Religion & Ethics

More than just a curry
The Edinburgh Central Mosque Kitchen is famous amongst locals for its excellent food. However, the goals of its employees are much loftier than simply serving great curry. They wish to forge good relations and build trust with the local community.
Eric, a regular at the kitchen says, “I really like it, it’s kind of multicultural. It makes it interesting, a bit more exotic.” That is one of the core ideas behind the kitchen. Creating a multicultural atmosphere lends itself to an open and honest relationship with the community, something that the staff at the kitchen are very aware of the need for.

Shafqet, one of the senior members of the kitchen says “Because of 9/11, that’s when the awareness that we actually had to open our eyes and interact with the community a lot more, to let people see what’s actually going on.” The image that the kitchen is trying to portray is one of openness and fairness to everyone regardless of faith, nationality or culture. This is also one of the core messages of Islam itself. Yet there is no sense of preaching here; respect is given to all religions equally.The people at the kitchen want to help prevent the stereotyping of Islam that can occur by being as open as possible. Anyone can go to the kitchen and indeed anyone can visit inside the Mosque itself. Currently, there is an Islamic exhibition which is intended to help educate people about Islam and through this help create a better understanding between peoples and faiths.
The kitchen has had continued success amongst the people of Edinburgh and its many visitors. However, the good-natured and generous spirit that exists at the kitchen does not end there. There are a number of charities that the kitchen supports such as a girls' orphanage and a free medical unit, which treats up to 60 patients a day. They receive no outside funding whatsoever and do not promote their endeavours to the public or the customers. “What we do we do from our heart and we don't do it for recognition” This seems typical of the philosophy surrounding the establishment.
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One thing that can be said without hesitation is that the kitchen has integrated well into the Edinburgh community and culture. The hundreds of people that pour through the kitchen’s doors every week demonstrates this. The food may be excellent but it is the kitchen’s ability to warm the heart and souls of the Edinburgh people that has made it a true success.

Arranged marriage 're-think' call

Arranged marriage has been a part of life for Sikhs in Edinburgh since the community arrived in the city in the 1950's.

But a rise in the number of traditional arranged marriages has led to calls for emergency action from community leaders and parents alike.
Edinburgh has a Sikh community of about 400 people who all worship at a single Gurdwara, or Sikh Temple, in Leith.
Traditionally, parents have chosen a suitable partner for their children, with the family arranging the resultant wedding.
And, until now, not meeting your bride until the wedding day itself has been the norm.
However, community elders have told the BBC Asian Network these marriages have increasingly been breaking down, with an unprecedented two splits in a single month.
It has led some to question whether old-fashioned values may not be working for a new generation of young Sikhs.
"We've been having meetings trying to solve it, trying to find out why marriages are breaking down so quickly," said Ragbir Singh, vice president of Edinburgh Gurdwara.
"Some marriages are breaking down within the first five or six weeks."

The Sikh community in Edinburgh is very proud of its traditional values and prides itself on the fact that strict arranged marriages have lasted so long in the city.


Elders admit other cities in the UK have not had the same success in keeping tradition alive, with families adapting more quickly to western ways.
Father-of-three Gary Singh did not meet his wife until his wedding day.
The 39-year-old said recent breakups in the community meant his sons may have to do things differently.
"A lot of people in England do that now, they're starting to move on," he said.
"They're taking their children with them, they'll go to their family and meet up and go for a coffee. Let the boy and girl talk.
"We don't do that in Edinburgh. Edinburgh's probably still in the dark ages. We're not moving fast that's the thing, but we're starting to see all these problems happening."
This difference in Edinburgh's community is something that 21-year-old Sonny Singh is all too aware of.
He was born and brought up in the city and is now a student. He said, during visits to England, he noticed more modern practices.
"You could say it's pretty old-school here," he said.
"I would really say it's more Westernised down south. When I went down to London or Manchester, the Sikh community there, they don't intrude on your personal lives and they're more open than what it is in Edinburgh."
'Must modernise'
Despite being only 21, Sonny values the traditionalism he has grown up with. He said it had kept families and communities close.
Ragbir, Gary and Sonny all talk very fondly of the huge Sikh family gatherings they have experienced in Edinburgh, and said it was tradition which has served to bind the community.
However, Sonny said bringing some aspects of these traditions more in line with Western culture was key to their survival.
He said he was not opposed to an arranged marriage, but not one so strict that he could not get to know his bride.
"I still believe the parents should be happy as well," he said, adding: "I would prefer to still get married to a Sikh because I was brought up that way.
This, it appears, is the solution the whole community has been coming to - adapting marriages without losing heritage.
Edinburgh's Sikh's are proud of their tight-knit, hand-picked community, but most understand it must modernise if it wants to stay that way.
Gary said: "Children are now standing up to their parents saying, 'I'm not happy with this, I want to do what I want to do in life'.
"This is where all the friction's coming in. Sometimes the boy's maybe fallen out with his parents because of it. Things are just starting to change."

