Science and religion: God didn't make man; man made gods

In recent years scientists specializing in the mind have begun to unravel religion's "DNA."

Science and religion

By J. Anderson Thomson and Clare Aukofer

Before John Lennon imagined "living life in peace," he conjured "no heaven … / no hell below us …/ and no religion too."

No religion: What was Lennon summoning? For starters, a world without "divine" messengers, like Osama bin Laden, sparking violence. A world where mistakes, like the avoidable loss of life in Hurricane Katrina, would be rectified rather than chalked up to "God's will." Where politicians no longer compete to prove who believes more strongly in the irrational and untenable. Where critical thinking is an ideal. In short, a world that makes sense.

In recent years scientists specializing in the mind have begun to unravel religion's "DNA." They have produced robust theories, backed by empirical evidence (including "imaging" studies of the brain at work), that support the conclusion that it was humans who created God, not the other way around. And the better we understand the science, the closer we can come to "no heaven … no hell … and no religion too."

Like our physiological DNA, the psychological mechanisms behind faith evolved over the eons through natural selection. They helped our ancestors work effectively in small groups and survive and reproduce, traits developed long before recorded history, from foundations deep in our mammalian, primate and African hunter-gatherer past.

For example, we are born with a powerful need for attachment, identified as long ago as the 1940s by psychiatrist John Bowlby and expanded on by psychologist Mary Ainsworth. Individual survival was enhanced by protectors, beginning with our mothers. Attachment is reinforced physiologically through brain chemistry, and we evolved and retain neural networks completely dedicated to it. We easily expand that inborn need for protectors to authority figures of any sort, including religious leaders and, more saliently, gods. God becomes a super parent, able to protect us and care for us even when our more corporeal support systems disappear, through death or distance.

Scientists have so far identified about 20 hard-wired, evolved "adaptations" as the building blocks of religion. Like attachment, they are mechanisms that underlie human interactions: Brain-imaging studies at the National Institutes of Health showed that when test subjects were read statements about religion and asked to agree or disagree, the same brain networks that process human social behavior — our ability to negotiate relationships with others — were engaged.

Among the psychological adaptations related to religion are our need for reciprocity, our tendency to attribute unknown events to human agency, our capacity for romantic love, our fierce "out-group" hatreds and just as fierce loyalties to the in groups of kin and allies. Religion hijacks these traits. The rivalry between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, for example, or the doctrinal battles between Protestant and Catholic reflect our "groupish" tendencies.

In addition to these adaptations, humans have developed the remarkable ability to think about what goes on in other people's minds and create and rehearse complex interactions with an unseen other. In our minds we can de-couple cognition from time, place and circumstance. We consider what someone else might do in our place; we project future scenarios; we replay past events. It's an easy jump to say, conversing with the dead or to conjuring gods and praying to them.

Morality, which some see as imposed by gods or religion on savage humans, science sees as yet another adaptive strategy handed down to us by natural selection.

Yale psychology professor Paul Bloom notes that "it is often beneficial for humans to work together … which means it would have been adaptive to evaluate the niceness and nastiness of other individuals." In groundbreaking research, he and his team found that infants in their first year of life demonstrate aspects of an innate sense of right and wrong, good and bad, even fair and unfair. When shown a puppet climbing a mountain, either helped or hindered by a second puppet, the babies oriented toward the helpful puppet. They were able to make an evaluative social judgment, in a sense a moral response.

Michael Tomasello, a developmental psychologist who co-directs the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, has also done work related to morality and very young children. He and his colleagues have produced a wealth of research that demonstrates children's capacities for altruism. He argues that we are born altruists who then have to learn strategic self-interest.

Religion-based businesses

IF WE look back into Islamic history right from the very beginning when religious Caliphs used to rule the state based on the Quran and the Hadith, we won’t find any religious body aiming for individual or personal interest. This sub-continent also saw a lot of Islamic preachers who never had any business motive. They have struggled to take the religion to the people and even sacrificed their lives instead of compromising their ideal or principle. Now we see a lot of divisions among the Islamic philosophers and leaders which creates confusion. We have lost our morality and moved away from the right track and are now running after individual benefit.

Bangladesh is a Muslim-majority country where there are a lot of Islamic organisations and religion-based political parties. In the name of the organisation or party or shrine, many people often arrange periodic gatherings where the followers offer a huge amount of money and goods and even cattle etc to the party’s or shrine’s fund. Is there a body to monitor these funds and see how they are being spent? Should these not be spent for common good only?

I recently visited Sadarpur in Faridpur where there are two big shrines. When I was there, there were a lot of people and many vehicles in the streets around the area and even the surrounding areas for the purpose of such gatherings. A great many buses, microbuses, minibuses, private cars, vans, trucks were running jig jag on the narrow roads and on the old bridges and culverts. Any day this may cause a massive accident like the one in Mirsarai. In that case, who will take the responsibility? Shouldn’t the authorities of the shrines spend the money collected to build broad roads and new bridges and culverts in these areas for the people and even in their own interest? This way they can also draw the attention of the people. But actually, they are gathering heaps of money for their own interest or for political purposes using the name of religion. As a Muslim, I fail to see the justification of their action.

