Contemplating God-free zones
By Khaled Diab
There
is a misperception among the religious that a ‘godless society’ robs modern
life of its soul and substitutes the material for the magical.
July 2008
A typical assumption the religious make is that
the absence of God deprives life of essence and meaning – that the cold eye of
reason is arrogant and robs life of its soul and mystique. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor has colourfully described this as “spiritual
homelessness”. He opined that: “Many people have a sense of being in a sort
of exile from faith-guided experience.”
This sense of alienation cuts across
theological lines. “It’s difficult to have a spiritual life in a modern
society,” believes Tariq Ramadan, the
Swiss-Egyptian Islamic scholar.
As a non-believer, I do not feel like a
spiritual refugee slumming it out in some frontier camp for exiled souls. You
do not need God or religion to experience the sublime and poetic.
The modern world has its own peculiar mystique
and, as far as our knowledge of human civilisation goes, we are truly living in
the age of ‘miracles’. Jesus could restore sight to the blind,
so can
our doctors. That said, feeding
the 5,000 would be useful with the current food crisis and turning water into wine would make a
great party trick.
Muhammad flew from Mecca to Jerusalem on the
winged steed Buraq, so can each one of us if we wish. Modern
technology enables us to do so many things that would’ve been considered
superhuman miracles a couple of centuries ago.
In addition, the facts of nature we have uncovered
are often stranger than the myths of religion. Instead of the seven heavens, we
have an infinite number in which float billions of galaxies and trillions of
stars.
On the other end of the scale, science has
uncovered entire quantum universes on the head of a pin. For the truly
mind-boggling, there is the possibility that “multiverses” exist in which everything that doesn’t
occur in our universe does elsewhere.
Yet that is not enough for some. “A godless
society is one without a soul and one which anxiously tears itself apart in the
void,” believes
one blogger.
I don’t know whether or not there is a god. If
there is a supreme being, (s)he is the type that set
off the Big Bang and then ran for cover. In fact, I believe all religions are
not heavenly imports but carry a clear Made on Earth label. So, where does that
leave my poor soul?
Well, not believing in the afterlife carries
with it the potential torture and torment of the infinite expanse of
nothingness that awaits. The idea of heaven, of
course, has its appeal and has tempted many a sceptic to embrace the faith
eventually.
As a child, I tried to get my head around the
implications of ‘perfection’ and eternal life. If we can have anything we
desire in heaven, can that include ‘sinful’ things and, if so, how can we then
be ‘perfect’? Can we hang out with our friends even if they are in hell and can
we rub shoulders with heaven’s A list even if they
wouldn’t be seen alive with us?
Intriguing as paradise is, there’s its ugly
flipside: eternal damnation. Unless God grants a general amnesty, most of
humanity is hell-bound. Many of my friends are non-Muslims: even if I am
forgiven, what is to happen to them or, alternatively, to me if it turns out
that Christianity or Judaism has it right? Well, I doubt I’ll want for company
in hell, but will I have time to enjoy it as I roast?
So, in the balance of things, I prefer no
afterlife, after all.
So, are people who believe that this life is
all there is more materialistic and hedonistic, as the religious are often
inclined to believe?
Religion does not immunise against the material
and despite the wealth of the modern world, it is not more materialistic than
the more God-fearing past. In contrast, the absence of religion does not lead
to moral collapse, as has been amply demonstrated by the secular experiment. If the ancients were capable of hammering out a moral code, then so
are we.
Of course, the ghost of religion still haunts
our secular ethics. But this is no bad thing, since certain pearls of wisdom
are timeless. However, morals are not set in stone tablets, and we should
discard all those that do not stand the test of reason.
So, does that make us arrogant usurpers and
wannabe demigods?
Modern science-based secularism is, in many
ways, far more humble than religion. Although it has, sometimes excessive,
faith in human ingenuity, it has knocked us off our mantle at the centre of
creation. Now we know that we are collectively less significant than a grain of
sand – albeit one with a big ego – in the infinite desert of the universe.
This growing knowledge of our worthlessness in
the grander design of things can help partly explain why religion, especially
of the formulaic, unquestioning type, is gaining ground.
But not everyone is after the certainty of
dogma and the assuring timelessness of tradition. Some people find the modern
world, with its stark scepticism and cynicism in which even secular religions
have been discredited, lacking in soul.
That could help explain all the
pseudo-religious phenomena filling the vacuum: from the cult of celebrity and
digitally enhanced superheroes to consumer products being invested with almost
magical properties.
Unlike some non-believers, I am not hostile
towards religion or the religious, particularly those who manage to strike a
compromise between their faith and rationality.
Religion is not the root of all evil, nor of all good. Even if it died out tomorrow, there would
still be hate, ignorance, intolerance, prejudice and self-righteous violence.
These are all human traits, as is the will to resist them.
“Our life together in Britain cannot be a God-free
zone,” Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor urges.
Britain is not entirely godless – there’s still
breath in the old spirit yet. But whether a personal God lives or dies is up to
each one of us to decide, and not the cardinals, imams or rabbis.
This column appeared in The Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free section on 11
July 2008. Read the related
discussion.
ã2008 K. Diab. Unless otherwise stated, all the content on this website is the
copyright of Khaled Diab.