Daanish's Days

Religion is a very touchy subject for some people. Now I know there are a large number of people that can’t control themselves when other people talk about their religion from a “doubtful” light, I ask those people to treat this not as a “street” argument, but a professional academic debate. Just to make a few things clear before I start, this article is not about a specific religion, but it is about all religions. This article is not a hate piece, fueled by personal or other illogical motives. Now that I have dealt with these necessary disclaimers I shouldn’t expect any hate mail, but instead I would love to receive critical and logical responses from you, the readers.

Even though I am writing about religion I’m first going to talk a bit about science and the scientific community. The world of science is filled with many theories. They are called “theories” because they cannot be proven, they can be brought to a high probability of being correct, but they are never considered fact. The scientific community understands this and they question a scientist rigorously until they fail or provide sufficient evidence that the theory becomes accepted until a better one is presented.

Now imagine a “different” world of science, where scientists don’t provide evidence to prove their theories. For example, imagine if scientists were arguing over two competing theories, that were trying to prove the same thing, but both had different explanations for it. In a real debate they would present evidence supporting their arguments and would apply logic to come to a conclusion.

But in this “different” world of science they do no such thing. Instead one scientist says, “I know my theory is correct because my father told me so, and his father before him, and so on.” The other scientist would respond, “No, my theory is correct because it was privately revealed to me to be this way!” Now I imagine you would go crazy if our scientific community acted like that, fortunately they don’t.

Now, for the real argument. What if we replaced the theories with religions and the scientists with religious followers or prophets. We can’t imagine our scientists acting like that, then why do we accept it when religious people present the validity of their religions in this manner. Are religions not theories as well, that must be proven logically and with proper evidence to support its arguments?

I’m not saying people who tend to follow religions are uneducated or unintelligent, what I’m trying to say is why the double standards?

If we have a expectations from our scientists to be logical and work intelligently, shouldn’t we expect this of our religious leaders as well? I’m not arguing against the validity of religions, but am asking you to question why you accept certain things without any reasons.

No, honoring you parents by following what they did is not a valid reason, because if you did then would you believe that the earth is the centre of everything because your parents believe it be so. Then why do we say I believe in Jehovah, Allah, or whatever you believe, just because your parents do?

Originally Posted on Generation Next:
http://www.sagennext.com/2010/04/07/following-my-parents-religion-is-a-filial-duty/