Some participants have frequently raised the question – why very learned and analytic thinkers continue to believe in religion? And some or many who have doubts about religion, continue to practice and associate themselves with religion The article in NYT by Garry Gutting provides a partial answer. ( F. Sheikh)

Some excerpts from article:

“An old friend and mentor of mine, Ernan McMullin, was a philosopher of science widely respected in his discipline.  He was also a Catholic priest.  I don’t know how many times fellow philosophers at professional meetings drew me aside and asked, “Does Ernan really believe that stuff?”  (He did.) Amid all the serious and generally respectful coverage of the papal resignation and the election of a new pope, I often detect an undertone of this same puzzlement.  Can reflective and honest intellectuals actually believe that stuff?”

“Toward the end of James Joyce’s “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” the protagonist, Stephen Dedalus, rejects the Roman Catholic faith he was raised in.   A friend suggests that he might, then, become a Protestant.  Stephen replies, “I said that I had lost the faith . . . but not that I had lost self-respect.” Factoring out the insult to Protestants, I would like to appropriate this Joycean mot to explain my own continuing attachment to the Catholic Church.”

“I read “self-respect” as respect for what are (to borrow the title of the philosopher Charles Taylor’s great book) the “sources of the self.”  These are the sources nurturing the values that define an individual’s life.  For me, there are two such sources.  One is the Enlightenment, where I’m particularly inspired by Voltaire, Hume and the founders of the American republic.  The other is the Catholic Church, in which I was baptized as an infant, raised by Catholic parents, and educated for 8 years of elementary school by Ursuline nuns and for 12 more years by Jesuits.  For me to deny either of these sources would be to deny something central to my moral being.”

Click below to read full article;

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/30/on-being-catholic/

The Intellectual Forum has these days been delving again into the long discussed question of how some particular human societies can cease to be backward and poor. In the last two centuries, two dignitaries have principally not only thought of it seriously but contributed heavily to improve upon our plight. What fruits, the efforts of (Sir) Saiyid Ahmad Khan had born in this regard, we all know. Professor Abdus-Salaam burnt his candle at both ends, in the words of Dr. Mohd Zillur-Rahmaan Khan of Aligarh,; in doing Physics at the ultimate level and tiring him to final death running all over the world for the third world’s advanced education. It is evident that we need education as high as possible… technical, scientific, social… hard work, positive thinking and full care of the individual and social responsibilities to improve our lot, to contribute to the future of the human beings, thus earning among them a place of respect.

It was also one of the important priorities of Saiyid to modernize the Muslim thought, but his attempts in this regard were much ahead of time. Now we understand better that it is the religious ethos that dominates our thought in every religious society— be it Semitic (including Muslims), Zoroastrian of Iranian or Indian or Chinese— rather than the authentic documentation. A Muslim believes and practices according to the local traditions around him associated with one of, at least, two Shia sects and four broad Sunni sects, with sub-sects. The Muslim masses may continue their life in their usual manner ordinarily, but in case a controversy arises, they should know that many possibilities exist outside the core of religion, and therefore they should be tolerant and flexible.

It is fortunately, possible to define the core of believes and injunctions of Islam according to its last ‘revelation’: “Today, We have completed to the zenith your way of life (Deen) [5, 3]; we call it religion”. What ever has been added to after this revelation by whosoever— Caliphs or Jurists or Saints— is administrative or advisory by nature, but not binding as an article of faith. So, on the authority of Quran quoted above, no Muslim believer can disagree with the above principle/revelation.

The Prophet’s Tradition cannot be equated to Quran simply because the traditions (Hadith) have been compiled centuries after the Prophet, through very hard and prolonged scrutiny, all right, but established scholars have rightly said: “Quran is continual (mutawaatir, according to the terminology of the Tradition Experts), while no Hadith is continual (muta’ayyan); the most authenticated ones are just most probable in various degrees of dependability” [Maulaa Abdul Maajid, private correspondence]. In order to understand the spirit of Islam, we must understand Quran, the main source of Islamic ideology in light of Quran itself. If further clarifications are warranted, we should only then refer to Hadith compilations, along with today’s authentic scientific knowledge.

