Abhijit Naskar's Blog - Posts Tagged "faith"

I have been asked countless times.

Does God exist?

I'll go straight ahead and tell you I don't know. And you know what! No human being on planet earth knows whether such a Supreme Entity exists. And before the fundamentalist primitives come up with their idiotic argument "have you asked everyone on this planet?" Here the answer would be, the believers believe in an existence of a Supreme Entity. And there is a vast difference between belief and knowledge. Or as most people like to say, It is a matter of faith. Now there is the question, "what is faith?"
"Can we, the modern human beings of the 21st century have faith on an entity, whom we know nothing about!"
And the answer is not so simple as it might seem. The point is, faith, hope, belief all these are born out of a magnificent network of cells, which we call the neurons. And as far as the neurons are concerned, the question "does God exist" is irrational and irrelevant to the existence of an advanced biological creature like the humans.
Science shall never be able to answer this question? Because the very neural basis of the question dwells on the magnificent operation of the human brain from which rises abstract thinking. And the outcome of such abstract thinking is infinite creativity. It is the product of the brain's capacity to imagine things that we cannot comprehend with our logical prefrontal cortex.
After all, being the smartest species on earth has its own existential baggage. Daily struggle of the humans is not as easy. It may seem easy to a financially stable and established atheist. But the reality is different.
To ease the sufferings of the species as a whole, Mother Nature put selective pressure on the neural network of the brain, that eventually led to the arrival of cognitive features of the humankind. And one of those crucial features is spirituality. And this element of Spirituality later led to the development of the formal structure of religions. And these structures further sustained the concept of God in the mind of the masses.
And the concept of God still exists in the human mind, because of its evolutionary advantages. Through various neurochemical processes, the human belief upon God or any kind of divinity, relieves stress and anxiety in daily life. It acts as a natural anti-depressant.
A belief is your brain's self maintenance mechanism. And the most important feature of a human belief is that it is very personal. Each one of you has some kind of belief system. And as for the belief upon the divinity, as long as there is such a thing as weakness in the human heart, as long as the human heart sheds a drop of tear in weakness, there shall be a faith in God and divinity.
Now one might ask, what about all those people or rather saints who experienced God? Were they simply delusional, as the atheists ruthlessly put it?
It is not as simple as saying, they were delusional. What those saints experienced is what we call an altered state of consciousness. People experience these mental states in various circumstances. For example, disturbance in the geomagnetic field often increases the frequency of psychotic episodes in mentally ill patients. And in some cases geomagnetic disturbance can also trigger subtle electrical storm within the temporal lobe of the brain. These storms often lead to ecstatic experiences.
However, till date the most healthy way to experience the divine bliss is through meditation. It is the natural way to trigger an ecstatic sensation in your brain. That's how Buddha experienced Nirvana. While Jesus experienced his blissful state of consciousness through a combination of devotion and meditation.
So, it is not about whether God exists or not. It is all about whether your belief upon him or her makes you a better version of yourself.
Our research in modern Neuroscience has proven that spirituality and divinity possess great health benefits. In order to have a deeper understanding of the biological impact of divinity you may read one of my latest books Autobiography of God: Biopsy of A Cognitive Reality.
But in short, divinity makes you happier and healthier both mentally and physiologically. It keeps the neurochemical processes of your body in check. It does indeed improve the quality of your life, by improving your biology.
So, your spiritual goals can be as numerous as there are stars in the sky. And so can be your religions, but in all your vivid and diverse paths if practicing religion and spirituality, there is one very common and simple element that knows no bounds, it is the eternal bliss of divinity which evolved in the human mind through millions of years, and this very element enables you to attain unimaginable feats of excellence.

Have you ever wondered, why do we believe what we believe?
Why some of us humans are religious, some spiritual, some extremists, some agnostics and some atheists?
What is it that makes various human beings perceive different things at different moral, logical and spiritual level?
Are we all merely smart biological devices with various operating platforms like iOS, Android, Windows, Linux and Blackberry?
What makes us so different in terms of beliefs and disbeliefs? And why is it so hard for humans to embrace each other’s beliefs?
And the ultimate question is, does our belief actually allow us to connect with the reality? Does it have any significance in the human biology?
In this brief article we are about to embark on an enlightening journey of belief, biology and philosophy. And in the end we shall discover how imperative it is to sometimes acknowledge each other’s beliefs and accept people the way they are, because one’s beliefs are not merely a matter of ideology or intuitions, rather it is a rudimentary need of the human mind. And for a truly cheerful and productive human life one’s belief should be in perfect harmony with Science & Philosophy.

So, let’s begin with a simple yet quintessential question of human life – what is belief?

Belief is the brain's natural self maintenance mechanism. It enables a person function properly in daily life, without worrying about the true nature of reality. Belief is exclusively a matter of personal domain. It has nothing to do with reality. And conflict occurs when a person tries to impose his or her beliefs onto others.

The human brain is quite selfish. Its first concern is the satisfaction of its owner. The common human brain of the masses doesn't care about the truth of the universe. It doesn't care about scientific enlightenment. It doesn't care about reasoning. The only thing it cares about is survival. And in order to survive it does everything in its capacity to keep a person bound inside a tiny circle of beliefs and fantasies. And every time another person tries to break that circle by refuting the beliefs and talking about Science, the brain kicks into self defense mode. Now it shall do everything to sustain the beliefs and fight every incoming argument with a blind eye. This is because one's beliefs no matter how magical or mystical or unscientific they sound, help the person get through the daily struggles of life.

In short, belief is a common element of human life the purpose of which is self-preservation. Even we scientists often pursue a hunch based on our beliefs. The only difference is that we cannot call that hunch Science, until we actually prove it through rigorous experimentations. There was a time, when Evolution was a hunch or rather a hypothesis in the minds of a few naturalists. Hence we received the famous book of biology "On the Origin of Species by means of natural selection" by Charles Darwin. Then we started to look for more evidence to back up the theory. And over time we gathered a pile of anthropological and genetic evidence, enough to include the Theory of Evolution as an incontrovertible fact of science.

