No, Taslimaji, God has not abandoned you

I recently came across an article written by Bangladeshi-Swedish physician, author and a staunch ex-Muslim atheist, Taslima Nasreen. Like many atheists, she is vehement about her beliefs or lack thereof. She doesn’t drop one opportunity to sermonize people on their superstitions and blind faiths. And the recent nCoV-19 pandemic caused different people to react differently. As in the time of every crisis, some of these people have answers for everything. And Taslima rebuts them in an article in The Print.

Taslima starts the article with a rather triumphant declaration that places of religious worship are closing. The “Umrah” has been stopped and it is likely that the “Hajj” may also see the same fate. It is difficult to miss the glee at the fact that no longer are clerics insisting that praying to God will save them.

I respect the choice of using strong words like “businessmen of religion”, “idiots who believe in religion”, “religion is a fairy tale” or even “religious madness”, for that matter. But those arguments are disingenuous to say the least. Those who do not question religion can be hailed as stupid by an atheist-extraordinaire like Taslima. I may even endorse such a view under certain conditions. Some questions asked in the article bother me to no end. She constantly insists, feverishly even, that people ask questions, seek proof of religious claims. That people ask why the ones who are supposed to help them have shut their doors upon them. That people ask if their common good is still the purpose of religious institutions.

Is God being cautious?

In the section “From Vatican to temples, gods are fleeing”, Taslima mocks the Pope and asks him to communicate with God as he otherwise claims to. Priests in temples are indeed being cautious, several temples have imposed restrictions. Many smaller temples have almost completely shut down. And yes, I grant her the point about religion and superstition going hand in hand. Is the Pope really talking to God? Does cow urine or “Gaumutra”, and/or cow dung really help with this virus? No sane individual really believes these claims.

But this section is a little stranger than just this criticism of superstition and blind faith. Taslima brings up Hindu Mahasabha. This is a political party and not a religious group. This party is notorious for making strikingly stupid and needlessly provocative statements. HM people have previously called Godse a patriot, organized gaumutra parties, endorsed politicians like Pragyaa Thakur. I sincerely do not understand the reason behind mentioning a political party in this discussion. Some Hindus, particularly the Right-leaning ones, might be inclined to believe that she is selectively targeting Hindus more than others. But I find it very hard to believe. Taslima is an open ex-Muslim atheist. She gets under the skin of orthodox Muslims like no one else. It is likely that she isn’t aware that HM is a political party and not a religious organization. Whatever the case, I think I’ll let this rest here.

At this point, Taslima asks some extremely interesting questions. Isn’t it incredible that places of religious worship are becoming either restrictive or getting closed down? Where is God, then? Do religious people not have this question?

To answer for myself, I find it great that religious places are careful now, since there is a pandemic going on and large public gatherings may cause a public health scare. If the reader could indulge me for a moment here, I’d request them to consider Taslima’s logic, albeit in a little oversimplified manner. If religion is irrational and discourages reason beyond a point, they would not have put all these restrictions in place, would they? Since they are being sane about this, isn’t there a case to be made that religion may be indifferent or even at times at loggerheads with cold logic, but the “businessmen of religion” as she so bitterly calls them, are being smart about this whole thing? As far as the points table is concerned, reason gets one over religion. Shouldn’t Taslima be happy about it, then, rather than mocking it spitefully? And on the other hand, had these places been kept open, Taslima would be among the first ones to wave a disapproving finger.

Can’t we just get over God already?

She asks what the point of religious places is? This rant is just as cliche and insufferable as a missed kiss in a 90s Bollywood film. It is basically a 13 year old’s rant against religion. Not all of it is wrong, per se, but the logic is faulty in places. There’s an excessive use of scientific sounding rhetoric that does little more than expose the stark lack of knowledge and a borderline compulsive need to come across as cool, probably in an effort to appeal to neo-atheists.

She starts off with pretty reasonable points, arguing that secularism is better than religious orthodoxy. But the problem is, she segues rather abruptly into a diatribe of how religious thinking corrupts the world. She recently tweeted that during a crisis, we all become “atheists”. She also tweeted several things along the lines of “say yes to science and no to God”. For someone playing the atheism game for such a long time, she knows that that argument works on no one. Those who were already neo-atheists just laugh it off. Those who are devoutly religious get angry. So, who does this really help? This mocking is just a tool in this stupid game of oneupmanship over each other.

Also, like many secular rationalists like to say, don’t believe in God, believe in science. Let me analyze this statement a little. What does believe in science really mean? That you take what scientists say as gospel truth? That basically defeats the point of science, which is to ask questions. Not everyone is going to understand the logic behind everything, since not everyone possesses that cognitive capability. But when one asks people to believe in science instead of God, you ask them to replace one belief with another. The entire edifice of belief stays as it is. And it is that belief structure that needs to be challenged, not just what people believe in.

And I’m not being dismissive or flippant when I say that her arguments are actually insufficiently nuanced. In the lives of millions of people worldwide, science and religion play different roles in influencing their actions. If she chooses to equate these things and consider the comparison fair without stating any kind of ground rules, she is either foolish to not know better, or she is unbelievably dishonest in her convictions as an atheist.

Is it all just a game to God?

The usual long winded rants about religions misleading people, teaching them scientific untruths, sexually abusing little kids and fueling misogyny, while being correct, have little relevance here. Might I consider such arguments a low hanging fruit to reach? Am I to understand that she is being lazy in her criticism and attacking the already weak areas of the body of organized religion? That Taslima would think in terms of such lowest common denominator arguments to go after religion is singularly disappointing.

She further insists religion can be repurposed for the “betterment of people”. This is one of the main talking points of most secular humanists, that the “common good” does not need a religious substructure under it to form. But what most people fail to mention is, how the most common and popular secular humanist ideas were conceived in the first place. But this discussion is for another time.

Is God infallible, then?

Arguing Charles Darwin to disprove creationism is one thing. That there is no God is a bigger claim. And according to the great philosopher Louis CK, it is a strange thing to know. In any case, a running theme throughout the article is that religious institutions have closed down due to the virus, so, God has essentially abandoned us all. But I ask her this:

Since IITs have also suspended all classes and research work. Scientific congregations and conferences have been canceled. Schools and colleges, the temples of scientific knowledge, have been shut down. Are we to understand that science or reason or logic have abandoned us too?

I accept that science and science alone will give us solutions to these problems. But engaging in such low-level discourse of anti-religion rhetoric is unbecoming of such an experienced crusader like Taslima. I find the disingenuity appalling. And by her own admission, religious institutions have not claimed to be in the know of a cure. So, she cannot accuse them of that hypocrisy, as far as this crisis is concerned. Hindu Mahasabha of today is a deranged cult-like organization that has no takers. They can all claim to know Victoria’s secret, for all I care.