We are philosophers and scientists, all of us. Of varying degrees and styles maybe, but surely, because extracting a model for life, from our individual circumstances is our human impulse. We create a model to deal with what happened and what may be coming. A model to launch plans in; realizing and yet not that life is the epitome of uncertainty. Aware, that the best-laid plans might fail. Yet unaware; a strange, hopeful omission. Even the most cynical among us cannot remain so for long, we set up the chessboards of our lives, again and again, plan moves, and prepare for countermoves. 

Chess is a game with well-established rules; not arbitrary, yet it is only a game. All of us have our personal models, our personal chessboards, and the problems arise when one wants to play the game differently from another. The problem is this relativism in ideologies. My game vs yours; my world view vs yours.

Is it meant to be this way, this constant tension of disparate world views amongst the same species? Is life truly relative, up to you to lead it whichever way you wish? It does feel liberating choosing any religion, lifestyle, heck even gender these days. This freedom of choices is freeing from dogma, no doubt, but it is also the source of immense chaos. This freedom and relativism is actually an immature situation, contrary to our fashionable common sense understanding today.  Any kind of relativism is an intermediary, transitory position. It cannot be an end state. There must be an standard for everything, but no, not a dogmatic one like religion. Not in the least. No one should be telling you, “This is true, you must believe this!” No way. Such handed down rules are idiotic, and frankly only sheep follow without examining and thinking. Relativism is an important, necessary step -up from such dangerous dogma,  but necessary is  not always sufficient. 

It is just an intermediary;  a bridge to a new kind of truth. One which you must discover on your own.

The prominent world views of our modern world, its religions and its non-religious religions have been in a timeless state of conflict. Science against religion, atheism against religion, an ongoing war of world views. Science seems to trouncing religion amidst cheery applause now, by inducting new fighters into its team; the militant atheists. Technology is ruling our lives from sunrise to sunset, our lives having become perversely exhibitionistic. Movies playing across the theatres of social media. The real religion is dying a fast death, one which was due to it, from a long festering terminal illness.

Science: Bitten off more than it can chew

Science might seem to the best good thing in the world today, but truth be told, it has overspent its currency. It has bitten more than it can chew. It is out of fuel now for a longer journey on steeper roads. The indulgent excesses of its experiments should be a source of embarrassment for it. Spending  9billion+ dollars on hunting for particles it is not sure exist is a giant liberty with resources they could have spent on more relevant things. More relevant, yes. In fact, science might have stalled its further progress in its self-sufficient arrogance. It has created ‘models’ in every field of study, but the problem is a MODEL of reality is not reality. A layman can be forgiven for the error, but even the scientists themselves have begun to mistake all their models for reality itself. It is quite possible that many of them are altogether incorrect. Scientists should acknowledge the possibility, and publicly at that. THEY could be wrong, the scientists must tell us layman, in no less than clear terms. There could be other models too!

Science has overextended its function into areas of life it might have no capabilities to handle. With a strong focus on ‘how’ things happen, science rarely considers the why. Why is there a universe? Why is there anything at all? The scientist dismisses this question as being immaterial to his agenda of figuring out the mechanics; the hows. However, one wonders if answers to ‘how’ will  ever be complete without exploring the why. The universe just is and is pointless? Life just is and is pointless then, by analogy! Sounds so nihilistic. It has uncomfortable implications for the way to live one’s life, does it not?

Science trivialises our human condition, our troubled relationships with meaning, purpose, morals and a creator. It dismisses these issues by telling us that these are creative, aesthetic ideas with no relation to the physical reality. It also dismisses all impulse for religion as a product of an uneducated, uninformed mind. But that’s too sweeping and categorical; it is not always true. Whether or not God exists, the search for meaning is a human impulse, one they cannot do away that with. In fact, science today has misappropriated importance in our lives, greater than it deserves. One needs science, but one needs something more than current science can offer.

This Science cannot become the primary, central ideology for human life.

