besides utilities and many other functions, the government also needs to have the ability to uphold law and order, and with the help of intellectuals formulate the laws themselves.
Under these circumstances a governing body is of utmost importance that can coordinate and facilitate in a centralized fashion the maintenance and development of these infrastructures for continued smooth functioning of civilization as we know it.
The main difference between theocracy and secular governance is that in a theocracy the government simply passes out rules from an old book, whether it applies to people or not, whether people like it or not. There is no concept of people’s choice. This automatically gives rise to extreme prejudices, issues in human rights and many more.
In a secular governance, ideally the government actually surveys what people need and want to see what laws are applicable. The government eventually must take steps to uphold all basic human rights and the concept of equality.
The government is not there to control the population, it is there to assist the development of the people by providing an environment where they are more concerned about how to improve or enjoy their own lives. That’s why people in the secular nations are more educated; they live longer and healthier lives, and usually have a lot more fun
Theocracies by default are for controlling the masses, their laws and rules are designed to control every aspect of human life including extremely personal matters such as your sex life, your relationship with other human beings and how you should conduct them, your way of dressing and living in general, to give a few examples. Deviating from those norms and rules are punishable by law and sometimes have dire consequences.
Secular governance does not try to control any one. The concept of secular governance is to assist in the development and integration of people of very different backgrounds. That is why, for example, in most secular countries you find people of all religions, creed and color, and they live there without fear from each other for the most part. Whereas in theocracies the minority is either non-existent or live in fear and seclusion.
Secular societies do not impose any control over anything personal to you. You may dress in the hijaab, nikaab, a t-shirt and a jeans or a bikini. Your sex life is your own to deal with, whether you like to masturbate often or go around having sex with people of the same gender or the opposite, have a one on one, threesome or 4-some, its the business of no one else other than the people involved including you.
You can speak your mind, freedom of speech, whether it be because you don’t like a certain government leader or a certain law or if you just feel like venting some frustration and just ramble on some nonsense or draw silly cartoons about Jesus.
You can have any religion you want, freedom of religion and freedom from religion, and be guaranteed to freely practice your religion within certain limits, which is without harming or bothering other people with your religious practices and without breaking any secular laws.
There is no discrimination by law. And so on… Simply put, secular governance is about the people, their rights and their freedom. Whereas a theocracy is not about the people, its usually about what a non-existent god wants, reviled through ancient, ambiguous, and obsolete books.
In a secular society, education is important, few people “BELIEVE” that they are better than others. That is only the case with religious moderate to pure bred extremists, who believe that they are better human beings because god tells them they are, because they have faith.
Today, we have the education system to tell us who is better at what compared to the next person. There is no such thing as “BELIEVING” to be better. For example, I “KNOW” for a fact that I am far better than you are when it comes to understanding computers (I being a qualified computer scientist) and I “KNOW” for a fact that you are far better than I am in understanding the human body (assuming you are a qualified doctor).
In the same way, we “KNOW” the different expertise of intellectuals and who is better than who for a given job, including handling aspects of governance.
Lastly, lets take an example of any theocracy in existence today and make a comparison with any established secular country – Saudi Arabia VS Norway – where would you prefer to live
I have always been interested in controversial topics; having said that, in this presentation, I would like to discuss morality and explore the different perspectives we have in this room.
As scientists, we ask difficult questions and try to find acceptable answers, such as:
1) Where do moral values come from?
2) What is right and wrong?
3) Are there absolute criteria for such values?
4) What roll does religion play?
5) What roll does society, as a whole, play?
6) What roll can science play in these judgments of values?
7) Is it all just relative, depending on the time and place we live in?
Today I would like to show that there may be objective ways to scrutinize the questions of morality and find potential answers, and at the end of the presentation, I will summarize my standing on the matter of science versus society versus religion, in terms of moral values, to facilitate a forum of debate and discussion on the subject matter.
When we observe nature, we see that all social animals have some form of moral codes ingrained into them. The more sophisticated the societal structure of these animals, the more complex the moral code of ethics observed in them and vice versa.
