The Agnostic Argument - 10 (Is Faith "Religion" Or Just Superstition?)

I saw this witty riposte to an anti-atheist question, and posted it on Facebook:

In response, one of my friends wrote:

Disagree with the false equivalence.

Those who do believe in God do not deny science. In fact many scientists themselves were deeply religious. So there is no case for someone believing in God to deny themselves the benefit.

Quite different from the point being made that atheists should not avail religious holidays because it certainly is the case they do not believe in God.

Of course the reason I feel it is perfectly acceptable to enjoy the religious holidays is because they are an entitlement earned by working for x number of days for a company and not a reward for one's religiosity.

I shot off an immediate rejoinder quibbling that those who believed in a concept like "god" without proof could not really be said to be practising science, but my friend's comment did make me think a bit more about the relationship between scientists (i.e., those who could be thought of as practising science) and their faith, if such faith exists.

Specifically, the claim that "many scientists themselves were (are) deeply religious", made me think about ISRO's (the Indian Space Research Organisation's) former chairman K Radhakrishnan, and how he took a replica of the GSLV (Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle) rocket and Mangalyaan (the Mars probe) to the Tirumala temple to be "blessed". As one who believes it was the meticulous research and calculations of the ISRO team that were responsible for the success of these projects, I was offended by the eminent scientist's genuflection towards religion.

ISRO Chairman Dr K Radhakrishnan praying at Tirumala with a replica of the GSLV rocket and the Mangalyaan Mars probe

I could not visualise the head of NASA or the European Space Agency (ESA) taking a replica of one of their spacecraft to a church to be blessed, and I could not help wondering why an Indian (Hindu) scientist would think nothing of doing this sort of thing.

My conclusion is that people (even the educated ones) from less advanced countries have more recently been at the mercy of forces of nature than people from advanced countries. Death, disease, destitution and other major misfortune are part of virtually every family's not-too distant history. (My own extended family, over just the last three generations, has had many examples of needless tragedy caused by forces of nature.) This leads to higher levels of fatalism and superstitious belief. These attitudes of fatalism and superstition are wrongly and charitably labelled "religion".

To be sure, sudden catastrophes, both lethal and economically crippling, overtake people in advanced countries as well, but these can generally be traced quite readily to human agency. Traffic accidents, homicide and drug overdoses are the major causes of untimely death in advanced countries. Retrenchments/layoffs and marriage breakups are the major non-lethal yet potentially catastrophic events in the lives of people. Yet if we think about it, all of these events can be readily traced back to human agency.

In advanced countries, natural disasters do not claim as many lives. Deaths due to disease or animal attacks are similarly rare. Droughts or floods do not cause the same scale of economic havoc. In other words, people in advanced countries are less likely to be affected by "acts of God". The factors that impact on their lives tend to be obviously traceable to human activity and human will. No supernatural force need be invoked to explain any of them.

So I'm forced to the conclusion that the wider prevalence of what we think of as "religion" in less advanced countries is probably the result of a sense of helplessness in the face of an amorphous, abstract and malevolent Nature, which has to be propitiated and appeased if people have to be spared its wrath.

It's not surprising to me that 93% of the scientists who belong to the US National Academy of Sciences self-identify as atheists or agnostics. They are the elite even among scientists, and their families have probably been insulated for generations from forces of nature. It's small wonder that they are not tormented by the same background fear that haunts those much less fortunate.

In conclusion, I don't believe it's fair to defend religious faith by pointing to scientists who are believers. There is a larger sociological influence on such believers than their scientific training, and this is what accounts for their belief in spite of their training. In any case, such belief is not a positive, "spiritual" quality but a manifestation of collective subconscious fear. As the world develops and begins to insulate more of its people from the vagaries of nature ("acts of God"), I have no doubt that superstitious beliefs (wrongly called religion) will recede. Those trained in science will always remain in the vanguard of scientific thinking, and those from societies that are less threatened by the forces of nature will remain freer from superstitious fears. As both scientific thinking and social progress spread throughout the world, atheism will gradually replace religion.

A Clear-Eyed Approach To Tackling Blind Faith

The recent murder of the well-known anti-superstition activist Dr Narendra Dabholkar, was, to my cynical mind, only to be expected. One makes too many enemies when one goes up against superstition, and the mindset of the other side is something I myself carry painful memories of.

The good doctor certainly had a who's-who of enemies.

Over the years, Dr Narendra Dabholkar had campaigned not only for a law against superstition and black magic but also against the practices he wanted it to eradicate, besides challenging astrologers to a rationality test and taking on the BJP and the Shiv Sena over women's right to enter temples.

