By Guest Writer, Md Maruf Hasan
In 21st century, the world is moving forward recklessly like Voyager 1 and 2. Human civilization has peaked at its highest level of exploration, yet biological evolution of living organisms is taught as just theory despite having mountains of evidences in Bangladesh and other religious countries. The question is for what? The answer in simple manner is because of religious virus that was addressed by Avijit Roy in his various writings. Avijit Roy, a decent and ordinary student and teacher, just boldly spoke about his mind about the nature of the universe based on science and reason. As a new reader of Muktomona bloggers, I find no contradictory statement at his writings and I find enough references provided to justify their stance. I do not understand what justification was used to kill him. I have walked both bank of the Padma River and I saw sincerity of both sides. Both sides of river have no alternative but to break and build new way and both banks of the river are helpless to the strong current. All they can is to support the current and make way for the flowing river. Universe does not care anyone's existence. Universe will move on as it is and our way of understanding about the universe makes no difference to the universe. We learn from our mistakes from the universe by making mistakes times and again, but universe is as it is. Thousands of reformers have been passed throughout human history and everyone has to accept the inevitable truth. Out of approximately 13.77 billion years after the big bang, we are here only by chance for about 50-60 solar years in this planet and then everyone of us has to leave this planet forever. Our beliefs have no effect at all in this inevitable fate. Our fame, status, wealth, race, color have no effect at our universal fate.
Can we stop the flow of Padma River? well, you can change the direction if you build a bridge and create new way for the river but it is impossible to stop the flow of the river. And building a bridge and creating a new way is not an easy task. You need enormous courage and you need action most importantly. For thousands of years, philosophers, religious leaders, political leaders came and tried in their own way to change the flow by building the bridge and by creating new way. We have seen scientists have little to say considering they were weak force in society. But last 1000 years in human history something miraculous happened that was beyond the comprehension of philosophers, religious leaders and political leaders. We are lucky enough to see the progress of scientific revolution where scientific worldview became de facto world view in this current world.
Let's say we disagree with scientific worldview, but in reality, you have no better alternative when you start understanding the nature of the universe. Due to enormous research better theories are coming and the way of our new understanding about the universe is developing. Despite changing thoughts in science, we have more reliability and hope in science than any religious jargon that we have been taught for last thousands of years. We urge to go beyond the border to explore. We die in the street while walking but we ask our fellow not to stop walking as Avijit Roy shouted towards his fellow mates. Maybe thousands of obstacles, but we choose to walk along. Maybe nobody is with you but you still decide to keep on walking. We lost our guardians and we have finished our last food of the day, but we have still decided to walk along the mountainous path till last breath. Maybe there will be nobody sitting next to you during your death in the street, but you can lie down facing at the sky and starring at night sky with full of stars and our milky way galaxy line. You spoke the truth and you died with truth Dr. Avijit Roy instead of being hypocrites like millions.
In recent time, pseudo-critical analyst Abu Talha Muhammad Adnan was missing and later it was known that it was just a drama and the motif behind this is very clear and that is he wanted to spread his ideology through this technique and he became famous by nights among general students of Bangladesh on YouTube. He was talking about Islamic messianism that every major religion has in the world. I wonder about his education in department of philosophy. He is diverting the thoughts of philosophers saying Jew's propaganda. He is introducing big terms in vague manner and in reality, he understands little what he is talking about and the entire young generation response was positive towards him since they also never heard those terms previously and All praised at him. It is like donkeys are praising at donkey for giving jump at muddy shallow water thinking deep water for swimming. Those, who read western literature of last few centuries, know the ideologies we have today came from being antagonist behavior towards orthodoxy church in Europe. Martin Luther is the first name we can utter. Then we know all the scientists who were accused of being heretic for their writings. Then, we know about an innocent girl, Anna frank's diary how nationalism and religions undermine an innocent girl's inner feeling just because she was born as Jews and she had to die at the age of 15. Where was your morality? Where was your human values? We killed Anna Frank. We all are responsible for her death. We know about Darwin, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Nietzsche, David Hume, Russel, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Late Cristopher Hitchens. Their writings were not about conspiracy against Islam that Abu Talha Muhammad Adnan misinterpreted by referring to messianism being antisemitic to his audiences. Every society has good and bad people, but you cannot kill everyone and spread hatred against entire race. That's how nationalism and religions promote hatred among our fellow human beings.