To give a few examples:
1) Ichneumonidae: is a diverse family of wasps, commonly known as digger wasps
The adult wasps are vegetarian, mostly living on nectar, but the larvae are carnivores. An adult female wasp will first hunt down a caterpillar or similar insect larva, then methodically sting and inject paralytic venom into every ganglion responsible for the motor functions of every segment of the victim’s body, rendering it motionless, but fully conscious and alive. Then it will lay an egg inside the body, so that when the baby wasp larva hatches, it has fresh meat to feed on. The larva is also quite clever, it eats through everything as it grows, except of the vital organs that keep the meat alive and fresh, until it’s time for it to pupate and eat its way out. I leave the moral implications of this creature’s life cycle to the audience!
2) Social insects: termites, bees, and ants
They will lay down their own lives to save their queen and nest, quite similar to how some of us humans would and have done the same for king and country. They also work in complex societies, and achieve great feats of coordination, such as nursing the young, foraging and farming for food, communicating locations and so on; all of which require some degree of moral or ethical code of conducts.
3) Primates: apes and monkeys
Chimpanzees, that cannot swim, have drowned in zoos trying to save others. Given the chance to get food by pulling a chain that would also deliver an electric shock to a companion, monkeys will starve themselves.
With these examples, I am simply trying to show the gradual trend towards human moral behavior from simple beginnings. Having given these well studied examples, I stand by the idea that morality, like everything else about life on earth, has evolved, and changed with time. The traits that we usually universally see as moral (honesty, fidelity, trustworthiness, compassion etc.) are literally embedded into our hardware through evolution; because it has utilitarian value, namely it helps to survive better in the long run.
Now, moving on to more human matters…
I’d like to start the next section by playing this video:
I think religion is not the source of our morals. In fact if religion were the basis of the moral structure of society, that society would be quite immoral indeed by today’s standards, like in the dark ages, or in some parts of the world that are still ruled by religious dogmas.
Exhaustive lists of the breaches in human rights (in terms of secular humanist thinking) that can be derived from just the Koran, Bible or Torah are too large for one small presentation; volumes of books can be written on the topic. I bring this up in the hope that it will provoke some critical thinking by the audience and provide another angle in the discussion to follow.
In my perspective, morality in general is twisted by religious faiths and inheriting moral values from religion will, without a doubt, give rise to truly immoral and appalling acts of cruelty and breach in human rights, as history and sadly even the present day situation with religious groups have shown us.
With time our societies have matured, and are gradually understanding the gravity of universal moral values and trying to formulate answers to questions that have impact on our day to day lives, for example:
1) Is killing animals for food and other necessities right or wrong and if it must be done, how can it be done in the most humane possible way?
2) Is abortion immoral, why or why not? If it is to be done, exactly when and how?
3) Is prostitution immoral, why or why not? What is prostitution?
4) Is cannibalism immoral, why or why not? What is cannibalism?
5) Is euthanasia immoral, why or why not?
There are N numbers of such questions we can ask within the domain of how we live today, which makes the study of morality ever so more important.
I think science has the means to answer at least some of these questions in an objective and reasonable fashion.
Let’s look at those examples from the light of science and see if we can formulate an acceptable answer.
1) We are omnivores; we are supposed to eat some meat from time to time, even though it is possible to live healthily without it, given our advances in medicine, using supplements. Granted that a lot of us eat meat, and a lot of us are concerned about animal rights, science can answer the question of what is the most humane and painless possible way to kill an animal.
2) Is abortion the deliberate killing of a human being? Science can answer the question of when a fetus can be considered as a human being. Science can also answer the question of when a fetus starts to feel pain and distress, before which time it feels nothing and can be aborted without causing any suffering.
Let’s now look at the other examples from a secular humanistic point of view.
3) What is prostitution? When we think about it, it’s much harder to define than not. If prostitution is simply accepting material or monetary rewards or assistance in exchange for sex, then old man John’s house wife is a prostitute.
