Religion & Rationalism

I recently saw a YouTube of a very powerful exposition on Rationalism by Jawed Akhtar, when Shoma Chowdhary featured him in “Algebra”. Jawed Saheb forcefully argues for Reason and Logic and debunks the Faith and Religion as the domain of charlatans.

I consider Jawed Akhtar as one of the modern Maharishi of the Indian sub-continent. Jawed Saheb is always listened to with an eagerness mixed with awe and admiration.

The Video is here : https://youtu.be/W1sMKzK67PM

Why Jawed Saheb is an atheist? He responds pithily, “Because I think”.

And he goes on to define for us the ideas of faith, belief and equates these to stupidity.

Now that rankles!

Is this 'show business’ that he is in, or plain ‘word smithy’, again his forte?

Most of the humanity, the middle 68% (as per the Gaussian Bell Curve) invests most of its mindspace to just putting the ‘bread on the table’ or in meeting the basic needs a la’ Maslow.

They need some pegs to hang their fears of the unknown; To seek solace in the otherwise scary world.

Admittedly, the Faith or Religion, is not the domain of logic or intellect, but a very large and important part of human existence.

The Gurus serve a very important purpose in human lives, while a few “dhongi babas”, or shall we say “word smiths”, exploit them and betray the trust reposed in them. 

We can conclude that such exploiters fall on the extremities of the Bell Curve. Aren’t Jawed, Modi and Asaram, Nityanand two ends on the distribution; +ve and -ve?

Pew Research Centre estimated in 2017 that Religious populations or beliefs are no where near any abatement under pressure from logic and science. Please see the table below (copy /paste without permission) :

So like all Gurus, Jawed Saheb, should also be heard and understood with caution. But that calls for application of mind and mindspace. And we complete the circle !!!

And that is the irony of human existence. Delicious !!!