A Challenge to Atheists and Believers Alike

The fourth volume in the Final Jeopardy series of books has just been completed. It's title is: Final Jeopardy: Religion and the Reality Problem. (or the Kindle edition). Its length is 562 pages. 

Some of the topics that are discussed in the aforementioned book are: Free will, suffering, consciousness, nihilism, mythology, Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, Friedrich Nietzsche, evolution, morality, irreligion, sacredness,  mysticism, and spiritual abuse. While most of the book is fairly general in nature, there are some sections of the book that explore -- at least in outline form -- certain facets of the Sufi Path as those aspects relate to some of the foregoing topics.

Among other things, the foregoing book critically explores, in some depth, the ideas and arguments of a number of atheist writers, including: Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, Bart Ehrman, Greg Epstein, Victor Stenger, John Allen Paulos, Stuart Kauffman, and Darrel Ray. I believe their perspectives (both individually and collectively) are fraught with a variety of problems. 

More specifically, the aforementioned individuals often tout their books -- or this is done or their behalf by individuals who are like-minded -- as being works of reason and science. Unfortunately, both reason and science often seem to be in short supply in those works. 

People are free to believe whatever they like. Moreover, I have no desire to take that freedom away from them. 

I do not know what, if anything, will happen to the foregoing individuals after death (and two of them -- namely, Christopher Hitchens and Victor Stenger -- might already have some insight into this matter). Similarly, I have no idea what fate lies in wait for me beyond the far (but drawing ever closer) horizons that circumscribe my Earthly life. 

I don't dislike atheists, nor do I dislike people who are committed to a different form of spirituality than I am. Furthermore, I do not harbor ill-will toward any of them. 

Like me, they are human beings who are attempting to do the best they can with the limited information they have. Quite frankly, I hope that things turn out felicitously for them in any number of ways, but all of these considerations are way beyond my pay grade. 

However, as has been said: "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones." All of the individuals identified previously have spent considerable amounts of time engaged in throwing stones at the idea of religion, and, yet, if one looks at the structural properties of the conceptual houses from which they are lobbing their linguistic projectiles, one is able to develop a fair understanding with respect to just how fragile, flimsy, and vulnerable the foregoing conceptual structures often are. 

I do not have a problem with someone who criticizes the hypocrisy of people who claim to be religious and, then, proceed to act in ways that run contrary to basic principles of decency, morality, fairness, humanity, and character. And, in fact, there are many criticisms -- with which I would tend to agree -- that the individuals who previously were identified by name tend to level against those who are engaged in all manner of religious hypocrisy. 

Nonetheless, when the foregoing authors try to generalize from the acts of individuals and, in the process, offer blanket criticisms concerning the nature of religion, they become engaged in activities of confabulation in which they conflate and confuse their own invented imaginings concerning existence with the actual nature of religion. In the process, they arbitrarily define and frame religion according to their own likes and dislikes.

The nature of religion is very simple to state. It gives expression to an individual's search for the truth concerning the nature of one's relationship with Being/Reality. 

Some individuals engage the foregoing sort of search in very constructive, character-driven ways. Other individuals do so in very destructive, abusive, and problematic ways.

The truth -- whatever it turns out to be -- is sacred, hallowed ground and is deserving of both our veneration and commitment. Nonetheless, none of us (whatever our beliefs might be) is justified in supposing that what we believe is necessarily synonymous with the truth concerning the nature of reality.

Therefore, perhaps there should be some degree of humility present in the foregoing sort of search in order to allow for the possibility that one just might be wrong about what one believes the nature of truth to be (whether such beliefs are oriented in a theistic or non-theistic manner). Unfortunately, this sort of humility often seems to be missing from the works of many of the previously mentioned individuals.  

There are a number of atheists who have trashed a few of my books on religious issues -- especially ones that are critical of the writings of Sam Harris. They have done so without even reading what I have said, and I know this because their criticisms lack the specificity of someone who has gone through what has been written and, then, points out specific examples of what they believe to be problematic with whatever I might have put forth in a given book. 

I don't mind if someone has a legitimate criticism of something that I have said. However, the sorts of reviews being alluded to in the previous paragraph tend not to be exercises in honesty.

Such individuals provide negative "reviews" of some of my books based not on a sincere and genuine desire to engage in a dialog about the nature of reality but because they wish to try to control what other people do, and do not, read. Apparently, they believe that if they can place my writings in a negative light, this will discourage potential readers from purchasing those books ... but the tactic hasn't succeeded since, to date, I have sold thousands of books in different parts of the world.

Nevertheless, what some of the individuals who write blanket, negative reviews concerning my work are actively engaged in doing is not a matter of trying to provide genuine assistance to others with respect to the latter's search for truth. Instead, the former individuals wish to interfere with, or undermine, the possibility that any given seeker after truth might undertake her or his search in a manner that might lead to conclusions other than what such negative reviewers wish to impose upon the unsuspecting readers of those reviews. 

By becoming engaged in the foregoing sorts of activities, such individuals are immersed in processes of spiritual abuse and proselytizing on behalf of atheists everywhere. Given that those people often consider themselves to be antithetical to all manner of spiritual abuse and proselytizing, their activities are rather -- to say the least -- ironic in character.

Unlike the foregoing individuals, there was one atheist -- an individual from Canada -- who wished to remain an atheist but who indicated in his review that, nonetheless, he found the arguments in one of my books on religion to be both intelligent and well-reasoned. I appreciated that review more than most -- even more than some reviews that were written by people who agreed with me -- because despite the fact that the gentleman from Canada didn't accept my perspective, nevertheless, he was willing to take the time to read what I had said and, after having done so, was willing to acknowledge that despite whatever reservations he might have about my ideas, he was of the opinion that the book was not just an exercise in irrational, incoherent, ideological rhetoric. 

I hope people -- whether they believe in God or they don't -- will take the time to read the real world version of: Final Jeopardy: Religion and the Reality Problem (or the Kindle edition). I hope people -- irrespective of whether they agree or disagree with what the foregoing book says (or do a bit of both) -- will be interested in pursuing such ideas in an honest, sincere, fair, and humanistic fashion. 

I believe the foregoing book is written in such a way that anyone who reads it -- regardless of their conceptual orientation --  will come away with new ideas on which to critically reflect. My intention is to challenge people to re-think a variety of issues rather than to denigrate individuals whose ideas are being critically explored during Final Jeopardy: Religion and the Reality Problem. 

Good Without God: A Sufi Response

Recently, I began reading a book entitled: Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe by Greg M. Epstein who is the Humanist chaplain at Harvard University. The following discussion constitutes something of a critical review in relation to at least the introduction of that work.

I should begin by saying that the reason for critically engaging Chaplain Epstein’s book is not because I feel threatened by anything that he says concerning a nonreligious approach to life … any more than I would feel threatened by the religious ideas of someone with whom I might disagree.  The purpose of any exercise in critical reflection should be to try to: Explore possibilities, raise questions, probe problems, clarify issues, and enrich discourse.

Moreover, I don’t look at people such as Chaplain Epstein as enemies, evildoers, or individuals who are headed for perdition. I can sincerely say that I have no idea what the future holds – in this world or beyond -- for either Chaplain Epstein or myself.