There is another pseudo-critical analyst in Bangladesh Mufti Kazi Ibrahim who claims not to talk anything beyond Quran and Sunnah. In reality all his analysis is just based on his mere wishful thinking. The good example is Greek people who remembered stars by making them think like different animal shapes so that they can remember the position of stars. You do not need to be expert to understand the hypocritical lectures of Mufti Kazi Ibrahim who is possessed by his self-centered knowledge. Will he correct his stance? Never ….as he said in his TV interview in recent time. Even if God of Muhammad comes, he will still worship himself instead of God of Muhammad. This is the danger of self-confident about religious educated people. Only one, who speaks deserves to enter paradise since he is in right understanding as these people think at their mind.
For thousands of years, religious texts have been analyzed in the same way and each scholar who holds the authority for years of study can only be considered as best man for interpretation of that texts even though the interpretation and understanding are wrong. Religious people are famous for blind acceptance. You wear a religious dress and walk along the way in unknown city in Bangladesh and then you would realize how people respect you in the street even though you were the worst type of man at your village. From practical experience, once a student, who recently finished his memorization of Quran, went to a mosque in different village and Imam got so scared looking at student's white dress up and his innocent looking face with full of beard. Imam invited him to give speech in Jumma prayer and the student proudly went forward and started to give speech before people and said in Bengali, "God has said in his book seeking knowledge is compulsory for every Muslim". The student does not even know that the statement is in the hadith and not in the Quran since he does not understand Quran. Hence, he could not make differences between what is hadith and what is Quran.
The problem with education system in Bangladesh they neither have proper knowledge about their religions nor they have proper knowledge about science. Even science teachers teach evolution as just theory being scared losing his job or reputation or maybe called as atheist. Teachers says in class "They claim how evolution happened in plants and animals. "The reality is, like Gould you need to confess the concept non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA) or you have no way but to accept saying evolution makes sense. The theist like Collins cannot avoid the fact of evolution making sense even though he believes in Christian God.
We just want to understand the truth of the universe as students. We want to read all books and let us compare the ideas independently by ourselves. You want hide truth from upcoming young generations by banning books and killing people who never harassed and raped any girls and never celebrated century of rape like others? Where is your analysis if you speak truth? Provide us with your arguments with evidences if you claim you speak right. The reality is you talk about fairy tales to satisfy yourself at the first place. The reality is you worship your own reasonings and you never worshipped or interested to deliver the sincere message of Muhammad on tawhid. You are the greatest liars and you claim to speak the obvious truth by referring to messianism? Did Muhammad mention the timing period? Even Angel Gabriel in Islamic narrative has no idea but you predict the time by saying I have vast knowledge about Quran and Sunnah and recent books? And each time you predict, it turns out to be wrong. You just want to promote your stupid ideologies not the ideology of Muhammad. You want to portray yourself as the smartest and deep thinker among people, but in reality, you are just smart fools like magicians do.
When we think about Muhammad, we know that Islam is all about sincerity towards Allah as Bukhari started narration indicating importance of sincerity for God. The writings of so-called atheists (as you call Jew's propaganda) Avijit Roy, Darwin, Karl Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Russel, Dostoevsky, Camus, Jean Paul Sartre much better in sincerity than you hypocrites who want to satisfy himself by referring to Allah and his messengers. You even do not have sense of shame and regret for what you are speaking by the name of Allah. This is you who are misrepresenting Allah, not atheists, not Jews. You justify your stance by referring to Quran and hadith and that's exactly what Al-Kaieda did after 9/11 attacks. Abu Bakar burned all of his writings fearing if he gives any of his opinion in the words by mistake and you give your opinion by saying Muhammad said this and that just to justify your pseudo-prediction. Abu Bakar was the man who treated God as God as he deserves. Umar did understand the message what Muhammad was talking about (weather it is truth or false that's the different discussion). That's why he said famously "I wish I were dust and I was never born in this planet". The modern understanding on God is more explicit in nature after Nietzsche addressing about God at "Thus Spoke Zarathustra". This is not about God anymore and this is more than that and Samuel Backet famously portrayed that in his drama "Waiting for Godot". No God was, is, will be for us waiting in the heaven for any accountability as guardian and we will not be subjected as criminals for our actions. Robert Frost harshly portrayed the fact in his poem in modern American literature,
"I turned to speak to God About the world's despair but to make bad matters worse I found God wasn't there. God turned to speak to me (Don't anybody laugh) God found I wasn't there At least not over half."