Finally, I’d like to request the government bodies concerned as well as the law enforcing agencies to closely monitor the activities of these organisations on different occasions to verify their intention and see how and where the money collected in the name of religion is being spent.

Hijab and Contemporary Muslim Women

Those who support the French State 's decision to ban hijab from its schools argue that the law is a necessary step to protect young Muslim girls, as French citizens, from fundamentalist pressure to wear hijab. Such a law, thus, penalizes innocent girls who wish to cover in order to protect those who do not wish to cover. The French see hijab as more than just a piece of cloth.

The girls who wear it are not innocent; they are, in fact, seen as signs of a cancer in the French body politic - "Islamic fundamentalism". That the French see the hijab in this way is due to an old and resilient Orientalist stereotype of the hijab as a symbol of Muslim women's oppression. This idea was introduced into Western discourse in the early eighteenth century and was given "teeth" during the colonial era. During the British and French occupations of the Middle East , the colonialists went to great lengths to unveil Muslim women.

The Europeans' campaigns against the veil were eventually successful, as a new generation of Muslims internalized the Western colonial view of the veil as a symbol of backwardness. A society that wished to modernize had to follow the secular, Western path or else be condemned to the backwater of history. In 1936, the Shah of Iran initiated a policy of forced unveiling of women, decreeing that they wear Western women's dress. Taxi drivers could be fined if they accepted veiled passengers; policemen would pull scarves off women's heads in the streets and were actually instructed to shred a woman's veil with scissors if she was caught wearing it in public. (This is the secular equivalent of the "religious police" in Iran , Saudi Arabia and Taliban Afghanistan , who enforce the wearing of hijab. The French State 's decision to ban hijab in its schools, while not being enforced with police violence, is nevertheless part of the same phenomenon of state coercion in the name of modernity.)

By the 1960s, the colonial and Muslim modernizing elites' attacks on the veil had been largely successful. Only rural, peasant or lower-class urban women continued to cover. The urban, modern woman who wanted to "get ahead" did not cover and scorned those who did as illiterate, backward peasants. Thus, the movement for re-veiling, which has swept the Muslim world since the early 1970s, has surprised many observers. Social science research into the phenomena has revealed that the "re-veiling movement", as it is called (though it is not really re-veiling, since most of the women are adopting hijab for the first time), is a women-driven movement. That is, contrary to media reports and the opinions of intellectuals who aim to foster fear of and hatred towards Muslims, the re-veiling movement is not the result of fundamentalist violence or coercion, but the result of women choosing to cover.

Academic research has, also, highlighted the fact that the motivations and meanings behind covering are extremely diverse; though the women may look similar in their dress, they are not thinking similarly, nor experiencing hijab similarly. This is an important point to make because those who would claim that the hijab is a sign of oppression ignore the multiple sociological meanings that hijab carries. According to some analysts, the first impetus of the re-veiling movement was the 1967 Arab defeat by Israel . This event made many Muslims reconsider the paths of Westernization and modernization that their countries were pursuing. Many felt that their heritage and religion had been sidelined in the process, and they turned to Islam for solace during those difficult times. Many women adopted hijab as a part of this new mental state. (Many men grew beards and began wearing the traditional jalabiyya.) It is important to note that the style of hijab adopted by these women was new and quite different from traditional forms of covering worn by their ancestors.

Instead of a large piece of material wrapped around the body and, often, a face veil, these women adopted long coats and head-scarves pinned under the chin. For these women, the hijab was a combination of piety and political protest. One Egyptian woman told Williams , during his 1978 study into why Egyptian women embraced the veil, "Until 1967, I accepted the way our country was going. I thought Gamal Abd al-Nasser would lead us all to progress. Then, the war showed that we had been lied to; nothing was the way it had been represented. I started to question everything we were told. I wanted to do something and to find my own way. I prayed more and more, and I tried to see what was expected of me as a Muslim woman. Then, I put on shar'i dress…" Hessini found similar sentiments of political protest in her 1989 study of urban and professional Moroccan women who had adopted hijab. One woman, Hadija, stated, "the hijab is a way for me to retreat from a world that has disappointed me. It's my own little sanctuary."

Some women felt that, in adopting this dress, they were proactively working to improve their societies and promoting social justice. Nadia told Hessini, "My religion saved me. In a world where there is no justice, I now believe in something that is just. I now have something I can count on." Many women, however, have prioritized religious belief as the main motivation behind their decision to cover. Their adopting the new style of hijab is meant to express their adherence to "true Islam." Sou'al told Hessini, "My mother has always worn the veil, but she knows nothing about Islam. She wore the veil out of tradition, whereas I wear it out of conviction." My own research amongst Toronto Muslim women in 1994, also, found similar motivations. Yasmeen, an immigrant to Canada from the Middle East , who is in her early thirties, told me, "I feel in peace [wearing hijab], and ah…I feel I respect myself more. I am not concentrated about my beauty and ah… the fashion and this stuff ah...I think it's a peace of mind…I feel comfortable because this is what God want from the human being, ah…I am obeying."

