Is Religion (DEEN) essential for society ?
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Although it should not be coercive, I think religion has a very important role in society, it has played a big part in evolution, we evolved to be religious.
From the new scientist
http//www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg18925361.100The origins of religion
Our ancestors did not always have religion, yet many religious practices seem to have very ancient origins. So when did religion first evolve? Archaeologists have long been fascinated by this question. One indication is burial. Some experts believe this began as far back as 200,000 years ago with the Neanderthals, but the motivation for such cacheing of bodies is ambiguous. So most archaeologists more cautiously define the appearance of religion by looking for evidence of grave goods in burials, since these at least unequivocally imply belief in an afterlife. Deliberate burials of this kind do not occur much before 25,000 years ago. Such burials imply a sophisticated theology, so we can safely assume that these were preceded by a long phase of less sophisticated religious belief. But without evidence on the ground, can we see any further back than this?
I have suggested that there is another way to get an unexpected insight into the question. It comes from asking what kind of mind is required to hold religious beliefs. Take the statement "I believe that god wants..." To grasp this an individual needs theory of mind - the capacity to understand that another individual (in this case, god) has a mind of his own. Philosophers call this "second-order intentionality" because such statements contain two notions of intent I believe and god wants. But we need more than this to build a religion.
Third-order intentionality allows me to state I believe that god wants us to act with righteous intent. At this level, I have personal religion. But if I am to persuade you to join me in this view, I have to add your mind state I want you to believe that god wants us to act righteously. That's fourth-order intentionality, and it gives us social religion. Even now, you can accept the truth of my statement and still it commits you to nothing. But add a fifth level (I want you to know that we both believe that god wants us to act righteously) and now, if you accept the validity of my claim, you also implicitly accept that you believe it too. Now we have what I call communal religion together, we can invoke a spiritual force that obliges, perhaps even forces, us to behave in a certain way.
So, communal religion requires fifth-order intentionality, and this also happens to be the limit of most people's capacity as indicated by research done by myself and my colleagues. I think this is no coincidence. The majority of human activities can probably be dealt with using second or third-order intentionality. The two extra layers beyond this undoubtedly come at some considerable neural expense. Since evolution is frugal, there must be some good reason why we have them. The only plausible answer, so far as I can see, is religion. And that's where this line of reasoning can throw light on the origins of religious belief.
As far as we know, all other animals are locked into first-order intentionality, with the exception of great apes who are just about able to cope with second order. If you look at the brains of humans and other animals you find that the level of intentionality they can achieve scales linearly with the volume of grey matter in their frontal lobes (a particularly important part of the brain's processing units). This can be used to work out the level of intentionality our extinct ancestors were capable of - provided you have a fossil skull from which you can measure the overall volume of the brain.
Plotting these values onto a graph, the evidence suggests that as early as 2 million years ago, Homo erectus would have aspired to third-order intentionality, perhaps allowing them to have personal beliefs about the world. Fourth-order intentionality - equating to social religion - appeared with archaic humans around 500,000 years ago. And fifth order didn't appear much before the evolution of anatomically modern humans around 200,000 years ago - early enough to ensure that all living humans share this trait, but late enough to suggest that it was probably a unique adaptation.
In a separate strand of research, my colleagues and I have also found a relationship between the size of the brain's neocortex and social group size in primates. Interestingly, this "social brain hypothesis" predicts that around the time our ancestors evolved the capacity for fifth-order intentionality their community sizes would have exceeded about 120 individuals. Religion may have evolved to provide the mechanism for bonding them into a coherent social unit.
This in itself is an interesting proof of God. How unlikely it is that intelligent beings could evolve from chaos to believe in a higher power. It's obvious that something guides natural selection.
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Peace "Mahmud_H",
How unlikely it is that intelligent beings could evolve from chaos to believe in a higher power.
JK- I personally dont use the "how unlikely" argument anymore as it is inevitable that anything logically possible would at one time or another arise out of total infinite random fluctuations THE PRIMARY "EVOLVED" INTELLIGENCE AFTER THE FIRST QUANTUM DIFFERNETIATION BEING GOD. I put evolved in commas since evoltion in the quantum realm has not yet been observed and most liekly happens instantaneously. Hence we can only imagine the process. This is exactly what ive explained in various of my posts. See http//free-minds.org/forum/index.php?topic=14951.msg163292#msg163292
GOD Bless! -
Peace "Mahmud_H",
Surely not, isn't God the creator of all random fluctuations, the source of infinity?
JK- Fluctuations and/or quantum particles are originally uncreated. Hence GOD states that Hes the Light of the heavens and the earth in the Quran. It makes no sense to say that light was created originally i.e. before its differnetiation into elemetary particles. If you claim that GOD created Light then ok lets go with this for a moment. Thus GOD has to be made up of some other substance which we dont know. Ok how did that substance come into being? WHo created that? Youll need to accept that it came randomly BUT randomness has been overcome since an infinite amount of "time" so we can technically ignore this statement except for explnantry purposes and to stay within reason. GOD Bless!