General agreement to this principle should eliminate Muslims’ in-fighting, and pave way to shrug away the yoke of retrogress, as Unity of God, the Institution of Prophet-hood, and General Ethics do not oppose most of the modern principles of progress. And this much must help a lot reducing conflicts within Muslim sects and factions.

Looking more generally, a religion consists of (1) dogma, (2) rituals, (3) ethics, followed by mysticism and social norms etc in traditional order. Inter- or intra-religion differences arise out of the first two, where as the third is mostly common in most details not only between religions but also between them, and social/philosophical disciplines for example, socialism. What touches me most in religious and non-religious books is this ethics, expounded from place to place so beautifully and so powerfully in Quran. Why not to stick to it the way we must? The mother of all ethics is the golden principle: Do and think for the other, what you desire him to do and think for you. It is a matter of intention and attitude; all acts depends on Intention (Bukhari, Book of Knowledge); If you consider yourself a lion and others as goats, others will also consider themselves lions and you as a goat.   Choose between living in peace or eternal conflict and terror.

M S Z Chaghtaï

( Shared by Azeem Farooki)

“Over-definition of norms makes it possible to legitimize attitudes that may be legally licit, but do not respect Islamic ethics in matters of behavior”

“We are coming to the end of a historic cycle the likes of which Islamic civilization has experienced many times before. Scholars and thinkers of the new generations will emerge to carry out the fundamental reform as to the way of reading the sacred texts in a spirit of renewal, faith and courage. Women and men who embody a reform of consciences that resists the dehumanization of their spiritual being, who refuse to accept the world as it is, and who commit themselves to reform in their hearts and societies, not by adapting to what they have become, but by transforming them and leading them to what they must become, in freedom, dignity and peace.”

Click below to read full article:

http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/contemporary-islamic-conscience-in-crisis-1.1165490

Posted by F.Sheikh

(Shared by Tahir Mahmood)

Glenn Greenwald

Two columns have been published in the past week harshly criticizing the so-called “New Atheists” such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens: this one by Nathan Lean in Salon, and this one by Murtaza Hussain in Al Jazeera. The crux of those columns is that these advocates have increasingly embraced a toxic form of anti-Muslim bigotry masquerading as rational atheism. Yesterday, I posted a tweet to Hussain’s article without comment except to highlight what I called a “very revealing quote” flagged by Hussain, one in which Harris opined that “the people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists.”

Shortly after posting the tweet, I received an angry email from Harris, who claimed that Hussain’s column was “garbage”, and he eventually said the same thing about Lean’s column in Salon. That then led to a somewhat lengthy email exchange with Harris in which I did not attempt to defend every claim in those columns from his attacks because I didn’t make those claims: the authors of those columns can defend themselves perfectly well. If Harris had problems with what those columns claim, he should go take it up with them.

I do, however, absolutely agree with the general argument made in both columns that the New Atheists have flirted with and at times vigorously embraced irrational anti-Muslim animus. I repeatedly offered to post Harris’ email to me and then tweet it so that anyone inclined to do so could read his response to those columns and make up their own minds. Once he requested that I do so, I posted our exchange here.

Harris himself then wrote about and posted our exchange on his blog, causing a couple dozen of his followers to send me emails. I also engaged in a discussion with a few Harris defenders on Facebook. What seemed to bother them most was the accusation in Hussain’s column that there is “racism” in Harris’ anti-Muslim advocacy. A few of Harris’ defenders were rage-filled and incoherent, but the bulk of them were cogent and reasoned, so I concluded that a more developed substantive response to Harris was warranted.

Given that I had never written about Sam Harris, I found it odd that I had become the symbol of Harris-bashing for some of his faithful followers. Tweeting a link to an Al Jazeera column about Harris and saying I find one of his quotes revealing does not make me responsible for every claim in that column. I tweet literally thousands of columns and articles for people to read. I’m responsible for what I say, not for every sentence in every article to which I link on Twitter. The space constraints of Twitter have made this precept a basic convention of the medium: tweeting a link to a column or article or re-tweeting it does not mean you endorse all of it (or even any of it).

For complete article click link below;

http://m.guardiannews.com/commentisfree/2013/apr/03/sam-harris-muslim-animus