Against Irrationality, Towards Truth

In this note, I aim to hit religion's, especially Islam's, achilles heel and challenge its most basic assumptions in order to break down the last remnants of a pre-supposed view of the world for many. Religion for many is a "leap of faith." Faith remains the integral part of any religion. Hence, in order to start anywhere on religion, we have to understand the nature of faith. Faith is defined as a belief, without proof, in God or teachings of religion. The emphasis here should be on "without proof". Interesting, the question which begs itself is why is one prompted to accept the notion of a supreme being without any logic and, yet, reject everything else without proof? What makes the notion of God more acceptable than anything else, when it comes to rationalizing things? Perhaps one of the plausible answer could be: because there are blatant signs all around us. However, when one is tempted to point at them almost always we find a scientific reason behind them. And in order to find a connection between the object and God, the person is unwillingly coerced to find an aspect of the pointed thing's nature which has yet to be proven. Moreover, the very fact that there are different religions or at least enough non-believers, establishes that there are more than one view for anything that religion includes. Many would find it despicable to even challenge their assumption of God as it would break down their entire frame of mind and their unwillingless to accept the fact that religion could be a case of self believing lies, a lie repeated enough times to make oneself believe that it is a truth. Moreover, religion remains unproven through the established logical reasoning, the very fact that its not a science establishes that very effectively. Yet, religion remains an exception to the rule of not accepting things without proof. Why? At least, I am unable to give satisfactory answer. I mean why is there just leap of faith in God why not with unicorns or the inverted ass people? The idea of unreasoned acceptance of God, is not the only exception in religion. It can be traced to the trinity of God in Christianity, self-created standards for authentic traditions of Prophet Mohamed in sunni sect or infallibility of Imams in the shite sect of Islam.If the idea of ruthless presupposition and believing it to be a fact isnt enough, Islam goes on to propose that Quran is the book of God. There are two essential parts or proofs to that belief: first, Quran was revealed to Prophet Mohamed and Second, Quran mentions that its a book of God. There could be others like "scientific revelations" of Quran but I consider them not significant for now because most of the so called scientific revelations in Quran are in obscure or ambivalent passages which could be translated, as they already have been, into several different ways which in turn brings us to a completely new problem of the interpretation of Islam, which I would indulge in a while. The analysis of the first proof that "Quran was revealed to Prophet Mohammed" might make one thing conspicuous for many that its just a story, true or fictitious is a separate matter. But for now one thing ascertained is that it’s the story of revelation attached to Quran which makes it important. After all, without the story or the belief that it was revealed by God to Prophet, renders it unimportant at least for Islam and there could be nothing to distinguish it from any other book written on Islam. However, the problem which arises is whether it was revealed or not. The fact is we could never know for sure because in order for something to get established as a fact we need to experience it directly through our senses. I am differentiating two types of information assimilation here. For instance, I see the sun setting, is a fact. However, when I hear Mike telling me that the sun is setting, when I am not there to see it, doesn’t become a fact but we assume it’s a fact based on Mike's credibility. The true fact is one directly encountered while the other pseudo-fact, replaced for fact by many, is just a potential happening because we were told so.Therefore, the story of revelation of Quran is at best an unproven story which has all the possibility of being proven false as it has the possibility of being proven right because its a not a fact as we have not seen or at least perceived any other way Quran being revealed directly to the Prophet. On the other hand, if we choose to believe that someone who told us or made us to believe in Islam was credible enough, we have to determine our levels or criteria of credibility. Yet, are we at any point in time completely, without any shred of a doubt sure, that the person telling us wouldn’t lie or commit an honest humanly mistake?The second proof for Quran, that God mentions it revealed Quran is outright preposterous because if I wrote a book and I disguised myself as God and not let anyone know I had written the book, would anyone believe in it? My good answer is not many, except people who act like or probably are like Elmo.Established that Quran is word of God and the presupposition of God’s existence could be true, we deal with another problem. How do we interpret Islam? The interesting part about this problem is that people generally don’t understand the nature of language (I encourage my language paradox or wittgenstien's last works). Language is composed of words or sounds. Each sound has an understanding which is very personal and can never be expressed to another person. And, each person