Category Archives: Atheism

Praying Hands, a 30-tonne and 60-ft tall bronze statue at Oral Roberts University, Oklahoma. Photo: C. Jill Reed, CC BY-SA 2.0

While religion has had, and continues to exert, an outsize influence in shaping the trajectory of our polity and society, the role played by science is not readily visible to the common man. Though Jawaharlal Nehru, our first prime minister, laid enormous emphasis on the potential of science to solve the countless problems faced by a newly independent, impoverished nation, and followed it up with significant outlays towards building a vast network of research laboratories, institutions and government agencies, public recognition of the contribution made by Indian science and scientists has been somewhat muted.

It is only with time, after landmark programmes like the Green Revolution, the advent of a multi-purpose domestic satellite system, the successful development of long-range weapons-delivery systems and the laurels won by some of our outstanding scientists, that a measure of respect for our science and technology establishment has emerged in the public domain.

At this moment in history, when a regime that swears by religious/cultural nationalism is attempting to take our scientific pursuits in bizarre, faux scientific directions, anything that contributes to a clearer picture of our scientists as they are, without the distorting lens of political agendas and power politics, should be more than welcome.

One such timely effort is Science and Religion in India: Beyond Disenchantment, based on an ethnographic study by Renny Thomas on the religious faith and practices of scientists in a laboratory situated in a research institute in Bangalore. Thomas teaches sociology and social anthropology at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhopal. For this book, he was part of the laboratory for the better part of a year, interacting formally and informally with the scientists in a variety of settings. The book is a presentation of his findings, contextualised at every stage with felicitous references to relevant science-and-religion discourses in India and the west.

Any study of science and religion in India must come to grips with the popular notion that they are in irreconcilable conflict with each other. The trope of a rocket scientist breaking a coconut to please the Gods before a launch was the subject of much public outrage. This book debunks such notions as shallow and looks at how scientists in India live their religious and non-religious life beyond a disenchanted life of rationality and scientific modernity. In its own words, it seeks to answer the following questions:

Why is it that the grand narrative of the conflict between science and religion dominates the popular imagination? Do scientists really see conflict between their religious and scientific life? How do they interpret their religious views and life? What does it mean to be a religious scientist?

The answers are never less than fascinating.

We learn that the idea of a constant ideological struggle between science and religion was manufactured in Europe in the last quarter of 19th century, specifically to wrest control over all levels of education from theologians in the light of Darwins theory of evolution. It was the consequence of a move to secularise science. The notions of objectivity and rationality associated with science created the misunderstanding that scientists should be objective, rational and critical of religion. Though this notion persists to this day, it is easy to see that it need not necessarily apply to other societies dealing with very different contexts.

Also read: The Scientific Temper and Irrational Beliefs Often Live Together

In their autobiographies, stalwarts of Indian science like Raja Ramanna and C.N.R. Rao held religion to be a way for human consciousness to attain a higher reality than the natural world. Faith in god was an aid to living a better life, as a better human being. Other scientists thought that science was incapable of explaining all reality and science was not the only reality in this world. Religion could not be conceptualised from an objective point of view since religion and science belonged to different realms. At the same time, they were not opposed to each other because religious beliefs and practices helped them to do better science.

Scientists often distinguish themselves from lay-believers by distancing themselves from temple visits and rituals, the material manifestations of religious faith, considering their faith to be spiritual. In comparison to other belief systems, spirituality provides scientists with rational alternatives. Using culture interchangeably with spirituality, they are able to accommodate their faith and practice their profession without contradiction.

Many among the scientists also identify as atheists, but their atheism is often not the godlessness of the west. Some hold that science is a religion that believes in logic and is open to questions and criticism. On the contrary, religion is a science which blindly believes what is preached. They cant blend. Its foolish if one tries to blend them. There are others who invoke the ancient Samkhya tradition, which postulated that the world came into being from primeval matter without the agency of any efficient cause altogether, resulting in a resolutely atheist following.

Yet another section of atheists claim to follow a flexible and non-institutional religion which enables them to dovetail both realms of belief and unbelief seamlessly. By identifying certain religious practices as traditional culture, they are able to participate in religious functions and rituals while scripting their own understanding of unbelief and maintaining an identity distinct from believers.

I found the final chapter of the book, Caste, religion and the laboratory life, somewhat disappointing, however. Thomas is right to point out that there is a preponderance of Brahmins among Indian scientists, and it is not because of a natural ability of people belonging to the community but is the outcome of its early access to western education and the attendant cultural capital.

His observation that the representation of OBC, SC and ST communities in such laboratories is meagre to non-existent is also highly pertinent. Diversity is a wider problem of society, which can potentially be handled through existing and new public policy interventions. Given the lack of diversity, his ethnographic findings on the community in the laboratory setting raise many important questions.

Also read: Dalit Scientists Face Barriers in Indias Top Science Institutes

In the study, Tamil Brahmins emerge as people who are privileged and possess enormous cultural capital, but are blissfully unaware of both. They exhibit a predilection for Carnatic music and vegetarian food, which serve as caste markers that are again deployed without a trace of self-consciousness. Being the majority community in the institute, they also set the norms for institutional culture and science practice to which the non-Brahmins must conform if they want to succeed. Even their self-image, as people who were generally poor starting out but came up through a single-minded focus on education, comes in for criticism.

