Misunderstood atheism....

Of late I've noticed a surge in the number of atheists. Their number is bound to soar still higher owing to the availability of internet and books on atheism (such as 'the god delusion' by Dawkins). The atheist communities and organizations campaigning atheism are flourishing in the western society(Estonia is a atheist majority country). I must admit that I fully admire these efforts because ultimately they help free people from the tyranny of religious dogmas and false notions of God. But despite my wholehearted appreciation somehow I find myself uncomfortable and out of place with this scheme of things, I can't identify myself with this cause or if I do identify, I cant appreciate the way it is being carried out.

I think the goal should rather be rationality or clear thinking and the atheism shall automatically follow. Fundamentally human mind has a natural inclination to avoid clear thinking and favor obscure/superficial thinking because superficial thinking is less exhausting and thus more comfortable. This is the reason why dogmas and prejudice of every kind are entertained by human mind. In such conditions whenever atheism is preached or arguments against the existence of God or arguments against the religious authority are put in front of the person and as a result he is convinced of the arguments and therefore has become an atheist, he is actually spoon-fed only. He hasn't arrived at the arguments buttressing his newly acquired atheism by reflection but by a sort of intellectual cajolery. Therefore his reluctance to clear-thinking mostly persists because a short period of spoon-feeding can't make him think clearly. This ends up in producing atheism of a fragile character, the sort of atheism which justifies the famous saying "there is no atheist in a pit". Such atheists, because of their fragile intellectual conviction, will become believers again in the moments of serious illness or when a tragedy destroys their personal life. When such kind of people free themselves from religious dogmas their irrational mind is still susceptible to seek refuge in another kind of dogmas. He might continue to believe in astrology or frighten when a cat crosses his path for instance.

This spoon-feeding must end if we are to inculcate a healthy and a lasting scientific disposition in a person. Cultivating the art of clear-thinking and acquiring a thoroughly rational mindset is the only way out. But unfortunately there is no short cut for it, you can not become rational in a day or two or by reading a book. It's a long and continual process which may consume considerable energy just like learning calligraphy or a musical instrument. But once it is learned, all dogmas will vanish into thin air including religious ones and even if he still hold the belief in religion and Gods it will be a harmless and refined predisposition the way it had been held by people like Plato, Leibnitz, Newton and likes.

Another grave objection to atheism without a rational mindset can be that it can nourish an ideology of escapism from the generally accepted moral codes,it can become a convenient way to rationalize nonconformist instincts of a person. People like Hitler are atheists not because they don't find the moral codes of religions unconvincing but because they are too cruel and too mean to conform to any kind of moral behavior except what satisfy their instinctual tendencies.

"Man is a rational animal — so at least I have been told. Throughout a long life, I have looked diligently for evidence in favor of this statement, but so far I have not had the good fortune to come across it, though I have searched in many countries spread over three continents." - Bertrand Russell

dynamics of yore

The key to understand human nature is wealth if you ask Marx, sex if you ask Freud and power if you ask Russell. I don't dare to take sides in this tri-party war therefore, let me bypass this war ground altogether. Coming to the contemporary writing we've got another couple of freaks who think they have found the philosopher's stone when they try to prove "People respond to incentives" in their books titled 'Freakonomics' and 'Superfreakonomics'. They say that the key to understand human nature is in understanding the incentives that lie behind their decisions. Let us give this theory a chance...

In the recorded history of India there is no evidence of any large scale forced conversion of non-muslims into Islam. With few notable exceptions all the muslim rulers of medieval India were bigots, they often plundered and destroyed shrines of other religions and many of them were cruel as well. But even Aurangzeb-the most fanatic of all didn't resort to forced conversions. Why? Perhaps the economical incentives explain this. Almost all the muslim rulers be it Delhi sultanate period or the Mughal period imposed an additional tax called 'Jaziya' on all non-Muslims and the revenue generated from that tax constituted a big chunk in income of the state. So once a Hindu is converted into Islam he ceases to be a source of additional income. And a sane ruler would not jeopardize royal treasury just for the sake of proselytizing. There was a strong disincentive for forcible conversion. Wasn't it mentioned earlier that "People respond to incentives"?

Just one thing which needs to be added is that all the mughal emperors except Aurangzeb were more like sufi muslims than like extremist mullahs. They celebrated art, music, poetry and were inclusive of non-muslims in their court. They were not so much bigoted as their stereotypical portrayals are. Hence, the reason given in above para may not be the only reason that explain the lack of forcible conversions.

nymphocracy

Some secretly, some volubly but all of us agree that this world has been and probably would always be dominated by men. Women, despite relentless efforts and Utopian fantasies of feminists, have always remained subjects to men. But then how to measure the status of women in a society? Is there any way to quantify this womenfolk's position on social ladder vis-a-vis men? Frankly speaking I don't know, sociology is alien to me. But let us guess..