Now let's talk about supernatural beliefs. The whole world is filled with various unearthly and supernatural beliefs, such as demons, advanced ancient civilization, extraterrestrial intervention in ancient human society etc. All these fantasies are the products of the brain's myth-making mechanism. And in fact, it is very easy for the brain to fall prey to these fantastic illusory ideas and conspiracy theories. This is because your brain has an innate attraction towards everything that by definition belongs to a domain, that is apparently "beyond human understanding". Your brain has an affinity towards all those conspiracy theories and paranormal fantasies. And there is an evolutionary reason behind it. It is because we the humans have remained in the fear of the unknown throughout the most of our 200,000 years long existence. And that innate bond between the human mind and the unknown still exists in the limbic system of the brain.

Now let’s look at some modern life scenarios where this ingrained affinity towards mysticism and the unknown becomes a curse for the society. The innate primordial attraction towards the unknown often makes people fall prey to fraudsters like psychics. However, if we talk about psychic abilities, even you have such abilities. How many times has it happened that you think of a word and suddenly the person in front spits out the very word. These are random incidents that occur in everybody daily life. It cannot be controlled or simulated. It is something that happens when you least expect it.

All these bizarre phenomena fall into the category of Extra Sensory Perception or ESP. Parapsychologists have been studying these phenomena for a long time. And the evidence is too significant to call these phenomena as coincidence. ESP does indeed occur. So far we have developed several possible scientific hypothesis for ESP. The most plausible one is that human brains are capable of sharing information through Earth's geomagnetic field.

But you must remember, despite the fact that we have highly plausible scientific explanations for ESP, it is still all hypothesis. We haven't yet been able to prove it as a fact of Science. Because to prove a phenomenon as Science we must replicate it inside the lab.

And there's the biggest problem with understanding the Science behind ESP. Until now we have no way to replicate an ESP phenomenon. Because they happen naturally in the human mind, and mostly in incidents of crisis. And we cannot take the unscientific risk of triggering an ESP phenomenon in the human mind by putting another human person into a crisis. Such phenomena are unpredictable. And in most cases they occur out of the blue. So it is close to impossible to trigger such phenomena in a controlled environment.

So don't fall prey to all the fraudsters around you claiming to be psychics. In most cases they use what we call in psychology “Barnum statements”. Astrology, tarot card reading, and all those hocus focus stuff around you, use these statements. The special feature of these statements is that they happen to be true for almost any human being. And especially when a person goes to a psychic expecting answers to various confusing questions, his or brain automatically embraces the common statements from the psychic as exclusive remarks about the person. Your brain always keeps anticipating a pattern even in the chaos. So unless you have a truly rational mind filled with scientific curiosity it is very likely for you to become a prey to those predators who are always looking to feed on the sufferings of good and gullible people.

However, if a grieving person visits a psychic with the hope of getting in touch with the departed soul of his or her loved one, in order to have solace, then I really don't have any idea how to convince the person that the so called psychics are frauds. Because to the grieving person, the psychic acts as a ray of hope - the last resort to say good bye to a person whom he or she cared about deeply. But for this very purpose we have the field of psychiatry. We have developed highly advanced anti depressants, mood stabilizers various other medications that can help in easing the grief. Now it is up to a person's own conscience, which one to choose.

As far as the human mind is concerned, when it is in distress, all it cares about is finding hope. And it doesn't matter to the mind where that hope comes from. It is all about self preservation. That’s why your brain is always trying to make sense out of nonsense in order to give you a sense of calmness. It is always looking for pattern in the unknown. In fact, it quite successfully makes you see things even in the nothingness. This psychological phenomenon is known as Pareidolia. It is why your mind often perceives a figure in the cloud, or a face on a random rock formation. It is your mind that always plays tricks on you. And in every situation of your daily life you see what you really want to see, rather than what really is.

Believe it or not, none of us is able to see the reality as it is. Your brain has a very limited field of vision, when it comes to conscious perception. Everything outside that field is cut out as background noise, so that you can focus on the task at hand. No matter how much we pride ourselves to be the smartest species on earth, the reality is we are partially blind, and shall remain that way forever. And this partial cognitive blindness often leads to superstitions, especially in times of weakness. When the mind is weak, it is easy to succumb to all kinds of fantasies and superstitions. But when such fantasies and superstitions become barriers in the path of humanity’s progress, then it is imperative that we the modern human beings do our best to shake them off.

Every human being is neurologically predisposed to be superstitious. However, to counteract such superstitions the brain has also developed the feature of reasoning in the neural network of the frontal lobes. But in times of distress, that feature gets highly suppressed by the overwhelming feeling of sadness and anxiety. Hence, lack of reasoning leads the mind to seek absolution in the supernatural domain of the society.

However, those who practice reasoning and rational thinking in daily circumstances, are much more likely to avoid the hocus focus stuff in times of distress, than those who don't. It is all about realization of the self.

The point is, human mind cannot function properly without some kind of belief system. So, for the sake a truly cheerful future we must work together to align our beliefs in the line of Science and Philosophy, as much as possible if we truly want to advance as a species, keeping in mind, that it is not possible for a human to be completely free from beliefs, because beliefs are crucial cognitive mechanism of the brain. However, one's personal beliefs should not stop him or her from embracing the practicality of Science and the fragrance of Philosophy. There should be a healthy balance between the personal domain of beliefs and the rational realm of scientific & philosophical thinking.

Perfection is not a feature of our world. On this planet nothing is perfect. Yet we crave for perfection. Especially biological life on this planet is definitely far from perfect. We are not perfect. That's where the process of evolution comes in. Biological life including us the sapiens, keeps evolving from an imperfect species to a less imperfect species. So, we keep going in the path of getting less and less imperfect. The process of evolution is a relentless journey from imperfection towards perfection. This perfection is defined by its survival value. And those who can't keep up with the process, get extinct. That's how natural selection works. Either you are a winner, or you lose your license to survive on this planet. It is the very basis of biology. And biology is the bedrock of life.

