Faith Is Our Inexorable Fate
By
Sumit Paul, New Age Islam
27 January
2024
Waheeduddin Ahmed
"Sometimes people don't want to hear the
truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed."
Friedrich Nietzsche
I agree
with Mr Waheeduddin despite being an apatheist. Faith is humans' inexorable
fate.
Here I'm
completely avoiding the most stupid debate regarding god's existence or
non-existence. That's perennially inconclusive because it always leads to
bitterness. Humans' belief in god is a natural evolutionary process. Oxford
psychologist Justin Barrett believes that the human brain (not mind; it doesn't
exist) creates 'healthy' illusions for a relatively less complicated existence
on earth. Out of those 'healthy' illusions, the belief in a supernatural being
is also there as an inherited perception and the manifestation of an
evolutionary adaptation that exists exclusively within the human brain. Some
neuro-biologists even believe that there's a G(od)-spot in the human brain. But
that's as elusive as a female G-spot, to use a homonymous pun. In fact, there
is no actual spiritual reality, no God or gods, no soul, or afterlife.
Consequently, humankind can no longer be viewed as a product of God but rather
God must be viewed as a product of human cognition. But that's again polemic.
Point is: Nature Nurtures as Thoreau said.
Nature has
nurtured the human brain in a BELIEVING way. To believe is to relieve. To
believe in something (supernatural) is not just evolutionary development, it's
also a psychological ploy for survival. Newton said, God is man's last resort.
It sure is. Because it has been found that even hardcore atheists have
remembered god at least once in life!
There's no
atheist in a foxhole is a famous English proverb. A few years ago, the world's
most celebrated atheist Richard Dawkins blurted out, Oh my god, when a
believer's question stumped him! Neurologists have rightly concluded that god
resides in EVERY individual's consciousness as an evolutionary reality or
illusion.
To all
believers (who constitute nearly 72 percent of world's population) god is a
REALITY and to the non-believers, agnostics, sceptics, atheists and apatheists,
god is an ILLUSION. To quote Urdu poet Jameel Mazhari: Khwaab Ho Ya Phir
Haqeeqat/ Hai Wajood Donon Hi Sooraton Mein Us Ka (Whether a dream or a
reality/ It does exist in both ways).
Those who
question and doubt, deny the existence of god. But ontologically, they also
somewhere and somehow contribute to perpetuating the myth of god. All said and
done, one must never be so arrogant as to deny every 'reality' as an illusion.
Human brain
is still unable to grasp thousands of phenomena.
----
A regular columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul
is a researcher in comparative religions, with special reference to Islam. He
has contributed articles to the world's premier publications in several
languages including Persian.
URL: https://newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/faith-inexorable-fate/d/131592
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