Dear Khalid,  

You have asked me two questions in your note copied below:  

“How do you think your definitions will help me in solving these problems (namely of “religious fundamentalists of the East as well as West who are trying to create theocratic states and deprive women and minorities of their basic human rights”), and how would they help me in personal, social and professional lives?”  

The purpose of my definitions is to contribute to intellectual clarity and to offer, dare I say, a more ‘scientific’ and non-emotive basis for comparison of norms and standards across ideologies. My definitions suggest that comparisons should not be based on the sources or the medium or the framework from which the ideas come but on the outcomes or implications regarding norms of behaviour of those ideas. These norms should be judged and contested on some agreed rational criteria.  

To give you an example, take the case of political violence. “Thou shall not kill” should not be condemned simply because a religious fellow (Moses) proposed it in the framework of what you call Religious Traditions and the idea did not come from someone who belonged to your category of Scientific Traditions. We should not condemn non-violent approach to politics simply because its advocacy comes from Christianity or Buddhism; nor should we approve political violence simply because it comes from the Secularist traditions of Leninism, Maoism or from Che Guevara. Our judgement should be based on some other agreed criteria, not simply on the source, ISM or the personality it comes from. Similarly, I would have difficulty in accepting the code of conduct implied by Secularist approaches that there is no morality between nations other than that of the power relationships. To kill for nation states is justified by all Secularists and I would not agree to it because it comes from the good old Secularist who you categorise within the Scientific Tradition. 

This is not just an abstract or philosophical issue. Its practical relevance is that people, media no less, use the erroneous/simplistic judgement of “good” and “bad” based on the ideological source of an idea. They form their political opinions and political actions on these simplistic judgements. More importantly, they create division between people on such simplistic criteria. If I can help even one person to see the error of this approach, I think I would have made a great practical contribution.  

My definitions should also help to better understand the dimensions and the relative priorities of the global problems that you have said are your major concerns. Judged from the perspective of the humanity at large, the problems created by your “religious fundamentalists”, serious as they are, they pale in comparison to the problems generated by the “capitalist fundamentalists”, secularist no less, who would sacrifice millions of lives for the God of free competition. They would condemn millions to inequities across races, gender and income classes. It was not a “religious fundamentalist” dictator of a theocratic state who used an atom bomb on other humans but a good old secularist democrat. The lesson is that promoting world peace and justice, equality and fairness, requires struggles against all ideologies, theocratic or secular, that disturb world peace and perpetuate inequities.  

My definition of religion and ideologies tries to highlight the fact that there is a fundamentalist and religious dimension to all ideologies and in the present day world the most monstrous problems cannot be laid at the door of the theocratic states. In fact the potential threat of a theocratic state, clearly dangerous for the people concerned, women in particular, is used as an attempt to shift, from a global point of view,  the agenda of popular discourse with the aim of diverting attention from the serious current threats posed to world peace from the advanced secular nations.

As to your second question, namely in regard to helping you in “the personal, social and professional lives”, I think the principle of evaluating norms of behaviour on their own merits could be of some help in thinking through the issues of day to day lives. It might help ordinary people to understand their own streak of “religious fundamentalism”, that is, to understand when they are basing their judgement on blind faith and when they are using the method of reasoning.    

You would have gathered from the above that I find your tripartite categorisation as not particularly helpful for any of the problems you have mentioned. The reason is that in reality these categories overlap. Religious thoughts are never devoid of some rational basis, at least at the time when they are first broached (even though they may be presented as coming from non-rational processes). Similarly, what you call Spiritual Traditions have not ignored religious thinking but assimilated and used them in their approach to life issues. And, as regards, pure scientific thinking, it is extremely limited in coming to value judgements. Its scope is very limited in addressing most issues faced by human beings in their daily life. It can help judge between the norms that come from other sources, on some consensus-based criteria, but it must first have those values to judge between, and these have to come from other non-scientific sources.       

I have answered your two questions, even though these questions changed the subject we were discussing. So back to the subject and the questions I posed: are my definitions clearly articulated (that is, you have understood what I am trying to say); do you find them useful; and if not what are your reasons?     

I have spent a fair bit of time to address the issues seriously because these are important issues, not just on the philosophical plane.   

Best,  

Abrar,

4 August, 2009