And when a biological species evolves, in order to adapt to its environment, it adopts some new biological features and gets rid of the unnecessary ones. And this process of adoption and exclusion of biological features is a crucial element in the path of survival. And it has been going on since the birth of the very first life form on this planet, and shall go on in the future.

Human life is a hodge-podge of various biological features. However, the features that distinguish humanity from the rest of the species on this planet are those of our uniquely advanced neurobiology. Our very pride on being the smartest species on earth is predicated on a highly complex and magnificent neurobiology. Our fascinating neurobiology puts us apart from the entire animal kingdom. Without our advanced neural network of a hundred billion nerve cells, we are nothing compared to the brawn of the wild animals.

And this very neurobiology has endowed us with a beautiful psychological system, called the human consciousness. It has endowed us with uniquely majestic cognitive features. The 3 pound lump of jelly, which we call the human brain, is the birthplace of all our extraordinary achievements. Human Brain is the most complex organized structure in this entire universe. It is made up of a hundred billion nerve cells or neurons. The relentless activity of these neurons gives rise to all the richness of our conscious experience. All our feelings, emotions, thoughts, ambitions, love lives, our sense of self, and even our religious sentiments are simply born from the activity of these little specks of jelly in our head.

All our sentiments, whether they are religious, romantic or any other, are born in the neurons. In fact, religion itself is a natural biological feature of the human brain. And as I said earlier, any biological life-form must evolve in order to survive, while modifying its basic biological features. And one of the most significant features of human life, is its religious sentiments. Hence, when Mother Nature decides that some of those religious sentiments are not working properly, she puts selective pressure on the human brain in order to modify those sentiments, and if needed, terminate some and develop new ones. And in this process of religious evolution, two of the most glaring specimens, are Jesus of Nazareth and Siddhartha Gautama, whom you know as Buddha.

In the process of biological evolution, change in a biological feature takes a long time to become noticeable. However, the first step towards that change, leads to a big leap for the whole species.
For example, around 1.89 million years ago something extraordinary happened, that changed the course of mankind history forever. At that point of time your ancestral lineage reached the crossroads of evolution. Henceforth, evolved one of the most advanced early humans. They were the Homo erectus. You really owe a lot of your brilliance to them, because they did something that was and still is beyond the wildest dreams of the entire animal kingdom on planet earth. They solved one of the most important pieces of your evolutionary puzzle -the mystery of fire.

There was not a single species on your entire planet, that could thwart its instinctual fear of fire, until the arrival of Homo erectus. These early members of your evolutionary tree achieved the unthinkable. They conquered their primeval fear of fire and reached into the fascinating blaze like a true brave-heart. But for this to actually happen, there had to be one or a couple of brave Homo erectus, filled with vigor, who took the first step toward achieving their own fear of fire. And as soon as they conquered their own fear, following them came all the fellow erectus. As a result, for the first time in the history of life, a biological species harnessed fire. Naturally, they became superior to all other contemporary species, including the wildest ones. Suddenly everything changed. It was absolutely mesmerizing. As if your evolutionary timeline witnessed the captivating dawn of human excellence.

Similar extraordinary events of evolution in the human religious sentiments occurred when two brave men, took the first step outside their circle of orthodox system of beliefs. They took the first step towards shaking off the unnecessary and quite harmful elements of religious dogma, that were bestowed upon them by the environment. Their minds wanted to evolve into better versions of themselves, with new and refreshed religious sentiments.

Those two were Christ and Buddha. They were ordinary humans who, upon the attainment of Absolute Unitary Qualia (transcendence/nirvana/god – see What is Mind? to learn in detail) wanted to adorn humanity with better and less wild religious sentiments. They wanted to adorn humanity with true humanism. And above all they wanted to adorn humanity with plain ordinary everyday kindness and empathy.

Their attempt to reform the contemporary system of religious sentiments was hailed as blasphemy by the orthodox believers, however, as it always happens in nature, if a change is beneficial to a species, then that change eventually sinks into the psychology of that species. Naturally, two new systems of religious sentiments were born upon the foundation of the teachings of Christ and Buddha. These were Christianity and Buddhism. But, like all of their predecessors these systems are also man-made, hence are prone to orthodoxy and authoritarianism. And when such orthodoxy gets intense, an urge for a new system appears in the mind of thinking humanity.

As long as the teachings of great minds remain as a kind of philosophical literature, which you can read and analyze, and then embrace the parts that appeal to you while discarding the rest, they shall flow pure and strong in the hearts of many, but the moment, representatives of those teachings start making the peculiar claim of their exclusive textual possession of divinity while defying all other philosophies, the world will imminently plunge into chaos.

Thus, whenever fundamentalism, be it religious, political or educational becomes an impediment in the progress of thinking humanity, it becomes a sociological responsibility of the children of Mother Earth to break free from the bonds of textual orthodoxy, and if necessary build a new system aligned with rational thinking and universal acceptance.

Belief is indeed psychologically important for the human mind of general population, but that belief should be nicely compatible with scientific reasoning, otherwise that belief turns into prejudice, which is never beneficial to the human life.

Above all, it is the quality of life that matters. While, Science plays the most influential role in improving the quality of life as a whole, Religion on the other hand, plays the major role in strengthening life from within. In some occasions, both science and religion become expendable. But in no circumstances, the quality of life can be compromised. Religion and Science both must help a person wherever he or she stands, or else, they are of no use.

