Dear Farzana,

 

I am addressing you by first name asa we had met at your book launch last year.

 

Your questions to me are very pertinent but they are based on a slight misunderstanding of what I have been trying to say -- perhaps I as not clear enough.

 

I am in full agreement with you about the making full use of rationality; that using these powers are essential for understanding the world around us. I go further and say that rational criteria are the only criteria to be invoked in judging between the implications for course of action prescribed by any religion.

 

All I am saying is that: (i) all ISMS are based on a first principle that has to be accepted on faith by the believers in that principle. This is because rationality has limitations as a provider of first principles; (ii) Given (i), I argue that faiths cannot be evaluated on that basis -- that we can grant all faiths a first principle, whatever they want; (iii) but the implications of heir first principles for the course of human conduct in society, the norms of behavior, can be and ought to be evaluated on the basis of some agreed rational criteria, as the only tool available to mankind for this purpose. In a nutshell: use reason to judge implications of faith but grant all people to choose their fist principles because reason is incapable of providing a rational first principle. 

 

In my exchanges with Khalid following my first note have given a detailed account of how different Isms are in effect based on a first principle chosen on faith, implicitly or explicitly. It is not just the preserve of organized religions. I hope they clarify the points I have just outlined and I hope that they clarify my views.

 

Abrar