I think such a discourse is avoidable for two reasons. A single laboratory in an institute is not a sufficient basis for the inferences drawn. Second, if our line of inquiry is the role played by caste in science institutions, we need to study a representative sample of institutions in which different (privileged) castes set the institutional norms by dint of being in the majority. Such institutions shouldnt be hard to find. Representation is always a good idea for all contexts.

Overall, this is an illuminating study that throws light on an area that has remained largely unexplored. It shows up the notion of an intractable opposition between religion and science/rationality as false dogma. The author does an excellent job of marshalling past and present discourses to contextualise his findings and make them more meaningful. We should perhaps take a kinder view in future of scientists who pray.

N. Kalyan Raman is a Chennai-based translator of contemporary Tamil fiction and poetry.

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Book Review: Can Scientists Be Religious? The Wire Science - The Wire Science

According to the latest report by the Ferrer i Gurdia Foundation, called Feminism, religions and freedom of conscience, the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the loss of religiosity among the population in Spain.

One fact highlighted by the Foundation is that for the first time, among young adults under the age of 34, the number of people who consider themselves non-religious is now a majority.

Among the group aged between 25 and 34, over 56% identify as non-religious, and among those between 18 and 24 the percentage reaches 63.5%, while among the older population (over 65), 76.5% of those interviewed say they are religious.

The evolution of the religiosity of Spaniards over the last 40 years shows that in 1980, barely 8.5% of the population identified as non-religious, while in 2021 this figure had risen to 37% of the population.

In the breakdown by month, the most significant change took place from March to April 2020, coinciding with the most severe lockdown in Spain. In just one month, the number of people claiming to be non-religious rose from 29% to 36%.

It will be necessary to know the evolution over the next few years to determine whether this increase is really the beginning of a progressive cycle that has not been recorded until now, say the authors of the report.

Roman Catholicism continues to be the predominant religion (about 59%), although far from the figures of previous years. The second largest groups are atheists (14.6%), agnostics (11.6%) and non-religious (10.8%), which altogether account for 37%.

Minority denominations represent 2.5% of the population and just over 1.5% are undecided.

In the analysis by regions, Catalonia and Navarre are the territories with the most non-religious population (41% each), followed by the Basque Country (37.8%) and the Balearic Islands (33.7%).

In contrast, the regions with the lowest percentage of non-believers are Ceuta (3.4%), Melilla (15%) and Aragon (16.6%).

You can read the full report here (in Spanish).

Published in: Evangelical Focus - europe - Spain: Atheism and agnosticism on the rise in pandemic times

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Spain: Atheism and agnosticism on the rise in pandemic times - Evangelical Focus

ATLANTA (RNS) As many gathered for Easter and Passover festivities over the weekend, an estimated 550 atheists, freethinkers, humanists and other nonbelievers converged on Atlanta for the American Atheists national convention. Typically held on Easter weekend, the annual event was live for the first time since the start of the pandemic, and the excitement was palpable.

Energized by the in-person gathering after such a long hiatus, the community of nonbelievers a general term used for all those who identify with these groups was ready to discuss some of the most pressing concerns facing their ranks today.

The convention kicked off on Thursday evening (April 14) with a lighthearted charity event in which all proceeds were donated to Access Reproductive Care-Southeast and ended Sunday afternoon with a community service event where attendees packed meals for those in need in metro Atlanta.

The service event was named Two Hands Working, after a phrase once uttered by American Atheists founder Madalyn Murray OHair. She said, Two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer. The 59-year-old civil liberties organization holds true to that mantra, according to communication director Tom Van Denburgh: American Atheists has always placed action and activism at the center of our activities.

At this years convention, the drive to action was particularly apparent, from the charity events to the workshops, lectures and panels.

Today, America is at a critical moment in our history, explained Van Denburgh. White Christian nationalists are fomenting backlash against the de-Christianization of America, against greater racial diversity and against increasing acceptance of LGBTQ people.

They are legislating their religious extremism into the law, he told Religion News Service. Atheists must stand up and act.

The conference included a wide range of panels, including issue-focused discussions on subjects such as abortion and reproductive justice, but also workshops on taking your advocacy to the next level and practical tips for disrupting sexist behavior. On Saturday, political advocate Brett Parker hosted a panel on the nuts and bolts of making a difference in your state.

Sam McGuire, the national field director for American Atheists, said the organization is working toward building broad coalitions and supporting local community groups of various sizes. Each state has different needs, she explained, adding that most active and well-organized groups tend to be in areas that are facing the most conflict. Tallahassee, Florida, for example, situated in deep red country, is home to one of the organizations most active and well-established groups.

The issues facing nonbelievers are wide-ranging. Anything can be an atheist issue that involves equal rights, McGuire explained, especially when the religious impose their beliefs on other people.

Tina Marshall, lead organizer for the Charlotte, North Carolina, chapter of Black Nonbelievers, said one major issue for her group is voting rights. We cannot be liberated until we are liberated from supremacy, superstition and belief, she said, emphasizing that these are connected issues.

This past year, American Atheists has been involved in numerous legal actions around the country. Most recently, the organization has opposed South Carolinas HB 4776 legislation, which seeks a broad denial of medical care based on religious conviction, explained Alison Gill, vice president for legal and policy at American Atheists.

American Atheists is supporting New York bill A8163A, which would require that nonreligion-based substance abuse treatment options be available for people required by a court to enter a program.

Wil Jeudy speaks during the American Atheists 2022 National Convention in Atlanta, April 16, 2022. Photo by Josiah Mannion

Wil Jeudy, the Texas state director for American Atheists, has been taking a different approach to community action. As a member of Houston Oasis, a secular community that meets weekly, Jeudy has been working to build community and safe spaces for nonbelievers to gather socially. Houston is a blue island in a red sea, Jeudy said, which makes this type of organization possible. Nonbelievers dont have to worry about backlash within the area.