But the hijab carries a multitude of meanings. Researchers in Egypt , for instance, have found that not all those who adopt hijab do so out of religious sentiments. Many of these women do not pray regularly, nor do they discuss hijab as a religious form of dress. Rather, they have found in hijab an empowering dress that facilitates their access to education and work. Often coming from urban lower class families and being the first woman in the family to achieve formal education, hijab has, for them, served the purpose of declaring their modesty to a conservative milieu, in spite of the fact that they are outside the family home for extended periods a day. They also find economic advantages of hijab; by wearing hijab, they do not have to spend huge amounts of money on work clothing. Sommayya told Hoodfar (1991) that she was having trouble with her fiancé and his family who did not want her to work after marriage; she solved the problem by wearing hijab; "if I have only two sets of clothes, I can look smart at all times because nobody expects muhaggabat (the veiled ones) to wear new clothes every day. This will save me a lot of money. It will, also, prevent people from talking about me or questioning my honor or my husband's. In this way, I have solved all the problems, and my husband's family is very happy that he is marrying a muhaggabat."

Muslim women in the West find other compelling reasons to wear hijab, one of which is to assert their Muslim identity publicly and with pride, something which is especially important to them as citizens of Western, multicultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious polities. Nadia, a second generation British Asian woman, who began to cover when she was sixteen, told Watson (1994), "My cultural background and my family's roots are in another part of the world. These things are very important to me and make me feel special. It is important to me not to lose these parts of my life. My decision to wear the veil also ties into my feeling of coming from this different kind of background. We are a British family but because of Islam and our links with Pakistan we have different values and traditions from the families of my non- Muslim friends…[So] wearing the veil makes me feel special, it's a kind of badge of identity and a sign that my religion is important to me."

Even in Saudi Arabia , where there is no obvious choice about veiling, some women feel they are wearing hijab as a symbol of identity and pride. As a 35 year old teacher, married with two children and holding a BA in education from the United States , told AlMunajjed (1997), "'Yes, I wear the veil out of conviction'. 'On what do you base your conviction?' [AlMunajjed] asked. 'I am attached to my traditions. Wearing a veil is part of one's identity of being a Saudi woman. It is a definite proof of one's identification with the norms and values of the Saudi culture.'"

Thus, sociologically, the hijab carries many meanings, and it is wrong for the West to argue that the hijab is a symbol of male domination over women or a sign of fundamentalist threat or coercion. I say "wrong" purposefully, even though empirically it may sometimes be true. There are Muslim women who are forced to cover against their will, either due to state policy, Islamist violence or family coercion. I condemn coercion and violence perpetrated against Muslim women by those who seek to impose hijab. However, just because there are some women who experience hijab in this unfortunately negative way, it does not turn the hijab into a symbol of coercion. To be a symbol, the thing being represented must have a constant meaning. Quite simply, hijab signifies a variety of things, depending on the historical and social context. We have seen a wide range of meanings that arise out of the contemporary Muslim women's re-veiling movement.

There are other meanings too. Prior to the European intervention into the Middle East , the face veil was a symbol of wealth and status. In the 1950s during the Algerian war of Independence , secularized, urban women don ned headscarves to show their support of the war; the hijab was a symbol of resistance to French colonial rule. In the 1979 Iranian Revolution a similar process took place, with secular women joining religious women to wear chador as a sign that they supported the movement against the Shah. These women grew up not covering, but the chador became a symbol of the anti-Shah revolution.

Thus, hijab expresses many meanings, and commentators should be wary of attempting to impose one single meaning on it. In addition, the West should take notice that many Muslim women wear hijab with pride, conviction and happiness. I do not mean to downplay the tragedy of a Muslim woman who is forced to wear hijab out of coercion, but the prevalent image of the veil in the West, as a symbol of oppression, ignores the real expression women find in hijab. Furthermore, this is not simply an academic matter because public policy is being founded on the misconception of hijab as a symbol of oppression; state policies are being made to 'save' the Muslim women. The French decision to ban the veil is based on this kind of logic. It is a dangerous precedent because it will encourage and inflame both Islamophobia in the West and extremism in the Muslim world. The only reasonable way forward is for people to understand the multiple and positive meanings of hijab; allow people to freely practice their religious convictions; and to work together to eradicate coercion and violence in ways that do not denigrate religious convictions.