We both are committed to exploring what it means to be a human being. The fact that we have come up with different perspectives concerning that issue and what, if anything, this means in the grander scheme of things entail considerations that are above my pay grade.

At one point during the introduction to his aforementioned book, Chaplain Epstein notes in passing that according to some opinion polls atheists are among the most reviled groups in America. He might, or might not, take heart to discover that I have come across the results of various opinion polls in which atheists are rated more favorably than Muslims in the United States.

Bragging rights aside concerning the identity of which group resides at the bottom of this or that favorability poll, Chaplain Epstein does say something in the introduction to his book with which I am in agreement. More specifically, he states: “The enemy … is not faith – the enemy … is hate, it is fear, it is ignorance, it is the darker part” that resides in every human being.

According to Chaplain Epstein, among other things, Humanists consider themselves to be “free thinkers, rationalists, skeptics” as well as naturalists. I find this description somewhat mystifying since it seems to imply that in order to be a freethinker, rationalist, skeptic, or naturalist, one must be someone who does not believe in God.

Free thinking, rationalism, skepticism, and naturalism can be rooted in both a nonreligious or religious context. Everything depends on the intentions underlying, and purposes for which, such cognitive activities are being used. 

For example, a naturalist is considered to be someone who believes that everything is a function of some set of natural causes or phenomena and, as well, believes that all references to supernatural and spiritual realities are ill considered if not irrelevant to establishing the truth concerning the nature of existence. Sufis maintain there is no reality but Divinity, and, therefore, such reality constitutes the only sense of naturalism that is possible … a sense in which it is wrong to distinguish between the natural and the supernatural since the natural gives expression to whatever the nature of reality makes possible.

Moreover, under the right sort of circumstances, even some mystics make use of reason just as Humanists do. However, there are differences in understanding between the two groups concerning the nature of reason, its possible limits, and how to apply reason to any given issue.

As far as the quality of being skeptical is concerned, part of the training of a Sufi is to develop a healthy and constructive skepticism concerning the reliability of the ideas, values, purposes, meanings, intentions, desires, and emotions that arise in one’s own consciousness as well as in the phenomenology of other individuals. There are many forces capable of leading one away from the truth – whatever that might turn out to be – and, consequently, one should refine one’s capacity for skeptical engagement of oneself and life in order to try to minimize -- as much as this can be accomplished -- the degree of distortion and error in one’s understanding of things.

If one wishes to adopt a skeptical stance toward life, then, one needs to be prepared to apply such skeptical inclinations to everything … including one’s own ideas, values, beliefs, and behaviors. To question just the religious ideas of other individuals is to invoke a biased and skewed form of skepticism.

One also must be skeptical with respect to nonreligious ideas as well. In fact, one should be prepared to be skeptical toward skepticism itself because, on occasion, we are able to uncover certain truths, and, therefore, being skeptical about what is true is the sort of hobgoblin of consistency that is characteristic of truly narrow minds.

In my opinion, there is no form of skeptical methodology that is more rigorous than the Sufi mystical path. At the same time, Sufi methodology indicates that skepticism is a means, not an end … that is, while adopting a skeptical stance toward much that takes places within the phenomenology of lived life is a very important thing to do, nonetheless, within limits, being able to arrive at a correct understanding concerning certain aspects of Being is, as intimated earlier, still possible.

Chaplain Epstein claims that the central issue is not about whether, or not, it is possible for someone who does not believe in God to be moral, perform good deeds or develop strong character traits. He believes that such possibilities are very real and, furthermore, he believes there are many examples to which one could point in defense of such a perspective.

He feels that the more interesting question is what makes such moral behavior, good deeds, and character possible. In other words, how does someone who does not believe in God go about being moral, or having character, or performing good deeds?

The question that Chaplain Epstein is raising is a good one … perhaps better than he supposes is the case. As a former professor, one of the issues that I had to consider with respect to any given student was whether, or not, the assignments handed in by that individual were his or her own work.

Did the person cheat on a given test? Did that individual plagiarize material from sources that were not properly cited in the notes or bibliography accompanying the main content of the essay or paper?

I didn’t start out with an orientation of suspicion when grading exams or papers. However, during the course of reading through what some students handed in, certain things might trigger such a concern.

I tried my best to get to know the students through interchanges both within and outside of classes. Many of my classes usually consisted of between 35-40 students, and by the end of the term, I knew them all by name as well as had a sense of what they were, and were not, capable of doing within the context of a given course.

Chaplain Epstein claims that he is interested in the question of how people can be good without God. I am interested in that question as well.

We are not necessarily the architects of our own capacities for: Consciousness, language, reason, logic, memory, intellect, creativity, understanding, or emotion. In fact, for a number of years in both Canada and the United States, I taught a variety of courses in psychology – and, consequently, I was able to develop a fairly informed insight into the epistemological status of the understanding of modern sciences – biological or physical – concerning what makes any of the aforementioned capacities possible or how they came into being.

All manner of hypotheses, theories, and models exist concerning such issues. What is missing is conclusive evidence that any of those ideas are correct, and contrary to the claims of some individuals, science is not even close to resolving the many mysteries that permeate our attempts to understand the origin and nature of either human existence or human capabilities.

If someone has doubts about the tenability of the foregoing claim, she or he might like to take a look at several books which I have written – such as Volumes I, II, and III of the Final Jeopardy series or the book: Evolution and the Origin of Life. All of the foregoing books go into considerable detail concerning different facets of particle physics, quantum mechanics, cosmology, evolution, and more that are not well-understood by modern science… and I might add in passing that none of the foregoing discussion pits some form of creationism against some form of secular materialism but sticks to just probing science per se.

So, when someone maintains that human beings exhibit moral behavior, good deeds, and/or quality character absent the presence of God, this triggers something in me that is similar to what used to occur when I was grading the test or term paper of some of my students. Namely, I wonder if the individuals who are making claims about what is possible without God might be committing a form of plagiarism in which they are taking credit for something that is not their own work and are failing to cite the proper sources that make their ideas and actions possible.

Where do the ideas come from that end up being expressed through good deeds or which result in moral behavior of this or that kind? What makes the compassion, love, aspiration, courage, patience, perseverance, and so on possible that permits one to understand, for example, the plight of others and, as a result, want to do something about such situations? Where does the will come from to carry through on the original ideas and intentions? Where do the intellect, memory, understanding, reason, and logic come from that helps to shape the realization of the original intention? Where do the means and opportunities come from that permit one to be in a position to help others? What caused the circumstances of someone to be in a condition of need and why?

Individuals who are inclined in either a nonreligious or a religious manner both tend to want to consider themselves to be the source of good deeds, moral behavior, and quality character traits.  However, neither group can prove that they are the primary causal agent for any of the foregoing events … all they can do is to indicate that on a given occasion a certain individual was the locus of manifestation through which such properties were realized.

Chaplain Epstein notes that thousands of innocent lives are ripped away by hurricanes, earthquakes and other “acts of God”. He indicates that an increasing number of people have come to conclude that the world does not have competent moral management and that, consequently, they feel they must become “superintendants” of their own lives and try to resolve the many problems that beset human beings … but they wish to do so in a way that can be considered to be constructive and, therefore, described as being “good”.