God – Allah – Jehovah – Brahman – all these mere man-made verbal expressions become bleak and dismal upon the attainment of the actual experience. Once the lotus of your inner divinity gets full-blown and you reach the mental state where all the religious giants of human history experienced the all-encompassing sense of godliness, the exuberance of the human mind turns infinite. Awakening into that state makes all the perceptual limitations of the mind disappear, just like a bucket of muddy water turns crystal-clear once poured into the ocean.
To put it simply, the transcendental state sets the human mind free. In this extraordinary state of mind, the usual finite domain of consciousness transforms into a subjective, infinite, universal, all-pervading consciousness. This mental state is what we can quite literally call the Kingdom of God . Clinically I have termed this state of mind in What is Mind? as Absolute Unitary Qualia .
The experience itself is encoded in the neurological circuits of the human brain. However, this specific functional expression of the neurons does not occur in the usual state of mind. It requires specific internal and external stimuli to trigger the manifestation of the God state in the human mind.
Various neural activities collectively construct the vividly divine internal environment of the Kingdom of God. It involves various internal biological factors. However, the most important question of this century that rises from the study of the psychology of religion, is that whether the God state is a delusional state of the mind.
Despite the fact that a few radical atheist psychologists have put forward the suggestion that religious faith or simply any kind of faith upon God may turn out to be mere delusion, we neuroscientists who actually investigate the molecular underpinnings of all things religious and spiritual, have empirically proven otherwise.
The argument against faith is all based upon the rigorous analysis of the scriptures, and not upon the objective observation of the actual individual sensation of faith. Historical experiences of the Kingdom of God gave rise to all the scriptures in the world, but the scriptures themselves don’t account for the actual globally prevalent psychological element of faith or divinity in the human mind.
Faith is a natural evolutionary trait of the human mind, selected by Mother Nature as an internal coping-mechanism.
Now let’s first distinguish what is the difference between faith and the mental state of God. Faith is simply a natural sensation of the mind, quite like love, which is seen in most of the human population. On the other hand, the God state is the actual subjective experience of encountering God, quite literally. Hence, this subjective experience occurs only in the fraction of the human population, due to various stimuli.
Moreover, the manifestation of the God Dimension in the human mind requires specific internal and external environment. In short, there are a few kinds of stimuli that evoke such transcendental state where a person simply has an inexplicable encounter with God, unlike the everyday personal sense of faith. This encounter manifests at different intensities based on the kind of the stimulus, and more importantly, majority of the modern day God state experiences tend to be lethal, due to their pathological origin.
This means, pathology can indeed cause experiences of the Kingdom of God, but not all God state experiences are caused by pathology. They can also occur due to disturbance in the geomagnetic field of our planet, consumption of psychedelics, excruciatingly extreme level of stress during a near-death situation, or ultimately through a natural and healthy procedure of meditation.
Now let’s shed some light on the shady domain of the Kingdom of God or to speak clinically, the Absolute Unitary Qualia. So, the very first question that may rise in the mind of a rational human being, is - what is this God state? Is it some kind of extraterrestrial dimension?
To answer these questions, we need to resort to two different perspectives. From a subjective point of view, i.e. from the point of view of a person who’s actually experiencing the God state, it is indeed an extraterrestrial dimension which the ancient cultures termed as the Kingdom of God. Now from an objective point of view, i.e. from the point of view of a scientist who analyzes subject’s experience of the God state, it is an exceptional state of the human mind, attained in specific internal and external conditions.
Basically, it is an earthly experience, which manifests in an unearthly manner. It appears to be devoid of the mortal limitations of the human life. And especially due to its unearthly and quite heavenly characteristics, it is deemed in many early human civilizations as the Abode of the Lord Almighty.
Unlike the usual sensation of divinity in the general population, the God state is an actual experiential encounter with the pre-dominant mental picture of an Almighty Being. I termed it as Absolute Unitary Qualia because of its unifying nature, that puts forward a sensation of oneness between human and the God or the Universe.
Here is a common expression of experiencing the Absolute Unitary Qualia or the God state:
“The experience took hold of me with such power that it seemed to go through my whole soul, so it seemed as if God was praying in, with, and for me.”
Now in order to understand the underlying biology of the Kingdom of God, let’s start with a basic understanding of the anatomy of the soul.
Until the advancement in the field of Neuroscience, there have been a lot of mystical confusions surrounding the ancient notions of mind, body, and soul, in both the philosophical and scientific societies. Unfortunately, the confusion still prevails to a great extent in the general population. And to clear this air of mystery, a lot of scientific literatures have been published. So, I’ll not go into the detail analysis of these ideas.
All these confusions are based on ignorance. However, far from the confusions, let’s have a basic scientific perception on the idea of mind, body and soul. For ages, due to lack of insight into the biological basis of life, the ancient notion of soul being the driving force behind mind and body, has remained dominant in the general human psyche.
There has always been an irresistible desire in humans to see ourselves somehow above nature and our biological body. And this primordially innate desire has given rise to varied doctrines and philosophies of dualism, which inadvertently implied a mystical distinction between our biological body and the supernatural realm. Thus, the mystical idea of a soul has survived through ages.
The primitive human notion about the soul has been that, the soul bestows a person with his or her unique personality. This is more or less the universal perception of the soul. And if that so, then soul and mind are basically one and the same thing, because the modern understanding of the human psychology reveals that the mind is the collective expression of various mental elements such as emotions, ambitions, ideologies, sentiments etc. All these mental elements define a person’s personality traits. Therefore, soul is only the primordial equivalent of the mind.
Having diminished the confusing primeval separation between mind and soul, let’s move on and get acquainted with the fundamental building blocks of the mind/soul.
It all begins in the tiny cells of the brain which we call neurons. Neurons are the fundamental building blocks of the mind/soul. Bring a bunch of live neurons together and from them would rise a rudimentary mental feature. Bring enough of such different features together, by interconnecting their individual networks of neurons and collectively they’ll form the mind/soul.
Now imagine a hundred billion of such neurons creating a magnificent network, which gives rise to your lavishly colored mental life. Neuron is to mind, what DNA is to life. Now, let’s look at the connection between mind and life. While being an essential part of life, mind is what enables life to maneuver in this world. And consciousness is a quintessential part of mind which makes life aware of its environment. Now, given the context of the article, one might wonder, where does God fit into all this?
There is nothing mystical about it actually. It is pretty simple - mind is a part of life – consciousness is a part of mind – God is a part of consciousness. And as mentioned earlier, the God part of the consciousness is attainable only through certain stimuli. It may seem demeaning to the vanity of some individuals, but like all elements of the mind, God and all its correlated sensations of divinity are the majestic creations of the neurobiology.