Hijab and My Story

In 1991 I saw a news report on the television that showed Turkish women who were returning to the veil. I felt shocked and saddened for them. "Poor things," I thought, “they are being brainwashed by their culture." Like many Westerners, I believed that Islam oppressed women and that the veil was a symbol of their oppression. Imagine my surprise then, four years later, at seeing my own reflection in a store window, dressed exactly like those oppressed women. I had embarked on a spiritual journey during my Master's degree that culminated four years later in my conversion to Islam. The journey included moving from hatred of Islam, to respect, to interest, to acceptance. Naturally, being a woman, the issue of the veil was central. Despite my attraction to the theological foundations of Islam, I was deeply troubled by what I believed to be practices oppressive to women. I felt that the veil was a cultural tradition that Muslim women could surely work to eliminate. I was shown the verses in the Qur'an that, many Muslims believe, enjoin covering on men and women, and it seemed quite clear to me then that, indeed, the verses did impose covering. I wandered home, feeling quite depressed and sorry for Muslim women. If the verses were clear, they had no recourse: covering would be required for a believing Muslim woman. I had to put these issues aside in order to decide whether or not to accept Islam. What counted, in the final analysis, was the fundamental theological message of the religion- - that there is a single God, and that Muhammad (SAAS) was His Last Servant and Messenger. After several years of study, I had no doubt about that …..if only it were not for the issue of women and Islam. When I finally made my decision to convert, now one and a half years into my doctorate (July 1994), I decided that whether I liked it or not, I should cover. It was a commandment, and I would obey. I warned some people in my department that I had become a Muslim, and that the next time they saw me I would be covered.

Needless to say, people were quite shocked, and as word spread (and as people saw me in my new dress), I found myself subject to some hostile treatment. How could I have embraced an oppressive practice, especially when I was known as a strong and committed feminist? How could I embrace Islam? Had I not heard what Hamas had just done? Had I not heard what some Muslim men had just done to a woman? I was not quite prepared for this hostility, nor was I prepared for the different way I was being treated by secretaries, bureaucrats, medical personnel, or general strangers on the subway. I felt the same, but I was often being treated with contempt. I was not treated as I had been as a white, middle-class woman. It was my first personal experience of discrimination and racism, and made me see my previous privileged position in a way that I had never before properly understood.

“O’ Muslims! What have you done?”

So long as we keep blaming others for our woes, so long we will not realize that the fault is ours for allowing others to take advantage of us. Pakistan pompously professes to be an Islamic Republic but doesn’t know what that means. Which Islam? The Islam of God or one of the 72 versions of the cleric? That is our core problem from which all other problems arise. We don’t know who we are and why we are. This leads to an erosion of self-confidence and self-esteem (except in rhetoric), the lack of which make us in thrall of alien ideologies and their political, economic and social constructs.

This poem on the Holy Quran written some 35 years ago by the ninth President of India, Dr. Pandit Shanker Dayal Sharma, says it beautifully. It’s very good because it’s very true. I have translated it myself.

Amal ki kitab thi.

Dua ki kitab bana dia

(English)It was a Command for action.

(English)You turned it into a book of prayer.

Samajhne ki kitab thi.

Parhne ki kitab bana dia.

(English)It was a Book to understand.

(English)You read it without understanding.

Zindaon ka dastoor tha.

Murdon ka manshoor bana dia.

(English)It was a code for the living.

(English)You turned it into a manifesto of the dead.

Jo ilm ki kitab thi.

Usay la ilmon ke hath thama dia.

(English)That which was a book of knowledge;

(English)You abdicated to the ignoramus.

Taskheer-e-kayenaat ka dars denay aayi thi.

Sirf madrason ka nisaab bana dia.

(English)It came to give knowledge of Creation.

(English)You abandoned it to the madrasa.

Murda qaumon ko zinda karne aayi thi.

Murdon ko bakhshwane per laga dia.

(English)It came to give life to dead nations.

(English)You used it for seeking mercy for the dead.

Aye Musalmano ye tum nay kia kiya?

(English)O’ Muslims! What have you done?


Please don’t take kneejerk offense. Righteous rage before thinking is a hallmark of the ignoramus. Don’t focus on who says something but on what he says.

Look at the Muslim condition. They remain on the lowest rung of the ladder. The Jews, numbering less than the people who live in Karachi, are on the top rung. Why? Because they educated themselves, used their minds, recognized and understood the real levers of power, bought stakes in them and became the most powerful people in the world. The Muslims, on the other hand, remain mired in ignorance, waiting for Divine deliverance without bothering to lift a finger, fooling only themselves by wallowing in their undoubtedly glorious past, deluded in their present illusions. They live on homilies and humbug.

The total GDP of all 57 Muslim majority countries put together is less than the GDP of California. The turnover of some top multi-nationals is more. Muslims have the highest illiteracy rate in the world, the lowest educational levels, lower still in subjects that matter like science, the highest birth rate, the highest female and child mortality rates, not a single world class school, university or hospital, no state institutions worth a dime, no nothing. All we have is a bomb and one good friend that some ‘heavenly’ Muslims regard as ‘godless’. If they only knew their religion properly they would be shocked to realize that China is closer to the ideal Islamic state than any Muslim country is.

Muslims were enjoined to become the “central community” that others could emulate – ummatun wusuta. Instead, we’ve become a model of what not to emulate. Of 57 Muslim majority states, only Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran call themselves ‘Islamic’. That’s a big claim, so big that it makes one’s heart quake. However, it’s most incumbent upon Pakistan to deliver for it claims it was made in the name of Islam in order to create that model Islamic state that God wanted. To what extent has Pakistan discharged that responsibility? Zero.

