John Stuart Mill in The Subjection of Women

Quote:

So long as an opinion is strongly rooted in the feelings, it gains rather than loses in stability by having a preponderating weight of argument against it. For if it were accepted as a result of argument, the refutation of the argument might shake the solidity of the conviction; but when it rests solely on feeling, the worse it fares in argumentative contest, the more persuaded its adherents are that their feeling must have some deeper ground, which the arguments do not reach; and while the feeling remains, it is always throwing up fresh entrenchments of arguments to repair any breach made in the old.

A matter of faith

Donald E Knuth is one of the great figures in modern computer science. His work touches me in a small way when I use LaTeX to format and generate documents and letters. Most of Knuth's work is highly mathematical, and as such out of my reach, as I am not a trained mathematician. But I visit his home page sometimes, window shopping, as you might say.

Yesterday I found a presentation/discussion with Dr Knuth regarding religious faith and whether faith and science are compatible. It is interesting to hear Dr Knuth on this subject, because he is apparently a religious man who believes in God, yet his work is so scientific and mathematical. How can a very rational person such as Dr Knuth believe in God? As he says, he was just born into it, his beliefs stem from his upbringing. He of course tries to rationalize his beliefs but not with any success, in my view.

What this type of debate tells us is that religious faith has nothing to do with human reasoning. I believe that religious faith stems from a psychological need in humans to find some meaning and sense in life. This psychological need cannot be answered by reason. It is fruitless and pointless to argue against religion and God with people who believe. Richard Dawkins completely misses the point.

I haven't watched the debate between Professor Dennet and Dr Winston, but I imagine that this debate would have been as useless as the debate between Father Frederick C. Copleston and Bertrand Russell in 1948.

In 1758 the philosopher David Hume wrote:

Our most holy religion is founded on Faith, not on reason; and it is a sure method of exposing it to put it to such a trial as it is, by no means, fitted to endure. ...
Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity: And whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience.

Hume is talking here about the miraculous nature of religious belief and the need to suspend reasoning when assenting to such beliefs.

The nature of religious belief poses a problem in modern society, as religious differences are often the cause of conflict, and for this reason many of us would like to see the role of religion minimized in public life and politics. But as religion is a matter of faith, it cannot be argued against, so how do we fight it when it is used as a political force?

Humility

There is a song by Rabindranath Tagore, that I had not paid much attention to until recently. The song goes:

Amar matha noto kare dao he tomar charan dhular tale

This translates as:

O Lord, make my head bow under the dust of your feet.

The song is about losing one's ahankara, the egotism that makes us think 'we did this', 'we did that'.

I cannot even begin to say how many ways this is relevant to us, to me personally, and to us humans. And I don't mean this in any spiritual sense, but in the sense that we humans need to learn humility in all our undertakings. When we think we know best, that we can judge others, that we can tell people how to lead their lives, that we know how to get to salvation, that we know how the world began, whenever we think we know it all, we need to learn the lesson of humility, and remind ourselves of how small and insignificant we are in time and space.

What do you stand for?

I am interested to know how an Indian person would answer the question:

• What do you stand for?
  

What does India stand for?

Democracy, I suppose. However badly, this is still a big achievement, considering how the vast majority of other developing nations are doing.

Strong religious background.

Cultural history, specially in music and dance.

Unique cultural and village life.

Ahimsa - nonviolence. India may be the only country in the world where multiple religions have preached non-violence, and where a whole political struggle was based on the principles of non-violence.

What can India offer?

As an Indian born person living abroad, I often ask myself what aspects of my Indian heritage I can be proud of. Indian history has for a thousand years has been one of foreign subjugation. The achievements of the last thousand years, have largly been that of foreign invaders. During a recent trip to India, I marvelled at timeless elegance and beauty of the Taj Mahal, the majesty of the Agra Fort and Fatehpur Sikri, but at the same time, was conscious that these beautiful architectural achievements were "imported" in a way, from the great Islamic cultures of the middle ages.

In the more recent achievements, such as in the past 100 years or so, the debt to the West is all too obvious. The influence of the Western world is to be seen throughout India, in social interactions, in cultural activities, in politics. The modern India is keen to emulate the West, in clothes, in mannerisms, in language, so much so that in many of the Blockbuster Bollywood movies, the settings are entirely foreign, often shot in the Europe, or the Americas.

And yet, this cannot be helped, because in some ways, India was left far behind during the years of its slavery. We did not take part in the Industrial and scientific revolutions, nor in any of the political revolutions. Our cultural rejuvenation only started when the British came to India. Even our past was hidden from us until the Europeans came to India and dug up historic remains, deciphered forgotten languages, and rediscovered our past.