Religion: Deserves a long- due death

To talk about the horrifying state of religion would take a book or books maybe, so infuriating is its lack of any redeeming quality. It has fed on our fears of death  hell, and many more, for millennia. Just to solidify its political, ideological power. It is so poorly defined that kids could find it an insult to their intelligence! Trying to make it sound rational,  intellectual theists draw from science to make logical arguments for God. Sadly, these logical arguments end up sounding comical in their absurdity. Plus, they are altogether dismissible. 

Maybe it is impossible to answer the questions of morals, meaning and of God in the current system of logic. It is a futile trying to redeem religion from the abyss of death this way. Or any other way. Religious scriptures are the most reviled literature on the planet today because the guardians of these scriptures cannot defend against its literal translations. The theists and religious apologist have not been able to explain the scriptures in any helpful, fruitful sense. Religion has failed miserably on this front, and so it deserves the hate it garners. In their naivete, the guardians of religion have for centuries oversimplified religion, reducing it to a caricature of rituals and observances. Plus a comical god, best to hate and laugh at. Who can ignore the killing terrors arising out of the relativism of so many religions? It is horrifying that religion has given murder and terrorism a righteous justification!

So religion must die a death it rightly deserves. How can we adopt such a perverted world view as a philosophy for our lives? How can we chose religion as a model to answer life’s fundamental questions in? No way, we should not.

Atheism: The school bully

Atheism then seems like the more intelligent position; a rational world view under the aegis of science. But in fact, it is barely better than religion. The atheist philosophy is thread thin, near non-existent. It exists only as a philosophy of opposition, just because religion must not exist. In its ownself it has LITTLE merit. The intellectual atheists never cared to study religion seriously before opposing it with such vehemence. They are so blinded by the beauty of science they refuse to look at its own glaring ugliness, its egregious blind spots. Science is good and religion is bad; end of story. That is the beginning and end of  atheists’ ideology. In fact the mental level from which an atheist opposes religion is that of an over-confident school bully. 

How can the paper-thin ideology of atheism appeal to someone on a serious quest for existential answers, or in fact, to anybody at all? No, it’s impossible to take modern atheism seriously.

 High-minded ideologies apart, let us come back to the less lofty realities of our practical lives. 

What can make our lives better, what can make us  happier people?

What carries the promise to take us all towards greater well being? What can be our benefactor, our saviour, for each one of us?

Technology: Not the new messiah

Technology, science’s accomplished off-spring seems to be a strong contender for that. While expensive particle-reactors may have no connection with our lives, the lightening fast internet and the latest mobile application most definitely do. Technology seems to be the ultimate good thing after science.

Like parent like offspring, one could say.

However, is technology really the best thing happening to us? There are many who can sing paeans in its praise, but they do not look at the novel problems it is creating. Apart from the fact it may never solve the most important, existential ones. Ironically, life may have become less of a drudgery because of automation, but any good time left for more meaningful endeavours is wasted in unending distractions. In the brain-addling excesses of technology- enabled entertainment.

Is life becoming better or is life being filled with unnecessary distractions? 

A good lifestyle does not automatically translate into a good life. Does it? 

Are we really becoming happier?

Are we really achieving liberation? Barely. The new rat race, toward a higher social class is also a new set of fetters, even if shinier ones.

Also, technology seems poised to convert us into androids, that too of the virtual kind. Is it really an exciting prospect to becoming increasingly mechanised, maybe totally one day? Even if it is, do you think it will lead to greater happiness? Technology can at best serve us to make life more comfortable, but to make it our master, by pinning our hopes of happiness on it might be foolish.

For happiness, the actual kind, we may need another master. Another ideology. Another philosophy.

 To suggest that we need to reconcile these polarised world views of religion, science and atheism or technology is foolish. No way, it will not work. Solutions are never found at the level of the problems themselves, and all these world-views are inherently flawed and incomplete. Each one of them. Yes, science and technology included. 

What we may then need is a new type of science altogether. A new type of religion. A new type of atheism. Novel technology.

Maybe only a new type of thinking can take the world forward. A new paradigm.