Myth: Atheism is scientific
A couple of months ago, I was discussing the subconscious mind with a friend- more like arguing with her for argument’s sake.
You might have noticed that something holds you back whenever you decide to leave your comfort zone, or whenever you hesitate to try out something at which you have failed once or that tiny voice in your head that makes you feel guilty… it is the subconscious mind pulling the strings. Virtually capable of storing all that you have ever seen, felt and done before– it even shakes everything up into a kaleidoscope of scenarios you dream about. And much remains an enigma to the scientific world. Why do you have recurring dreams, what’s with the symbology in dreams, why is it that some people develop post traumatic stress disorder, and the questions go on…
What’s interesting here is that we all have our subconscious states hardwired the same way. We mess it up later which is another story altogether, but we are all predisposed to the same thing:
Allah (swt) says in the Quran,
(Recall) when your Lord brought forth their progeny from the loins of the children of ’Adam, and made them testify about themselves (by asking them,) “Am I not your Lord?” They said, “Of course, You are. We testify.” (We did so) lest you should say on the Day of Judgment, “We were unaware of this,” (07:172)
We have been created on Fitrah and our souls have already testified to monotheism long before our physical selves existed. It’s called the Covenant of Alast (or Ahd-e-Alast) that all the spirits have pledged to. Allah has given us a natural disposition to submit to Him and the only reason we don’t do it consciously is because we’re too far gone to tap into our inner selves. This is why you must have heard some people saying they feel depressed for no real reason. And a sick sadness engulfs us sometimes too when we sin too much. There’s always a price to pay when you go against the natural order of things.
This particular verse also rejects any notion that suggests Atheism is a rational course and negates the argument that religious beliefs are born from poor education and childhood indoctrination.
In fact, a study done at the University of Oxford’s Centre for Anthropology and Mind by Dr. Justin Barett suggests that people have a disposition to believe in a supreme being, and that if a handful of children were thrown on an island and they raise themselves, they would still believe in God.
A study on the development of children’s brains by Professor Bruce Hood of Bristol University concludes that we are hardwired to believe in the supernatural and are programmed to feel spirituality by electrical activity in certain areas of the brain.
And this folks, I hope wasn’t too hard to grapple.
Hence, we have Ramadan for spring-cleaning, when we refrain from the bad and the mundane and do not indulge in our general uselessness, so we have more time to reflect on our dormant inner state. Peel away the layers of unrest and set your affairs straight. You will notice a spike in your worship and your imaan heightened. Feeling is similar to formatting your laptop. The hard-drive quietens and you get a performance boost!
First of all, religion and atheism are philosophical topics, not scientific, simply because the god hypothesis itself isn’t scientific (not falsifiable).
I tend to agree, people tend to invent things like gods. If you put some children on an island, I also think it likely that they would invent a religion – of course, it probably would have nothing to do with Christianity or Islam. Perhaps it would be polytheistic, perhaps even something like Budhism, etc. Let’s assume that it would be ensured that they always would create a religion – would that prove that religion is true? Of course not, it would only prove that the human brain tends to behave in certain patterns.
Spirituality was established by case studies here, hence, the discussion is carried on a scientific vein not a philosophical one.
And I suppose you would want to enlighten me why people tend to “invent” or inherently believe in a supreme being on default.
And even if you conclude that religion is untrue and it’s just a behavioural pattern, it gives you atheists another “why” to chew on.
The discussion is not about religion, but about humans. That can be scientific. It just doesn’t have anything to do with the question if religion is true – that one is still completely unscientific.
I really don’t know why people tend to do that (and of course, that they do is an opinion, not scientific fact).
And I don’t conclude anything. I just don’t accept any (of the many) denomination of any (of the many) religions as true until there is good evidence for it. Until then, I see no reason to do so. Yes, that’s a “Why?” – “Why should I believe in your particular interpretation of a particular deity?”, but not really one I have to chew on, as nobody was able to give a good answer to that yet. You don’t believe in fairies without having explicitly disproven them, so what?
Case studies were about spirituality being scientific, not religion. After which you made a point that human brains have certain patterns and that doesn’t mean religion is true (which was not the argument to begin with).
I could’ve just finished off the piece negating Dawkin’s arguments with a verse from the Book (as I originally intended) but I made mentions of studies done as a sideline, and not as an attempt to cross science with religion.
As for that “why”, I’d more interested to know your side of why you shouldn’t believe in any.
Simple. I have two choices:
a) I believe everything that I cannot disprove.
b) I don’t believe anyhing that I haven’t good reason to believe in.
In case of a) I would have a strange life, believing in dozens of gods, fairies, aliens, unicorns, etc.etc.etc. Things that I cannot disprove are enough out there….
So I chose b). And that includes your specific god.