Further Reading
1. Autobiography of God: Biopsy of A Cognitive Reality
2. Biopsy of Religions: Neuroanalysis towards Universal Tolerance
3. What is Mind?
4. In Search of Divinity: Journey to The Kingdom of Conscience

Islam - is it a religion of peace or of violence? This is a question that torments the entire human society. But just because it is correlated with over-exaggerated discussions and debates, does not mean that the question itself is a genuine one. Let me put it this way - Islam is a religion of course, but neither of peace nor of violence. It is a religion like any other religion, that provides a psychological bedrock of baseline cultural identity and individuality to its people. But it is the actions of these people that should be accounted for to define whether the religion "Islam" is a religion of peace or of violence, instead of judging it based on the scripture Quran. Books are no measure for judgement in the society of thinking humanity. It is the actions of the people that counts, nothing else.

Here you must remember, the so-called Jihadis who are in reality, mentally unstable individuals run by Quranic fundamentalists, do not represent the whole Muslim population of the world. Muslims are just as peace-loving as the Christians, Hindus, Jews or Buddhists. Terrorism has nothing to do with religion, Islam or otherwise. Terrorism is born of fundamentalism not of religion.

Peace and Violence are both biological traits of humans as well as the entire animal kingdom. And since humans are the only species capable of creating literatures, it should not be surprising that these literatures would have the same blend of peace and violence, or simply, good and evil, that the human character possesses. And these literatures include all the scriptures in the world. As such, they are not immune to the innate evil of the human psyche. In fact, since these scriptures are the product of a time when ignorance and barbarianism ran rampant in the human society, it is more reason, for evil traits to appear on their pages alongside the goodness that they teach.

Like all human literatures the Islamic literature, the Quran and the Hadith, were also human creation. No Allah or God had anything to with them. They arose from the minds of the humans. The Quranic messages were born from the mind of supposedly the man named Mohammed in a state of transcendence. This state of mind is an extraordinary one, with such unique elements that often leave the smartest individuals baffled. And Mohammed was no smart man, like say, Albert Einstein or James Watson. He was an ordinary man of his time, who attained the state of transcendence during his daily prayers in a mountain cave. And in that state of transcendence his mind gave rise to all the revelations, both good and bad, that later collectively became known as the Holy Quran. Hence, it is the reader who must distinguish the good from the bad, if he or she is to remain a genuine part of the civilized society.

Let me bring up an excerpt from my book The Islamophobic Civilization: Voyage of Acceptance" to shed further light on this matter.

"Think of the bloodshed there has been in consequence of some of the Quranic doctrines that literally command to kill the infidels if they do not become Muslims! Think of the textual creeds that teach, a man who does not believe all the teachings of Quran should be killed and it is a mercy to kill him! The one ultimate rule of the Quranic fundamentalists is “there is one God and Mohammed is his prophet”. Everything beyond that not only is bad, but must be destroyed forthwith. At moment’s notice, every man or woman, who does not exactly believe in that, must be killed. Everything that does not belong to this set of ideals must be killed."

And because of such barbarian actions of the Quranic fundamentalists, many atheists, including my dear friends and colleagues Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris quite naively want to turn every single religious person on earth into an atheist, which by the way, is a great and progressive notion, but I am afraid, it biologically, or to be more specific neurologically, is an impractical idea. Religion itself is a neurological phenomenon which evolved in the human mind to act as an aid in daily life. Which means, Mother Nature selected it as a neuropsychological feature for the humans in the path of survival. Hence, no individual has the power to take such natural trait away from the human mind, unless Natural Selection gives consent. Therefore, it is more practical to make people transform their mindset about religion and religiousness and walk in the path of creed-less religious harmony, than to convert the entire religious population on earth into atheists.

All we need to do, is to turn human actions into a measure of judgement for religions, instead of some old books. Once we successfully do this, eventually we will be able to build a world where the human self shall be the Alpha and the Omega of the society, not a God self of some old books. In fact, the God self depicted in those books, was nothing but the transcendental manifestation of the human self. Which means, the God of humanity is, in actuality, human, or to be more accurate, man himself. Men in different times went into transcendence and quite unintentionally, due to neurological reasons (refer to Autobiography of God: Biopsy of A Cognitive Reality), mistook the messages rising from their own mind as revelations coming from an external divine realm. Thus, all revelations of all scriptures are the creations of the human mind, not of God.

Now tell me, do you still hail those texts as irrefutable? Do you still think that you are ought to follow every single word of those scriptures with a blind eye? Don't you think that it is the existential responsibility of a civilized human being to measure those texts, as they have such a blinding impact upon the society, with your own rational mind?

Progress of the human society is predicated upon the proper functioning of a key element of the human mind, that is reasoning. Without this mental element we would no longer be a civilized species. And when reasoning runs pure in the heart of the humans, no book has the power to compel them to fight among each other in the name of religion or paradise. Remember, reasoning is the cure for superstitions and bigotry. Once reasoning reigns, love and acceptance become the religion, and hatred and dogmatism become a matter of ancient history.