However, Jeudy has also been involved in advocacy and activism through other organizations. In fact, he was honored at the convention as the 2022 American Atheists Activist of the Year. One of Jeudys missions is to build advocacy coalitions across Texas and across organizational lines, including nonsecular groups such as Unitarian Universalist and Jewish organizations.

In Texas, theres an assumption that goodness comes from religion, he said, so it helps for people to see atheists standing with members of faith-based organizations. This creates a healthy cognitive dissonance, he added, dispelling the idea that atheists are the bad guys.

As Jeudy suggested, another major concern expressed at the 2022 convention was combating pervasive myths about nonbelievers.

Aaron Rabinowitz speaks during the American Atheistsnational convention in Atlanta, April 16, 2022. Photo by Josiah Mannion

In the opening of his talk, Aaron Rabinowitz asked the audience, Please raise your hand if youve previously heard some version of the immoral nonbeliever stereotype. Please keep your hand up if someone has ever implied that you or someone you know is less moral because theyre a nonbeliever. OK, now keep your hand up if someone has ever overtly said to your face that you are less moral or a bad person because youre a nonbeliever.

Rabinowitz, a podcaster and Ph.D. student at Rutgers University, went on to advocate for compassion and the building of community. The strongest tool we have against this stereotype is something were already doing right here right now: coming together in a community centered around not just shared beliefs but shared values, Rabinowitz said.

Similarly, Mandisa Thomas spoke about the struggle against bias and misconception. However, Thomas struggle is twofold. As the founder and President of Black Nonbelievers Inc., she not only has to combat the myth of the immoral atheist, but also the idea that atheism is a white thing.

There have always been Black atheists, she told the audience. This is a myth both within Black religious communities and the atheist movement itself. She said there is a heavy stigma.

Thomas expressed pride in both being a Black woman and an atheist. She offered ways in which the nonbeliever community can more adequately support and uplift the voices of Black atheists. Spend your privilege, she advised, among other tips. Her organization, based in Atlanta, will be holding its own national conference this fall in Chicago: Woman of Color: Beyond Belief.

Throughout the convention, attendees repeatedly expressed the need for action, suggesting a growing momentum in the movement. There is a sense of urgency due to the rising tide of Christian nationalism,Van Denburgh said.

At our convention, we are getting disengaged atheists involved and helping active atheists get out there and further build community and coalitions, he added.

Mandisa Thomas speaks during the American Atheists national convention in Atlanta, April 16, 2022. Photo by Josiah Mannion

Although hosted by American Atheists, the convention was attended by other nonbeliever groups from around the country, including the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Americans United, American Humanist Association, Foundation Beyond Belief and the Secular Student Alliance.

Despite expressed frustrations with the current political climate, there was an overall sense of hope within the community, buoyed by the growing number of young people identifying as nonbelievers. Since 2009, the number of Americans identifying as atheist has doubled, from 2% to 4%, and the number of agnostics rose from 3% to 5%, according to Pew Research. Gill believes the numbers are higher.

In 2020, American Atheists published its own findings about the community in its first comprehensive study on nonbelievers. It presented the data at the conference, showing that nonreligious young people are the fastest growing segment of the nonreligious community. This tracks with Pew findings that the average nonbeliever is 34 years old.

The young people bring hope, expressed both Gill and McGuire.

Next years American Atheist convention will be held on Easter weekend in Phoenix. Until then, the local communities will continue to gather in action and advocacy.

We are ready, Jeudy said. As the world opens up again, we have plans.

Read more here:
Atheists, spurred by growing ranks, gather for first time since start of pandemic - Religion News Service

Photo: Stephen Meyer, via En Arche Foundation.

Stephen Meyer, writing atThe American Mind, highlights an important lesson about the consequences of dismissing what he calls, in the title ofhis recent book, the God Hypothesis. Hes responding to an essay by Andrew Klavan that notes the connection between tyranny and atheism. The most tyrannical societies have also been the most atheistic, and the most likely to point to science as a justification on both counts.

From, Gods Footprints:

Klavans insight about the relationship between dystopias and atheism (or scientific materialism) is also perceptive. The fictional dystopias ofBrave New World,TheGiver,The Matrix and I would add, C. S. LewissThat Hideous Strength invariably depict future states where men and women are treated as purely material entities devoid of moral impulse and spiritual longing. In such dystopian societies, a reductionist and materialistic concept of human beings ensures that something important love, freedom, human rights, justice, dignity, faith is always horrifically omitted or suppressed by those in control.

The totalitarian dystopias of the20thcentury replicated this pattern, but in real life. National Socialism and Soviet Marxism both cited science as a justification for their materialistic ideologies and utopian visions but succeeded only in creating hell on Earth and, indeed, in perpetrating genocide. All of this supports Klavans other key contention: We need not abandon the scientific knowledge of modernity, but we must subjugate it to the needs of our humanity rather than allow its fleshless, sexless, motherless materialism to turn us into itself.

The insight is timely, given the two-year anniversary of lockdowns that weve recently observed. During that time, some states and countries were far more tyrannical than others. The worst offenders claimed to be simply following the science. What made the difference? No doubt, how secular the culture of the place is played a role. Secularism tends to see experts as deities to be unquestioningly venerated. The God Hypothesis has consequences beyond science or faith.