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Not necessarily. Take the science of the Big Bang. Scientists say they know there was a big bang, but they do not know what came before it. They can speculate, other universes, cycles of big bangs and big crunches, but that is all just speculation. So the only scientific statement is that there was a big bang. Beyond that we know nothing. It in no way undermines big bang theory that scientists do not know what created the big bang.
Hence likewise, we can say we know God created the universe, including all the laws of physics, from the highest to the lowest, including the subatomic and super strings if they exist, but beyond God we know nothing. There is nothing unscientific about saying you do not know.
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Peace "Mahmud_H",
Not necessarily. Take the science of the Big Bang. Scientists say they know there was a big bang, but they do not know what came before it. They can speculate, other universes, cycles of big bangs and big crunches, but that is all just speculation. So the only scientific statement is that there was a big bang. Beyond that we know nothing. It in no way undermines big bang theory that scientists do not know what created the big bang.
JK- The important point is there must be some substance before it, period.This substance is most likely quantum flux out of which numerous bangs arise.
Hence likewise, we can say we know God created the universe, including all the laws of physics, from the highest to the lowest, including the subatomic and super strings if they exist, but beyond God we know nothing. There is nothing unscientific about saying you do not know.
JK- Yes but the Quran already tells us that GOD is the Light of the heavens and the earth and since we know everything is finally made up of quantum particles we have all the reason to state that before the big bang there was quantum flux. And yes GOD did create the laws which govern this universe. Whos denying that? Our argument was about whether sentient beings can arise out of random fluctuations and the answer is "YES they can". GOD Bless!
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I'm not sure that's meaningful. If Allah created the laws of cause and effect, then there is no need to say something arose before him. Before the big bang, before there was time, there were no laws of physics. Hence there were no fluctuations. Without a need for cause and effect, there is no need for a cause of God.
I'm not saying that there was nothing before God, or that God was not created, but in line with Occam's razor, there is no need to speculate a cause of God as God does not need a cause, as there was no cause and effect before God.
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Peace "Mahmud_H",
I'm not sure that's meaningful. If Allah created the laws of cause and effect, then there is no need to say something arose before him. Before the big bang, before there was time, there were no laws of physics. Hence there were no fluctuations. Without a need for cause and effect, there is no need for a cause of God.
JK- The "law" of cause and effect is a logically must and not something to be created. I woudlnt even call it a law since it follows like 1+1 being 2 if wer typing and understanding nos in english. For any effect or for anything/one to be there there must be a prior cause. Even creationsts admit that. Infact thats how they claim the universe must have a cause and hence a designer. If you say GOD didnt need a cause then that makes Him a, GOD forbid, nothing since how can someone/something be there without a cause? Doesnt make any sense. You can confine GOD to a so called spiritual world but then your making GOD, GOD forbid, just a figment of your imagination. How then can you prove that GOD created this universe since i already told you that order and sentient beings can arise out of randomness over time.
I'm not saying that there was nothing before God, or that God was not created, but in line with Occam's razor, there is no need to speculate a cause of God as God does not need a cause, as there was no cause and effect before God.
JK- There was no cause and effect as we know it, that could be claimed but to claim there was no cause and effect at all wouldnt make any sense. There is need to explain the causes before GOD in order to be persistent with reason otherwise rational beings cannot possibly accept His existence. According to Occam's Razor simple non-sentient particles always come first AND THEN COMPLEXITY AND WITH IT SENTIENT BEINGS. Not the other way round. Thats why i mentoned it. But effectively this radomness has inevitably been overcome and GOD is there since in the quantum realm everything happens at once which ive also explained in my various posts. GOD Bless!
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That isn't occam's razor at all. That's just experiential philosophy, you are generalising from the process of evolution onto events before the big bang. There's a word for that - scientism, the misapplication of scientific methodology. All you get is nonsense.
If you say GOD didnt need a cause then that makes Him a, GOD forbid, nothing since how can someone/something be there without a cause?
Don't you get it? God created cause and effect. All rules must be made, including that one. Randomness is created by God. Logic is created by God. Everything is created by God. What do you think Allahu Akbar means?
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There are some good articles on freeminds which highlight what Islam really is and these have been referenced already by others. However if you are looking for another source of enlightment, then please click on the following link and you'll discover that Islam is really 'A challenge to Religion'.
http//www.aboutquran.com/
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Hi Islam_Nad,
Trying to seperate Islam from other religions in that manner seems to be a misguided attempt to link Islam with secular progressivism.
http//books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2265395,00.html
A curious feature of this kind of atheism is that some of its most fervent missionaries are philosophers. Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell Religion as a Natural Phenomenon claims to sketch a general theory of religion. In fact, it is mostly a polemic against American Christianity. This parochial focus is reflected in Dennett's view of religion, which for him means the belief that some kind of supernatural agency (whose approval believers seek) is needed to explain the way things are in the world. For Dennett, religions are efforts at doing something science does better - they are rudimentary or abortive theories, or else nonsense. "The proposition that God exists," he writes severely, "is not even a theory." But religions do not consist of propositions struggling to become theories. The incomprehensibility of the divine is at the heart of Eastern Christianity, while in Orthodox Judaism practice tends to have priority over doctrine. Buddhism has always recognised that in spiritual matters truth is ineffable, as do Sufi traditions in Islam. Hinduism has never defined itself by anything as simplistic as a creed. It is only some western Christian traditions, under the influence of Greek philosophy, which have tried to turn religion into an explanatory theory.
