Debating the Doctrine

Religious faith has to be one of the most significant world views we inherit - it is remarkably resilient in the face of doubt and remains virtually unchanged throughout their lives for a majority of the people. The latter can be partially attributed to the fact that we prefer to dance around the subject and have little to no meaningful conversation about it. But it is not surprising that we do so, considering that historically, the price of differing on matters of religious faith has often been bloodshed. But religion remains prevalent, and either subliminally or overtly, our lives continue to get affected by it. Any course corrections can happen only through discussion. And so we need to bring the subject back to the table, and this time enforce higher standards.

Proper philosophical exchanges and debates on the subjects of God and religion are certainly an acquired taste. The subject matter might come across as very heavy, controversial, or even useless to the uninitiated. However, those who do take the plunge would come to realize just how intellectually stimulating and replete with witty sallies these conversations can get. Personally, the highlight of my entire experience of watching debates on these subjects was how some eloquent and erudite apologists would often put on the backfoot even the most seasoned atheist debaters, whom I had internally been rooting for.

The rational route to adopting a religious faith involves certain implicit premises that you have to agree to. As far as theistic religions go, a belief in a Creator is the first step on that route.

Suppose we are provided with multiple explanations for a phenomenon. We will probably invoke Occam’s Razor and go with the one that seems the least contrived. If the phenomenon in question is the existence of living beings in the universe, then the choices we are faced with are rather simple. We could either go down the route that theistic religions take and concede that the universe had an intelligent designer. Or we could choose to believe a more naturalistic explanation and say that it is only the laws of nature that got us here.

There is general consensus in the scientific community that the existence of all carbon based life forms, as we know them, is predicated on the fundamental constants of the universe taking on particular values. But here is the catch: there is virtually no wiggle room for these constants to take on some different values and still have us around. To put this into perspective with an example, if the strong nuclear force had differed from its currently established value by as little as 0.5%, none of what we see around would have existed in the same form.

We can think of this as a Bayesian problem. The evidence is that we exist. In light of this evidence, we are to determine the more probable of the two competing hypotheses. Assume that we start with ambivalence and assign equal prior probabilities to the veracity of both hypotheses. The likelihood of the universe reaching a state where we exist, is arguably much lower if the constants were allowed to take on random values, than if there were an intelligent designer with intent. This seems to lead to a fascinating conclusion: it is more likely than not that the universe had a Creator.

There are people who have nitpicked the above reasoning and suggested possible ways out, asking ‘which is the set that the constants are constrained to take on values from’ and ‘whether they can truly be random’. There is also a case to be made that at no point in our lived experiences have we encountered an entity remotely as powerful as being capable of fashioning a mountain, much less a universe. So, does starting with equal priors even make sense? Ultimately, this goes to show that the debate on the subject is more nuanced than it would appear at first glance.

Even from the assumption that the universe had a Creator, there does not immediately follow a need to repose faith in any of the existing religious doctrines. For a rational person to abide by a particular religious doctrine, he first needs to be convinced beyond doubt that the sacred texts come straight from the horse’s mouth. But with contradictory sections within the texts and miracles being in short supply, this is going to be a rather hard sell.

Verifying the authenticity of the sacred texts, however, is not the final step. We further need a good reason as to why we should obey the Creator’s will. An analogy I like to think of is: Parents have almost complete control over their child’s well-being. But the child is not obligated to refrain from exercising his/her own judgement and determining whether the parents’ commands bear any merit, because those commands might well be pernicious.

Religion seeks to answer the moral questions for us. And it claims to speak on behalf of an almighty Creator. So the question we need to ask before giving in to the edicts of religion is, what determines whether something is morally right? This is an age-old puzzle many philosophers have grappled with: Does a thing become right when God says it is so? Or does the concept of ‘rightness’ exist independent of this entity we call God? The former resembles an argument from authority, a fallacy that logical reasoning doesn’t take very kindly to. If at all it is true, then it becomes necessary to follow the sacred texts to a tee if they’re found to be authentic, regardless of how troubling they might seem to us. And almost all major religions today have some prescriptions that are near- universally abhorred. This is clearly a dicey way forward.

But is there really a meaningful alternative to this? In being spaceless and timeless - this, by definition - the Creator, if there were one, would be an obvious ‘absolute’. But can we find another absolute, an objective truth, a truly universal common ground to base our notions of morality upon? Note that, not finding any objective standards for moral correctness is not an option. It would cede all that we hold sacrosanct, to individual subjectivism. Imagine the worst crime you can think of. Imagine torture. Why do you think it is reprehensible? If you leave the instinctive outrage at the door, you will find it very difficult to justify your stance when faced with someone who actually loves torturing people. You will be really pressed to explain to the other person why he should forsake an act from which he derives pleasure. Without an objective rule book to play by, aren’t both of you simply individuals whose brains are configured to have different understandings of pleasure and pain, right and wrong? It would seem there is nothing that makes your stance superior to that of the sadist.

While the ramifications might sound extreme in theory, they aren’t so in the real world. Societal order won’t collapse because none of the options are tenable. The majority can still agree on the established rules without fleshing out the entire reasoning to the last mile, much like it has been doing all along. But with humanity having witnessed calamitous events borne of misguided thinking, like slavery and the Holocaust, we would certainly be keen to promulgate thorough worked-out logic to steer away from such horror shows in the future.

While it’s all good to debate faith and religion in abstract, epistemological terms, a discussion on the utility of religion is incomplete without taking into account human nature. It is an undeniable fact that a lot of times, religion forces people to look beyond themselves and focus on the bigger picture. It moves people to partake in charity and social work. While the motivation might be anything, the end result is that society benefits.

However there are also two major shortcomings that threaten to tip the balance against religion: Prevalence of vaguely worded sections that are open to interpretation, and the multiplicity of religions.

With religions dealing in absolutes, it should come as no surprise that the aforementioned shortcomings have bred intolerance and hate throughout history. Religious divides have and will continue to be exploited wholesale by individuals to build their political or financial capital.

A risk-benefit analysis of religious faith is not slated to reach a universally acceptable conclusion anytime soon. However, what the philosophical conversations can do in the meantime is push for more people to learn to reason things out for themselves, rather than play the gullible fools. At the heart of exchanges and debates is a rigorous yet fun exercise: lay down certain premises, fortify them with justifications, crown the premises with a hopefully unassailable claim, and watch the opponent lay into your house of cards.

With the topic being something that people are emotionally invested in, the hope is that more people flock to hear these scintillating conversations. These exchanges offer multiple crucial takeaways for the audience. Even simple learnings such as ‘thinking in abstract terms’ or the fact that words have precise meanings and can’t be used willy- nilly in place of each other, can go a long way in raising the standard of public discourse. This, in turn, will expedite the process of making meaningful progress as a society.