4) What is cannibalism? Is it the ingestion of human tissue, or cells? Then fellatio, with a happy ending, is cannibalism.
I give these examples to illustrate that some aspects of human society are very difficult to define, let alone come up with concrete ethical answers.
5) Euthanasia is the deliberate ending of a human life! Who is entitled to make that judgment, especially when it comes to an innocent life? Mind you, courts make life and death judgments all the time in some countries. If such a judgment must be made, then science can answer when and how to conduct the procedure to make it as painless and comfortable as possible.
By no means is this presentation complete or exhaustive in its effort to illustrate the problem of dealing with the topic of morality. It deliberately leaves holes and open ended questions to assist discussion and heated debates, which I love so much, in the following hours.
First of all, the concept of homeopathy is counter rational to all scientific evidence. The idea is that the more you dilute a particular substance, the more potent it becomes as a remedy!
The standard dilution used in the trade is 30C, as the practitioners call it. To get that level of dilution, we would have to dissolve 1 (yes, I mean ONE) molecule of the active ingredient in 10 to the power 35 (1 followed by 35 zeros) liters of water, (that’s approximately 10 billion times the volume of the entire Earth). At this dilution, water for all practical purposes is considered pure! In fact the purest of waters we can make on earth will have a lot more impurities than that!
So when you are taking a homeopathic remedy, all you’re doing is drinking water with probably some sugar globules.
All scientific evidence shows that homeopathy’s effectiveness does not and cannot be anything beyond the placebo effect. It does not cure anything, it does not kill bacteria, or viruses, or any other disease causing pathogen at all; in fact it is incapable of curing anything that the body wouldn’t be able to cure by itself. Homeopathy simply makes you feel good because you made an effort in a positive direction to heal yourself and there is an authoritative figure (the so called doctor) who is talking to you and reassuring you.
Simply put, homeopathy is NOT medicine! If you or your child is seriously ill, go to a real doctor! Please!
This is an extract from a debate I was having with a very close friend of mine (referred to as X in the rest of the article), who I think is probably one of the most intellectually sound Muslims I know. I am posting it as an example of a good discussion between an intelligent Muslim and an intelligent non-Muslim. Discussions with idiots are not worth posting, though discussions between idiots are quite amusing
The discussion started after watching this video: Love of Death
X
You know Shup… These people do not represent any religious point of view at all, let alone Islam. Most of the major religions always talk about peace, including Islam. There are some foolish men who are using religion to take control of people for their own personal gain without any proper knowledge.
Shup
Well, these are the people who are influencing most of the Muslim world and how the rest of the world sees the Muslim world, if the moderate or more intellectually sound Muslims don’t take a stand to voice their opinions against them, then all they are doing is silently letting them have it their way.
X
And I agree with you that people need to step forward and stand against them. However when someone like you steps forward and attacks the main foundation of our beliefs then that is not helping either. You attack the religion directly, when you should be attacking the people who misuse the religion.
Shup
The root is where the problem is, these people are using the same source as you are. I have studied the root and the root justifies both views to some extent or the other. I “attack” these people directly, and also “attack” the very foundation from which they derive their rational to do what they do, because the root itself gives justification for their views, even if not in the exact detail they say so.
And again, the most effective way is for intellectually sound Muslims to step forward and say, “This is wrong!” and this is why this and this is wrong. If they don’t voice a strong and rational opinion about this who else can! And not doing so only encourages the fanatics and the fundamentalists to do what they do best, and it leaves people like me to do the only thing that is possible to do, which is to uproot, and rationally dissect where and how they are getting their ideas from and nullify it.
X
From my point of view, none of these are suitable options. When I hear them speak of all this rubbish, I close my ears, and when I hear you attacking my faith directly… Well, again, I close my ears…
Shup
Your entire strategy of closing your ears to outside influence is a form of censorship that has no value at all. At best you are doing nothing. If you want these people to not falsely represent your religion to the world, or give it a bad name, you need to voice your views and opinions and the reasons for them. You need to defend what your religion really is and why you think it is that. Yes, most people close their ears to things they don’t like to hear, that is what gives people like them the upper hand. I only use reason, logic and facts as my weapon, but they use far more dangerous things than that. I don’t attack, I give reason
X
I am aware that there are many points in the religion that are ambiguous, and I don’t talk about it much because like most people, I have not tried to find out what is actually written in the Koran myself. But when this kind of people talk about something totally self made, which does not even exist in the Koran, then its not fair to attack the religion based on what they have said.