As Socrates said,

I certainly have many enemies, and this is what will be my destruction if I am destroyed; of that I am certain; - not Meletus, nor yet Anytus [Socrates's accusers in court], but the envy and detraction of the world, which has been the death of many good men, and will probably be the death of many more; there is no danger of my being the last of them.

But Socrates also said,

If you kill such a one as I am, you will injure yourselves more than you will injure me.

How true! Society has lost immeasurably by silencing yet another voice of reason.

One of the aspects of Dr Dabholkar's work that gained publicity with his killing was the "anti-superstition bill" that was his brainchild (officially, "The Maharashtra Eradication of Blind Faith Bill"). The bill was introduced into the Maharashtra state assembly in 1995, but lapsed in 2009. It was debated many times and ran into hair-splitting arguments that stymied it. Some of those arguments are quite amusing, such as concern over the "thin line between faith and blind faith". [Hint to the purely rational: one is good; the other is bad.]

Legislators have debated if this would mean stopping Muharram rituals involving self-inflicted injuries, or a special ritual in Nashik temples where childless couples pray for children.

Although my initial reaction on hearing about the failure of Dr Dabholkar's anti-superstition bill was dismay, I realise with a clearer head that this was probably not a well thought out piece of legislation anyway.

With all due respect to Dr Dabholkar, I think the law is the wrong instrument with which to attack superstition and blind faith. The education system is the right one for that (although, as I wrote earlier, teachers with backward views can subvert the most progressive textbooks). The law is to be reserved to prevent harm and ensure fairness, and that should be that.

Let me explain my thinking with a somewhat lengthy aside on morality.

My favourite guide to morality is not some religious or "spiritual" book but the work of psychologist Steven Pinker, who captures the core of the idea in this unputdownable article.

According to Dr Pinker's analysis, there is no such thing as a universal morality, as might be expected, but the reasons for this are more subtle than most people would think. It's because "morality" consists of 5 different strands, and different cultures place varying degrees of emphasis on some of these strands versus others. The five strands are harm, fairness, community, authority and purity. At the risk of reducing your incentive to read the article itself (which is excellent), here are examples that illustrate what each means in practical terms.

[H]ow much money [would] someone [...] have to pay us to do hypothetical acts like the following:

- Stick a pin into your palm.
- Stick a pin into the palm of a child you don’t know. (Harm.)
(I think sticking a pin into the palm of a child is bad enough, and the question of whether the child is known to you or not is entirely irrelevant!)

- Accept a wide-screen TV from a friend who received it at no charge because of a computer error.
- Accept a wide-screen TV from a friend who received it from a thief who had stolen it from a wealthy family. (Fairness.)

- Say something bad about your nation (which you don’t believe) on a talk-radio show in your nation.
- Say something bad about your nation (which you don’t believe) on a talk-radio show in a foreign nation. (Community.)

- Slap a friend in the face, with his permission, as part of a comedy skit.
- Slap your minister in the face, with his permission, as part of a comedy skit. (Authority.)

- Attend a performance-art piece in which the actors act like idiots for 30 minutes, including flubbing simple problems and falling down on stage.
- Attend a performance-art piece in which the actors act like animals for 30 minutes, including crawling around naked and urinating on stage. (Purity.)

We see these concerns in all cultures, manifested in different forms.

Think of the Japanese fear of nonconformity (community), the holy ablutions and dietary restrictions of Hindus and Orthodox Jews (purity), the outrage at insulting the Prophet among Muslims (authority). In the West, we believe that in business and government, fairness should trump community and try to root out nepotism and cronyism. In other parts of the world this is incomprehensible — what heartless creep would favor a perfect stranger over his own brother?

A lot of the polarising debate in the political sphere could be avoided if we only knew where the other person was coming from. To take a US example,

In a large Web survey, [...] liberals put a lopsided moral weight on harm and fairness while playing down group loyalty, authority and purity. Conservatives instead place a moderately high weight on all five. It’s not surprising that each side thinks it is driven by lofty ethical values and that the other side is base and unprincipled.

I think I'm somewhere between the liberals and the conservatives (perhaps more liberal than conservative) because I would emphasise harm and fairness above the other three (joint number 1), would not consider authority a strand of morality at all (number 5, if at all), and place community and purity at a low-to-medium number 3 and number 4 (provided the term "community" itself is not defined too parochially - parochial definitions deserve the same lack of respect as authority).

Apologies for that lengthy diversion from the main topic.

To my mind, the points debated by the legislators when considering Dr Dabholkar's anti-superstition bill could be readily resolved if the focus was turned onto harm and fairness.