Riba is usury and exploitation of all and any sort. It is rampant. When they call usury by another name it doesn’t change its exploitative and un-Islamic nature. Calling riba ‘interest’ is the mark of hypocrisy. Calling it ‘mark up’ is the mark of the devil. There is no such thing as ‘interest’ distinct from usury. It is only a slight of tongue, a play of words devised by the rapacious. Pakistan’s is an economy based on usury upon usury, something that has brought the western economic system to the brink. Our banks charge inordinate amounts in usury on the ignorant excuse that it will lower inflation when it actually raises it. We pay inordinate amounts in usury for our unconscionable debt addiction to live an illusory life of luxury having collateralizing our sovereignty and our soul. Living beyond one’s means is stupidity in the extreme. It is defiance of the Divine. We belong to Dr. Faustus. Luckily, Dr. Faustus is terminally ill with a disease called usury.

Pakistan has all but lost its sovereignty. You know what that means for a state that calls itself Islamic? All sovereignty belongs to the Almighty. He has conditionally devolved some of it on humanity because He has appointed Man his khalifa or vicegerent – a sovereign’s administrative deputy – since humankind is His greatest creation (ashraful makhlooqat). Thus what we have trashed is the sovereignty God devolved on us. Great going!

Pakistan has all but lost its nationhood. You know what that means? The best translation of the Arabic world ummah that I have seen is ‘nation’ – nation of believers in One God within which is the Muslim ummah. That is the first pillar of Islam – Tauheed – belief in One God. So by losing our Pakistani nationhood, are we perhaps not in danger of losing our place in the ummah as a whole? Big talk comes easy for it comes cheap – “Pakistan is an Islamic Republic” – but it’s very difficult to live up to. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Certainly don’t bite if you have no intention of chewing. Most certainly don’t bite if you don’t even know how to chew, not if you have borrowed dentures for which you are paying usury.

Like apes we mimic our master’s systems. God tells us to ‘choose’ from amongst ourselves and from amongst the best. ‘Choose’ implies democracy. Our British system ensures that we choose from amongst the worst. Our parliament-cum-legislature is not only supposed to be an advisory body but also a law making one. Yet it comprises people who know little about jurisprudence, Islamic or Anglo Saxon. The adjudicature includes lawyers many of whom are on a rampage of illegality. Judges are more concerned with matters facetious than with issues requiring immediate justice. We have no institutions with expert jurists to make laws. When law, advice, governance are missing it means Amr bil ma’roof wan nahi ‘an Al Munkar – those who command good and forbid evil – are missing.

One nation under God ?

Recently, there has been a good deal of controversy in the United States over a U.S. Court of Appeal’s ruling that it is unconstitutional for public school teachers to lead their students in the Pledge of Allegiance due to the phrase in the pledge, “one nation, under God.” This has long been controversial for both believers and unbelievers alike. In fact, most of the opposition to this phrase has traditionally come from Christians whose beliefs do not allow them to pledge allegiance to any nation, or for whom, “one nation, under God” conflicts with their doctrinal beliefs.

There is, of course, a good deal of validity to these views. As a Christian believer it is obvious that my first allegiance is to God my Father and my Lord Jesus Christ (I Cor. 8:6). My second allegiance is to God’s family throughout the world - over and above any national, racial, ethnic, denominational, or other worldly distinction (Mark 3:31-35). My primary citizenship is as a member of God’s royal household, holy nation and heavenly kingdom (Eph. 2:18-19; I Pet. 2:9-10; Phil. 3:20). And finally, my sole hope for true liberty and justice is the second coming of Christ and the final establishment of God’s kingdom - in a new heavens and new earth, where righteousness will dwell (Matt. 6:9-10; II Pet. 3:13; Rev. 21:1-7).

All of these above truths should be “givens” for every generation of Christian believers. Christians, however, may differ as to what their relation and duties to any particular nation or government may entail. Nevertheless, the great majority of us living in the twenty first century are citizens of earthly nations, not only citizens of a heavenly new Jerusalem. And so, just as Paul was a citizen of the Roman Empire and used his citizenship rights in advancing the gospel, so I, as an American citizen, try to do the same in my life as a Christian. Therefore, it is interesting to see the views of the U.S. “Founding Fathers” in relationship to what they believed were mankind’s responsibilities in living “under God.”

The United States of America was founded and built on belief in God. In fact, the legal basis for its existence and laws derives from its belief in that God. The founding document of the United States of America, written principally by Thomas Jefferson but edited and signed by all of the members of the Second Continental Congress, is The Declaration of Independence. It was signed on July 4, 1776 and it sets forth the following “self-evident truths” as the legal foundation for the new American republic:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. To secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

How can a nation founded on the concept that the role of government is to secure the inalienable rights of men - given to them by a Creator - not teach in public schools that the world was created by that Creator? One would think that this “expression of the American mind” as Thomas Jefferson called it, would be the underlying philosophical basis for the laws of the United States of America. Of course, originally, this was the case. In fact, all of signers of The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution of the United States of America believed that the existence of a sovereign, loving and just God was the only basis for both personal morality and just government in this world.

