Islam's Need and Atheism (Continuing a Discussion)

There were a number of comments to my previous post on Explaining Certain Atheists. Well, I have been thinking about these intriguing comments a lot, despite my absence from the comments section. (Still thinking though!) I do wonder however how convenient a fiction the "need for meaning" is, namely as a charge against religion's "veracity" or "authenticity"; that is to say, that the "need" for something -- how is this need determined, and how it is classified a "need"? -- necessarily explains anything away, precluding the possibility that the need for a thing may in fact be evidence of that thing (humanity's need for meaning is a sign of Meaning; in the loosely Derridean sense, the "theology" of meaning). It is in fact a kind of end-of-the-road point, "here and no further" (see my last paragraph for repetition) -- the dismissal of religion as a "need" for meaning itself reflects a need for meaning, albeit an atheistic one: the need to find a meaning for religion that conforms to an atheist worldview, maybe a scientistic one (not a secular one.)

At the end of the day, it's all metaphysics, isn't it?

From a Muslim's p.o.v., it's not much of a charge (at least to me). God creates universe; God sustains universe; God creates a religion which is lived through laws; God creates a world that operates through laws; one of these laws is evolutionary in nature. Can human beings have evolved without a "need" for meaning? Can this not be biologically consistent (as in, environmentally necessary as humanity evolved) yet also a mercy from God, the mechanism or a mechanism through which we yearn to reach Him and return to Him?

Since Islam is a faith that operates through principles and an order of life, it is not hard to accept a universe that is similarly (but of course not exactly) comprehensible -- shall we say its comprehensibility is its similarity?; this also conforms to the epistemological tautology I cited in my Hitchens review: "That a belief in God imposes an admission that our understanding can go no further is an interesting point, but no different than the tautology that is empiricism. We can use our minds to explain the way the world works because the way the world works created minds that are capable of understanding the way the world works. No matter how far you go, the end is always the beginning: If not God, then some other force or process takes His place."

Comments

[Mohammed Husain]

Haroon,

Many thanks for addressing the comments from your old post. You bring up a lot of good points. I just want to briefly address two of them.

You say:
"Can human beings have evolved without a "need" for meaning? "

From, a strictly Neo-Darwinian perspective I think the answer is yes. There doesn't seem to be a clear survival advantage to a life with meaning. I mean one can see this in the animal kingdom, where presumably, they are surviving just fine without a life of meaning, at least as we humans understand it.

Some evolutionary biologists, particularly those whose specialty is evolutionary psychology want to explain every aspect of the human personality in evolutionary terms (i.e. every behavior of the human being can be reduced to the drive to survive) but this is entirely speculative and many times borders on absurdity (One might investigate the standard evolutionary psychologists' explanation of morality for an example). Needless to say these explanations of behavior existing because of presumed survival value are NOT science; they are neither falsifiable nor testable (something very few scientists are willing to admit in the open).

I feel as though this drive to expand the explanatory power of Neo-Darwinism is part of an outdated Enlightenment project to arrive at a scientific explanation for everything; existence from beginning to end. Though it's become clear amongst philosopher in the last couple centuries that this is not possible, it seems that a large number in the scientific community continue to hold on.

You go on to say:

"That a belief in God imposes an admission that our understanding can go no further is an interesting point, but no different than the tautology that is empiricism."

Having accepted that, I think the task as religious believers is to go a step further. If in fact the tautology of religion and empiricism is the same, why choose one over the other? This is the question I wished you had addressed in your very well written review of Hitchen's diatribe.

[Muse]

A follow-up question stemming from Mohammad's insightful comment: Does choosing religion over empiricism necessitate having faith to begin with, making the whole thing circular? I'm afraid I'm not being very clear, but I hope you get the point.

[Mohammed Husain]

Haroon,

Since you've been reading up on Hitchens, Dawkins, Dennet and the militant atheists; I might suggest a documentary film that you may have heard about. Its called Expelled: No Intelligenced Allowed. Ben Stein investigates some questions with respect to origins with biologists of different shades and reports (including Dawkins on one end and Dembski on the other).

The movie has been dismissed by many as being another plot by the Christian right to re-assert itself in the context of science education. This is largely a distortion. I think the media paints Christians with the same broad stroke as it does Muslims, and that comes out in the film. I saw it with some Muslim friends who hadn't at all been exposed to the controversy, and they found some of their prejudices with respect to Christians on this issue challenged. I'd recommend the film, it's one that I think at least deserves discussion in the Muslim community; I'd also love to hear your comments about it. You reviewed Hitchens; how about reviewing something from the other side of the debate?

Best,

Mohammed