Coincidentally, I was listening today to radio host Dennis Prager who suggests a related question to pose to friends and family. Prager asks, What have we learned from the past two years? That would actually be a great subject for a book. He was referring to the widespread dystopia that was imposed with the coming of COVID: the masks, the lockdowns, the isolation, the riots, denying children access to school, the apartheid for the unvaccinated. Focused on the virus to the exclusion of all else, political and other leaders listened to the medical experts. But few leaders or experts considered what the broader consequences, for what Klavan terms the needs of our humanity, might be.

The nightmare goes on in some places,like China. In the United States, for the moment there is a backing away from the most damaging and tyrannical aspects of the COVID response. Institutions, including churches and synagogues, that acted with a heavy hand now have retreated, with no public apology or any acknowledgment that they might have been seriously misguided. Humans hate to say they were wrong.

A moral that Prager draws from this is that experts should be limited in the scope of what were interested in hearing from them. Share medical or other knowledge with us, please, but keep your advice what practically to do with that knowledge to yourself. Expertise, like atheism, shades all too readily into tyranny.

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Stephen Meyer: Totalitarian Dystopias and the God Hypothesis - Discovery Institute

I know youre never meant to talk religion, but the census is making me do it. We had to fill it out, on account of being on a visit to Ireland last Sunday night, in a hotel with the fam an atheist, an undecided, a havent-a-clue, a secular Jew, and myself, a Catholic by birth. I chant Om at yoga, but couldnt find a box for that. Instead we all ticked the no-religion box. That this box topped the list felt significant.

Obviously, for millions of people everywhere, the freedom to practice your religion is a basic right, to be honoured, protected and respected for anyone who wants to do so. That goes without saying, but Im saying it anyway.

But for those of us who dont, for all kinds of reasons that are nobody elses business, its refreshing to be acknowledged, rather than regarded by the census demographers as some kind of defective add-on at the end. Not being aligned to a religion does not necessarily make you an atheist the Guardian Soulmates dating site, before it was rendered obsolete by Tinder, used to have a handy spiritual but not religious box; the idea of definitively declaring that there is not a god seems as unknowable as definitively declaring that there is one. Whatever. This column is too short to get stuck in. All we know is that we dont know.

Meanwhile, back on earth, the head chaplain at Harvard University, elected last year by thirty other Harvard chaplains of various denominations, is an atheist humanist - Greg Epstein, author of Good Without God: What A Billion Non-Religious People Do Believe. Despite some initial hand-wringing, turns out that this atheist humanist - who supports humans directly rather than filtering human relationships via a deity - is doing a great job.

The unforgettable character of Elizabeth Zott, the scientist created by author Bonnie Garmus in her believe-the-hype new novel Lessons in Chemistry, declares her atheism on American national television in 1961. Why, she asks with impeccable logic, cant her science-based belief system be respected the same as the story-based belief system of a religious person? Why indeed.

Now, finally, in 2022 Ireland, to not believe has been given the same validation as to believe. Great. But should to believe / to not believe be anyones business but your own? Why the continuing Irish link between church and state? Why is religion still embedded in state schools?

By all means, practice your religion in your home, your place of worship, your community but state schools are for everyone, and not everyone practices the same religion, or practices any religion at all. Is it fair and equal for one religion in Irelands case, Catholicism to be served up as part of the school curriculum, to be baked into the school day? For those who want it, let it be an optional add-on, an after-school thing. Religious indoctrination of any kind has no place in state institutions. Isnt this obvious by now?

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Suzanne Harrington: It's refreshing that no religion is acknowledged on the census - Irish Examiner

So it has come to this. I am in jail. There are no ifs and buts about it. I am in jail. Not the ordinary jail in which criminals are usually held. No. It is the condemned cell. The cell I can leave only to drink the cup of hemlock allotted to me. Maybe they will have the courtesy of bringing the full cup to the cell, saving me the effort to walk to the execution place. Gods might know how this execution business works; I honestly do not know.

What I do know is that today, just today, I was condemned to death for being an atheist. Atheism is a crime. I suppose it has always been on the statute books but has never been used, well not in my lifetime. Why do they think I am an atheist? According to the prosecution it is because I dont go along with the general belief that all the light and heat provided by the sun comes from a chariot driven across the sky by the god Apollo.

I proposed another explanation in which gods played no role whatsoever. I tried to explain it in the Assembly. Actually, I did not even say that this was my explanation. I only said that this was a possible explanation. I said that to provide that much light and heat something must be burning up there, perhaps a stone that burns and burns and keeps on burning. Yes, it must be a big stone that can never be consumed.

How big? they asked.

It must be very big, I told them. Perhaps as big as the Peloponnesus.

If its that big, why does it appear to be so small? they demanded.

Simple. It appears to be small because it is far away.

How far?

Not as far as the stars, I thought. The stars really look tiny. Maybe half the distance, I suggested. All this, I told them, is not a theory. It is just a hypothesis, an inspired guess.

I know I am not the first one to face such accusations, nor even the first one to have this kind of show trial. Phidias had his before mine. Phidias was put in jail for misappropriating public funds. Phidias, misappropriating funds! Quite ridiculous. I have never seen a more honest man than Phidias. His only interest was Art. His magnificent golden statue of Zeus at Olympia will, for ever, be the supreme witness to Athenian art and to the genius of Phidias. It will show, yes, for ever the greatness of Pericles Athens.

