Morality is a crucial issue of the contest between the religious and the nonreligious. Believers claim that morality demands a moral lawgiver, and he is God. But we know that religious, moral code is deeply fallacious. God’s as absolute lawgiver is ridiculous as the concept and a morally perfect God contradicts morality.

Believers claim that God gives a perfect and infallible moral code that applies to every human. But there are thousands of religions, and every religion puts forward moral principles and commandments that contradict other religions. In this case, any religious diety’s moral authority is unaccountable and at par with the notion of a universal morality given by a creator/creators. Jewish God, Christian God, and Muslim God are generally viewed as the same diety with contrasting and contradictory moral principles. Jewish and Muslim God allows polygamy, but according to Christian God, it is a grave sin.

Two different religions contradict morality on nearly all matters. So when we concern ourselves with the issue of a universal character, religions offer us no help. At this point, we have to turn towards Philosophy and science. Philosophy offers a thousand different paradigms of morality. But today, our morality has to be more practical and real than philosophical arguments.

Science is a tool that is rooted in reality. Scientific principle tests different abstractions against reality and singles out the ones that are real. But science will never be able to give us an honest answer to many fundamental questions. One cannot decide to be “Pro-life” or “Pro-abortion” based on science. But what can science give us?

We can write down all the moral principles in a hundred thousand-page book. We would need people to enforce these laws. Enforcers can be people or Artificial intelligence. But what happens when the enforcers are dishonest and stop following the rules themselves? To avoid such a situation, we need enforcers that are honest. But honesty is not a principle, but it is a trait of a person or authority who gives us a just principle.

When people write a moral principle or law, they need to be honest. So honesty needs to be there to devise a moral code and also to act upon it. Honesty is rooted in truth, the truth can have many philosophical or religious definitions, but we will only concern ourselves with the general notion of truth and falsity that every person inherently knows. So now we know one part of honesty revolves around believing in the truth and rejecting falsity. But knowing the truth about a problem is not enough. One has to be willing to act to solve the problem in light of truth and falsity. This is the responsibility that the enactors of law and its enforcers have to bear. If the enforcers and enactors are unwilling to fulfill their responsibility, then the moral code is totally ineffective. Though it is the Ten Commandments or a country’s constitution, both are ineffective without responsibility.

Responsibility in itself is a vague notion. We cannot derive the real sense of responsibility into black and white in a person. Where does responsibility stem from? A mother knows when to feed a baby, a father knows how to save his child from falling down the second floor, keeps a watchful eye,  we have to walk our dogs every day. People just know their responsibilities. Many of us are in pain and still fulfill our responsibility; we take them as duties.

So why do we do our duty, why we choose to act when we can at the same time ignore to act? Why do we choose pain to fulfill a duty? The simple answer is that we fear the consequences that will occur if we fail to do our duty. But there are many situations where we can genuinely ignore our duties without any personal consequences, but even then, many of us choose to act at the expense of pain and suffering. What motivates us in such a situation?

We see a helpless kitten in the street, and we choose to adopt it. What drives us here? In a simple sense, it’s empathy.

What is empathy? It is the sensibility towards someone else’s pain. We don’t want someone else to suffer, and empathy is the driving force behind all kinds of moral responsibility. It saves other people or beings from pain. It takes the responsibility to help others to save them from minor or terrible consequences. It not only saves others from pain, but it takes joy in saving others from pain. So, in the end, if there is no empathy, even the thousands of moral laws over hundreds of thousands of pages will be totally ineffective without empathy.

Empathy cultivates responsibility, and only responsibility can lead to true morality that saves us from pain and discomfort. empathic people are honest and morally just. They are the ones who inspire others to do what is right, and an honest person is the one who commands a good change in society.

But how do we cultivate empathy? In a sense, empathy already exists in human beings. We are a social species that interact with each other. Our brains are the most efficient biological machines. The key to empathy lies in our brains. We have mirror neurons, that fire when we see someone else suffer. In a way, we can feel their suffering. Mirror neurons start firing in the same part of our brain when we see a wounded hand, and these neurons make us want to help these people as we want to help ourselves.

But how can we cultivate empathy in society? The answer is not easy, and I am not qualified to give an answer. But I believe the study of humanities, literature, and art can make people more sensitive and empathic. Also, logic, philosophy, and science make us more empathic as they give us more profound knowledge of truth and reality. This means an educated society tends to be more empathic, So lower crime rates and just laws result from better education.

But a perfect moral code and a perfect application of such a moral code is a utopia. Not all people are equally empathic, which means a utopia can never exist, but education can make people more empathic and honest which will lead to a better society. Education and low crime rates have a direct relationship. We have more than enough data that the more educated you are, the less likely you are to commit horrible crimes.

The post Empathy is the mother of Morality appeared first on Ghalib Kamal.

Is god imagination or reality? is another imaginary character? Are his properties similar to real people or things or his properties relate to imaginary and fictional characters. We can find him in many books, pictures, and depictions throughout human history. But can god pass the test of critical thinking?

The sky is beautiful, as far as the eye can see one can observe it, it is just perfect, there is nothing else like it. But think why the sky is blue? Some people might reason saying God has created it in blue, and others will say that water vapor suspended in the atmosphere makes the sky blue. Are the water vapors suspended in the atmosphere the actual sky? Why do they look blue to us? We can say light hitting our retinas is giving a signal to our brains; this signal forms a blue picture in our imagination.

Brain distinguishes between different kinds of sensory information, and It perceives a particular wavelength of light as blue. The existence of things with varying properties in our environment is a reality. Our brain forms a cerebral image, which is our perception of reality. This image is a product of reality.

Every cerebral thought is not a fact. The brain has other pictures and mental images that are purely fictional and imaginary.

Let us imagine a scenario. If I ask, what is a horse? Your answer will be, it is an animal with four legs and a long neck which eats grass and runs fast. But If I ask. What does a fairy look like? Everyone will have a different answer. Someone will say it has two wings. Someone else will say it has four wings, and someone else will say fairies are blondes or brunettes. Different people give a contradictory explanation because fairies are imaginary characters. If we ask what does a horse look like, people of sound mind will have almost the same answer.

If several people explain the qualities of a fairy, it would be difficult to guess who is being described.

Imagination creates a lot of fictional characters, and these fictional characters have unlimited variation. Real things have real properties, which are independent of imagination. Our senses give us precise information about real things.

You see fictional images of vampires created by artists. An artist creates a vampire, and he transfers his imagination on the canvas. Every artist will create a different vampire. No two artists will produce the same Count Dracula. In some pictures, Count Dracula has blonde hair whereas in others, black.

The word god has a different meaning for everyone. Just like the other fictional characters concept of god has been different for different people at different times in history. Humans worshipped many things through the history. Evn today people worship Cows, Sun, Moon, Stars and many other things as gods.

God is an imaginary character as the concept of god has the same properties as any other fictional character. If God was really there will be no contradiction in his properties.

Different religions have different gods. Horses in every part of the world are almost the same, water is the same. Water has a different word in every language Consequently, the real-world thing like the word water, pani, or aab represents the same thing everywhere in the world, though the words are different the reality is the same. But is god real? is he fiction? is he a product of our imagination?

If God is real then his explanation should be simple. He should be easily explainable. There should be anonymity and consensus about his properties among humankind. But such an agreement is imagination in itself and it is unachievable and impossible because it wouldn’t be wrong to say such a consensus is as impossible as the existence of God itself.

The post God! Imagination or reality? Is he fiction? appeared first on Ghalib Kamal.