1. Ratio of girls to boys in schools/colleges:-
Nope, this is a bad idea. Not only in developing societies but also in developed societies education, though in varying degrees has been an instrument to get good job plus a high income husband for women.(This is how I interpret a chapter in a book titled 'superfreakonomics' which says that an average married man in US earns significantly higher than an equally qualified married woman even when childless. The authors also alludes to the same conclusion.) So this metric wont give credible estimates.

2. Number of woman employees in public and private sectors.
Public sector has women quotas so it's an enforced, state driven equality not a genuine one. Apart from that there are many kind of employments some man dominated, some woman dominated and also they all are divided into several categories which makes a straight forward analysis difficult.

Apart from these two other candidate metrics may be number of driving licenses issued to women, number of woman traveling in public/private transports but all have their shortcomings and none of them are simple.

So a crazy alternative- what about 'Number of public urinals for woman per hundred male public urinals'. Obviously these metric is simple to assess. Now let's see whether it's robust or not. Use of public urinals is directly proportional to the economic as well as social participation of either sex. If women participate in public life sufficiently and yet don't use PU's, that means that they are reluctant to use them and that's an indicator that they are still not on a par with men. Second thing is that PU metric shows no enforced equality, they are mostly built owing to necessity, not in order to flaunt government's goodwill towards women(for example in shopping malls urinals for both sexes will always be found in equal numbers- that shows that malls are frequented by both sexes alike.) We can also compare the figures from different countries because urinals like gods, are omnipresent.

PS: nymphocracy is hand-made combining nymph=a beautiful woman + cracy=a rule like in autocracy,democracy.

Less popular

Remember Ruchika case and the tainted cop Rathod? Cases as such are not rare in India. A conscientious(?) student of NID felt extremely indignant over the delay in justice and attacked Rathod outside the court. The student became an overnight hero. But this is also not rare in India. But the rarest of the rare thing happened yesterday when in an interview Mrs.Sharma-mother of that (ex)NID student said "All of us get agitated about wrongs that are happening around us. But we do not go about taking law in our won hands to carrect them. Justice has to be sought in a lawful way. What Utsav did was wrong and he needs to understand that."(ref:TOI) How civil! Now this is not what you expect in India. As a rule when some criminal makes headlines, his family members always justify his crimes or tries to exculpate him in all possible ways. The responses like "my son is not a terrorist he is the victim of a conspiracy", "my daughter was not drunk above danger level when her car ran over 7 people" or "my husband is innocent he didn't rape our maid, it's all her way of black-mailing." has been in vogue. Every other educated man talks in great length about social justice and law and order and all those unattainable ethical values, we promptly excoriate every malpractice in the system. But when the burden to hold those values comes upon our shoulders we shirk. We so love double standards. The cases I cited above are just a superficial manifestation of a kind of moral bankruptcy that is rampant in our society. In such an environment the cases like Mrs.Sharma's reminds us that we are a little off the track.

"Every person carries with himself two sets of morality, one that applies to himself the other to the world"- Bertrand Russell

'Objectivism' , really objective?

Ok. A few questions. What kinds of conducts are desirable, what kinds of not? what is good and what is evil? Is there a standard against which you can evaluate all actions of men? These questions are asked throughout the history despite the fact that they have been elusive all the way. Answerability of these questions depends upon the fact whether goodness or badness(or ethical values/propositions hereafter) is subjective or objective(universal), in other words is anything inherently bad or good in an action or does it depend upon psychological tendencies of a person? Those who believe that ethical values are only subjective in nature has a ready answer as to the standard for goodness, 'whims'. But those who believe otherwise, have a tough job to do. The assertion that an ethical code is rational and hence has an objective justification means that that ethical doctrine is on a par with doctrines of science, it can be proved or disproved the way scientific theories can be. If someone claims that galilio's theories are wrong just take him into a laboratory and show him some experiments that testifies galileo's conclusions. Here we reduced the claim to observable phenomena the proofs of which are directly demonstrable. In a broad sense we need exactly this kind mechanical nature in any ethical code. The obvious advantage is that in case of a conflict of opinions just go back to fundamentals and check it out what is right. Such an ethic would bridge the gap between 'the true' and 'the good'. Has such a code ever been discovered? Hardly any. Many philosophers have put rationality in ethics but hardly has any given a complete ethical doctrine on a rational basis. They hold that ethics is innately irrational. But there are heretics also who believe otherwise. Ayn Rand is the most prominent among them. She has developed a philosophical system named 'Objectivism' wherein she has developed an ethical system that is based on reason. She has written several books elaborating her philosophy but the book I've gone through is 'The virtue of selfishness'. I brief her theory in the next paragraph and if the reader is already familiar with it, he(oh the sexist language!) can skip it.