Further Reading
Abhijit Naskar, 2016, Biopsy of Religions: Neuroanalysis towards Universal Tolerance
Abhijit Naskar, 2016, In Search of Divinity: Journey to The Kingdom of Conscience
Abhijit Naskar, 2017, The Islamophobic Civilization: Voyage of Acceptance

I say things – things that would most gloriously make me appear as an atheist to people, such as – “God is a human creation” – “scriptures come from humans” – “forget the gods and pay attention to humans”. However I never hail myself as atheist, and you never hear me saying out loud that I am an atheist. And it is because one simple reason, I hate discrimination, I hate bigotry and I hate creating walls. I don’t wanna create an wall between me and all the peace loving people in the world who are just happy with their religiousness and they are not trying to impose on anybody’s else’s beliefs. Now, these are the people are I work for, just like I work for all other humans who want progress, who want the world to be a better place, if not for us, at least for our children. That’s why I don’t call myself an atheist.

Because when you put a label on yourself, that label comes along with a log of psychological baggage. And in most cases you may not be aware of these correlated psychological elements, but those who listen to you may do. So in their brain they would draw an image of your personality. And they will give that image qualities based on their subjective understanding of the label that you imposed on yourself. Like when you say you are an atheist, usually the religious population of the planet would very easily deem you to be against all of their religiousness – religiousness that is a part of their identity. And you cannot take away that identity – if you try, then there would be no difference between you and the religious fundamentalism.

And though I am not anti-religion, I am anti-fundamentalism. Fundamentalists do not make up the whole religious population on earth. As a scientist, as an educator, of course I am against indoctrinating children, I am against teaching them biblical stories as factual truth, I am against prayer given more attention than actual human contribution in the society. Still I am not against religion, because of those people who identify themselves as religious but do not take their scriptures literally and have the brain capacity to think which part of those books are good and which are not. And this process of taking the good things from the scriptures and ignoring the primitive ones, happens in most of the religious psyches of the world quite unconsciously.

I am not an atheist, because of these peace-loving religious people who are simply good people and they accept people from different religious orientation as equal. And no, not all religious people go around their neighborhood screaming the exclusive superiority of their religion and God over all others. They love their religion, but they don’t make a fuss over it, like the fundamentalists do. Religion is simply a part of their cultural identity, nothing more – it is fostered as a supremacist ideology only in the head of the fundamentalists. The fundamentalists are the enemy because they are driven by the elementary primitive notion of their religion being superior to all others, and hence other people are lesser humans. Fundamentalism is the enemy, not religion. In fact, fundamentalism is an enemy of religion itself, because in a progressive civilized society religion means realization of your inner divinity, not meek obedience to books of the dead people.

I am a scientist, and as such one of my core purposes is to understand the truth behind various phenomena of the universe with as much accuracy as possible And one of those phenomena is religion. And in order to understand it with as less subjective biases as possible, I must refrain from being called either “religious” or “atheist”. Now that’s the scientific reason for me to not hail myself as either atheist or religious. And as for the humane reason, which is more appealing to me as a human being, it is that the only label I go with is “human” – because that’s the label I received from Mother Nature. And that’s the label that makes me a part of human lives in human society, regardless of religion, regardless of race, regardless of gender and regardless of sexual orientation. The label of human is beyond race, beyond religion, beyond gender and beyond sexual orientation.



Further Reading

Principia Humanitas

Illusion of Religion: A Treatise on Religious Fundamentalism

Belief in God – that is what we will naively discuss in this piece. And the focus is of course on being naive, because it is the first criterion to understand a phenomenon truly with its real fundamentals. One cannot understand something, if one is already filled with predominant conditioned beliefs, opinions and ideas. So, let’s look at the belief in an Almighty Concerned Entity or Force, with literally, not theoretically, naive eyes. If you have read my works, you’d know that one statement is pretty prevalent in most of them. It is “belief is a self-preservation mechanism of the mind.” Here, the belief I mentioned is not necessarily of religious type. The belief in this statement refers to all sorts of belief, not just religious. However, in this piece, we are interested specifically, in the belief in a supernatural entity.

But why? Why am I talking about it exactly now? Because, I was scrolling through my youtube feed, and came across a video of some actor, shouting out “put God first”. The very first casual response that mind spat out was – even the stupidest and barbarian opinions of celebrities can appear to the masses as greatly inspirational and glorious statements – what a shame! As I said, this was the first response that my mind produced upon watching the thumbnail. So, now, let’s get over this casual response and dissect the situation – to be specific, the statement – “put God first”. It basically says, never lose faith in God, and you’ll achieve everything. I won’t say whether it is civilized or not. But I would say this. Belief in a supernatural entity having control of and concern for, your life, is basically, not a sign of glory, rather a sign of weakness.

Weakness is a fact – not bad or good. Like it or not, we all feel weak at times – I accept, that I do. And specifically in these times of excruciating agony, the mind kicks into a defense mode – where it naturally tends to put its faith and control upon a higher illusory entity. It’s not good – it’s not bad – it is what it is. And we cannot change this situation, just yet, because though we have developed extraordinary brain capacities, inside, we still remain cave-people, with a highly sensitive amygdala, that reacts quite effectively to every single fear and stress stimulus. And to quote from my book The Krishna Cancer – “Mother Nature created God as a neurological anti-depressant sentiment.”

Belief in an imaginary entity or force, is a sign of weakness. And, weakness is a part of biological existence. So, glorifying that weakness, does not make a person any more religious, spiritual or wise, than beating one’s wife does for not sleeping with him. Yes, we have developed through the process of natural selection, the capacity for limitless good and glory, but that does not mean, our innate brutal nature has vanished from our psyche for good. We have the capacity for courage and conscience, but you must remember, we also bear the seeds of weakness and brutality within us. These seeds served us well for millions of years. They have been the most crucial elements in our survival in the wild. Let me give you an example.

