Tag Archives: Philosophy

The Quest For Meaning: Belief and Disbelief

Philosopher Roger Scruton argues in his new book The Face of God: The Gifford Lectuers, that “when we hunt only for the cause and never for the reason of things, God disappears from the world” (1). And it’s true: if one doesn’t believe in God, he or she will live in a Godless world and, as a result, everything becomes a proof that God doesn’t exist. A believer in God, however, lives in a world where God is omnipresent, and therefore everything becomes a proof for God. This is one of the fundamental reasons why believers and atheists are so diametrically opposed in their worldview.

Believers will often point to the seemingly “miraculous” nature of the universe and its uniformity. The New Scientist has described the universe as “unfathomably uniform”, however, atheists will point to certain aberrations in the universe like the inherent cosmic chaos and killer asteroids, which make it seem as if there is not an all-wise Creator behind this all. This is why scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson, an agnostic, once reportedly said: “When I look at the universe and all the ways the universe wants to kill us, I find it hard to reconcile that with statements of beneficence.”

The famous Muslim poet and sufi, Jalaluddin Rumi, once told a parable of an ant creeping along a carpet and complains to God, asking him “what is this, these bumps, and strange colours, and patterns, this must have been created just as a meaningless obstacle course, what a futile thing to have made.” However, as Cambridge academic Timothy Winter says: “But of course the carpet maker, looking at it from above, can see the patterns and the purpose of it, and can see that the whole thing is perfect and is good. And God is often like that. We often can’t make sense of the misfortunes because we are two dimensional, we are at ground level, we can’t see what it all means.”

There is a saying in the Islamic tradition that is believed to be God’s words, it says that “I am what my servant thinks of me”. This statement can be understood on many levels but what we can infer from this, is that if one doesn’t believe in God, he or she will use the “aberrations” in our universe as further “proof” for the non-existence of God.

The discourse between theists and atheists has been skewed for too long. We vociferously debate with each other not to understand each other, or to come to a mutual understanding, but to attempt to prove each other wrong. Consequently, when we argue, our minds become preoccupied with trying to think of a counter response to what has just been propounded during the debate, instead of rationalising what the other has said.

While theists and atheists can both be as closed-minded as each other, both constantly looking for proofs to further their belief or disbelief, we must understand the plurality of life. There isn’t just one way of understanding things, there are many. There is a reason why we are all different; it is because life can, and should, be approached in many different ways. One of the fundamental misunderstandings of many atheists is that they forget religion has as its purpose to serve the whole of humanity. If this is the case, religion has to serve all the uneducated and stupid people in the world, which is, unfortunately, a large percentage of humanity. This is why, on the surface, religion may seem simple for simple people, when, in fact, it can be understood on many levels; the job of the intellectual should be to discern the profundity of divine revelation and explore the deeper, esoteric meanings.

When we are pushed to our extremes something strange often emanates from within us. Sometimes, when our life is in danger, we call on God. Interestingly, Oxford academic, Justin Barrett, says that research over the past ten years suggests that children are born with an innate disposition to believe in God. However, when we force ourselves to certain extremes, we often go mad, literally. Philosophers of the past have entered into a state of depression or madness because they try to push their mind to an extent that is not possible. Likewise, mathematicians have gone insane trying to understand the concept of infinity. We push ourselves to these extremes for no other reason but to find meaning. Meaning, however, can only be found within the depths of our innermost being, according to Rumi. He once said: “ The universe is within you. Ask all from yourself.”

What we are often guilty of doing is trying to fill the void in our lives – a void that occurs due to our inability or unwillingness to find meaning – with something physical. But how can we fill something immaterial with something material? We must recognise that the materialistic idea of consciousness is probably not the correct way to understand who we are. Things don’t always happen purely on the psychological level, they happen on the spiritual level, too. We all know that with every second that passes by, we edge closer and closer to our departure from this world, essentially, we are dying with time.