Should the bill stop Muharram rituals involving self-inflicted injuries? No, an adult human being is free to engage in such activity, so long as it does not harm or disadvantage others. (I'm libertarian.) Of course, this would also mean that Indian law has to be dragged into the 21st century by having attempted suicide declassified as a crime.

Should the bill stop a special ritual in Nashik temples where childless couples pray for children? No, it's entirely their business. It may be irrational, but no other party is being harmed or disadvantaged by this.

What about frauds perpetrated by godmen? What about human sacrifice? These are already covered under Indian law, under sections pertaining to fraud and murder. There is no need to specifically target such acts that are born out of superstitious beliefs.

To sum up, I don't believe legislation is the right tool to use to tackle superstition and blind faith. The law already recognises harm and unfairness, and has tools for their redressal. The only thing that could perhaps be done in the legislative sphere is de-recognise faith-based authority, so that concepts such as blasphemy or the "hurting of religious sentiments" become legally meaningless and cannot form the basis for litigation.

[Update 21/08/2013: In a knee-jerk reaction to his murder, the Maharashtra state government has bypassed the legislative process and promulgated Dr Dabholkar's anti-superstition bill as an ordinance. It is said that hard cases make bad law. We will now see bad law making hard cases. I will not be surprised if the Supreme Court overturns some of the cases brought under this ordinance, and the state government's hasty reaction will do more harm than good to the cause of rationalism.]

Ultimately, the only real weapon to tackle superstition and blind faith is education, education, education.

The Agnostic Argument - 6 (Society Defers Too Much To Religion)

The protests by Muslims across the world about a movie that they believed insulted their religion reached Sydney yesterday. The protests turned violent and the violence was promptly condemned by public figures, both politicians and journalists.

The standard argument from "reasonable society" goes, "You have a right to protest, but you may not resort to violence."

I have a rather more hard-line argument: "You have the right to believe in any religion, but not the right to be respected for it." If someone laughs at you or insults you for your faith, well, just develop a thick skin because you're going to need it.

Yes, I am what in the US would be called a First Amendment Absolutist, i.e., I don't believe in curbs of any kind on the freedom of speech. Hate speech should be countered not by censorship but by a barrage of criticism and show of opposition numbers, cyber-bullying of adults* must be countered by exposing the identity of the bullies (another form of free speech), misinformation should be countered by information, false accusations (slander and libel) should be countered by civil lawsuits, and a false cry of "fire" in a crowded theatre should be countered by prompt public announcements dousing it. But speech itself should be untrammelled.
[*Cyber-bullying of children by their peers requires a more interventionist approach.]

That's a lesson the religious need to be taught. You may absolutely hate what someone is saying, but you will just have to learn to accept it. And public officials in democracies whose salaries are paid for with taxpayers' money and who have pledged to uphold their respective constitutions will have to stand up for this principle much more strongly. It's not just violence that's reprehensible. It's the attempt to shut down free speech.

Be that as it may, free speech is for adults because adults are expected to be able to handle it. Children need extra protections, and not just in cases of bullying. This is something I find absolutely unacceptable:

While the sign itself is disturbing, adults can and must learn to handle it. But children must absolutely not be exposed to such nonsense. It is tantamount to child abuse.

It is pointless having movie classifications to protect children from images of violence if they are going to be exposed to it by their own parents.

This isn't just about Islam, although Muslims seem to be among the world's touchiest people. If you want me to prove my even-handedness, I have contempt for those whose sentiments were offended by swimwear bearing pictures of Hindu deities on them.

President of the Universal Society of Hinduism, Mr. Rajan Zed (who has earned a mention on this blog before) said

Lakshmi was meant to be worshipped in temples or home shrines and not for pushing swimwear in fashion shows for mercantile greed of an apparel company

Let me get this straight. Lakshmi is the goddess of wealth, and it's perfectly acceptable for businessmen to pray to her for profits, but one shouldn't use her images to further "mercantile greed"? Did Rajan Zed say that with a straight face?

(At any rate, the swimwear company quickly capitulated and apologised, much to my disappointment and disgust.)

Thankfully, Christianity does not seem to wield the same kind of power in its homelands. The work titled "Piss Christ" (a work of "art" in such awful taste that I have to hold my nose as I defend its creator's freedom of expression) was destroyed in an act of vandalism in Australia, but did gather more than a modest number of defenders.

Offended sentiments are the luxury of the superstitious, because in a rational world, the truth or otherwise of an assertion can either be proven or deferred till future research settles the issue. What rankles deeply is that society (through its official figures) feels obliged to apologise for the offence taken by superstitious people when a contemptuous laugh would be more appropriate.

I belong to a burgeoning tribe of agnostics, atheists, rationalists and allied people who have contempt for organised religion and resent the way society bends over backwards to accommodate the sentiments of the superstitious.