Imagine a man is sitting with his wife on the couch, while watching TV. Suddenly, a woman on TV starts stripping. What kind of changes do you think, would take place in the man’s pants! Now here is the real question, the man gets erect by watching the stripping lady on TV, say it’s my good friend and popular pornstar Olivia Austin – does this mean, he actually wants to do her? Does this mean, he does not love his wife? These questions are all non-sense. Of course he loves his wife. And consciously, he does not desire to mate with Olivia, but his subconscious mind does – and that’s not a theory, but a fact. Because that’s how the man’s brain has been surviving in the wild. His penis had to be prepare within seconds, the moment he had an opportunity to spread his genes – there was no consent involved. Because the competition was high. And that libidinal programming still remains active within the man’s neurobiology. That’s why erection upon the sight of a hot lady, is quite normal and in fact, healthy, but that does not necessarily mean, it is a sign of intentional desire for intercourse with that lady. A man may be married happily, and still his penis would get erect, the moment his mind visualizes a glimmer of opportunity for spreading his genes. Similar is the process of belief in an imaginary entity, named God.

The mind has various mechanisms to maintain its internal order and well being. And belief in something higher than the petty little human existence, is one of those self-preservation mechanisms. A person may be the most rational being on earth when everything is almost fine in his or her life. But the moment, clouds of excruciating agonies begin to cover the sky of his or her psyche, all rationality will go out of the window, and what will remain, is pure, savage, survival instinct. During these moments of utter disaster, a healthy human mind is more likely to give in to supernaturalism, than to bring out a notebook and do logical analysis. Eventually when those clouds start to disperse, the mind would slowly gain its natural rational capacities. Then he or she would again start talking most boastfully about reasoning and free thinking. This is not hypocrisy – this is human life – or to be more accurate, this is biological life.

Another such mechanism comes to my mind in this context. This mechanism kicks in when somebody faces a life-threatening trauma, and gives rise to the mesmerizing experience of afterlife, in which apparently the trauma-struck individual has an encounter with supernatural entities, prophets, or diseased relatives. And this experience manifests as more real than actual reality. The purpose of it is to put your mind in a preconceived domain of comfort, while your body is under tremendous stress. And before when medical science was not developed, people died with this last conscious experience of entering into a higher dimension. We did not have the means to save a dying person. Now we do. So, even though they go close to the doorstep of death and start experiencing the conscious hallucinatory domain of afterlife, we are capable of bringing the person back to life. And when they finally wake up, they can excite all others around them with their supposed experience of the afterlife, unlike our ancestors who did not have the means to come back from the doorstep of death.

The mind is who you are. You are your mind. And as such, you are not even aware of most of its features – because you are not supposed to, biologically speaking. Underneath the surface of conscious awareness, lies a whole territory of subconscious traits and processes. Some of these processes become active on a daily basis, others, when truly necessary. But they are there, nevertheless. They are there for a reason – the reason of survival – the reason of maintaining well being when every other modern means fails. They don’t follow modern norms of rationality. They only follow Mother Nature’s law of survival. And they are definitely not glorious in nature, rather, they are simply the mind’s way of preserving itself. It is not something to be proud of, or critical of. It just is, what it is – an unavoidable part of human mental existence.



Recommended Reading

Autobiography of God: Biopsy of A Cognitive Reality

The problem with metaphysics in the current mental stage of the human society, is that it often hinges on the borderline between sanity and insanity - and here by insanity, I am talking about all the mystical nonsense that the mind cooks up and holds on to, even amidst the rise of reasoning and evidence. And that's precisely where metaphysics loses its essence, for those who foster a mystical notion of metaphysics, only delude themselves with supernatural nonsense and therefore reject all sorts of scientific and philosophical arguments as well as evidence. And hard as it may sound, this cheap mystical notion of metaphysics has become the popular metaphysics of the so-called modern world.

And in the realm of popular metaphysics, the mind loses all its sanity in the name of non-conformity and takes nonsense to be a form of higher sense and supernatural insanity and fallacy to be spiritual sanity and truth. In an attempt to break free from the chains of religious orthodoxy as well as radical rationalism, these mysticism-obsessed beings end up bound in yet another form of orthodoxy or extremism, replete with the primal psychological poison of supernaturalism. Mark this my friend, breaking the conformity doesn't mean creating yet another supernatural conformity. Belief in the supernatural, doesn't make a person spiritual. The term "spiritual" might have come to existence in a supernatural manner, but time has changed, so should the definition of spirituality. And if we can't make our perception of spirituality evolve, then for the good of humanity, it would become an absolute necessity to get rid of such spirituality all together. An idea that doesn't evolve, either gets destroyed or destroys the world. And this very evolution is the life-force of metaphysics and spirituality.

If an understanding is found to be untrue, upon the rise of evidence, then the sane thing to do is to make that understanding evolve, based on the newly arisen evidence. However, the so-called believers in popular metaphysics have this delusional idea, that metaphysics is somehow beyond the bounds of evidence and reasoning. And that's precisely where metaphysics turns into metaphysical nonsense. Hence, arose my statement, in one of my earlier works - "I don’t do metaphysics. Neither do I have the luxury to talk about my beliefs." Here the term metaphysics refers to popular metaphysics, that is, the mystical and supernatural kind.

And as I have said countless times, I must rise whenever humanity is tormented by delusions and confusions - whenever they can't distinguish between natural sanity and plain supernatural insanity. So, this piece is my offering to you, my dear sisters and brothers, as a helping hand in your journey of life. None of my works is a gospel or instruction manual on how to live your life, for no one knows how to live your life, except for you - so, here I give you a diluted portion of my soul, to last with you, so long as you live, and hold your hand while you walk past the darkest of days. And never forget o brave one, no matter the age or origin, a text can never ever be the guardian angel of humanity, for humanity is its own guardian angel. And when they go astray from the path of love and conscience, they can also become their own ominous demon. And as for me, I am just your brother passing through time.