I have no doubt about it that Phidias prosecution, like mine, was part of a political campaign aimed at Pericles friends. These people want to bring down Pericles and democracy with it. These are the rich, stupid uneducated crowd who live in elegant villas outside the city. They dont like public works unless all the money spent on them goes straight into their pocket. They want a society with absolute licence to make money. They want to bring down Pericles. They brought me down because I am a friend of Pericles.

I dont think my condemnation has got anything to do with atheism. It is just politics. I dont know how to fight them. I am not a politician. But Pericles will know, he will surely know what to do. Alas, it will be too late for me. I heard often that Hades is a bad place. Full of twittering ghosts, fluttering and swooping here and there in the twilight like swifts at evening. How do we know all that? Is it just a fable? Has anyone ever come back from Hades? Where is the evidence? The old ferryman will take me over and I shall soon know more than I ever wanted to know about Hades.

By the way, there was one good thing that came out of this spectacle. I had an opportunity to present my theory, not the burning stone piece that was never intended for mass consumption but my panta rei. I think it is a good theory. To express it in simple terms I would say that there is everything in everything. For example, I claim that there are human nails and hair in bread. It must be so! How would otherwise turn the bread we eat into nail and hair? It is all there but in a quantity too small to notice.

I did actually perform an experiment to prove my point. My students loved it! I had two big pots of paint, one white, the other one black. Then I poured a small amount of black paint into the white pot. Obviously it created some black streaks in the white paint. Then I took a wooden spoon and started to stir the paint in the previously pure white pot. Soon the black streaks disappeared. The paint became white, pure white, exclusively white. So what did I prove? We all knew that there was some black paint in the white pot, but it could no longer be seen. So this shows that such things could always happen. However hard we try, we cannot observe everything we would like to observe. If the thing we want to observe is there in too small an amount, it is not observable. Thats all there is to it.

Now to a new experiment! Can a condemned man sleep on the night before his execution? I shall now close my eyes and try my best. Come, dreams come. I hear the birds singing. Am I still awake? I hear some man-made noise! A key in the lock? The door opens. Who is it? I hear chink, chink, then the jailers voice: Thank you, Sir and a familiar voice dismissing the jailer. It is Pericles, Pericles in person!

The rest is history. Pericles arranged everything. He bribed the jailer, hired a chariot to take Anaxagoras to the port, hired a boat to take him to a waiting ship. The ship landed in Ionia, in Lampsacus, where Anaxagoras founded a School of Philosophy and lived happily up to the ripe old age of 72.

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The trial of Anaxagoras: a soliloquy - TheArticle

On June 26, 2000, the physician Francis Collins, then the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, stepped up to the podium in the East Room of the White House in front of President Bill Clinton, high-ranking U.S. officials, and foreign dignitaries. A team of more than a thousand scientists, led by Collins, had just assembled a first draft of the three billion letters in the human genome. Clinton called this a stunning and humbling achievement, rivalling Galileos. Collins told the audience, We have caught the first glimpse of our own instruction book, previously known only to God. By 2003, he would bring the Human Genome Project, one of the largest scientific collaborations in history, to a successful completion, nearly half a billion dollars under budget and two years ahead of schedule.

Collins, an evangelical Christian, would later describe sequencing the human genome as both a stunning scientific achievement and an occasion of worship. But, as a young man, he considered himself an atheist. Collins grew up on a farm in Virginias Shenandoah Valley. As Peter Boyer wrote in this magazine, in 2010, he and his three brothers milked cows and shucked corn; Collins was homeschooled until the sixth grade. His parents, who often hosted musicians on their property, were sort of hippies before there were hippies, according to the singer Linda Williams. They werent particularly religious; when Collins was sent to church to learn choir music, he recalls being told, You should be respectful of what theyre doing, even if the stuff theyre talking about doesnt make a lot of sense.

While a medical student at the University of North Carolina, Collins saw religion comfort patients in physical and existential pain. When an elderly woman with an incurable heart condition asked him what he believed, he found himself at a loss. With time, the question began to feel overwhelming, urgent, and unavoidable. Even as Collins held on to the idea that science could untangle the mechanics of life, he read C. S. Lewis and consulted his first wifes pastor. Eventually, he came to the conclusion that faith, more than science, could help illuminate morality and existence. One day, while hiking in the Cascades, he saw a waterfall frozen in three parts and took it as a sign of the Holy Trinity. In the decades that followed, he argued that science and religion could exist alongside each other. In 2006, he published The Language of God, a best-selling book that presents evidence that, in his view, justifies faith. In it, Collins argues that faith is rational, that it can help answer lifes deepest questions, and that the challenges of the twenty-first century require a harmony between science and religion, not just a ceasefire. He then founded BioLogos, an organization that supports the view that God created all things through the instrument of evolution.

In July, 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Collins to lead the National Institutes of Health, the largest supporter of biomedical-research in the world. Collins was by then a renowned geneticist who had helped to discover key genes behind cystic fibrosis, Type 2 diabetes, Huntingtons disease, neurofibromatosis, and other conditions. Still, he faced high-profile opposition from within the scientific community. The prominent Harvard cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker, who has been an outspoken proponent of atheism, called Collins an advocate of profoundly anti-scientific beliefs. In an Op-Ed in the Times, the public intellectual Sam Harris, another prominent atheist, argued that few things make thinking like a scientist more difficult than religion, and expressed concern that Collinss views would undermine efforts to understand the human mind. One can only hope that these convictions will not affect his judgment at the institutes of health, Harris wrote. The U.S. Senate appeared not to share these concerns: it confirmed him with a unanimous vote.