Ours is a cold rage, but it cannot be ignored for long.

The Agnostic Argument - 3 (What Would Spock Do?)

The title of this post is a takeoff on the question devout Christians ask themselves when faced with a moral dilemma - What would Jesus do?

A friend recently sent me a link to an article in Psychology Today by Nigel Barber that provocatively avers that Atheism will replace Religion. I however found the analysis a little superficial.

I found Andrew Park's thoughtful rejoinder much more convincing and meaningful. He takes the more realistic view that the continued existence of religious belief, for whatever reason, is something that atheists need to acknowledge - and acknowledge without disparaging the intelligence or relevance of believers. We (and our children) have to share this world with believers for a long time, and a harmonious relationship is perhaps more important than winning the argument. I may be putting words in his mouth here, but that's what I took away from his piece.

Todd Kashdan's critique was also quite good. He reframes the debate in psychological terms, and ends by focusing on superstition rather than religion as a whole. I agree that attacking superstitious beliefs is more likely to succeed than attacking people's faith in general.

Reading some of the comments on these articles, I develop the distinct impression that people expect atheism to provide a fully-fledged philosophy of how to live life, so as to make it easy for a theist to simply discard one set of values and adopt another without breaking stride. But that expectation does atheism an injustice.

The term 'atheism' is emotionally loaded, and so instead of framing the debate as 'atheism versus belief in God', I would prefer to think of it as 'rationalism versus superstition'. By training people to question specific instances of blind belief, and by demonstrating scientific explanations for each of them, we can lead from the specific to the general and inculcate scientific thinking as a basis for making decisions about our lives.

After all, atheism is nothing but a lack of belief in God because of lack of evidence for the existence of God. It does not claim to be a school of philosophy.

What does all this have to do with Mr Spock of Star Trek? I'm reminded of what Spock said to Lt Valeris (perhaps the only Vulcan whose name doesn't begin with an 'S' or end with a 'k') in The Undiscovered Country: "Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end."

How true. Atheism is the beginning of a rationalist philosophy, not the end.

Reflections on Culture and Tradition

I had a powerful experience yesterday when shopping at the Arpico supermarket in Colombo. The counter clerk was a friendly and smart-looking youth. When I handed him my credit card, he took it with his right hand, and with his left hand holding his right elbow. The gesture brought back memories and feelings in a rush.

In 2000, when I applied for Australian citizenship, I was surprised when the Australian immigration officer (a Caucasian) took my passport with both hands. This is, of course, the (East) Asian way of showing respect. I guess he had been trained to be culturally sensitive because of the large number of East Asians applying for Australian citizenship. Although I immediately recognised the gesture as one of respect, I was not emotionally touched by it. However, when the youth at Arpico took my card in the respectful Tamil style, it touched and moved me, and this is why.

When taken to visit temples as a child, I was taught to throw flowers on the idol in an underarm movement using my right hand, with my left hand holding my right elbow. I don't know if this is prevalent in the rest of India or even in the rest of South India, but it is definitely part of Tamil culture. The left hand is considered unclean and must never be proffered to others, either to give or to receive anything. Only the right hand may be used in any transaction. This much is common to all of India. When great respect is to be shown, as when showering the idol of a deity with flowers, the left hand must support the right at the elbow. I believe this is a uniquely Tamil gesture.

The incident made me think a lot about my life, especially my ideological choices. In my late teens, when reading about communal riots and killings in the papers, I determined that religion was evil and nothing but superstition that led men astray. I was also studying engineering at the time, and I believed that science and reason were the answer. I guess I still do.

That started me on my journey of conscious agnosticism. I never became a communist, like many other idealistic students, but I did try to be a practising agnostic. This meant consciously violating rules that had been taught to me as part of my culture if they made no sense. I would whistle after sunset, I would ask people where they were going as they were leaving, I would openly blaspheme. (In later years, I would mock my wife for murmuring prayers in Sanskrit, "a language neither she nor God understood.") I inured myself to stepping on paper without flinching, and to moving books aside with my feet, conscious acts to defy Goddess Saraswathi's certain wrath. The heavens never opened to strike me dead, and I have remained an agnostic with a healthy aversion to organised religion. I even composed a couplet to summarise my philosophy:

There may or may not be a God
But religion is a fraud

It has been decades since I even thought about the respectful supported-elbow gesture, and the fact that a young man half my age, from my own culture, in another country, was keeping the tradition alive - no, living the tradition - made me think for a long time.

I have forged a powerful identity for myself by defining what I stand for and stand against, and this has made me what I am. Still, I found myself asking, have I gained or have I lost?