Three Major Areas of Incompatibility Between Religious and Non-Religious Beliefs

Three Major Areas of Incompatibility Between Religious and Non-Religious Beliefs

1- One is that our theoretical religious beliefs are incompatible with our other theoretical beliefs. That is, religions emerged in the age of tradition—apart from a few religions and pseudo-religions that emerged after the age of tradition, which are not even worth considering—and the views and opinions they expressed were, in terms of methodology, epistemology, ontology, cosmology, axiology, and deontology, very compatible with the beliefs of the traditional world. But we have now been in the age of modernity for nearly four hundred, four hundred and fifty years. These beliefs that existed in the age of tradition were compatible at that time, but they are no longer compatible. To put it very simply, if someone back then read in the Quran about the “seven heavens and seven earths,” Ptolemaic astronomy would indeed accept it and say that the heavens are seven and the earth has seven layers. But now, if we say seven heavens and seven earths, modern astronomy and astrophysics do not accept that the heavens are seven or that the earth has seven strata and seven layers. Back then, it was also without evidence, but it was compatible with the rest of their beliefs.

?Or when, for example, the Quran said that every living being is male and female, people at that time truly did not know of any living being that was not male and female, because what living beings did people know back then? Perhaps cows, calves, and horses. But today, we have come to know many living beings that are not male and female. When the Quran said: “and We made from water every living thing,”—strip away the religious garb—its meaning is that water is used in the organism of every living being and that this organism emerged from water. Well, now we know of many living organisms for which this is not the case.

?In the empirical human sciences, they used to say, “And there is for you in legal retribution [saving of] life, O you [people] of understanding,” at least according to one interpretation, did it not mean that when retribution is carried out, crime decreases, and felony decreases? Therefore, your life lies in carrying out retribution, because the more retribution increases, the fewer the number of crimes and felonies. Well, today, the sociology of law, as a branch of the empirical human sciences, says this is not the case. It says there is no direct relationship between the increase or decrease of retribution and crime and felony, and statistics show that the most thefts occur when people gather to watch a thief being hanged.

?Regarding the historical sciences, what was said, for example, about Noah’s Flood, no historical document or evidence, using the methodology of historical research, demonstrates it now. Back then, there was no belief indicating that, for instance, the entire globe was never covered in water. But we now believe that it was never like that. Yes, there was a time when the entire globe was covered in water, but humanity did not exist then. So how can it be said, especially with reference to the Torah which sets a date, and according to that established date, that we had Noah’s Flood nearly three thousand four hundred years ago? And similarly, what is related about Dhu al-Qarnayn, what is related about Gog and Magog, and so on.

?In the philosophical sciences, it is the same. Is God, as a personal, anthropomorphic being as presented in religions and denominations, truly philosophically defensible? Are the attributes ascribed to God in religions and denominations philosophically compatible? Can a being reconcile absolute justice and absolute love or not? How is the problem of evil compatible with the existence of God? Another discussion concerns life after death, which all religions and denominations affirm, but what philosophical proof has been offered for this belief?

?These philosophical discussions never encountered problems in the past; consider, for example, Quranic exegesis. Before the commentaries written after our acquaintance with modernity, the verse about the seven heavens and the seven earths was never justified. From the time of Muhammad Qutb, Sayyid Qutb, and Allameh Tabatabai onward, you see that when they come across the seven heavens and the seven earths, they start saying things like, "What is meant by the seven heavens is not seven skies, but rather the heavens of meaning," and so on. But did Fakhr al-Din al-Razi really interpret it this way? No. Why? Because the cosmology of that time said there were seven heavens. There was no need then to resort to allegory, metaphor, simile, and allusion. Being symbolic, allusive, metaphorical, and allegorical—these are for after the acquaintance with modernity.

2- But there is a second category, and it relates to practical propositions, that is, propositions that offend the conscience of modern humans but did not offend the conscience of traditional humans. When you hear, for example, that the Quran says when your wives commit an error, "admonish them, forsake them in bed, and strike them," then we ask, is this only a matter of men doing this when women commit an error, or can women also do this if men commit an error? They say: No! For the modern person, the question arises: how is it that a man has the right to treat his wife this way, but a woman does not have this right? How can a man have multiple wives, but a woman cannot have multiple husbands? Why? And similarly for other issues. Or if someone abandons their ancestral religion and becomes a Muslim, you hold a thousand gatherings for them and congratulate them, and even a portion of your religious dues is spent on those whose hearts you are to soften so that they might come to your religion. But if someone leaves your religion, then it becomes a matter of repentance, and if they do not repent, then it is the issue of apostasy and its related matters.

3- The third is the issue of relevance and irrelevance. What does this mean? The issue is that religion's connection to real life has been lost. For instance, we have rulings about what to do if a mouse falls into your well, how much water must be drawn out, and what to do if a rabbit or a dog falls in. Now, what percentage of you and I deal with well water? That is, what has been said about the mouse is irrelevant to the lives of ninety percent of us. It has no relevance because we don't have wells, so it is no longer relevant. Now, when something loses its relevance, its truth is not destroyed, but its role in life disappears.

?Many of the things that exist in the jurisprudence of religions and denominations—and of course, the more law-based a religion is, like Judaism and Islam, the more problems it has in today's world because they have a voluminous jurisprudence. If you study in the seminary and then go teach at a university of Islamic studies, you will see that the things you learned are not what your student audience needs. The things your student audience needs, you did not learn in the seminary. That is, you learned about ablution with a splint in the seminary, but between you and God, throughout your entire teaching career at the university, how many people told you that their problem in life is not knowing how to perform ablution with a splint? Their problem is the meaning of life, but the meaning of life is not taught to us in principles of jurisprudence, jurisprudence, philosophy, or mysticism. That is, what is the people's problem, we have not been taught the solution for it, and what we have been taught the solution and remedy for is no longer the problem of our people.

?But there is one point, and that is that besides the incompatibility of reason, conscience, and realities, there is an issue that has emerged in our time. There is a paradox in our time, and that paradox is that the realm of theory has become very, very vast for humanity, while the realm of action has become narrow. And when this realm of theory expands and the realm of action narrows, the continuation of life then acquires certain requirements, and it is here that religion has created a problem, and for this reason, people have turned to religion.

?Look, in the past, you might be born in a village and die in that same village, and truly never know what was happening three leagues away. That is, the realm of thought was really, really narrow, and people truly had no awareness of other civilizations, other countries. But today, thanks to the blessing or the curse of mass media, the realm of people's awareness has become very broad; that is, we know almost anything we want to know; we can find out, for example, how much the price of gold in Argentina has risen or fallen compared to yesterday. This is the realm of thought, which has become broad and expanded. But on the other hand, the realm of action has narrowed. Why? Because in the past, the impact of the actions you performed was very limited; that is, if you wanted to spend your whole life killing people in the past, how many people could you kill? For instance, Genghis Khan spent a lifetime campaigning and only managed to kill two million people. But now, with the pull of a trigger, you can kill, say, three million people in two minutes of work. That is, the actual impact of a person on other people has become very vast. That is, a person can now do things that affect the lives of all human beings.

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Three Major Areas of Incompatibility Between Religious and Non-Religious Beliefs

Mostafa Malekian, Epistemology of Religious Belief

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