To contend that because thousands of allegedly innocent lives are destroyed through so-called “acts of God” and, therefore, suggest that God -- if God exists -- is not a competent moral manager is an arbitrary judgment based on complete ignorance concerning the nature of existence. Simply because one doesn’t understand why things are the way they are doesn’t necessarily mean that what occurs is due to incompetent moral management.

Moreover, one wonders why Chaplain Epstein should limit the “acts of God” to events such as earthquakes and hurricanes. If God exists, then, sooner or later, every human being dies through one or another act of God, and we have no better insight into the nature of our individual demise than we have with respect to the deaths of thousands of people via the way of floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, droughts, volcanic activity, and other natural disasters.

Someone dies at a very young age. Or, someone dies through no apparent fault of his or her own. Or, someone dies a slow, agonizing death.

What are we to make of any of this? A lot depends on whether, or not, one has the full story concerning such happenings.

Those who believe that the universe is operating through some form of incompetent moral management believe they have all the facts concerning such situations. One wonders how those individuals would go about proving that they are in possession of all relevant information about any given tragedy or death.

Human beings are notorious backseat drivers. We tend to kibitz about the way another person – or God – does things irrespective of whether, or not, we understand what we are talking about. We always tend to give preference to our own take on things and believe that one’s own understanding is the most reliable means for judging life events.

This is the way of the ego. Such an inclination is at the heart of the dark side of being human that Chaplain Epstein warned his readers about in the introduction to his book and about which I voiced my agreement earlier in this commentary.

In addition, implying that God – if God exists – is an incompetent moral manager because thousands of innocent lives are lost through “acts of God” such as earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, and the like suggests that Chaplain Epstein knows of some absolute form of moral management which is independent of God and through which the actions of any god that would permit the destruction of innocent lives can be evaluated impartially and objectively. If so, one would like to know what the nature of that absolute form of moral management is and what constitutes its source of authoritativeness.

All we really know is that we are not in control of many, if any, life events, and such knowledge tends to leave us with a sense of helpless frustration. So, there is a tendency within us to adopt the existential stance of most politicians and state: “You know what’s wrong with the world, I’m not in charge.”

There are at least two things that are very evident when it comes to human existence. First, reality has a very stubborn tendency to resist our efforts to make it conform to our likes and dislikes, and, secondly, we are almost completely ignorant about why things are the way they are.

One can be as cynical, skeptical, rationalistic, and freethinking as one likes. Nevertheless, after the dust from all our cognitive activity ends, we tend to be as ignorant about the ultimate nature of reality as we were before engaging in such activities.

Operating out of a condition of ignorance will not shed light on whether, or not, the world is being governed through morally incompetent management. All of our speculations, theories, ideas, models, and conceptual systems concerning how we would do things differently if we were put in charge is so much spitting into the mysterious and unpredictable winds of existence that are buffeting our being.

I am interested in trying to find out what or why a billion nonreligious people believe what they do for the same reason that I am interested in finding out why billions of religious people believe what they do. I am interested in finding out whether someone – or any person -- is right concerning such beliefs, and I consider this to be the number one issue facing a human being … to try to determine – to whatever extent this is possible -- the location and character of whatever truths are accessible to human existence.

I don’t merely want to have an understanding in which to believe and through which to develop a purpose or be able to fashion a morality of some kind or find some sort of meaning concerning life. I want to know – if this is possible -- which purpose, form of morality, and meaning actually reflects the nature of reality.

This is the problem with which we all grapple and for which we all are seeking answers and for which we all – one day – might, or might not, be held accountable. Are the numerous decisions that we have made along the way and that have affected others in different ways … are such decisions ones for which we will have regrets if the truth is ever disclosed to us?

The song “My Way” has the line: “Regrets, I’ve had a few … but, then, again, too few to mention”. These are the words of a person who seems to be looking at life through the filters of his or her own myopic view of the truth of things … some one who is viewing life through the very rose-colored, self-serving glasses through which the ego engages life.

Wisdom begins to appear on the horizons of one’s existence when one is prepared to acknowledge the possibility that “My Way” might not be the best way to engage existence. One must be ready to really listen to what reality might be trying to tell us about its nature rather than imposing our own brand of ignorance on to the problems of life.

According to Chaplain Epstein, Humanism “means taking charge of the often lousy world around us and working to shape it into a better place”. This seems to indicate that he knows what “better” means, and if so, then, it tends to leave unanswered the question of what to do when people disagree about what constitutes the nature of “better”.  The foregoing issue also faces those who believe in religion … all too frequently, they assume they know what “better” means and, consequently, often do not critically reflect on the issue of what to do when two senses of “better” collide.

Chaplain Epstein indicates that Humanism “rejects dependence on faith, the supernatural, divine texts, resurrection, reincarnation, or anything else for which we have no evidence.” The issue of rejecting dependence on: Faith, the supernatural, divine texts and so on revolves about the problem of determining what is going to count as evidence and how to interpret such evidence.

Rejecting something as evidence, or citing it as evidence, is a meaningless exercise until one looks at the framework through which something is going to be counted as evidence or rejected as such. Furthermore, one has to ask about the degree of arbitrariness present in such a framework of epistemological or hermeneutical evaluation … and this is as true for religious believers as it is for nonreligious believers.

Wikipedia describes “arbitrariness” as the quality of being "determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle". However, this leaves a question in the wake of such a definition as the latter makes its way through epistemological waters.

More specifically, one can’t help but raise the following question: How arbitrary is a given person’s notion of “necessity, reason, and principle”? Or, asked in a different way, what is it that makes any given notion of: “necessity, reason, and principle” be something other than arbitrary?

Presumably, the answer to the foregoing questions would be a function of the truth. Any notion of necessity, reason, and principle that does not reflect and is not rooted in the truth is arbitrary. In short, arbitrariness is that which is based on something other than the truth.

Humanists insist that the journey from the womb to the tomb is all that we have … but they have no evidence to demonstrate the truth of their claim. They – like most of the rest of us – have only a deep, pervasive ignorance concerning such matters, and, yet, they appear to want everyone to proceed as if the Humanist understanding of things is the only necessary, reasoned, principled take on life, and, perhaps not so strangely, the Humanist position really is just a variation on the manner in which many, if not most religious people proceed as well.

No one wants to admit that they are ignorant about almost everything that matters. Consequently, no one wants to address the issue of how do we collectively proceed given such ignorance. How do we pursue and make allowances for what we don’t know without getting problematically entangled in each other’s lives?

According to Chaplain Epstein, “humanism is a cohesive world movement based on the creation of good lives and communities, without God.” Irrespective of whether one wishes to exclude God or include God in our lives and communities, the notion of what constitutes “goodness” is a long-standing problem.

Quite frequently, our ideas concerning “the good” merely reduce down to our likes and dislikes. Therefore, such notions tend to be quite independent of necessity, reason, or principle except to the extent that we like to throw such words around as we try to persuade one another that our system of likes and dislikes is better than your system of likes and dislikes.

Chaplain Epstein claims that for most people, “religion is not about belief in an all-seeing deity with a baritone voice and a flowing beard. It is about family, tradition, consolation, ethics, memories, music, art, architecture, and much more.” First, Chaplain Epstein’s reductionistic depiction of God is quite argumentative and narrow in scope.