Her first task is to base her ethical doctrine on metaphysics so that she can derive her doctrine from the metaphysics(the way science is based on observable metaphysical facts). 'Survival of an individual human life' is that metaphysical primary(similar to axiom) upon which the doctrine resides, it is the scale against which all the values are tested. If a value(like honesty, cruelty,truthfulness etc..) increases the chances of survival of a person it is good or desirable and if not it's bad or undesirable for that person. Here she sets individual human life as an end in itself and all other actions are only means to achieve that end. So a person should pursue only those actions which directly or indirectly help him increase his chances of living and to determine what actions are such he must use his reason alone. A man in her theory should be selfish only but rationally so. Because reason is the only trustworthy faculty in humans, emotions are deceptive so it must be cultivated on rational basis only. Here each man will make his own policy independently but since all are guided by reason all individual policies will be in agreement with each other. So this is the essence of her theory everything else is a matter of details, for example love, honesty, cooperation, sacrifice etc can easily be justified or dismantled, without going into details of all those ratiocination I simply add that she has preserved most of the notions of goodness and rejected most of the notions of evil.

Now I happen to disagree with her completely both in essence and in details, reasons being..
1. Prudence, prudence is the tendency to forgo immediate gain in the hope of a better reward in future. For example a farmer will work all the day in the field in order to cultivate a crop which will give him substantial reward in future when he sells it. Prudence is what distinguishes a civilized person from an aborigine. But prudence comes in all shapes and sizes, it's a spectrum, which degree of prudence you prefer is a wholly subjective matter. For example I may save none from my salary(presently none) if I see fit and someone may save a large portion of his salary if he sees fit, you can't say which one is rationally better. So, a less prudent thief can always think of a short term gain, and rob a bank or a soft target rather than thinking that he is spoiling society and in a long term he may be the subject of same treatment, or what would happen to his self-esteem and all that intellectual rubbish. According to Rand's theory he is licensed to do it because it will increase his survival chances. All evils are justified likewise. This is inevitable because the theory includes society only as an add-on to it not as an integral part. In a nutshell the theory is wholly depended upon the individual interests no significance is given to the society as a collective whole. She seems to have realized it but has deliberately ignored it.

2. Suicides are strictly unjustified according to the theory. See suicides are primarily a priority given to one's psychology over physical existence. So if I commit suicide it's because I find my life unbearable mentally(I'm not talking euthanasia which is the special case of suicide). In Rand's theory life precedes emotions because emotions are means to an end that is 'preservation of life'. To an anti-suicidist it may seem valid, but then take the case of a husband risking his own life to save his drowning life or the case of a father sacrificing his life to save his child. All this life sacrifices are unjustified because it takes life which is the only end. She herself concludes that life sacrifices are justified in above cases, but such conclusions do not follow from her theory.

3. She advocates capitalism in absolute lassis-faire(spelling mistake), means absolutely no control over economic activity by the government. Well, only stock-market giants and their likes would celebrate this view.

4. Her theory lacks originality or at least it's not as original as it is purported to be. Objectivism is a watered down Darwinism, a philosophical adaptation of Darwinian theory. But being unoriginal is not same as being fallacious so this point is misplaced in the list.

5. She rejects all kinds of mysticism outright. Another unwarranted conclusion. Mysticism has a high emotional value. Problems arises only when mystics assert their feelings as undeniable truth. Mysticism, if we understand it in it's raw form, is in no conflict with reason or science. Mystic feelings are extra-rational but not irrational.



These are a bit personal..

6.I detest any systematic philosophy. They mar the very spirit of philosophy. They are just anti-rational. Uncertainty and speculation in case of uncertainty are the central parts of philosophy. The moment any certain knowledge is obtained it becomes a separate science and ceases to be philosophy. In such fundamental uncertainty doggy devotion to a particular system of philosophy would be as futile as having no philosophy at all.

7. She mixes rhetorics with ratiocination greatly, few of her arguments seems unfeignedly logical. Rhetorics are notorious tools for indoctrination, they are good for emotive titillation but is misplaced if used in a philosophical treatise.

These are the problems with objectivism, the problems with other ethical codes are also similar in kind. So the chasm between 'true' and 'good' is still wide open. Honesty,truthfulness,humility all these values are thus rationally indefensible, they defy every rational explanation, but why? unfortunately I do not profess to have the answer what I do profess to know is that we mankind do need those lofty values, always whether rational or irrational.

Let me make it clear that I'm no congenital opponent of Rand. I do admire her as an excellent teacher of philosophy and a prolific writer...after all her books are considered modern classics.

P.S: Lately I've realized that I've written this article too poorly and rewriting it is no fun. The issue of ethics needed to be properly elaborated so as to make its importance apparent. Anyway do ask me in case of any confusion or incomprehension.

P.S.S: This critique will appear more sensible if the reader learns Rand's theory directly from her books rather than my review.