Huxley's novel "Brave New World' mentioned the modern crisis of humans for God. Not sure if, Jesus, Moses, Muhammad, Umar and Abu Bakar would be happy by hearing the news that scientific worldview wanted to say about God today. Each philosopher or religious leader was against the surrounding people of that particular society as we learn from history or from their biography. In today's context, the problem never revolves around does God exist or not? The problem never revolves around messianism in current context in multicultural world. The problem is more than that and bloggers want to shout out loudly, "We can be wrong, but teach us with your research-based knowledge and information. Do not kill us".
Let's talk about LGBT community, DNA is responsible for gay behavior, but religious teachers in male dominated madrasah in Bangladesh are more involved of raping young boys as recent news came in. Not everyone is born with gay behavior in their DNA so far, I understood. The religious teachers they do have wife or they can get married, if not married yet, according to Shariya law. Tell me how many reports have been lodged against gay activists who raped young boys like Madrasah teachers are doing continuously. God destroyed the nation of Lot because they did extreme by forcing everyone in society (They wanted to rape angels also as Old Testament and Quran tell us). Same like Madrasah teachers are doing with these innocent children and these Madrasah teachers should be destroyed by God in current context if you really talk about gay sins, not LGBT community. This sin was never major sin like sin of tawhid in Islam (There is famous hadith in Islamic narrative saying every sin will be forgiven except sin of associating partner with God) and only Islamic government will take action of these people as we find in Islamic Jurisprudence. Then, why did you kill Xulhaz Mann? Why do not you kill those imams? You are not promoting your Islam rather you are destroying Islam and you are worst type of hypocrites of Islam that mentioned in Quran. Indeed, you deserve the lowest hell of Islam.
As for the message of new atheism that I read in Avijit Roy's book and it seemed New atheism in 21st century promotes how people can make meaning of their life and live peacefully in society as shown by giving example of Sweden and other atheist countries in Avijit Roy's writings.
Richard Dawkins, late Cristopher Hitchens, Avijit Roy did have family and they lead absolutely meaningful life with moral values without being dependent on religions. Thomas Hobbes, Rousseau mentioned the importance of social contract in order to bring peace and harmony in society. I would say this is atheist-phobia for religious people thinking atheists are worst types of evolving animals who do not follow Religions and orders, but in reality, this is completely opposite. You need to talk and mix up with them and see how they will not kill you just because of your ideas rather they will argue with you in the best manner to come up with better understanding about reality and life. In Quran, it is asking you to argue and convince your ideas in the best manner and the duty of Muhammad was to convey the message not to regulate people like police and just kill people who hold different views and Quran do speak about religious tolerance if others do not accept Islam. Why do you want to kill a Jews, Christian, Hindu, atheist if they speak bad about Islam? They have right to scold this religion as stupid and your duty is to give logical arguments not scolding rather giving good arguments with decent words, but what you did is directly giving fatwa to kill someone. Salman Rushdie once said that even Muhammad would agree with me I think what I was talking about the problem in Muslim society. The question is do they scold every day? The answer is "No". They just wanted to explain certain situation to show their views to show our shortcomings, and you may disagree and keep on arguing and you produce intellectual works as they do, but where is your intellectual works or analysis? You just want to kill and die as "shahid". You are explicitly coward and lazy and you are not following the major instruction of your God in Islam. What Abu Talha Muhammad Adnan and Mufti Kazi Ibrahim are doing, those activities will be considered much better than yours though they are spreading pseudo-religious ideas. If you really want to speak about any topic, you gather the enough information with evidences and express your views. It is fine if you do mistakes but you can improve your arguments by providing more information and resources, but your religious people are dumb and lazy and stubborn that you want anything blame to leave for Allah and Muhammad. And your analysis is so narrow since you do not like reading books, rather you just love to copy and paste and get fatwa from someone and go to kill someone and later love to die as Shahid. Such easy path you want to be "shahid".
Last but not least, it seemed the goal of new atheism drastically differs from nationalist propaganda or race superiority. It encourages you to use your knowledge and develop your understanding based on science and reason. Martin Luther once said, "Here I stand, I can do no other,".