THE GOLDEN EVOLUTION (Part 36): On the Matter of Faith

The following continues the serialization of Chapter 5 on Religion from SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Humanity:

On the Matter of Faith

 

The crux of the issue is faith, which is true belief. The Harper Collins Dictionary of Religion defines faith as the act or virtue or spiritual disposition by which people accept the reality, promises, and love of God. The Flip Dictionary provides a one word definition for “a person without faith”: agnostic.

Surprised by Faith by Don Bierle, is about a scientist who shares his personal discoveries about God, The Bible and personal fulfillment. Can I Believe the Bible and What is the Bottom Line are typical chapter headings. This publication is typical of many that sell relatively well for those who need psychological assurance about religion.

A particularly relevant publication on faith is The End of Faith, by Sam Harris, where, provided is a logical series of arguments portraying the end of religion as we know it. Harris cites that the sacred dimension could well be the purpose of human life.  Yet, he indicates that religious belief has a fatal flaw: one can only believe in one God, and only mine. Religion, furthermore, is the modern day equivalent of alchemy. He wonders why so many people can believe in obviously obsolete dogmas.  I do, too.

When I originally read this Harris publication, I thought he was just another philosophical type author. It turns out that, at this writing, he is a doctoral candidate at UCLA on his way to a PhD in neuroscience. He is tracking belief and disbelief in the brain using a functional magnetic resonance imager. Someday, he might actually develop a scientific theory of faith.  (Subsequently, he received his graduate degree.)

A few examples of how a lack of faith can compromise your life:

o      There have been other faith skeptics: Copernicus, Galileo, Darwin and Ramee Abdul Rahman Muhammad. Who? He is that Afghan who converted from Islam to Christianity in 1990, but was arrested and threatened with the death penalty in 2006. However, there was sufficient world-wide indignation that the Afghanistan government released him by court action either for his being mentally unfit or for their having a lack of information, and shipped him, his pregnant second wife and children off to Italy, for Pope Benedict XVI had asked that he be spared. The moral of this story? Be careful of a vengeful divorced wife during a child custody battle. 

o      Lina Joy, born Azlina Jailani in the mid-60’s to Muslim parents, became a Christian. She wanted her government identity card to recognize this change. The Federal Court, however, ruled that only the Islamic Shariah Court had that power. She has not taken that step because apostasy is a crime punishable by fines and jail in her country, Malaysia, and is contemplating emigration, for she has been disowned by her family, abandoned by her friends and is in hiding.

o      Also, too, there is the voice of Wafa Sultan, who once was Muslim, but not anymore, speaking in Arabic and English via Al Jazeera, criticizing Islam as violent and beyond repair. When she lived in Syria 27 years ago, she walked away from her faith when she witnessed the murder of her professor by members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Good thing she is now living in Southern California, for she would get the Abdul treatment back in the Middle East. She contributes to the website www.annaqed.com.

o      Say you’re teaching an elementary school class. The semester theme happened to be bears. So, you buy a teddy bear and ask the class to pick a name for this mascot. A student named Muhammad suggested his name, and 20 out of 23 in the class agreed. Each student took Muhammad, the toy bear, home, then wrote a diary entry reporting on the experience. The stories were compiled in a book and entitled, “My Name is Muhammad.” Several parents complained, and, incredibly, Gillian Gibbons, the teacher, was arrested and faced six months in jail and 40 lashes, plus a fine. But this was in the Sudan, where 70% are Muslims. Ms. Gibbons was convicted, but “got off” with fifteen days of jail and deportation. Some lesson, of course, had to be taught about not being blasphemous. A well-orchestrated protest followed in Khartoum, calling for her death, by sword or firing squad, with her effigy burned at Martyrs Square.

o      The shock of 2007 was Agnes Bojaxhiu, born in Macedonia, a Roman Catholic nun, who became Mother Teresa. She represented the ultimate in sacrifice for God. It came to light in Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (Doubleday, 2007), that, over a 66 year period, she expressed deep spiritual pain, effectively abandoning faith. One can only speculate on what percent of religious leaders truly believe, but guess that the proportion might not be very high.

They say science can’t measure faith or love. Not so. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain can detect quantifiable love responses of subjects who describe themselves as being madly in love. The source of all this activity is in distinct areas of the brain.  Love is a lateralized brain function, like speech. Arthur Aron, et al, published in the Journal of Neurophysiology that functional MRI measurements support their two major predictions: early stage, intense romantic love, is associated with sub cortical reward regions rich in dopamine, and romantic love engages brain systems associated with motivation to acquire a reward. A similar tracing could probably be accomplished for faith, perhaps by Sam Harris, someday.

But is scientific proof for faith or love significant? Yes, in that science can, indeed, measure profound human emotions. But what has that got to do with the afterlife?  Everything! There are some things science will not ever measure, particularly if there is nothing to measure. Go to the Randi test. One of them could well be the afterlife. So, with high probability, the major leap in logic can be made that there is, thus, no afterlife.  Certainly, no Creator, no God. God never died, he never even existed. 

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Yikes, the Dow Jones Industrials immediately crashed almost 300 points, dropping below 9800, but recovered to only minus 23 (-0.23%) to end at 10,044.  World markets mostly also fell, Europe between 2 and 3%, while the Japan Nikkei edged up to 9485. Gold increased $13/toz to $1204, while crude oil slipped below $70/barrel.

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A small disturbance popped up on the Pacific Ocean side of Central America, but should soon dissipate.

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