In his twelve years as the director of the N.I.H.the longest that anyone has held the position in half a centuryCollins oversaw twenty-seven institutes, forty-six thousand employees and contractors, and a budget that grew to forty-two billion dollars. He became the only Presidentially appointed N.I.H. director to serve in more than one Administration, let alone three; he helped to secure budget increases of more than forty per cent, using them to fund a slew of new programs and initiatives related to, among other things, brain health, addiction research, and the development of COVID-19 therapies and vaccines.

In an era of historic polarization, Collins is the rare influential scientist who has managed to win and keep the trust of elected officials across the political spectrum. After Donald Trumps election, in 2016, Collins was certain that hed be replaced. But a group of Republican lawmakers sent Trump a letter calling Collins the right person, at the right time, to continue to lead the worlds premier biomedical research agency. Each of the signatories was deeply conservative: they all supported gun rights, abortion restrictions, and the repeal of Obamacare. When Joe Biden was elected, in 2020, Collins again prepared to step down. But the nation was in the throes of a deadly and divisive pandemic, and, when Biden asked him to stay, he agreed.

Collins, who is seventy-one, finally handed in his resignation late last year. He returned to his own laboratory research, and, in February, accepted an interim position as the acting science adviser to President Biden. In my conversations with him, I sensed that his personal mission is broader than either of these two roles. If we are going to build a future for ourselves, it has to be based upon a shared agreement that there are standards for knowledge, he told me. You can be wrong about things, in which case knowledge needs to evolve. But there is such a thing as knowledge.

During the pandemic, Collins has struggled with a painful paradox: science is more effective and necessary than ever, and also less trusted. Researchers revealed how a novel pathogen spreads, evolves, and kills; they used its genome to create lifesaving vaccines in less than a year. At the same time, politicians and media figures, especially on the right, have undermined pandemic recommendations, maligned public-health leaders, and sown doubt about vaccines. Tucker Carlson, the host of one of the most-watched cable-news shows in America, recently told his viewers that there had been a complete failure of public-health leadership. He went on, These people dont take it upon themselves to know the data and to say it truthfully, so instead they have inculcated this culture of severe fear. Tens of millions of people, disproportionately in rural and conservative communities, have chosen not to get immunized against a virus that has killed almost a million Americans. In surveys, only around a third of respondents say that they have high levels of trust in the N.I.H. and the Food and Drug Administration; eight in ten say that Republicans and Democrats disagree on basic facts. When the history is written of the worst pandemic in a century, the scientific response will be seen as a shining light in the midst of a dark time, Collins told me. But science is caught up in a much larger disillusionment with the traditional foundations of how we decide whats true.

Collins rose to prominence as a scientist in a different era, when Christian conservatives were denouncing scientists for research using embryonic stem cells. He worked on both sides of the cultural divide, and, during his tenure, he helped to enable many of our recent scientific successes. But the divideand the task of bridging it that he considers his duty nowis only getting bigger.

In May, 2021, after helping to lead the federal pandemic response for more than a year, during which he woke up most mornings at four-thirty, Collins escaped for a weekend to a rented barn in Loudoun County, Virginia. He brought his guitar and a Bible that he has had for decades; horses and goats kept him company. Collins gazed out at the blue sky and rolling hills. He wrote, prayed, and ultimately decided to leave his post as the director of the N.I.H. Collins told me that he prays not to ask God to change his circumstances, but to ask God what he himself should do.

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His choice turned on three considerations. The first was political: if he couldnt commit to staying on through Bidens term, it was only fair to give the President a chance to nominate and confirm a new director before the midterm elections. The second was institutionalCollins believes that organizations benefit from new leadership and fresh ideas. And the third was a social obligation: he wanted to help repair the publics fraying confidence in science. I looked in the mirror and thought, If I have any credibility as a scientist, a Christian, a nonpolitical person, I want to spend it trying to get us to a better place, he said.

After Collins stepped down, I travelled to the sprawling N.I.H. campus in Bethesda, Maryland, to meet with him. It was a frigid day in January, and Collins arrived a few minutes late, having walked across campus after meeting with Anthony Fauci, another leading pandemic figure who, like Collins, has faced vicious attacks on the Internet and in the media. Collins, who stands well over six feet, wore scientist chic: dark blazer, gray jeans, black mask, and Chelsea boots. We met not in Building 1, the home of the N.I.H. director, but in Building 50, where Collinss genetics lab is situated. He welcomed me to his small, spartan, and mostly empty new office: bookshelves without books, walls without diplomas, a solitary mahogany desk.

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Faith, Science, and Francis Collins - The New Yorker

If youre wondering why President Cyril Ramaphosas noble promises have failed to translate into action, look no further than the breathtakingly mealy-mouthed statement by the ANCs international relations chair, Lindiwe Zulu.

On Sunday, as Vladimir Putins Russia was on day three of a special military operation that involved shelling residential areas in cities including Kyiv and Kharkiv, Zulu issued a statement expressing her deep concern about the rapid escalation of conflict. Studiously avoiding using the word invasion, she said the ANC was appalled but not surprised by those beating the drum of war when instead they should have been pre-empting confrontation by being insistent on dialogue. Presumably, Zulu means those who called for intervention to stop Russia shelling another sovereign state. Had there been any working televisions, radio, newspapers or the internet in Luthuli House, Zulu who also doubles as SAs intellectually towering minister of social development might have noticed that Putin had pretty much ruled out dialogue when he spoke of the band of drug addicts and neo-Nazis that sits in Kyiv, arguing that Russias interests were non-negotiable.