The American Founding Fathers - men such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Adams - did not believe in a merely formal or ceremonial “deism” – that is, in a God who was thought to have created an orderly universe and then withdrew from it to let the world run on its own – like a great clock. Instead, almost to a man the American Founding Fathers believed in a creator God who also providentially governed the universe and cared for his people. As the last line of the Declaration of Independence states, “And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”

Though men such as Franklin, Jefferson, and even Washington were at times accused of being deists, the historical record makes it clear that this was not the case. They each believed in God’s providential rule of the world. Though somewhat influenced by deistic thought of the Enlightenment, they were far more influenced by their own study of the Bible, and all openly professed some form of Christianity. In fact, all of these men became increasingly more interested in the things of God as they aged and as they had to deal with the huge pressures and burdens of public life. “Unorthodox” by some standards they may have been, but deists they certainly were not. Let’s look at some of their beliefs and then leave it to God to decide their true orthodoxy.

Most important of all was the great American hero and first President of the United States, George Washington. Washington set out his religious views, and their importance to the life of the infant American republic, in his famous Farewell Address to the Nation, at the end of his second term of office. In this address he stated, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

“It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?”

John Adams, the second President of the United States was a devout Christian and expressed his views as follows,
“One great advantage of the Christian religion is that it brings the great principle of the law of nature and nations, love your neighbor as yourself, and do to others as you would that others should do to you – to the knowledge, belief and veneration of the whole people. Children, servants, women as well as men are all professors in the science of public as well as private morality…The duties and rights of the citizens are thus taught from early infancy to every creature.” [Paul Johnson, A History of the American People, p. 208].

Thomas Jefferson, who was often called a deist, or even atheist, forcefully denied this and instead claimed, I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus [David Barton, Original Intent, p. 144].

Like most serious people Jefferson grew over time in his search for the truth. But his opposition was always forceful against religious hypocrisy, institutional religion’s position of political power and tyranny, and especially, against the legal establishment of a national or state religion as with the Anglican Church in England as well as in colonial Virginia. For a time he was influenced by deist thought but he was too independent of mind to be forced into an established system of belief whether that of deism or of established Christian denominations. In his excellent book Thomas Jefferson, A Life, William Randall sets forth Jefferson’s search for certainty in religious belief:
“The attacks on his religious views during the 1800 campaign had wounded him… As the Federalists kept up their attacks on him as irreligious and an enemy of Christianity, Jefferson studied the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, marking the passages that he thought represented the simple beliefs of Jesus Christ and ignoring those he considered later corruptions … He became convinced that early Christians most closely resembled the [biblical] Unitarians of the early nineteenth century and he found that his concept of God most closely resembled theirs.” [p. 555-556].

In a letter to John Adams after his Presidency was long over, Jefferson professed to believe in, “the pure and unsophisticated doctrines such as professed and acted on by the unlettered apostles, the Apostolic fathers and the Christians of the first century.” [Ibid, p. 556].

Most of the Founding Fathers mentioned in this article would have agreed with these sentiments to a great degree because the biblical Unitarianism of that time – unlike the Universal Unitarianism of today – was one of the most biblically based of all the Christian denominations of that day. The Theological Dictionary of 1823 described Unitarians as follows:

“In common with other Christians, they confess that He [Jesus] is the Christ, the Son of the Living God; and in one word, they believe all that the writers of the New Testament, particularly the four Evangelists, have stated concerning him.” [Original Intent, p. 314]
These men were not interested in the post-biblical Christian arguments over creeds and doctrinal issues. Instead, they
“reject all human creeds and articles of faith, and strictly adhere to the great Protestant principal, “the Bible – the Bible only;” [Ibid].
In short, many of the founding fathers who adhered to these beliefs simply desired to live upright lives according to the simple truths of first century biblical Christianity, as they understood it.

Benjamin Franklin, like Jefferson, seemed to become more and more concerned with the things of God as he grew older. Like Jefferson, he dabbled in Deism but came to regard it as morally corrupting and “not very useful” [H.W. Brands, The First American, p. 94]. Franklin followed the ethical precepts of Christ, first and foremost, and came to revere a God who was both the creator of the world and providentially at work in the world. His famous speech at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 best exemplifies his belief in a God who is active in the world. Addressing the President of the Convention, George Washington, Franklin asked for the assembly to have daily prayers asking for God’s aid. Then he stated, “I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth – that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, sir, in the Sacred Writings, that ‘except the Lord build the House, they labor in vain that build it.’ I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better that the builders of Babel: we shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and byword down to future ages.” [Quoted from Original Intent, p. 111].

And this from the most famous of all Americans at that time, indeed; the foremost Enlightenment scholar of the world!