Shup
Actually, that’s not exactly the case. They read the same verse you read and derive their justification from it, where as you derive other meanings from it.
Simple example: Surat al Nisa, verse 4: The end of that verse says that a man can beat his wife if all other efforts fail…
Moderate Muslims think of this in the following ways:
You can beat your wife lightly (without causing any bruises, cuts or other marks), but only after you have exhausted all other efforts.
You can beat your wife, but you can not kick, or hit her with a cane or any thing else per say, only the palm of your hands.
You can beat your wife only if you use a feather or tooth stick (meswak) to do the beating.
And fundamentalist Muslims think in the following ways:
It is their god given right to beat their wives if they are dissatisfied with them in any way.
It is their god given right to beat their wives if she does not do as she is told.
It is their god given right to beat them whenever he feels it is necessary.
Both the moderate and the fanatic parties have added their own meanings, attachments, and rationalizations into that verse, to justify it to their own liking. So who’s views am I to give greater truth to, and why? From my perspective the root itself has a problem and it needs to be looked at, scrutinized for its truth and validity and finally shown to the world for what it really says and is.
If you still haven’t studied at least a bit of the Koran and given it some deep thought, it is probably high time you should, before defending what’s inside it and blindly saying you believe in whatever it says and think that its good for everyone or humanity as a whole.
“Allah (God) knows best!” – so they say after every statement without thinking of the implications at all. Lets dissect this seemingly harmless statement and look at the implications for a moment:
As soon as you say that you personally believe something to justify your actions, the next person, the mullah, the fundamentalist and the fanatic are equally entitled to say the same, that they personally believe such and such to justify their actions (how ever barbaric that may be), and “Allah (God) knows best!”
This completely evades personal accountability and responsibility to the society, the next person and oneself. It also negates the necessity to provide reason in the real world for any particular action, be it good or bad.
I know, I can be a pain in the ass with my rationalism and logic, but I am compelled to point out the fallacy of the logic behind this seemingly harmless notion, precisely because it is not harmless. So next time you use the statement “Allah (God) knows best!” to justify your actions, take a moment to think about the implications.
Some time ago an old colleague of mine sent me a picture he had taken of a diagram I drew on our whiteboard back in my old office.
Basically, the meeting was about discussing a project to build software for Nokia cell phones, so I started by describing what the situation is for us developers to my team by summarizing the whole issue in one small diagram illustrated below.
Everyone unanimously agreed with my perspective and then we moved on to the details of the project!
So, obviously, most scientists and men of reason (if you’d excuse the sexist expression), such as Richard Dawkins, Albert Einstein, and myself will go to hell and most of the priests, mullahs and other literally illiterate and irrational people will go to heaven.
The inhabitants of heaven will enjoy their X number of virgins and the lack of contraception.
They will enjoy the god given infrastructure and the lack of knowledge to maintain it.
With eternity to consider, relatively soon, heaven will be over populated and plagued with the HIV pandemic. The infrastructure, not being able to keep up with growth, becomes inadequate; and soon pee, poo and what-not, all seamlessly flow with the flow of people in the most unhygienic and repulsive of conditions.
In the mean while, in hell, the scientists figure out how to harness this endless, free and absolutely renewable, source of energy!
Using it they synthesize every possible atom and chemical they need, build air-conditioning, infrastructure, and everything possible with science and technology!
People literally start having a HELL of a time with all the comfort and luxury technology, with an inexhaustible supply of energy, can provide, and leaves god wondering, “Where in hell did I go wrong!”
Some people say that I am just as fundamentalist as the religious fundamentalists. I refuse to acknowledge that for several reasons.