While we all agree that we must die, we differ on the concept of death. Some of us believe death is just the beginning of eternity, either in the divine Presence or in divine alienation; others believe that death is the end and there is nothing else. Leo Tolstoy once said: “Life is a dream, death is wakening.” While this may or may not be true, we only have limited time to search for any sort of transcendent, ultimate meaning. Journalist Matthew Parris poignantly said in an article in The Spectator that: “If I seriously suspected a faith might be true, I would devote my life to finding out.”

Our existential search for meaning needs satisfying and our perennial search for God will never end. Time is running out, hurry.

1) Into the void, Richard Holloway, page 43, New Statesman, 2 April 2012

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Why Religion is For Extremists

Human beings, by their nature, are extreme. Religion merely redirects this extremeness into the form of worship. Some people, for example, will follow their religion to the dot – they have a literal interpretation and if someone tells them anything otherwise, they will reject it. Those who are extreme in their religious practises, would arguably be extreme in other ways if they weren’t controlled by their religion. Instead of doing a lot of worship, they would perhaps feel a greater inclination to do that which is bad: maybe become druggies, drunkards, incessant fornicators or whatever. Religion therefore acts as a mechanism to keep a human being under control.

The atheist, on the other hand, will often exert them extremeness by ridiculing those who believe in a Divine entity or a follow religion. The atheist only has their own moral compass to judge right from wrong – but often, they will do good. Many atheists are more ethical than the religious, they are also sometimes more “spiritual” than the religious, but at the very tip of their consciousness, they haven’t realised that they are indeed believers in the ultimate Reality, too – presuming that there is one.

An atheist just said to me: “[Religion] are like bad low-budget movies that demand criticism and ridicule regardless if people get offended.” This is extremism.

What many of us fail to do in our age is delve deep into the intellectual and esoteric meanings of religion. We treat science and philosophy as pursuits of rigorous study, but religion as something simple for simple people. We shouldn’t deny something’s veracity simply because, on the surface, it may appear simple or “ridiculous”.

Religion is therefore a mechanism to rewire one’s personality from one which is purely instinctual, animalistic and profane, into one where we act from our innermost being which is pure and transcendent. Religion forces us to act out certain rituals, and be kind to one another – and threatens us with punishment if we don’t – so that it becomes normal to us. We, eventually, no longer have to be told to do something, it emanates from within us naturally.

Spin – The Outside View on Current Affairs

James Lee (co-founder) and I first conceived the idea of Spin early in 2011, but since then, we have changed our minds about the direction of Spin several times.

It started of as a simple current affairs website – there wasn’t going to be anything particularly special about the site.

We then decided to combine current affairs with photography, and although we didn’t end up doing this, we hope to introduce this concept sometime in the future.

After four months of what can only be described as a series of comedic yet frustrating delays, Spin is finally here – thankfully.

What is Spin? Essentially, we are a current affairs website, but, distinctively, we combine our articles with thought-provoking custom-made art designed by one of our artists.  With a plethora of current affairs websites all over the Internet, Spin hopes to offer a different take on things – an outside view.

The outside view on current affairs - our tagline – conveys the idea that we will approach current affairs in a new light. All of our writers and artists are under the age of 24, but we haven’t selected merely anyone – we believe we have some of the very best writers and artists.

We are also deliberately left wing; we hope to start a discourse around issues that are not always propounded by the mainstream media. Everything about our website is slightly different, including our category names:

Left Wing – coverage of the most important political events.

Rhythm – critique of the mainstream music industry.

Catch 22 - a philosophical take on current affairs.

Onside – opinion and reporting on football issues, especially the big names and clubs.

The Outsiders – a look at our writers and artists.

Omar Shahid, Editor

www.spinonline.co.uk

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Understanding Life & The World We Live In

 Life is full of ups and downs, apparent contradictions, worries and happiness. In this short sojourn we find ourselves in, we are all faced with different challenges and obstacles we must tackle. Everyone one of us has had a different life, has a different personality, a different group of friends and family and has had to deal with different experiences. This is why “we can never assume that anyone in this world can really understand your circumstances other than from the perspective of his/her own circumstances, because, in reality, people see things only in accordance with their frames of reference and their personal path(1).”