More importantly, I am willing to venture that for many people who have a genuine commitment to the idea of God’s existence, their central concern is about a sense of relationship with Divinity via the mind, heart and soul rather than merely being a function of arbitrary images – auditory or visual -- of one kind or another. Even where images are present, I am inclined to feel it is the sense of relationship with Divinity that pervades such images that is of utmost importance rather than the images per se … that is, the images stand for something beyond the images themselves … something ineffable and hard to put in words … it is the dance of one’s phenomenology with a mysterious, unseen – but very much sensed – Partner.

Secondly, even if one were to agree with Chaplain Epstein that for many people religion is much more about family, tradition, ethics, memories, music, art, and architecture than anything else, one still might raise the issue of whether such people have missed the essential point of religion or spirituality. In other words, irrespective of however important family, tradition, memories, and so on might be within a religious context, nonetheless, to restrict spirituality to such considerations tends to obscure the following possibility – namely, that the opportunity for, and the journey toward, realizing one’s essential potential might constitute the primary purpose to which religion and spirituality are seeking to draw our attention.

I am not trying to say that what goes on in the world is unimportant. Rather, in the latter part of the foregoing paragraph, emphasis is being given to the idea that life might be a means to, and occasion for, a process of spiritual development rather than being an end unto itself.

Even if we all engaged the world as a project for pursuing goodness in this life and were successful in agreeing on, and realizing, such a project, if the world turns out to exist for something other than, or is transcendent to, such Earthly interests, then, however good we make the world, we might have missed the purpose for which life on Earth came into being. Living the ‘good life’ – whatever this might mean – has to reflect and be rooted in the truth of reality’s nature … we cannot arbitrarily decide what the meaning and purpose of Earthly life are and expect that everyone should submit to such an approach to things … anymore than we can arbitrarily decide that the purpose and meaning of life should be lived in accordance with some arbitrary theological notion.

Chaplain Epstein claims that we need what can be found or created in a Humanist community – “… a place where family, memory, ethical values, and the uplifting of the human spirit can come together with intellectual honesty, and without a god.” I have no doubt that Humanists can come up with ideas concerning goodness and community that have meaning, value, and purpose for them … but how intellectually honest and defensible any of this might be is another set of issues altogether.

One could agree with the Humanist perspective that the journey from womb to tomb is unique and only comes our way once. However, acknowledging such a perspective does not require one to conclude that: “Family, memory, ethical value, and the uplifting of the human spirit can come together with intellectual honesty without a god.”

Of course, a similar sort of criticism can be leveled at those who find meaning, value, and purpose in this or that theology and, as a result, seek to play their own kind of zero-sum game with anyone who is unwilling to accept their edicts concerning the nature of reality. The commonality that ties all of us together – the people who are committed to some version of religious reality as well as the people who are committed to some nonreligious way of life – is our collective ignorance about so many of the key issues of life … an ignorance that we often do our best to deny, and a denial that tends to come at great cost to ourselves and the people amongst whom we live.

Despite the many accomplishments of modern science, we still have no demonstrable proof concerning how either the universe or life came into being. In addition, we do not know the how and why underlying the origins of consciousness, logic, reason, insight, memory, creativity, talent, language, and emotion. To claim that science offers the best account of the universe and its many mysteries is to arbitrarily inflate the status of the opinions and speculations of a group of very fallible individuals whose primary modus operandi appears to be its capacity to improve upon – within limits -- some of its many previously incorrect theories concerning the nature of the universe, life, and human potential.

This might be a sound strategy if one had an infinite amount of time to wait on some sort of final answer concerning the nature of reality. Unfortunately, this is not the situation in which we find ourselves since irrespective of whether one is inclined in a religious or nonreligious way, the time we have available to try to solve the mysteries of life is very limited … and, for unknown reasons, this constraint is much more severe for some individuals than it is for others.

Chaplain Epstein refers to Humanism through the filters of the European term: “lifestance”, and he claims that this term refers to something that is more than a philosophy but is not a religion.” One wonders in what sense a “lifestance” is more than a philosophy but other than a religion.

Such a statement seems to involve little more than playing around with the ambiguities of language and, thereby, making claims that can’t be spelled out in clear, defensible terms. To contend that Humanism is a lifestance and, therefore, neither a philosophy or a religion tends to ignore an obvious question … namely, if the Humanist lifestance is neither a philosophy nor a religion, then, what is it and from whence does it derive the sort of intellectual and moral authority that would warrant anyone, or everyone, to subscribe to its tenets?

Chaplain Epstein claims that: “Faith in God means believing absolutely in something, with no proof whatsoever. Faith in humanity means believing absolutely in something with a huge amount of proof to the contrary.” To claim that people who have faith in God believe in something with no proof whatsoever is an attempt to reduce to nothingness the life experiences of people who believe ... it is an attempt to claim that because Humanists don’t recognize something as a proof, then, that something has no probative value … it is an attempt by Humanists to set themselves up as the arbiters of what is true and what is not true … and, even more importantly, it is an attempt to try to frame what human experiences have probative value and what human experiences don’t have such probative value. And, unfortunately, many individuals who believe in religion of one sort or another are often guilty of doing the same sort of thing.

Furthermore, one also would like to know just what is meant by the claim that Humanists have faith in humanity despite a great deal of evidence to indicate that such faith is not warranted. Just what is it in human beings that Humanists have faith in and how and where did this something come into being? Can Humanists prove that whatever dimension of being human in which they have faith came into existence and derived its potential from something other than Divinity?

For Humanists to claim that they want to do whatever they do without the idea of God raises a question … and it is a question that must also be asked, as well, of anyone who believes in religion of some kind. To what extent are one’s beliefs delusional in nature … that is, to what extent do one’s beliefs stray from the truth of things … for that is what a delusion is … a belief that is false … a belief that does not accurately reflect the actual nature of reality.

We all have our values, purposes, meanings, reasons, principles, and moral systems. Yet, we all lack the sort of definitive proof that would permit us to demonstrate to the satisfaction of any other presumably reasonable person that our values, purposes, meanings, reasons, principles, and systems of morality accurately reflect the actual nature of reality.

If there is no afterlife, then, what someone believes in this life has no causal relation to what transpires after we die. Irrespective of what we believe, we disappear into the abyss of non-existence, and that is the end of the matter.

If there is no God, then, talking about the good life is just an exercise in arbitrariness in which one tries to justify – without having any universally defensible basis for doing so – one’s own lonely, desperate need to have a sense of existential value, purpose, and meaning. This remains true independently of whether our definition of the good life is rooted in a religious or non-religious perspective.

However, if there is an afterlife and if there is a God, then what follows? Actually, nothing automatically or necessarily follows.

What becomes critical is discovering the truth – to whatever extent this can be done -- concerning the nature of the afterlife and the existence of God. Truth is not about having theories, hypotheses, speculations, opinions, beliefs, or a lifestance with respect to such matters … truth is a matter of accurate knowledge and understanding concerning reality.

Unfortunately, most of us are steeped in ignorance when it comes to the truth about the ultimate nature of reality. Even the precision of this or that science or the promises of this or that theology is helpless when it comes to answering what, if anything, existence is all about.