This speech was recorded by James Madison. Madison, who is often called the Father of the U.S. Constitution and who was the fourth President of the United States, was a great student of history and somewhat of a protégé of Jefferson and Franklin. Though ardently against any form of a legally established national or state religion he was also a student of the Bible and a strong proponent of the right of individuals and groups to freely exercise their religious beliefs. He expressed his basic belief in God as follows:
“Belief in a God All Powerful, wise and good is so essential to the moral order of the World and to the happiness of man, that arguments which enforce it cannot be drawn from too many sources. [Ralph Ketcham, James Madison, University of Virginia Press, p. 667]

Madison did not believe in a separation of God from state. Instead, he was instrumental in changing the old phrase “toleration of religion” - derived from England where the Church of England increasingly agreed to “tolerate” other Christian denominations - to the American concept of “the free exercise of religion” which gave all individuals and religious groups the equal right to practice their religious beliefs according to their own conscience rather than being forced to acknowledge a national “establishment of religion” such as the Church of England. This became an important right spelled out in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which was written primarily by Madison. It states;

‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…’

In his remarkable book, A History of the American People, the British Christian historian, Paul Johnson, does an excellent job of summarizing the original understanding of this “religion clause” of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

“This guarantee has been widely, almost willfully, misunderstood in recent years, and interpreted as meaning that the federal government is forbidden by the Constitution to countenance or subsidize even indirectly the practice of religion. That would have astonished and angered the Founding Fathers. What the guarantee means is that Congress may not set up a state religion on the lines of the Church of England, ‘as by law established.’ It was an anti-establishment clause. The second half of the guarantee means that Congress may not interfere with the practice of any religion, and it could be argued that recent interpretations of the First Amendment run directly contrary to the plain and obvious meaning of this guarantee …

“In effect, the First Amendment forbade Congress to favor one church, or religious sect, over another…The next day it passed, by a two-to-one majority, a resolution calling for a day of national prayer and thanksgiving.

“It is worth pausing a second to look at the details of this gesture, which may regarded as the House’s opinion of how the First Amendment should be understood. The resolution reads:
‘We acknowledge with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peacefully to establish a constitutional government for their safety and happiness.’

“President Washington was then asked to designate the day of prayer and thanksgiving, thus inaugurating a public holiday, Thanksgiving, which Americans still universally enjoy. He replied, ‘It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His mercy, to implore His protection and favor … That great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that ever will be, that we may then unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people.’ “ [pp. 209-210].

So let us finally ask: is it right for the United States of America to proclaim itself as “one nation, under God”? Yes, because it accurately reflects the original intent of the founding principles of The Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. This statement is not an “establishment of religion” since it does not set up a legal established national religion. Nor does it express any sectarian or denominational belief as opposed to others. However, all of the Founding Fathers believed that the United States should be “one nation, under God.” But better yet, perhaps we should go all the way with Washington and the U.S. Founding Fathers who believed not only in “one nation, under God,” but in the “self-evident” truths that:
1. “all men are created equal” and that
2. “it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of almighty God” and “to obey His will.”

UN declares Somalia famine in Bakool and Lower Shabelle

The United Nations has declared a famine in two areas of southern Somalia as it suffers the worst drought in more than half a century.

An estimated 10 million people have been affected by the drought in east Africa.

The UN said the humanitarian situation in southern Bakool and Lower Shabelle had deteriorated rapidly.

It is the first time that the country has seen famine in 19 years.

Meanwhile, the UN and US have said aid agencies need further safety guarantees from armed groups in Somalia to allow staff to reach those in need.

Al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda-affiliated group which controls large swathes of south and central Somalia, had imposed a ban on foreign aid agencies in its territories in 2009, but has recently allowed limited access. An estimated 10m people have been affected in east Africa by the worst drought in more than half a century. More than 166,000 desperate Somalis are estimated to have fled their country to neighbouring Kenya or Ethiopia. 

'Rarely used'

Drought, conflict and poverty have now combined to produce the necessary conditions for famine. Those conditions include more than 30% of children being acutely malnourished, and four children out of every 10,000 dying daily.

"Across the country nearly half of the Somali population - 3.7 million people - are now in crisis, of whom an estimated 2.8 million people are in the south," said a statement by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs for Somalia.

It said that the ongoing conflict had made it extremely difficult for agencies to access communities in the south, which are controlled by al-Shabab.

"If we don't act now, famine will spread to all eight regions of southern Somalia within two months, due to poor harvests and infectious disease outbreaks," the head of the agency Mark Bowden warned.

The BBC's Africa correspondent Andrew Harding says the emotive word "famine" is used rarely and carefully by humanitarian organisations, and it is the first time since 1992 that the word has been applied to a situation in Somalia.

The UK Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell, said the response by many European and developed countries to the crisis in the Horn of Africa had been "derisory and dangerously inadequate".

"The fact that a famine has been declared shows just how grave the situation has become. It is time for the world to help," he said.

Meanwhile, the UN is calling for unhindered access to affected areas, saying that the security situation is hampering humanitarian efforts.

Adrian Edwards, a spokesman for the UN refugee agency, told reporters that the situation for aid workers in Somalia is "not what we want it to be".

"We do have a very minimal presence, and we have regular visits into the country, but we need significantly better access than we have at the moment to address an emergency of this scale," he said, speaking from Geneva.

The UN World Food Programme, which is trying to feed 1.5 million people, estimates that as many as one million people are in areas it cannot currently access.