Its predictable, if depressing: in Ramaphosas ANC, a violent incursion into a sovereign state is just an excuse for another talk shop, another commission, another belated morticians report.

Now, its clear that the picture is more nuanced than a blunt good vs evil binary. Putin is seething that Western countries have ignored his claim that Ukraine broke the Minsk agreement, which would give the two provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk relative autonomy. And hes paranoid about Nato-aligned countries inching east, and incorporating Ukraine this is a red line, he says.

Yet Putins remedy for his embellished grievance is disproportionate and a breach of international law. His ruse for remaking Imperial Russia by sending in 150,000 troops relies on dopes like Zulu swallowing his line that its a peacekeeping mission.

In the ANC statement, Zulu warns that people must apply their minds in the face of brazen propaganda and unprecedented disinformation even as she falls hook, line and sinker for a whopper herself. There must be a throng of slick salesmen outside her door, trying to flog her an emerging cryptocurrency, or the next big thing in 4IR.

But then, when youve made a career of putting ideology ahead of truth, comforted by the cotton-wool swaddling of phrases like imperial manipulation, maybe its what youre intellectually obliged to do. Hers is a mission statement for a la-la land of dopey diplomats and unctuous officials, inevitably surprised when the inevitable happens.

Not everyone in the ANC is able to spout vacuous revolutionary slogans on command. Naledi Pandor, for one, must be overdue for a stint in a re-education gulag after forgetting that values are subservient to ideology. Last week, Pandors department of international relations & co-operation called for Russia to respect Ukraines sovereignty.

Apparently, this didnt please Ramaphosa, who, the Sunday newspapers reported, was irked at such a resolute take on an issue that could have been diluted into something far more wishy-washy.

Speaking to the media last Friday, Ramaphosa said that if US President Joe Biden had agreed to meet Putin to discuss the Ukraine situation without any conditions, Im sure we would have avoided the calamitous situation that is unfolding now.

Which, of course, is an irrelevant argument.

And yet this is illuminating of Ramaphosas loyalties, driven in part by SAs awkward alliance with the Brics countries Brazil, Russia, India and China.

It underscores the extent to which the ANC has long had a misplaced romanticism of Russia. Maybe its because the ANCs financial woes precluded it buying any textbooks dated after 1989, or maybe its because leaders like David Mabuza are always dashing off to Moscow for a miracle anti-poisoning elixir.

But again, that becomes a subservient concern when you sign up to a bill of rights, and attest to global democratic treaties that oblige you to respect sovereign boundaries.

In recent years the ANCs critics have spoken of its creeping moral agnosticism. Its actually worse than that the party now seems to be embracing a far more active atheism, in which it no longer believes in the ethically courageous path.

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EDITORIAL: On Russia, the ANC shows its moral atheism - BusinessLIVE

The last article concluded with the fact that three things are of paramount importance in the Western worldview: Free will, that is, the unbridled autonomy of man. The second is rationalism and the third is a powerful man with extraordinary abilities. Atheism is active as a soul in these three concepts. It is safe to say that atheism is common to almost all the philosophies and concepts that have appeared in Western thought.

For example, if you look at Hedonism, or denial of existence, etc., the denial of God will also be seen there. Where there is denial of God, even if God is present, they will be seen refusing to obey Him. All such ideas were at Tolstoy and Dostoevskys aim.

So when Friedrich Nietzsche in Germany burying God on his side and carving an idol of Superman, Tolstoy had written that in ancient notion whatever happens in this universe is by the Gods will. Then some wise men of the modern age (fifteenth century) declared this concept childish and assigned this position of God to some great conquerors.

Therefore, the creator of History is a powerful man, not God. And of course, theres the concept of free will. So Tolstoy writes, combining these two concepts at once: If every mans freedom were unlimited, if every man had the power to do what he wanted, then the whole history of mankind would be nothing but a mixture of uncoordinated events.

If only one in a million human beings in a thousand years had the power to do something with unlimited authority, then one illegal act of that one person would eliminate the possibility of any law for the whole of humanity. In this short statement Tolstoy denies not only the denial of God but also of the powerful man and its free will and that too with a rational argument which cannot be denied.

In order to make this option acceptable, the concept of rationalism was introduced by the West that man is intelligent and he uses it to do all good. So Dostoevsky destroyed this rationalism in just two lines: Whether its right or wrong, sometimes breaking something is just as enjoyable.

In this simple line, Dostoevsky draws attention to this aspect of human instinct, the denial of which is equivalent to the denial of the sun. Who does not know that man does not make every decision according to the scale of right or wrong. Therefore, the man being intelligent does not guarantee that whatever one do will be right.

Dostoevsky then proves that European nations are on the path to self-destruction. Their luxurious society and their capitalism is nothing but self-destruction. Dostoevskys position can be accurately understood from the introduction of the man in his possession.

According to him, the most prominent identities of man are two. The first is that it is flawed. And second, it is self-harmful. Dostoevskys position can be seen in the use of all types of drugs, from alcohol, tobacco, gambling, and marijuana to heroin. Who does not know that all these things are destructive to man? But arent millions of people still suffering from them? If the intellect can guarantee protection from harm, then no intelligent person should have touched these things.

Hence, Dostoevsky writes here, focusing on the importance of God: If there is no God, then everything is permissible. And his city-wide novel Crime and Punishment is based on the same theme. The protagonist of this novel, Raskolnikov, had every rational reason for killing a rich woman. His plan was also spotless.