If I wanted to know what energy a certain species of sub-atomic particle might have when it engages in a certain kind of interaction with some other kind of particle, I would ask a quantum physicist. If I wanted to know about the nature of a given religious perspective with which I was unfamiliar, I would ask a theologian who knew about such matters.

However, when it comes to the ultimate nature of existence, scientists, humanists, and theologians are as ignorant as the rest of us are. Yet, depending on how open to a free-flowing dialog a given scientist, humanist, or theologian might be, I would be prepared to constructively explore with them what our collective options might be in the face of such ignorance and uncertainty.

Facebook, Sufism, 9/11, Terrorism, and Faith: An Interview

Just a little over a year ago, my wife had induced me to set up an account on Facebook which she felt might be a means of, among other things, helping to promote some of my books, poetry CDs, and other activities. Last night I went to the movies with my wife and saw 'The Social Network' which seeks to explore some of the very human and social forces at work behind the inception and development of the Internet portal: Facebook. 

One of the people who befriended me on Facebook was a Muslim from Sweden. During this past Ramadan, he approached me via a Facebook message and asked if I would be willing to do a sort of virtual interview with him concerning a variety of topics. 

He said that he had been a journalist at one point in his life. However, he indicated that the interview would be put up on his blog and would be translated into Swedish. 

In order to make a somewhat longer story shorter, I decided to commemorate the, roughly speaking, anniversary date of my joining Facebook, as well as pay tribute to the recently released movie concerning the origins of Facebook, with an interview that arose through one of my contacts on Facebook.

The following questions are from the aforementioned Swedish Muslim. The answers are from the present American Muslim and are, with a few slight cosmetic changes, essentially the same answers given to the individual from Sweden.

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Question: How did you convert to Islam?

As a war-resister during the Vietnam era, I had gone to Canada. During the early part of my stay in Canada (I lived there for nearly thirty years before moving back to the United States just before 9/11) I became interested in exploring a variety of mystical spiritual traditions – both through an extensive reading program as well as through making contact with some actual teachers of a few of the traditions about which I had been reading.

My interest in spirituality was a continuation of sorts of how my university life began. More specifically, I had gone to university with the idea of becoming a minister in conjunction with one, or another, Christian church, and although, for a variety of reasons, I abandoned this career idea, I remained very interested in many of the sorts of questions most of us ask ourselves: Who am I? Why am I here? What is the purpose of life? How should life be lived? What is the nature of my potential?

At varying points in my life I engaged the foregoing questions through science, philosophy, and spirituality. While I have retained an interest in, and affection, for both science and philosophy, my heart was most drawn to the spiritual side of things.

After reading works by, on, and in relation to Gurdjieff, I became involved with a Gurdjieff group in Toronto. At some point during this period, I became aware that some of Gurdjieff’s teachers apparently had been from the Sufi tradition.

As a result, I began to read a great deal about the Sufi path. Through a strange set of circumstances, I was provided with an opportunity to meet and talk with a Sufi shaykh or teacher who also was professor of Middle East and Islamic Studies at the University of Toronto.

Based on these meetings I decided to focus on the Sufi path. Consequently, I disengaged myself from the Gurdjieff group, and began to associate with the aforementioned Sufi teacher.

In time, I came to understand that the Sufi path could not be separated from the practice of Islam. Although many Muslims seem to think that the Sufi path is sort of a illegitimate, backdoor way of becoming Muslim, I like to think of the Sufi path as the servant’s entrance.

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Question: What made you doubt the official story of 911? 

I did not come to the issue of 9/11 right away. My life circumstances had been in turmoil for quite some time, and these circumstances forced me to have to struggle in a variety of ways just to survive.

On September 11^th, my clock radio awakened me to the news that a plane had crashed into one of the World Trade Towers. I immediately got up and turned on the television and was greeted by some of the ensuing events. However, because there were a number of things happening in my life that, for the most part, kept me away from television, radio, newspapers, and the Internet for some time, I wasn’t really able to immerse myself in the 9/11-issue at that time.

Nevertheless, there was some collateral damage that filtered into my life within days of 9/11. Someone who had been attending some public discussion groups concerning the Sufi path that I had been conducting on and off in the area where I lived reported me to the FBI.

The person who reported me – and I found this out from a friend in whom the individual had confided – indicated that there were many suspicious things about me. For instance, the person told the FBI that I had no visible means of support … I was unemployed at the time and collecting unemployment insurance benefits but, apparently, that person was not aware of this and, therefore, seemed to conclude that I must be funded by some terrorist organization. The person also told the FBI that I had state of the art computer equipment – apparently indicative of a high-tech connection to various terrorist groups … although the reality was that the person didn’t know about computers and failed to understand that although my computer was new, it hardly was state of the art. Finally, the person who reported me to the FBI said that I was very secretive – presumably to hide my allegedly terrorist activities from the public … but the reality was that I lived in an area where there were few Muslims, and even fewer Sufis, and, therefore, I tended to keep to myself and pursue my practices – both Islamic and Sufi – in private.

Initially, I had no problem believing that a group of Muslims might have conspired together to perpetrate the tragedies of 9/11. I had been a Muslim for over twenty-five years and had both traveled in the Muslim world on a number of occasions and, as well, I had been a close witness to the sort of back-stabbing, cut-throat politicking, and jockeying for power that often goes on within the Muslim community, so I was well aware of extremist elements within that community.

At some point during the hearings being held by the 9/11 Commission, I caught some of the televised testimony – especially that of Condoleezza Rice and Richard Clarke – and, as well, I heard some of the so-called Jersey Girls (individuals who had been widowed through the events of 9/11 and who had been instrumental in pressuring for an allegedly public investigation – i.e., The 9/11 Commission -- into the events of 9/11 to take place) on the Chris Mathews cable television show on MSNBC. The questions that were being asked by the women who were referred to as the Jersey Girls struck me as both perceptive and important, and they were raising some fundamental questions about the tenability of the “official conspiracy theory” being promulgated by the government.

At about this same time, I began to have some telephone conversations with a fellow Muslim – an emergency room doctor – who had been among the first responders who assisted at Ground Zero. He told me about his own experiences, and, then, suggested that I read several books by Nafeez Ahmed, a British writer.

I did read those books, and, then, I began to read pretty much everything about 9/11 that I could get my hands on. Eventually this included: The 9/11 Commission Report, The Pentagon Performance Report, and various NIST (National Instituted for Standards and Technology) reports concerning the collapse of the three buildings at the World Trade Center. In addition, I read the Popular Mechanics book: Debunking 9/11 Myths, which was an expanded version of an earlier article that had been written in their magazine. I also read a lot of material that was critical, in one way or another, about all of the foregoing analyses concerning the events of 9/11.

From the very beginning of my research into 9/11, I was not all that interested in the question of who perpetrated 9/11. I thought that all those who were pointing accusing fingers at Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and many others were getting the cart before the horse. First, one must establish the facts – that is, the ‘what -- and, then, one follows those facts wherever they might lead with respect to the ‘who’ of 9/11.

Furthermore, all of the individuals who were getting caught up in the ‘who’ of 9/11 instead of the ‘what’ of 9/11 were having trouble connecting the dots and showing, in any sort of rigorous way, how Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the others actually did what they were alleged to have done. As a result, many rather flimsy and problematic theories concerning the ‘who’ of 9/11 were generated, and, consequently, a whole conspiracy theory industry was generated that led many people to conclude that anyone who questioned the conspiracy theory being promulgated by the government was, oddly enough, a conspiracy theorist who dealt in wild, fringe, ridiculous ideas concerning the events of 9/11.