People have called me many things throughout the ages - saint, messiah, guru, divine incarnation and many more, but you know very well what I am - I am a plain ordinary human in the service of the humans - service is my oxygen, service is my water, service is my bread and service is my butter. And this service is no glorious altruistic deed, rather it is simple pure human existence, for I can't even dream of existing except for my seven billion sisters and brothers. Someone said to me the other day "you should have some fun in life, instead of just working all the time". I replied to the person "you may have the luxury to have fun, but I can't even dream of having fun while my own humanity is tormented with countless forms of misery." If humanity is in misery, it may not be my fault, but if I die leaving humanity with the same amount of misery, then it is my fault.

When I was a kid, my father stuck a little note on my reading lamp, that said "stop not till you reach your goal". At that time, I believe he wanted me to be successful in life, but what he could not comprehend, was that my goal was not like that of the most of the population. My goal - my purpose - the reason for my existence is only one - it is to ensure that humanity doesn't lose sight of its humanity, in the constant battle between beliefs - between ideologies - between opinions - between religious orthodoxy and radical reasoning. Fight, fight and fight - all they do is fight - they don't care about harmony or world peace, all they care about is to prove that they are right and others are wrong - the scientists, the philosophers, the preachers, the spiritualists - every single one of them (excluding the exceptions) just want to triumph over the other - and that's precisely what's wrong with this world - they all want victory to be their exclusive possession and defeat to be the possession of the others. This way, no amount of riches will ever bring happiness and harmony in this world, because to have happiness and harmony, we all must act together to rise triumphant as one species, and not as individuals or tiny groups.

From an insignificant bunch of apes in a corner of Africa we have become the masters of an entire planet - and still if we can't have the sense of unity, then what's the use of all this power and all the glorious intellect of which we are so proud of! Throw way such intellect that doesn’t bring people together - throw away such scriptures that create walls rather than bridges - throw away such institutions that proclaim exclusive authority over divinity - throw away such reasoning that barres you from accepting human weakness. Throw away every single trace of inhumanity, regardless of their intellectual or non-intellectual grounds. Intellect without humanity, is as dangerous as religious fundamentalism.

Similar to religious fundamentalism, unrestrained intellect can make a person blind to the psychological necessities of others, for physical necessities are much easier to notice than those of the psyche. That's why many sophisticated atheist intellectuals find it rather civilized and glorious to talk most boastfully about the harms of religion in the human society, while being completely unaware of the society's psychological reliance over religion and even when a few of them are aware of it, they somehow fail to realize in their bones, the existential significance of it all, because they talk with the force of intellect and not with the whole force of life. And that's where metaphysics comes in, for metaphysics is simply the realization of reality as it is, and not as how we believe it to be. And this belief beyond reality is prevalent, both on the side of religious fundamentalism and militant atheism or atheistic fundamentalism, for they both deny basic human necessity, if it doesn't suit their own perception.

There is no Lord Almighty up there with the divine concern for life on a tiny blue planet - that's a fact, but if we focus simply on this fact, then we shall never ever be able to diminish the differences between people. In the pursuit of proving one side to be right, humanity keeps on losing all together. So, the focus must shift - it must shift from argumentation to the solution of real problems of this planet. And we cannot do that, unless we first put aside our primal desire for petty victory as individuals or tiny groups. Remember, wise is not the one who wins, but the one who knows where to lose. So, it's time that we start thinking about collective victory over personal victory. And in fact, those who truly desire to make this world a better place for future generations, would never see collective victory to be separate from personal victory - so, if you are such a person, you would see your own victory in the victory of humanity.

Rise and realize my would be patriot, that personal defeat becomes bleak in front of the victory brought to humanity by you. Don't win as a person, do something to make humanity win. Take the steps beyond personal gain and personal pain, to bring victory upon humanity. Be the cause of humanity's joy - be the cause of humanity's cheer - be the cause of humanity's harmony - and above all be the cause of humanity's unification - even if it means walking on a road full of thorns every single day of your life. Help humanity be human again - make humanity human again, because right now, it's anything but human. Today's humans are Christians, Jews, Muslims, Atheists, Liberals, Republicans and so many other things - they are everything but the one thing that matters more than anything else. In pursuit of sustaining the illusions of man-made identities, the humans have forgotten to be humans. Amidst this crisis and chaos of identities, those who can realize their biological identity of being human, have more practical metaphysics in them than all the mystics, preachers and philosophers in the world.

So, here the real question is not which identity is the greatest and highest among them all - to screw or not to screw this world, that's the question. Because, by taking labels of identity to be more significant than human life, we would only make a mess of this world, like we have done so far. So, now is the time, that we move away from that self-destructive path. Now is the time that we walk as humans and not as labels. So, rise and walk, like did Rosa Parks, MLK, Madiba (Mandela), Honest Abe (Lincoln), Mevlana (Rumi) and many more. They did their part - I am doing mine - now it's your turn.



Highly Recommended Reading:
In Search of Divinity: Journey to The Kingdom of Conscience
Love, God & Neurons: Memoir of a scientist who found himself by getting lost

Naked I dance here in delight,
I am not wearing name, fame or stature.
All I am wearing is a smile of humaneness,
Isn't that what matters in human nature!
I need no faith, nation or intellect,
Nor do I need illusive pomp and ceremony.
I am happy being a human above all,
I'll stay that way forever exuding harmony.
Tried a lot many countries, races and religions,
To tie me up with their rugged exclusivities.
But my heart is too grand for any one sect,
So I dance naked without any cultural amenities.
Come join me if you like my sisters and brothers,
United we’ll free the world of all tribal attires.

Life is one big prejudice,
Unless you question everything.
Perception is one big bias,
Unless you see beyond the seeing.
Opinions are a bunch of lies,
Till curiosity surpasses comfort.
Beliefs may very well be delusion,
Till traditions are examined with real effort.
Faith can very easily be fiction,
Unless you distinguish superstition.
Morality can turn out to be myth,
Unless you embrace evolution.
There's no place for rigidity in liberty's lands.
On the odyssey of revolutions life expands.