Let me say at the earliest possible opportunity that I am an atheist. I do not belive that the mess we see around us is the creation of a supreme being. The responsibility of the chaos is solely ours as a species. This is more an examination of the monotheistic beliefs and its repercussions on our behavior towards our fellow human beings. I am not against any religion because for me religion is the reason why we are not cannibals and have a working society. So, the central question here is, can we ensure within the monotheistic framework, the well being of mankind as a whole. That is the question I will try to examine here. Since, I am a very good scientist, what I say will be based on solid reason and logic.
The first line of thought is dependent on Milgram’s experiment which was done around the time of Adolf Eichmann’s trial. Adolf Eichmann was a NAZI war criminal and in his defense, he proclaimed that he was merely following the orders given to him by his superiors. Most people at that time did not believe that it was possible for a human being to be so heartless as to follow orders which lead to the death of millions of people. So, in his experiment, Milgram had two people in separate chambers. One was a teacher and the other was a student. The teacher had to teach the student a set of word pairings and the method of teaching was brutal. If the student makes a mistake while learning, he/she would be punished by application of an electric shock. As the number of mistakes increases, so does the voltage of the electric shock administered which could even lead to a lethal electrocution. Now, the trick in Milgram’s experiment was the student was an actor and no electric shock was actually applied. So, the subject of the experiment was actually the teacher. He wanted to see how many of the teachers, under the authority of Milgram, actually apply a lethal dose of electricity. Most of us think that only a small percentage of people would actually be stupid enough to increase the voltage beyond human endurance. But, the surprising result of his experiment was that many of the teachers actually did increase the voltage beyond reasonable limits. They were highly distressed while doing so, many of them expressed a desire to quit, and some of them questioned the sanity of the experiment, but the point is since it was Milgram’s experiment and they were only the tools, they did not object to it.
So, why did I bring in Milgram’s experiment? Well, the crucial point in the case of Milgram’s experiment or in the trial of Adolf Eichmann is, we have an independent assessment of what is right or wrong according to our set of beliefs (religion). And what Milgram’s experiment tells us is, we can be quite careless about morals and ethics when somebody else is taking responsibility for our actions. But, in case of monotheistic religions, the central authority who decides what is wrong and what is right, is all powerful. There is no questioning his advice on morality. So, the doubts which Adolf Eichmann or the teachers in Milgram’s experiment had vanish, in case of monotheism. So, if that god, who apparently made human beings, tells you to kill and rewards you for it, would you ever hesitate to do it? I do not think so, and the history of Christianity, Judaism or the latest one Islam, tells us that the single most dangerous idea of our known history is the idea of monotheistic religion. At least in the case of polytheistic religions, since there is no single god, one can decide what one chooses to believe. But in case of monotheistic religions, there is no choice but to follow fully whatever is taught to you. If you are taught to kill everyone who does not believe in your religion, so be it. If you are told you will go to heaven and be rewarded for killing others, then wow, what could be better than that? At this point in human history, the only question one can probably ask is why we do not see Christian terrorism. And I think the answer is that the age of Christian terrorism is over. And one can only hope that likewise, the age of Islamic terrorism will also be over one day, whatever the cost.
The first line of thought is dependent on Milgram’s experiment which was done around the time of Adolf Eichmann’s trial. Adolf Eichmann was a NAZI war criminal and in his defense, he proclaimed that he was merely following the orders given to him by his superiors. Most people at that time did not believe that it was possible for a human being to be so heartless as to follow orders which lead to the death of millions of people. So, in his experiment, Milgram had two people in separate chambers. One was a teacher and the other was a student. The teacher had to teach the student a set of word pairings and the method of teaching was brutal. If the student makes a mistake while learning, he/she would be punished by application of an electric shock. As the number of mistakes increases, so does the voltage of the electric shock administered which could even lead to a lethal electrocution. Now, the trick in Milgram’s experiment was the student was an actor and no electric shock was actually applied. So, the subject of the experiment was actually the teacher. He wanted to see how many of the teachers, under the authority of Milgram, actually apply a lethal dose of electricity. Most of us think that only a small percentage of people would actually be stupid enough to increase the voltage beyond human endurance. But, the surprising result of his experiment was that many of the teachers actually did increase the voltage beyond reasonable limits. They were highly distressed while doing so, many of them expressed a desire to quit, and some of them questioned the sanity of the experiment, but the point is since it was Milgram’s experiment and they were only the tools, they did not object to it.
So, why did I bring in Milgram’s experiment? Well, the crucial point in the case of Milgram’s experiment or in the trial of Adolf Eichmann is, we have an independent assessment of what is right or wrong according to our set of beliefs (religion). And what Milgram’s experiment tells us is, we can be quite careless about morals and ethics when somebody else is taking responsibility for our actions. But, in case of monotheistic religions, the central authority who decides what is wrong and what is right, is all powerful. There is no questioning his advice on morality. So, the doubts which Adolf Eichmann or the teachers in Milgram’s experiment had vanish, in case of monotheism. So, if that god, who apparently made human beings, tells you to kill and rewards you for it, would you ever hesitate to do it? I do not think so, and the history of Christianity, Judaism or the latest one Islam, tells us that the single most dangerous idea of our known history is the idea of monotheistic religion. At least in the case of polytheistic religions, since there is no single god, one can decide what one chooses to believe. But in case of monotheistic religions, there is no choice but to follow fully whatever is taught to you. If you are taught to kill everyone who does not believe in your religion, so be it. If you are told you will go to heaven and be rewarded for killing others, then wow, what could be better than that? At this point in human history, the only question one can probably ask is why we do not see Christian terrorism. And I think the answer is that the age of Christian terrorism is over. And one can only hope that likewise, the age of Islamic terrorism will also be over one day, whatever the cost.
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