You quoted Indrajit (Indi) Samarajiva as writing: “What is belief anyways, except perception at a higher dimension? …Religion is just a way of perceiving higher things. Why shouldn’t it have a place in governing?” This is just an open-ended philosophy to violence, murder, genocide, oppression, and on and on.
Isn't Indi saying, "I perceive therefore I do whatever I want"? It's a new twist on Descartes, the antithesis of an enlightened worldview.
It’s difficult to find a place to begin with Indi's line of thinking. What is a “higher dimension”? And what does it mean to perceive “higher things”? These concepts are so unfounded and shaky, yet based on the assumption that they are correct, Indi asks why religion shouldn’t have a place in governing people. First, the assumption is incorrect. It’s intellectually dishonest to invent a supposition and then act as though it is true for the purpose of inventing one's point. While it’s a matter of logic as to why such a proposition is made, it seems more interesting to contemplate what it is about religious people that makes them blind to what religious conviction has taken from this world, including other people’s freedoms, human rights, happiness, civil rights, dignity, and well being. One of the most recent examples is October 7th when Hamas used their twisted worldview to murder, rape, torture, and murder innocent human beings and then dance around in the street as if such acts were borne of heroism.
The last question Indi asks in this stream of thought is, “Whether Satan is real or not, what difference does it make?” The difference is that when we plan and execute our actions based on fantasy and a faulty supposition then things go awry, especially for those who are the target of such an insane religious premise.
The human mind is a faulty instrument, whether it belongs to a scientific genius or a sociopath or a religious zealot. Though I would agree that perception determines one’s reality, this does not mean one's perception is correct or infallible, because it's not; it never is. To defend running around doing whatever you want just because you perceive it to be right is to be a destructive force in the world.
While Indi, a Muslim, is the pervasive subject in this article, I have heard the same kind of one-sided, short-sighted, self-centered, human rights-defying, myopic arguments made by religious extremists who are Christian and Jewish as well. It’s only the cause that is different, but the mindset is the same and it’s all destructive. And the destructiveness is rooted in some sort of belief system that reserves no quarter for logic or fact.
Being religious is one of the easiest things a human being can be. It takes little thought, imagination, intelligence, compassion, or logic — all one has to do is accept secondhand ideas the way a computer accepts input from a coder. Take in the ideas and then spit them out as weapons of mass destruction and suffering. It’s madness to the core.
When drunk on religious nonsense, hate, and divisiveness, it clearly doesn’t matter who or what is destroyed. For any progress to be made in a civilization there must be open and free discourse. Religion has no room for such things.
