Does science make belief in Allah/God obsolete

I strongly appreciate your efforts to promote humanism. So far I have not read your 5 articles but you will definitely receive my response about the dynamics of faith, reason, emotion & other cognitive states after some time. Pl contact Mr Tony Blair also who recently expressed to unite all religions & appealed the elite countries to promote themselves by promoting poor & marginalized particularly from under developed countries than lagging behind because of the old mindset of the hegemony of the West.

Dr Manstein

Humanist International <humanist_2008@yahoo.com> wrote:

Article 5 : Does science make belief in Allah/God obsolete?

Of course responds a philosopher  

Belief or disbelief in an Allah/God is not a scientific opinion or a judgement about how physical facts present themselves in the world, nor is it a healthy assumption on the question of creation. It is a fictional element, an element of suggestion and indoctrination in our wider worldview, one of the many sets of background assumptions by which we make sense or nonsense of our world as a whole.

We seldom question these indoctrinations and assumptions, but we often use them in expressing our inner thoughts. As life goes on, we shape them gradually into patterns by which to relate to the things we observe. And occasionally, when something goes badly wrong, we realise that we must somehow think differently about things, thoughts and institutions around us and ultimately about the whole universe. Doing this is, of course, the only thing rational. Indeed, it is the groundwork without which no new thought is impossible.

We generally trust the world around us, and relate to it. That trust that faith is not irrational; it is, in fact, the basis of our essential references of our day to day life and our rationality. If we were to doubt other people and truths in general or question the evident physical regularity of nature, we would lose not just our science but our sanity.

Worldviews, then, are foundational for human life and underlie every culture. On some points they generally agree, but on other points, they differ because they emphasise different aspects of the world reality and the human experience.
Some centre their belief system or faith on a wise and scholarly human figure called the Godhead; some, such as those in Buddhism and Taoism follow the rhythm of nature itself. While others like in Islam and Christianity invent the idea of a supernatural creator. But what they all do is to relate and set human life in a context. They don't see our specie as sealed in a box that contains everything of value, but as playing its part in a much wider theatre of spiritual/psychological activity that gives meaning to our own. Scientism like religion, cuts or distorts that natural context off altogether and looks for the meaning of life in the material science itself whereas the religions look in the hypothetical Allah/God and his supposedly revealed myths and laws. It is this claim to a monopoly of meaning, rather than any special scientific or religious doctrine, that makes science and religion look like competitors today.

Science does have its own worldview that includes guiding principles about the nature of the world. The founders of modern science expressed these laws of nature very plainly in their respective times. The materialist men of science and philosophers like Comte, Marx, Freud claimed that the cosmic order is a flow wholly from matter. Basing their thoughts on this principle, others evolved secular thoughts and world views. Continuing this to our own day, Karl Popper rightly asserts that science consists only of provable statements about the physical world, of course, in matter as well as in its psychological or spiritual dimensions.

Spirituality however made its impact in a different way. Psychology, the secular alternative to religious concept called spirituality, based itself on the fact that all spirituality is essentially a quality of the living matter. It made progress by leaps and bonds through the persons of Freud, Jung and others. Behaviorism's dealt with exclusively with outside expressions of our inner selves called the behaviour. Consciousness, it said, did exists as a dimension of the most of animal life, a reflection of our brain activity, as something non-material but real, intelligible and effective in its own right.

Well you see, following this evolution of knowledge and science, in both physical and spiritual sense, one feels that no place is left for any fiction of Allah/God. It was a medieval invention of yesterday's ignorance and superstition. Is there any place for this nonsense, not according to my good sense!

We live in a fantasy world, a world of religious illusion. The great task in life is to find reality."
Iris Murdoch

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In the greater interest of civilization, all articles in this series may be reproduced or published in any language.

Article 1: Does science make belief in Allah/God obsolete ? Necessarily, it does - speaks a physicist

<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/humanist_international/message/114>

Article 2: Yes, of course - speaks a psychologist
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/humanist_international/message/115> Article 3 : Does science make belief in Allah/God obsolete ? No, and yes - speaks a Christian Priest !<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/humanist_international/message/116> Article 4 : Does science make belief in Allah/God obsolete ? Absolutely - says an eminent scientist <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/humanist_international/message/117>