From the beginning, I was interested in the official government accounts concerning the technical issues surrounding the collapse of the three buildings at the World Trade Tower and the events at the Pentagon. Few people have taken the time to look at the NIST reports concerning the collapse of the three buildings at the World Trade Center or to look at The Pentagon Performance Report concerning what, allegedly took place at the Pentagon on 9/11, and, then, compare those accounts with a wealth of data which is in the public domain and which runs counter to what those different reports have asserted.

There are many things that might be said in this regard, but let me mention just a few things. The essence of NIST’s theory concerning the collapse of the two Twin Towers is that the floor assemblies in the Twin Towers failed (due, supposedly to the effects of intense fires) and, as a result, pulled the outer walls inward until a progressive collapse was initiated that brought the two buildings down. However, Underwriter Laboratories tested the floor assemblies and demonstrated that the theory of NIST was incorrect – that is, the floor assemblies would not have failed under the conditions existing in the Twin Towers on 9/11.

In addition, the simulation studies that NIST ran in conjunction with various facets of their investigation into the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings are not capable of withstanding close, critical analysis. This is true not only with respect to the simulation studies which sought to re-construct the spread and intensity of the fires in the Twin Towers, as well as the simulation studies that focused on the issue of fire-preventing insulation on the iron beams, but the problems with NIST’s simulation studies includes the very important fact that NIST has not been able to construct a computer simulation of the collapse of the Twin Towers which starts from first principles of engineering and material sciences that can be shown to be consistent with what television and still photographs clearly show happened on 9/11.

There have been a variety of theories besides the one put forth by NIST that have been advanced by different scientists and engineers which purportedly explain why the buildings at the World Trade Center collapsed. None of those theories can properly account – that is consistently and in a way that is rigorously and plausibly rooted in actual physical evidence -- for the observed facts.

Among other things, basic laws of physics are violated in all of the foregoing explanations. These include laws such as the conservation of momentum and the conservation of angular momentum.

In fact, NIST was forced to revise its theory concerning the collapse of Building 7 at the World Trade Center when a high school physics teacher, David Chandler, demonstrated that for several seconds the collapse of Building 7 was in free fall. This fact of free fall cannot be explained by NIST or by any other supporter of the official government conspiracy theory concerning 9/11, and the presence of such free fall indicates that there is no conventional, natural way of explaining such a collapse based solely on the a heat-based theory of why Building 7 collapsed – i.e., fires which heated iron beams did not bring down the building, and, so, it leaves open the question of how did Building 7 collapse.

There are many, many, many other facts concerning the disintegration of the Twin Tower – and if a person looks carefully at what happened to the Twin Towers on 9/11, one sees a disintegration of the buildings and not a collapse – that indicate that none of the official theories concerning the cause of the demise of the Twin Towers can account for what has been observed by most of the world. There are many, many other aspects concerning the official explanation for the demise of Building 7 at the World Trade Center complex on 9/11 which are not consistent with the available empirical evidence.

Similarly, if one takes a close look at the events at the Pentagon on the morning of September 11^th, one comes up with a variety of disturbing facts concerning the official account for what allegedly took place at the Pentagon on 9/11. For instance, April Gallop, who had top security clearance at the Pentagon, indicates that she was in the precise place where the official report claimed the commercial jet slammed into the Pentagon. The problem is that she has given testimony indicating that she walked out through the hole in the building caused by ‘the event’ at the Pentagon on 9/11 and although she was in her bare feet, nothing that either her feet or hands touched was hot, that there were no fires, that there was no plane wreckage, no luggage, and no passengers. She also reports that when she was recovering from her injuries in the hospital that a group of men came to her and sought to convince her that a plane had slammed into the Pentagon that day.

In addition, Pierre Henry-Bunel, a French explosives expert who served with General Norman Schwarzkopf during the first Gulf War that involved the United States, has done an extensive analysis of the only video footage that has been released in conjunction with the alleged crash at the Pentagon. His conclusion is that the video does not given evidence of a plane crash but, instead, the evidence is consistent with the possibility that some sort of anti-concrete hollow charge struck the Pentagon on 9/11.

Furthermore, some twenty people, including two Pentagon police officers, as well as a person attached to the Naval Annex near the Pentagon, have come forward and testified that the jet plane which went toward the Pentagon approached the building on the north side of the Citgo gas station which is about a mile from the Pentagon, rather than on the south side of that gas station. This is significant because the entire Pentagon Performance Report is based on the premise that whatever hit the Pentagon approached the building from the south side of the Citgo station, and, among other things, this means that the proposed angle of entry of the plane that supposedly hit the Pentagon which is being advanced by the Pentagon Performance Report is inconsistent with a great deal of other evidence.

There are many other factors concerning the events at the Pentagon that are totally inconsistent with what the Pentagon Performance Report claims happened on 9/11. These other factors have been reported by a variety of professional people, including an array of both commercial and military pilots who have brought forth a great deal of evidence indicating that important elements – including the alleged telemetry reports from the ‘Black Box’ that supposedly survived the alleged plane crash – in the Pentagon Performance Report have been fudged and are inconsistent with the available facts.

None of my concerns about the official government conspiracy theory concerning 9/11 have to do with the ‘who’ of things. They all have to do with questions linked with ‘what’ happened on that day in relation to matters that are entirely empirically and scientifically based.

I reject the official government conspiracy theory concerning 9/11 because its purported explanation of why the Twin Towers and Building 7, as well as its purported explanation of what happened at the Pentagon, are not supported by the facts. In other words, whatever occurred at the World Trade Center and at the Pentagon on 9/11 in relation to material damages, the fact of the matter is that crashing, burning planes cannot account for the observed damage. Therefore, the official government conspiracy theory concerning the events of 9/11 must be re-examined … and, this time, through a process that is completely transparent and run by the people, not government officials. (The interested individual can read more about the issue of September 11th in my book: The Essence of September 11th, both in real world and Kindle formats.) 

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Question: If 911 were exposed, beyond all doubt, as an inside job, what consequences would that have?

How one responds to this question really depends on the identity of the people on the inside. If people such as Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld were responsible – and, although for a variety of reasons that are quite independent of 9/11, I feel that Bush and company have betrayed the American people and the people of the world, I am not convinced that they necessarily had anything to do with 9/11 – then there are tens of millions of Americans whose world view concerning their country will be shattered. If – hypothetically speaking -- people like Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld and others were the ‘insiders’ who were responsible for the tragedy of 9/11, then treason would have been committed at the very highest levels of American government, and the fault lines likely would run in every direction with a concomitant capacity to fracture American society in incalculable ways.

If the alleged perpetrators of 9/11 involved a variety of disgruntled military officers, rogue intelligence agents, and self-serving corporate interests, the collateral damage would still be significant. However, it likely would be a social earthquake of several less orders of magnitude than if the hypothetical insiders were people such as Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld.

