Be Rational and Save Mankind
The infallible way to uproot bigotry
Know the world. Know the universe itself. Then know yourself.
We are innately curious to know more and more about innumerable things, animate or inanimate. The human mind is apparently limited, but knowledge is limitless. The hunger for more and more knowledge is natural and insatiable.
Knowledge starts with questioning.
Knowledge is power over the minds of humans and nature.
We yearn for power.
Knowledge is gained in three ways.
1. We gain knowledge by studying the scriptures. The scriptures, Bibles, the Koran, etc., speak about supernatural God, soul, rebirth, reincarnation, heaven, hell, salvation, and so on. The scriptures are claimed to be the literal voice of God, the Creator of the universe. They are unquestionable and infallible. They are for human guidance and compliance. Since they are the words of God himself, they are not subject to rational test, experiment, verification, and confirmation.
The idealist thinker, Radhakrishnan, observes:
‘The ultimate structure of the universe is not known to science. It may be very different from the scientific model of it.’
He further observes:
‘ The cause of the world creation lies in a sense outside itself. God is prior to the world. but not in any temporal sense. He is the logical prius of the world.’
This is the theological outlook on supernatural God. It is a traditional escapist way to face the testing process of science. It is invalid and illusory. It is a belief without evidence. This is true of the soul, rebirth, and so on too.
2. Intuitive apprehension of the world and mind is the second category. The mystics or yogis travel beyond the boundaries of the sensory mind through their practice of yoga. They attain deliverance from their sensory life with the merger of their souls or consciousness or energies with the universal soul or consciousness or nature or the cosmos of which they are an inalienable part. They are one with God in whatever sense the word ‘God’ is rationally understood. The duality between the individual soul or consciousness or energy and the universal soul or consciousness or energy is eliminated.
That spiritual union between the yogi or the mystic and God is a state of eternal ecstasy or liberation or moksha. This path of ultimate spiritual accomplishment is rational and an accepted fact, as yoga is a mental science of practice and not a religious text.
3. The third way of knowing the world and the human mind is through the application of the inductive method of logic which has been named as science.
Science is ‘ a method for understanding how the universe ( matter, our bodies and behavior, the cosmos, and so on) actually works. Science is a set of tools, refined over hundreds of years, for getting answers about nature.’-Jerry Coyne.
Science has three ways of gaining knowledge.
1. Knowledge obtained from the experience of the five senses tested and found true
2.Knowledge gained through the use of sophisticated, investigative instruments such as the microscope, telescope,etc., by the senses.
3. Knowledge gained through hypothetical models experimentally tested and verified and confirmed by the senses.
These three types of knowledge have the stamp of reliability. They have undergone the stages of experimental testability, verifiability, falsifiability, and are always accessible to the people.
True knowledge is scientific, authentic, essential and valuable. True knowledge does not lead us astray. It is the light that should lead the way of our lives.
I cite three examples of true knowledge.
Science discovered the true shape of the earth that the earth is a globe.
Science discovered that certain diseases like plague, malaria, cholera and so on are infectious and not punishments meted out to the sinners by God.
Science proved that prayer to God cannot cure diseases.
Scientific knowledge is progressive and open to challenge at any time. It has the humility to reject its theory if it is found false later on by science itself.
Religious scriptures are avowedly dogmatic. The supernatural God, soul, reincarnation, rebirth, heaven, hell, and so on are myths of religious scriptures. They are untestable statements of concepts unsupported by evidence. Questioning them is blasphemy punishable by the religions.
No verifiable evidence about the origin of supernatural God, how and when he created the universe, where he is, how he interacts with the world, how he rewards and punishes his followers, and whether he is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent and whether the scriptures are the real voice of God, as claimed, or not is-can be-available.
The theological claims about supernatural God are not scientifically testable.
God, soul, rebirth, heaven, hell, and so on are myths, inevitable myths having roots in the ancient past of civilization.
When followers of one faith believe in the truth and infallibility of their scriptural voice to the exclusion of other scriptures and, embracing religious dogma as the truth, hate and commit massacre of innocent followers of other religions, it is a monstrous crime against humanity.
Now, do you consider religion sacred? And the complicit religious preachers sacred gurus?
You are aware that religious dogma has been dangerous to the world and a potent source of irrational mass hate and homicidal violence.
As Sam Harris, the philosopher, neuroscientist, and the yoga-practicing teacher eloquently sets forth in his book, The End of Faith:
‘Our past is not sacred for being past….: the divine right of kings, feudalism, the caste system, slavery, political executions, forced castration, vivisection, bearbaiting, honorable duels, chastity belts, trial by ordeal, child labor, human and animal sacrifice, the stoning of heretics, cannibalism, sodomy laws, taboos against contraception, human radiation experiments- the list is nearly endless….’ Religious dogma had an active and dominant role in all these incidents. The massacre of innocents by terrorists inspired by religious dogmatic myths is the present-day gory story.
To quote Sam Harris again:
‘Indeed, religion is as much a living spring of violence today as it was at any time in the past.’
‘Over one million people died in the orgy of religious killing that attended the partitioning of India and Pakistan.’
We remember with deep agony and anguish the recent WTC bombing, the religion-generated mindless murder of innocent people in England, France, Pakistan, Bangla Desh, Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, India, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Indonesia, Sudan, Ireland, and so on by perpetrators of religious violence. Let God, the just punish them!
You see that the insane movement of the myth-misled dehumanized men on the streets of cities is contagiously active. They are up in arms against innocent humanity in defense of scriptural dogma. They have a barbaric approach to human life.
We have to cry an immediate halt to, neutralize and end the movement of the mindless. We have to blast the myths and spread the light of truth among people. We cannot be unconcerned bystanders now.
You are one of us.