Religious fundamentalists KNOW with absolute certainty that there is a god (which ever one that is) and have their respective faiths tell them to fly planes into buildings, genitally mutilate young girls, murder abortion doctors, stone people to death, condemn and outlaw consensual sex, and build schools for suicide bombers.
Whereas people of the “fundamentalist atheist faith” think that there is probably no god due to the lack of evidence, and therefore no reason to believe in the logical existence of god. At best they are compelled to argue with reason, get into heated debates, educate more children without the influence of religious dogmas, and vouch for secular societies.
There has never been an atheist school for suicide bombers and their most devastating weapon of mass destruction is a pen (in the metaphorical sense, in reality its a computer hooked up to the internet, logged into a WordPress account)!
Of course, at this point, you will give me the example of Stalin and Hitler, let me briefly explain what ideology motivated their actions.
1) Stalin: fanatical communist
2) Hitler: fanatical racist
In those cases or any other case, atheism was not the driving force.
I have already explained the difference between a faith based belief system (required by religion) and an evidence based belief system (required by science) that atheists have in my article “Reasons“, so I will not get into that here.
Following from the explanation in that article, a fundamentalist mindset can be defined as one that cannot be changed by providing evidence and reason. No atheist who is an atheist by choice can have this mindset.
In fact, one can argue that there is no such thing as a fundamentalist atheist!
If atheism could even remotely lead to fanaticism, Denmark would have been the most unpleasant place on the planet. Whereas in reality it is one of the safest, richest and happiest places to be!
If being a “fundamentalist atheist” (if there were such a thing) does give rise to societies like secular Denmark, nurture reason, progress science, and harbor tolerance, I’d choose to be a fundamentalist atheist “any god given day”.
It was our first “Bengali” wedding anniversary today. Katy suggested we have some biriyani, in the only Indian restaurant around here, to celebrate our long, tedious and extremely eventful “Bengali” wedding!
So, off we were to meet Mamush (my mother-in-law, shashuri) and Krishek (my brother-in-law, shala) there.
As usual the chattering started and I was intently listening to the Polish gibberish thrown around me, catching a few phrases here and there; and of course the occasional translations were most welcome.
At one point, Krishek, asked me if I had watched the new TorchWood episode. I couldn’t exactly remember which one that was, as highly predictable of me, so he started telling me bits of the story, and that he was disappointed that his favorite character had died in that episode. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember who in the world died!
Then it occurred to me that the side-kick did die of an alien virus infection and I blurted out, “Oh yeah, the gay guy died, oh that’s OK, he’s gay!” And of course, I made nothing of it, and forgot about it.
Dinner was great; the ride back home was a very nice debate that continued into my room with a few undesirable consequences, but that’s besides the point.
In the middle of our 3 way debate between Katy, Krishek and myself, Krishek mentioned that he was offended by what I had said earlier at dinner, “Oh yeah, the gay guy died, oh that’s OK, he’s gay!”. It took me a while to realize what the issue was, but slow as I am, I did.
This is when I thought of the feminist movement and what they had done for society. They have helped us raise our consciousness to the level that when ever, even for the romantic sake of using classic English, we address the human race as “mankind”, “man” or any other masculine form, we unconsciously apologize for it. That goes for man-woman and blond-brunette-redhead jokes as well.
I personally would never judge anyone for their sexual orientation or preference; be it hetero, homo or bi; monogamous or polygamous; playful or serious; with the exception of a few cases such as pedophilia, bestiality, rape and any degree of snuff.
Having said that, my lame gay joke was out of old adolescent ill gotten habits, and I apologize for it. Today my consciousness has been raised just like that of how society’s consciousness as a whole had been raised by the feminists.
Hopefully this article will help raise the consciousness of others, like me who are feminists, and are against any form of discrimination, to realize that at times even the best of us can unconsciously make blatant blunders and should be more careful the next time.
Sometimes all it takes is a nudge from someone who has had their consciousness raised already, like Krishek.