In many ways – and for many different financial, economic, political, cultural, and international reasons – the United States is at a ‘tipping point’. There is a great deal of anger in the United States about many things, and if people were to be presented with incontrovertible evidence that American insiders were involved in, or behind, the events of 9/11, this could be the sort of revelation that might push the United States into political collapse, civil war, chaos, or even a military dictatorship.

I’m not sure many people appreciate just how fragile any society is. The difference between being functional and dysfunctional is a lot less than many people might suppose or wish is the case. Moreover, once a country begins the political/cultural slide downhill, it is very difficult to stop or reverse the destructive momentum that has been set in motion.

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Question: Was Israel involved in 911?

I am aware of the evidence indicating that a group of Israelis were witnessed celebrating the events at the World Trade Center in North Bergin, New Jersey -- which is just across the river from the Twin Towers in Manhattan. I am aware that those individuals were later apprehended, taken into custody, and, eventually, were identified as agents of Mossad. I also am aware that those individuals were released under questionable circumstance and that they later appeared on Israeli television bragging about their experiences on 9/11.

I am aware that there were officials connected with the Israeli government whose travel plans were altered prior to 9/11 and, apparently, in direct relation to the impending events of 9/11. However, I also am aware that there were officials within the United States who were warned not to travel by commercial air on 9/11.

I am also aware that an Israeli instant messaging software company seemed to have prior knowledge concerning the impending events of 9/11. On the other hand, I also am aware that David Schippers – the person who was given the job of being Chief Investigative Counsel in the impeachment of Bill Clinton – has come forth and given testimony that three FBI agents approached him indicating that they knew the day, time, and location of the attacks but were being but were encountering resistance from people in the Counterterrorism unit of the FBI, and, therefore, the Israeli software company may have just picked up on information that, actually, was filling the world’s intelligence communities prior to 9/11 and which had been passed on to the United States government by a number of countries – including Israel, Russia, Germany, Egypt, and quite a few other countries.

Because of the behaviors of the Israeli government with respect to Israel’s illegally: occupying Palestinian territory, stealing Palestinian territory, building a wall in Palestinian territory, torturing Palestinians, bulldozing the homes of Palestinians, killing innocent Palestinian children, women, and men, depriving Palestinians of water, and committing any number of war crimes in Lebanon and Gaza, one doesn’t have to go searching for excuses to be able to demonstrate Israel’s status as an out of control rogue state in the international community. However, whether or not, Israel had anything to do with 9/11 is a very different matter.

Israel certainly had agents in the United States who knew things about 9/11 before it occurred. Whether this knowledge was indicative of their merely having done their homework and, therefore, having become independently aware of some of the forces that were at work on 9/11, or whether their prior knowledge was indicative of something much more sinister, I really don’t know.

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Question: In Sweden the media are portraying anybody who doubts the official story as a lunatic. How about in America?

There have been a variety of polls taken in the United States concerning the American public’s perceptions of, and opinions about, the events of 9/11. The last poll I saw – which was done a few years ago -- indicated that roughly a third of the American people have serious questions about the tenability of the official government conspiracy theory.

Unfortunately, the media bears a considerable responsibility for the state of ignorance of many people concerning the actual facts of 9/11. For many individuals, their ideas about the world are fed to them through the filters, biases, prejudices, and vested interests of the media.

I don’t have to invoke any form of conspiracy theory to account for why the media does what it does in conjunction with 9/11. People in the media operate out of individual frameworks that shape their choices.

Like the rest of us, the media is filled with individuals who have fears, anxieties, likes, dislikes, egos, concerns about their career, and who are governed by a great many social expectations arising from those around them that tend to influence how they feel they should behave and believe. I have found very, very few representatives of the media who have done their homework with respect to the facts of 9/11.

By and large, people in the media – both in the United States and elsewhere -- have accepted the view points of other people – often official, government sources -- concerning 9/11 and have conducted little or no independent investigation into the matter. Moreover, even if they were to have conducted such research, if they tried to present it, they would either lose their jobs and/or be branded as conspiracy nuts and/or find themselves at loggerheads with many other people in their surrounding society.

For the most part, people don’t like confrontation, conflict and tension. Consequently, it is easier to let matters like 9/11 go by the wayside rather than have to deal with the unpleasantness that often ensues when one attempts to run counter to the majority social current. The media are no different in this than are most people.

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Question: Let’s say 911 was an inside job. But isn’t there any real Islamic terrorism? We recently saw the bombing of Ali Hujwiri shrine in Pakistan for example. Who was behind that?

There are several questions being asked in the foregoing. First, there is no such thing as Islamic terrorism.

Whatever terrorists there are in the Muslim community, they pursue an ideology or theology that cannot be supported by the Qur’an or the teachings of Islam. They do not pursue an extreme or radical version of Islam, but rather they are advocates of a personal philosophy that offers faulty justifications for the killing, torturing, maiming, and abusing innocent people – both Muslim and non-Muslim.

These are individuals who have made idols of themselves and who bow down to their own self-serving arguments concerning their alleged ‘right’ to accuse, judge, and execute whomever disagrees with their personal philosophies. The Muslims in question are counterfeiters who seek to replace real Islam with their bogus spiritual currency.

Are there bad Muslims in the world? Of course, there are, just as there are bad Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, agnostics, and atheists in the world.

Are some of those bad Muslims involved in terrorist activity? I am sure there are.

However, what Israel is doing in Palestine is also terrorism. Furthermore, what the United States military has been doing in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan is also terrorism.

By definition, terrorism is any act that induces terror in the general public. Israel, and the United States are but two countries among many others that could be mentioned (including many so-called Muslim countries) that, on a regular basis, conduct operations that terrorize the public -- whether through the military, the police, economics, the legal process, religious institutions, politics, the media, or education.

We live in perilous times because, in all too many ways, terrorism is the new religion of the day which, in one form or another, is practiced by many countries, governments, corporations, organizations, educational institutions, and media groups, as well as individuals. The so-called ‘War on Terror’ is being conducted by individuals who are themselves terrorists, and consequently, it has become almost impossible to tell one side from the other.

Consequently, when one cites any particular instance of terrorism – such as the bombing at the Ali Hujwiri shrine in Pakistan – this is like trying to claim that the problem of terrorism comes from only certain kinds of people … the usual suspects. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that we are all being tossed about in a sea of terrorism in which many: individuals, countries, corporations, and organizations are busily churning up the waters of chaos and destruction for their own personal advantage, hatreds, biases, and greed. (The interested individual can read more about the issue of terrorism and other related topics in my book: Unveiling Terrorism, Fundamentalism, and Spiritual Abuse.)

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Question: What is the place of Sufism in Islam? 

Islam is an infinite ocean. Does one drop ask other drops what their place in the ocean is?

Islam refers to a process of struggling toward the realization of one’s primordial human potential or fitrah. Different people pursue this struggle in different ways and with different degrees of intensity and for different purposes and with different goals in mind.

Some people believe that the purpose of life is to achieve paradise and avoid hell. Others believe that the purpose of life is to be discovered through the realization of the spiritual potential that Divinity has gifted to human beings. Other people believe that one needs to learn how to serve the truth in everything one does and that issues like heaven, hell, states, and stations will look after themselves in accordance with God’s wishes.

Who is the Sufi in all of this? So much depends on the purity of both one's niyat, or intention, and sincerity. Allah knows best!