has different experiences attached to the same words. Therefore, when one is interpreting Islam the question remains is: can we ever truly understand Quran as languages evolve, rendering the old meanings to words different from new ones, or the understanding which one might derive might actually be very personal rather than public? Moreover, the very fact that Quran was revealed in Arabic makes problems first because many Moslems might not know Arabic while translation might loose the essence of the originally revealed material. In addition, many verses in Quran are rhetorical or metaphorical which could have several different meanings. Some people might try to supplant Quran with Hadiths, traditions of Prophet Mohamed. However, the question remains how do we decide what is the best way of interpreting Quran? Quran doesn’t lay down any rules for interpreting itself; while Hadiths, used to interpret Quran, have even lower credibility than Quran in general, therefore, we cant use something less credible to increase the incredibility of something else which is already of better credibility. It like saying person B, a drug addict, to testify for A, a relatively more respected person. It wouldn’t matter because B already has lower credibility. It’s important to go into the understanding of credibility because assuming everybody is on the same page with me on this word could create problems. When I talk about credibility of Hadiths lesser than Quran, I am referring to the historical 'fact', that Quran hasn’t changed and Hadiths, at least for Sunni school of thought in Islam, were collected approximately 150 years after the death of prophet Mohamed by a blind scholar, Imam Bukhari. If 150 years of gap isn’t enough to create doubts, perhaps the fact that the scholar was blind could help accentuate the doubts. Many try to support the validity of hadiths collected by Imam Bukhair by claiming that the scholar had a perfect memory. I could be wrong, but perfect memory doesnt logically result in authentic traditions of prophet mohammed even that after 150 years.Another notion attached to Islam is the fact that we need the help of a scholar to interpret Islam. And this takes us to the peak of the problem where it leads to a paradox. Going to a "learned" scholar to learn Islam is like going to a cow for milk when one has never seen either the cow or the milk. What makes us believe that the scholar is the right person to teach us? There are simply two criteria: we could test his/her knowledge of Islam or we could ask people who is the best learned scholar? If we are able to test the knowledge of the scholar, then what is the use of going to him or her because we already know enough to test him and equally testing on Islam doesnt mean that what the scholar might tell us which we already dont know is going to be right. Moreover, if we choose to ask people about the right scholar, we can never be sure if they are right because if more people point to one person, we know that more doesn’t always translate into right. While if lesser people point to another, the sheer paucity of numbers makes it worse. Just imagine if you had never seen a cow and you wanted milk, which you haven’t seen either. When you asked people, one group pointed towards a tree and told you that its a cow while others pointed towards a car believing that its a cow. You would never be able to figure out what cow is unless you just arbitrarily defined anything a cow. Likewise, one never knows what the knowledge is one is trying to seek, as knowledge is allegorical to milk and cow as scholar in the example. Lastly, apparently it takes an entire life to learn Islam. However, doesn’t that defeat the purpose of Islam or religion as a whole? If Islam is to lead life, and it takes an entire life to learn Islam, then what’s the point of Islam? There is perhaps one way to get out of the Islam problem. We could perhaps start backwards. Instead of looking towards religion for God, we could look towards God for religion. And how can we understand God to take a start? I propose a boat example. Let assume you created a boat. Left it water and gave it a thinking ability. How would the boat you created, know its creator when the boat has never seen or perceived you through any of its sense? I think the boat, your creation, will know you, the creator through reflecting on its ownself. When the boat will start asking the questions why am I here? Or why should I be shaped like this? Or why was I made? The boat will start realizing its creator because it would be going through the same thought process the creator had gone through. Likewise, if we aim to understand God, we should tear apart all established assumptions and start questioning our and everything’s existence and try to understand them and see their place in the world. And, that understanding will help us understand God just like the boat will understand its creator. However, the very fact that even our thought process has come from God, we have to trust ourselves and realize that if we will never be able to understand the true nature of God, if that is even true, its because of Gods own willingness because of the restrictions on our thinking ability. And therefore, we should start looking in our very personal existence for the very answer to our creator and perhaps Islam, if its indeed the religion from God. And, if it indeed is, then it wouldnt be hard for us to accept and live islam because it would be a part of us. However, if its not, then lets embark on a road towards God, wherever that leads you.