I watched an interview – Richard Dawkins was interviewed by Mehdi
Hasan for al-Jazeera television which was telecast in December last year. In
watching this fifty minutes video, one is pulled in both directions – that of
Dawkins and that of Hasan.
Dawkin's main
argument is that science is the best method available to us to know the truth:
If ‘science’ cannot answer some questions, no other way then is it possible to
know the truth. Dawkins made it very clear that we lack evidence with regard to
God. Evidence… and … evidence …
Years back in southern India where the atheistic movements grew strong, they held public meetings to conscientise people of their rights and powers. In between, the speaker would speak about the non-existence of God. Their atheism can be said to be founded on the emancipation of man. They were practical atheists who worked to liberate the common man from the oppressing caste Hinduism. The main arguments were based on the inconsistencies found in the scriptures, oppressive elements and the structures of the religion. At times they would also challenge God – the speaker in a meeting would say: ‘If there is God, let there be no light (Electricity) in ten minutes.’ He would give five or ten minutes to God and seeing that there was light still would conclude – ‘see now, there is no God.’[1]
That is not a very serious argument at all. However, in making this claim was he making himself a God, as an absolute and all powerful Master who could predict the future? May be. One could interpret that way. But I do not think so. If electricity goes off in 10 minutes he would still claim that how can a ‘good’ and benevolent God become a ‘cheap’ god who responds to an ordinary man, one in billions of humans. How could that God be great at all? Or he will claim that this is not because of God but x or y were the cause or some mechanical failure etc. Basically what they were aiming to show is that there is no ‘evidence’ to show that God exists.
In one way or the other what connects an illiterate in south
Indian land who embraces atheism for emancipation of humanism and scientists, theoretical atheists Like Dawkins, is Evidence. Apart from the fact whether I disbelieve or not, I will place humanist atheists in a higher rank than scientific
atheism.
Well. One
of the questions by Hasan to Dawkins was about the possibility of placing evidence in every aspect of
human life: Dawkins rephrased the question and answered - How do you know that your wife
loves you? He replied – ‘evidence’. I can see love in her eyes, in the voice… –
although this is not a scientifically testable.
One could
love his wife if she shows that love in her eyes, in her voice, etc. There are
also cases where because evidence suggests otherwise, husbands hate wives –
divorce them – in some places like in India kill them. Charles Taylor in his A
Secular Age speaks of Desdemona analogy when he talks about the validity of
the claim ‘science defeated religion’. He says that Othello had a chance to
speak to her without being deceived by evidences fabricated by Iago. If Othello
had opened his heart to Desdemona he would have known the truth.[2]
Once I am deceived
by the evidences, I will not be ready to be open to the alternative view at
all. The alternative view is totally hidden from me. The only way is that I have
the evidence. The truth value is always something external to me. The
alternative view of knowledge is cut off from me.
I only pray that there are no persons who act that they love the other to
produce false evidences – and I wish that the there are no persons who like
Othello be deceived by the ‘brute’ evidences. I wish that people give 'love' its place and not keeping it within the frame of evidence.
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The video can be watched online in the following link:
[1] [To wit: Today no body in
Tamil Nadu will take up this challenge or they may reverse the challenge – If
there is God let there be light in 10 minutes].
[2] C. Taylor, A Secular Age, pp. 567 – 568.
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