There was no fear of being caught. He was not seen during the murder, nor was he arrested after the murder. But after doing the act, his conscience created such turmoil inside him that he did not feel at ease for a moment. This turmoil seems to cover the whole depths of the human psyche throughout the novel. No one has been able to give a greater answer to rationalism other than Dostoevsky has dug up rationalism. What is this voice of conscience? That is God.

Lets go back to the so-called powerful man of the West who has the status of the creator of history in Western thought under infinite freedom. In Western thought, this powerful man exists in two forms. If it is good then it is a hero. If bad its a villain. So from here you can see that the art of Hollywood and Bollywood is based on this concept.

But its not that simple. The historical fact is that if the powerful man is their own, then the one who dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is also a hero. And if it is a different ideology, then the car bomb detonator is also a villain.

Commenting on this powerful man in War and Peace, Tolstoy says: Its a character of a story that the storyteller has exaggerated. It doesnt just end with this commentary, but it does portray Napoleon in War and Peace as a man of short stature who was no more important than a mere figure in a historical process. That is, he was not the creator of an event, but merely a part of it.

One of the sayings of the teacher Ahmed Javed is of great help in understanding this position of Tolstoy. The Western notion of history is that great heroes or villains are its creators. While my teachers concept of history is that history is of two kinds. One optional and the other incidental.

For example, my optional history is where I studied, where I lived, where I worked. Whereas my incidental history in which my authority is absolutely zero, is what nation I was born in, and what country I was born as a citizen, etc. Now, if you consider, Napoleon is nothing more than a limited part of history, a character of optional history.

If anyone says where did the role of optional history come from? He is the creator of this history by his own choice, so we should not forget that the power to make this optional history was given to him by his incidental history. In which he was born in France and the rest of the history took him to the place from which his triumphant journey began.

Thus Tolstoy seems to give the key in the description of his theory of history that you cannot see any recent event without historical background. There is a continuum of history behind the great event that took place today. And todays event is the result of that continuity.

He illustrates with the example of the human body that the head is not alone. Its burden is borne by innumerable cells and many other organs. So these are the many small and big events of nature that together make a big event. And man is just a character in this event. He is not its creator at all. (To be continued)

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Invasion of Ukraine and Russian literature III - MM News

With over 56% of its population describing themselves as "nonreligious," Vermont takes a clear lead in terms of US states with the highest proportions of nonreligious, agnostic, and atheist citizens.

The role of religion in society has long been a hotly debated topic that often brings out a varying array of strong opinion. While there are many advantages and disadvantages of religion linked to a society, it cannot be neglected that being religious or non-religious does have an impact on a society and the collective thinking of the people therein. Non-religious should not be confused with the word atheism which is an entirely different belief system altogether. Atheist means someone who does not believe in god or any supernatural being whatsoever, whereas non-religious is defined as a person who does not have religion playing a major role in their life and does not frequently visit religious events or places. Furthermore, agnostic is a system of beliefs wherein individuals question the existence of the supernatural and divine, or otherwise believe it to be unknowable or beyond the scope of the human mind. Non-religious people say that religion has little or no impact on their life decisions and lifestyle, while people tagged as very religions affirm the presence of religion in their daily life. Very religious people who consider religion to be important in daily life often regularly visit religious places of worship or attend religious events.

The United States is also the most religious country among the developed nations, with about 40 percent of its population categorized as very religious. Although the United States citizens are quite diverse in their religions and beliefs, it has been observed that religion follows strong regional and demographic boundaries and trends within the worlds largest economy. Around 30 percent of people in the United States fall under the category of moderately religious, while the remaining 30 percent do not consider religion to be an important part of their lifestyle and daily routines. The division of religious fervor in the United States in our investigation has been made through the use of surveys and reports of individuals worship patterns from various states in the country. Through such reports and statistical analyses, we have seen that the Northwest and New England states of the US tend to be the least religious in nature. In fact, most of the least religious states in the United States lie on or near the Northern half of the countrys coastline, whether that be Atlantic or Pacific.

In a Gallup poll, citizens from across the US were surveyed to determine whether religion is not important in their lives and say they seldom or never attend religious services." From this poll, Vermont and Maine were considered to be the least religious, as more than half of their respective respondents stated that religion was not very important in their lives. Closely following these two far northeastern US states in religious indifference or disbelief were New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Colorado, and Connecticut, all of whom had more than 40% of their respondents state that religion was not a focal point of their regular lives.

These states are in stark contrast in their belief patterns to the least religious states, wherein the top position goes to Vermont with around 56 percent of its population being registered under the category of Nonreligious. Vermont is followed by New Hampshire along with 10 other states under the list of least religious states. Of the least religious states in the US, many lie within the New England area. This may be due to the effect of modern Western society and its principles, which have been adopted by the people in these states after the model of European nations such as Sweden and the United Kingdom, which are among the least religious countries in the world themselves, and impact a majority of northern states in the US with their ideologies and practices. As Washington, Oregon, and New England have long been known for freeness of self-expression and contemporary cultural shifts, this has often led to a strong humanist presence, wherein the role of the divine in life is greatly diminished. Furthermore, these areas are far closer to population centers of Canada, which is considered a less religious country than the US, also largely owing to its close ties with Europe. As cultures across the world become more globalized, this trend is likely to continue, and religiosity in these areas is likely to fall further still in years to come.

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Percentage Of Atheists In America By State - WorldAtlas