Service and worship are not contained in a name but are given expression through actions and understanding that are thoroughly rooted in taqwa. The Qur’an indicates that the one who has taqwa will be taught discrimination by Allah.

The Qur’an itself distinguishes among: Muslim, Mo’min, and Mohsin. Being a Muslim is not the end of the road, but, rather, being a Muslim merely constitutes the beginning stages of exploring the possibilities inherent in the human condition.

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Questions: Are many Americans attracted to Sufism? 

In al-Hujwiri’s Kashf al-Majub, one of the oldest, extant expositions of the teachings of the Sufi path, the eleventh century saint quotes an earlier, eighth century proponent of the Sufi path as saying: “Once Sufism was a reality without a name, and now it is a name without a reality.”

There are quite a few individuals in the United States today who refer to themselves as Sufi but who do not seem to feel any need to dive into the ocean of Islam and seek to discover the springs from which the Sufi path flows. There are also quite a few individuals in America that refer to themselves as Sufi, but who are unknowingly involved in abusive spiritual relationships with fraudulent shaykhs, and some of these shaykhs are quite well known. There are some individuals in the United States who like to read Sufi literature and like what they read, but this is about as far as the attraction goes. There are some individuals in the United States who have a tendency to label anything that is vaguely spiritual or mystical as being expressions of the Sufi path and, then, proceed to add in whatever ideas and practices that appeal to them. There are some academics in the United States who teach courses on something they call Sufism but who, themselves, have never had an authentic teacher or actually engaged in the Sufi discipline in any sort of rigorous way. There are some individuals in the United States who are associated with authentic shaykhs, but the nature of the association varies with the individual and, consequently, it is difficult to know just how attracted such individuals are to the Sufi path.

There is as much misinformation making the rounds in America concerning the Sufi path as there in relation to Islam, in general. The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) did warn that there were 73 sects in Islam, and only one of them was correct. What is true in Islam is also true with respect to the Sufi path.

How many people in America are attracted to Islam only to be misled by the people with whom they are unfortunate enough to fall in with and associate? How many people in America are attracted to the mystical dimension of Islam only to be misled by the people with whom they have been unfortunate enough to become associated.

Your question is a good one. And, the answer is rather complex and nuanced, and I have do not have any definitive answer for you.

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Question: You wrote a critique of atheist activist, Sam Harris called “Sam Harris And The End Of Faith: A Muslim's Critical Response”. Is there still a future for Faith? 

Faith gives expression to the ratio between a given set of knowns and the relationship of that set with another set which is filled with unknowns. Everybody lives in accordance with faith, whether they are atheists, agnostics, or spiritually inclined.

When one eats breakfast in the morning, it is done with a faith that what one is eating is not contaminated or poisoned. When one takes one’s car to work, this is done with a faith that the car will not have a serious mechanical failure that will cause an accident, and it is done with a faith that other drivers will obey the rules of the road. When one accepts a job or a job promotion it is done with the faith that it will generate more good than harm. When one marries someone, it is done with the faith that the relationship will be successful rather than fall apart. When one goes to the doctor or takes medicine, it is done with the faith that the doctor knows what she or he is talking about or that the company that made the medicine is competent in what they do? When one invests in the stock market, one does so with the faith that the company in which one is investing will pay dividends. When one plans a vacation, it is done with the faith that it will be enjoyable and not a catastrophe. When one votes in an election, it is done with the faith that the person one is voting for will actually serve one’s interests.

Faith enters into our lives thousands of times a day in relation to virtually every aspect of life. We make choices on the basis of faith every single day we are alive.

Human beings are not omniscient. Therefore, there are a great many things that we do not know. How we decide to relate what we do know with what we don’t know is the character of our faith.

Some people don’t like the term “faith”. Consequently, they use words like: prediction; probability; inference; projection; implication; extrapolation; model; theory, and the like. In the end, however, these are all really different species of faith.

Therefore, to answer your question, I believe that faith has a bright future in relation to human beings. Whether, or not, such faith will prove to be constructive in relation to helping to realize the essential nature of being human is above my pay grade. (Those who are interested can read more about my critique of the Sam Harris book in: Sam Harris and the End of Faith: A Muslim's Critical Response)

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Question: Do you think it’s possible to separate Islam from politics? Can you be an apolitical Muslim?

Actually, it is not only possible to separate Islam from politics, but the fact of the matter is, that the presence of politics is a very good indicator that Islam is nowhere close at hand.

I do not subscribe to the idea that shari’ah (so-called Islamic law) necessarily entails either a legal system or a form of governance. There is no such thing as an Islamic state, although there are many Muslim states.

The term shari’ah appears in the Qur’an precisely once – namely, in Surah 45, ayat 18. “O Prophet, we have put you on the right way (shari’ah) concerning Deen, so follow it, and do not yield to the desires of ignorant people.”

In Arabic, one of the primary meanings of the word “shari’ah” is the place where animals come to drink. The related verb “shar’a” refers to the process of taking a drink. There is another word, “shaari” that is derived from the same underlying root and can refer to a way, path, or to the process of determining the nature of such a path or way.

You put all of the foregoing together and shari’ah refers to a process of seeking out a place to drink that which is life-sustaining and to do so in accordance with the nature of the path which determines the relationship among: the drinker, the path to the drinking place, the place to drink, and that which is to be imbibed at the place of drinking. This is the nature of Islam.

There are some people who wish to restrict Islam to just a little more than 500 verses out of a total of more than 6000 verses in the Qur’an and claim that the message of the Qur’an is a legal and political one. I feel that such a perspective does great injustice to a book that nowhere refers to itself as a law book but does refer to itself a means through which all things are explained in detail.

The Qur’an is epistemological and spiritual guidance, not legal guidance. The Qur’an also indicates that there can be no compulsion in the matter of Deen (Surah 2, Verse 256) – that is the process of realizing one’s spiritual potential – and, consequently, I have difficulty understanding how anyone believes that the Qur’an gives them authority to rule over the lives of other people in relation to matters of Deen.

The Qur’an also indicates that: “oppression is worse than slaughter” (Surah 2, Verse 217. And oppression is what takes place when one group of individuals seeks to use political and/or religious forms of compulsion to force other people to comply with the ideological and theological agendas of the former group of individuals.

The problem of regulating the public space is not the purview of religious laws. The problem of regulating the public space is the problem faced by each of us as individuals whenever we interact with that public space and to insure that such interaction is done through: adab, character, and justice.

Adab, character and justice cannot be imposed on people from the outside in. These qualities must come from within.

One can create an environment that is conducive to the nurturing and growth of such qualities. However, such growth will never take place in an atmosphere of political, legal, or religious compulsion and oppression.

The proof of the foregoing is strewn across the Muslim world. Spirituality tends to die in conditions of compulsion and oppression. (If one is so inclined, one can read more about the foregoing ideas in my book: Shari'ah: A Muslim's Declaration of Independence.)

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Question: What is the New World Order that Bush announced on the 11 September 1991?

It is an expression of the arrogance of power as well as the delusional fantasy of those who do not know any better.

The shortest distance between two points is the truth. Unfortunately, the people who dreamed up the New World Order are individuals who are (mathematically speaking) lost in a complex plane among the convolutions of imaginary numbers without any formula for calculating a reliable metric.

Anab Whitehouse