"Once we have the assurances of security and the ability to have full access to deliver and distribute and monitor, then we will be prepared to go back in," Emilia Casella, a spokeswoman for the WFP, told the Associated Press news agency.

Johnnie Carson, the US assistant secretary of state for African affairs, says the US was assessing if they were seeing "real change" from al-Shabab, or whether the group planned to impose some kind of "taxation" on aid deliveries.

"Al-Shabab's activities have clearly made the current situation much worse," Mr Carson said.

"We call on all of those in south-central Somalia who have it within their authority to allow refugee groups and organisations to operate there to do so," he said.

In a separate development, Amnesty International says children in Somalia are being systematically recruited as child soldiers by militant groups such as al-Shabab.

Drawing on interviews from more than 200 Somalis who have fled their country, the rights group says some of those recruited are as young as eight years old.

The report says al-Shabab lures children with promises of money and mobile phones, but also carries out abductions. 

Areasn Of Food Shortages.

Religion-based political parties and the Bangladesh Constitution

On June 30th, the Bangladesh Parliament passed the 15th Amendment to the Constitution, and it was signed by the President on July 3rd. The Constitution now comes into effect with the assent of the president.

The Constitution of 1972 has gone through 14 amendments, the last of which was adopted in May 2004.

The 15th Amendment to the Constitution brought 55 changes, some of them reversions to the 1972 constitution, following the judgment of the apex court on the illegality of the fifth, eighth and thirteenth amendments. 

The opposition party BNP boycotted not only the sessions of the Parliament when the 15th Amendment was passed but also the deliberations of the special parliamentary committee on constitutional amendments.

One of the amended ones is Article 12, which prohibited religion-based politics. The question is whether a political party's name with the words "Muslim" or "Islamic" or "Hindu" or "Christian" is prohibited under the constitution. 

The answer to the query is in the negative because it is not just the name of the parties that matters.

What matters is whether a political party wants to change the structure of the constitution and laws of a state on the basis of a particular religious set of guidelines. In such circumstances, it is considered using religion for political purposes and is counter to the Constitution of Bangladesh, which is a multi-lingual, multi-ethnic and multi-religious state.

When political parties in their manifestoes want to change the structure, system of government, judiciary and laws of a state in accordance with the principles and beliefs of a particular religion among multi-religious citizens, people of other faiths in such a state perceive gross discrimination on the basis of religion. Such discrimination is arguably untenable under the Bangladesh Constitution.

In many European countries, political parties have prefixed the name of a religion, such as Germany's Christian Democratic Union and Christian Union in the Netherlands. In Pakistan, it is Muslim League, and there are parties with Hindu names in India.

Although many political parties in Europe have prefixed the word "Christian," there appears to be no intention to change the basic structure of a state's existing structural system and laws on Biblical doctrines.

The word "dharmanirekhapata" (religious pluralism) is to be distinguished from non-involvement with religion. Religious pluralism implies governmental engagement with religion for the purpose of treating all religious groups fairly, equally and equitably, while non-involvement implies governmental isolation from matters of religion. 

It is argued that in the background of festering and destructive communal politics in British India, religious pluralism and Bengali-language based nationalism constituted the spirit of the Liberation War of 1971. The fact that Pakistani Muslim soldiers committed crimes against humanity against Bengali Muslims in 1971 demonstrates that commonality of religion could not hold back the Pakistani soldiers from committing such nefarious crimes.

Religious pluralism is a golden thread running through the Constitution that was adopted on November 4, 1972. The concept of freedom of religion is further stipulated in Article 41 of the Constitution, which is as follows: 

"(1) Subject to law, public order and morality:

(a) every citizen has the right to profess, practice or propagate any religion;

(b) every religious community or denomination has the right to establish, maintain, and manage its religious institutions

(2) No person attending any educational institution shall be required to receive religious instruction, or to take part in or to attend any religious ceremony or worship, if that instruction, ceremony or worship relates to a religion other than this own."Article 41 is founded upon on religious pluralism. In Bangladesh, people of various faiths are deeply religious, and the most devoutly religious people are also the staunchest defenders of religious pluralism.

Bangladesh, despite a few extra-constitutional bumps on the road, has been very successful in keeping harmony among people of all faiths, which is consistent with the long-standing political and cultural history of the Bengali people. 

Recently, a Vatican leader Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, during his visit to this country, expressed happiness that Bangladesh could be considered "as an example of how it is possible for people of different religions to live together, cooperative together and simply be together."

He tried to ascertain the reasons for such an extraordinary characteristic of Bangladesh. He posed questions: "Is it based in Bengali culture? Is it based in constutional realities? Is it based in the history of the country? Is it based in the realm of religions themselves and in particular in Islam as it exists and is followed here? I leave the answers to those to experts."

Given the foregoing paragraphs, one may argue strongly that if a political party uses religion for political purposes, meaning when it wants to change the basic structure, laws and judicial system of Bangladesh on the basis of one religious doctrine to the exclusion of other religions or faiths, it is counter to Article 12 of the amended constitution.

Parchment in Vatican