Whatever situation we find ourselves in, it is important to always remain-or try to remain- impartial and objective in all that we do. Our thoughts, however, can never be truly independent. We are all products of our upbringings and environment, our personalities and our beliefs. But sometimes we have to try to step back, take ourselves out of the equation and it is then, and only then, that we will have more of a perceptive, free and penetrative view of life. Discerning the truth is impossible without a free mind; uncluttered from all the junk it is fed everyday on the TV and radio.

In this day and age our minds are not trained to think on the level they were designed for. There is not necessarily one way at approaching life per se. And this is why developing a philosophy of pluralism is essential to understanding all the differences in life. We are all in search for meaning, either knowingly or unknowingly. And once we acknowledge that there is a meaning, everything in life is transformed into signs pointing us to our ultimate destination. These signs are singular and individual and will therefore lead us to the source of meaning.   

by Omar Shahid

1)
http://www.sandalaproductions.com/UploadedResources/Foundation%20Spiritual%20Path.pdf

What Will Heaven Be Like?

Whether one believes in metaphysical realities is down to one’s own volition, but a religious believer lives their life in order to get to heaven. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and other religious traditions may have different names for the other realm, nevertheless it is through understanding our purpose in this existence and living a life of goodness and penitence that one achieves true success. The following description of heaven is my simplified and shortened summary from religious and philosophical texts.  

Because we can’t see heaven- nor have we experienced it- any description of it is somewhat allegorical, in the sense that we can only use human language to describe it, when, really, it is beyond human comprehension. The Greek Philosopher Plato believed that everything in this transient sojourn is a bleak version of what exists in the world of forms- or what many would call ‘heaven’.  We do however, receive glimpses of what exists within the heavenly realm in this life. We have colours like red, blue, green and yellow, but in heaven their will be colours that will be new to us.

After the Day of Judgement when all human beings would have been questioned for their deeds and all matters that were unresolved in this life would have been resolved by our Lord, we will, through God’s justice, enter our final destination. For those who chose to live a life worthy of being admitted into heaven, will have the gates of paradise opened before them, and will run towards their home-you will instinctively know where you live. This home will be a palace, better than Buckingham palace, or should I say, better than all the palaces in this world combined. The ‘bricks’ of your house will be made from gold and silver. Architecture unlike you can imagine.

Men will be reunited with their wives, and will find that their partners are more beautiful than they could ever have imagined. So beautiful in fact, that you could sit their for ‘years’ admiring her beauty, although ‘years’ doesn’t really make sense in a realm which is outside time, space and matter.

There will be flowing rivers beneath your feet, some rivers of water, some milk, and others honey and wine. One can drink from the rivers as much as they want, but it will be purely for pleasure, not necessarily to satisfy the bodily needs. The food will be readily available, you can take anything of the trees, and anything you desire will be yours.

In heaven there are no meetings, no school, no work, no appointments, just an infinite amount of time. We will not be in the bodily form we inhabit now, and therefore our state of mind will be different and wont be subject to the mundane thoughts we currently exhibit.

There is no summer or winter, no sun or moon as such, but will just be the constant light which will emanate from the throne of our Lord.

What form will we take? We will be the height of Adam (approximately 90 yards tall), the age of Jesus when he ascended to the heavens (33) and the men will be as beautiful as the prophet Joseph. The philosopher John Hick believes that once we die, and take on a new form, we will not take on the form we currently inhabit, but we will have this recognition device which will instinctively tell us who people are.

If our inner state is not willing to ascertain the truth of this life then our heart cannot gain experiential knowledge of the divine. The heart has the ability to see things which are not always outwardly manifest and can at times gain a piercing insight into the metaphysical realities. Heaven may seem like a wild fantasy created to appease our psychological needs and something which fills the void in our life.  But even if one doesn’t believe in heaven, one should still live their life as if there is one.

Omar Shahid