The notion that religion is a primitive version of science was popularised in the late 19th century in JG Frazer's survey of the myths of primitive peoples, The Golden Bough A Study in Magic and Religion. For Frazer, religion and magical thinking were closely linked. Rooted in fear and ignorance, they were vestiges of human infancy that would disappear with the advance of knowledge. Dennett's atheism is not much more than a revamped version of Frazer's positivism. The positivists believed that with the development of transport and communication - in their day, canals and the telegraph - irrational thinking would wither way, along with the religions of the past. Despite the history of the past century, Dennett believes much the same. In an interview that appears on the website of the Edge Foundation (edge.org) under the title "The Evaporation of the Powerful Mystique of Religion", he predicts that "in about 25 years almost all religions will have evolved into very different phenomena, so much so that in most quarters religion will no longer command the awe that it does today". He is confident that this will come about, he tells us, mainly because of "the worldwide spread of information technology (not just the internet, but cell phones and portable radios and television)". The philosopher has evidently not reflected on the ubiquity of mobile phones among the Taliban, or the emergence of a virtual al-Qaida on the web.
The growth of knowledge is a fact only postmodern relativists deny. Science is the best tool we have for forming reliable beliefs about the world, but it does not differ from religion by revealing a bare truth that religions veil in dreams. Both science and religion are systems of symbols that serve human needs - in the case of science, for prediction and control. Religions have served many purposes, but at bottom they answer to a need for meaning that is met by myth rather than explanation. A great deal of modern thought consists of secular myths - hollowed-out religious narratives translated into pseudo-science. Dennett's notion that new communications technologies will fundamentally alter the way human beings think is just such a myth.
In The God Delusion, Dawkins attempts to explain the appeal of religion in terms of the theory of memes, vaguely defined conceptual units that compete with one another in a parody of natural selection. He recognises that, because humans have a universal tendency to religious belief, it must have had some evolutionary advantage, but today, he argues, it is perpetuated mainly through bad education. From a Darwinian standpoint, the crucial role Dawkins gives to education is puzzling. Human biology has not changed greatly over recorded history, and if religion is hardwired in the species, it is difficult to see how a different kind of education could alter this. Yet Dawkins seems convinced that if it were not inculcated in schools and families, religion would die out. This is a view that has more in common with a certain type of fundamentalist theology than with Darwinian theory, and I cannot help being reminded of the evangelical Christian who assured me that children reared in a chaste environment would grow up without illicit sexual impulses.
Dawkins's "memetic theory of religion" is a classic example of the nonsense that is spawned when Darwinian thinking is applied outside its proper sphere. Along with Dennett, who also holds to a version of the theory, Dawkins maintains that religious ideas survive because they would be able to survive in any "meme pool", or else because they are part of a "memeplex" that includes similar memes, such as the idea that, if you die as a martyr, you will enjoy 72 virgins. Unfortunately, the theory of memes is science only in the sense that Intelligent Design is science. Strictly speaking, it is not even a theory. Talk of memes is just the latest in a succession of ill-judged Darwinian metaphors.
Dawkins compares religion to a virus religious ideas are memes that infect vulnerable minds, especially those of children. Biological metaphors may have their uses - the minds of evangelical atheists seem particularly prone to infection by religious memes, for example. At the same time, analogies of this kind are fraught with peril. Dawkins makes much of the oppression perpetrated by religion, which is real enough. He gives less attention to the fact that some of the worst atrocities of modern times were committed by regimes that claimed scientific sanction for their crimes. Nazi "scientific racism" and Soviet "dialectical materialism" reduced the unfathomable complexity of human lives to the deadly simplicity of a scientific formula. In each case, the science was bogus, but it was accepted as genuine at the time, and not only in the regimes in question. Science is as liable to be used for inhumane purposes as any other human institution. Indeed, given the enormous authority science enjoys, the risk of it being used in this way is greater.
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Salam,
Hi
I was brought up in a non-religious family.My thoughts were those of an Atheist.Then I faced so many incidents in my life that I had to believe in God.One of my muslim friends gave me Quran to read.I read it but what I feel that only belief in God is sufficient for any person.No need to have belief in ,"divine books "and Prophets.It seems as the tyrants made a conspiracy against humanity to control them and created these books like Bible ,Quran etc.There is no proof of their authenticity ,there is no proof that some prophets really were sent for human guidance.
Religion has in fact divided this world into different groups who are fighting with each other leading to manslaughter in the past as well as in the present.
What do you think?One obstacle is when translators of the Quran do not translate the words islam and muslim. I think these words need to be translated.
Hati