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Religion and Rationalism

                                                                                                                                                 Balwinder Barnala

The topic is very impressive because both are standing entirely opposite in way of thinking about the origin of universe. One is the philosophy of development of material and other is the philosophy of the any so called supernatural power. Rationalism means to think and decide the truth upon the basis of facts and analysis the realities behind it. But Religion denies the facts and analysis of realities. According to materialistic philosophy there is no creator of this universe and there is no beginning date or of end of this universe. Religious philosophy says the this universe has been created but without no date by some super power that is called it with various names God, Parmatama, Alla, Akal Purakh etc.

Religion believes that every living body has some soul which is immortal. Even after death of the living body the soul survives and can enter in any other new born. But rationalism does not believe in such views as these cannot be probed and only are experience of mind in dreams. How was it researched that there is some super natural power? How it can be probed the there are souls in every living body.

Religion instigates that by prayers you can perform well and can get everything you wish but the prayer must be from the heart what could we mean by ‘by heart’ how it can be tested. It believes that if you worship ‘God’ then you may get heaven otherwise you will face hell. Rationalism denies all this. It says that there is no heaven or hell and it is only a hypothesis which can never be true.

Religion is the root cause of blind faith. Due to blind faith lot of life of animals are sacrificed and even the human sacrifices are taking place. People in blind spell worship even trees, stones, water, fire and even living human beings so called as ‘Babas’ or Religious gurus.  But rationalism always guides the human beings these all is untruth put as truth without any justification. Rules of Nature cannot be replaced by any ‘God’.

All religions differentiate on their ideology. Some believe only deities and millions of god but not in one God. Islam believes in Alah and does not sanction the Gods of other religions and declares the who does not believe in Alah is Kaffar (unsacred) shall face hell. But other religions have their own views. Rationalistic philosophy denies all due this due to lack of facts and real analysis.

For better understanding of Rationalism v/s religion we have to go through the differences between Rationalism v/s Empiricism. Empiricists claim that sense experience is the ultimate source of all our concepts and knowledge. Rationalist claim that there are significant ways in which our concepts and knowledge are gained.

To understand the distinct difference in both we have to watch their ways of clarifying the concepts. Plainly saying they are directly in opposite positions. Rationalism is the belief in innate ideas, reason and deduction. Empiricism is the belief in sense perceptions, induction and that there are no innate ideas. Empiricists are very close to religious people due their alliance in only induction and denying innate ideas. All the religious Garanths (holy books) are written under the spell of perception and inducts of ideas.

Perception is the experience of sensory organs. What experience they get if is accepted as truth without and question then how it can be declared truth with testing and probing on the base of facts. Every person has his own personal experience and which may differ from the other. But a truth can be altered when it is tested in scientific way under controlled environment. Rationalistic thought expresses that experiences are related to our sensory organs and cannot be probed true unless we do analysis on the basis of facts. Rationalism always finds the truth on the basis of facts but religion does not allow skepticism and suppress to believe in as it is. The religious books are different personal experiences which cannot be implemented everywhere as a truth as everyone has a different mindset.

John Locke is the main leader of Empirical Philosophy. An empiricist holds the view that sense experience is the only source of all believes and all our knowledge. But a rationalist claims that the ultimate beginning point for all our knowledge is not the sense but reason. Empeirea is a Greek word for experience.

Rationalism believes that we have at least some knowledge innately means prior to experience. Aristotle was an empiricist when he says that ‘all knowledge begins with sense.

Truth is there that due to the empiricist knowledge of religious leaders millions of human lives destroyed in riots for the supremacy of their ideas without knowing the truth. But rationalism has the real nature of humanism and there is no single incident of such type. It prefers humanity. It motives human values. It rejects every type of racism, caste system etc. It believes in human equality. It does not fight to stress the ideas given by it to imply forcibly.