Evolutionary psychology of religion

Although evolutionists had previously sought to understand and explain religion in terms of a cultural attribute which might conceivably confer biological advantages to its adherents, Richard Dawkins called for a re-analysis of religion in terms of the evolution of self-replicating ideas apart from any resulting biological advantages they might bestow. He argued that the role of key replicator in cultural evolution belongs not to genes, but to memes replicating thought from person to person by means of imitation. These replicators respond to selective pressures that may or may not affect biological reproduction or survival.
In her book, The Meme Machine, Susan Blackmore regards religions as particularly tenacious memes. Many of the features common to the most widely practiced religions provide built-in advantages in an evolutionary context, she writes. For example, religions that preach of the value of faith-based belief over evidence from everyday experience or reason inoculate societies against many of the most basic tools people commonly use to evaluate their ideas. By linking altruism with religious affiliation, religious memes can proliferate more quickly because people perceive that they can reap societal as well as personal rewards. The longevity of religious memes improves with their documentation in revered religious texts.
Aaron Lynch attributed the robustness of religious memes in human culture to the fact that they incorporate multiple modes of meme transmission. Religious memes pass down the generations from parent to child and across a single generation through proselytism. Most will hold the religion taught them by their parents throughout their life. Many religions feature adversarial elements, punishing apostasy, for instance, or demonizing infidels. In Thought Contagion Lynch identifies the memes of transmission in Christianity as especially powerful in scope. Believers view the conversion of non-believers both as a religious duty and as an act of altruism. The promise of eternity in heaven to believers or hell to non-believers provides a strong incentive to accept and retain Christian faith. Lynch asserts that belief in the crucifixion in Christianity amplifies each of its other replication advantages through the indebtedness believers have to their Savior for sacrifice on the cross. The image of the crucifixion recurs in religious sacraments, and the proliferation of symbols of the cross (itself a meme) in homes and churches potently reinforces the wide array of Christian memes.

Religion and Science

Religious knowledge, according to religious practitioners, may be gained from religious leaders, sacred texts (scriptures), and/or personal revelation. Some religions view such knowledge as unlimited in scope and suitable to answer any question; others see religious knowledge as playing a more restricted role, often as a complement to knowledge gained through physical observation. Some religious people maintain that religious knowledge obtained in this way is absolute and infallible (religious cosmology).

The scientific method gains knowledge by testing hypotheses to develop theories through elucidation of facts or evaluation by experiments and thus only answers cosmological questions about the physical universe. It develops theories of the world which best fit physically observed evidence. All scientific knowledge is subject to later refinement in the face of additional evidence. Scientific theories that have an overwhelming preponderance of favorable evidence are often treated as facts (such as the theories of gravity or evolution).

Early science such as geometry and astronomy was connected to the divine for most medieval scholars. The compass in this 13th century manuscript is a symbol of God's act of creation.

Many scientists have held strong religious beliefs (see List of Christian thinkers in science) and have worked to harmonize science and religion. Isaac Newton, for example, believed that gravity caused the planets to revolve about the Sun, and credited God with the design. In the concluding General Scholium to the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, he wrote: "This most beautiful System of the Sun, Planets and Comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being." Nevertheless, conflict has repeatedly arisen between religious organizations and individuals who propagated scientific theories that were deemed unacceptable by the organizations. The Roman Catholic Church, for example, has in the past reserved to itself the right to decide which scientific theories were acceptable and which were unacceptable. In the 17th century, Galileo was tried and forced to recant the heliocentric theory based on the medieval church's stance that the Greek Hellenistic system of astronomy was the correct one.

Many theories exist as to why religions sometimes seem to conflict with scientific knowledge. In the case of Christianity, a relevant factor may be that it was among Christians that science in the modern sense was developed. Unlike other religious groups, as early as the 17th century the Christian churches had to deal directly with this new way to investigate nature and seek truth.

The perceived conflict between science and Christianity may also be partially explained by a literal interpretation of the Bible adhered to by many Christians, both currently and historically. The Catholic Church has always held with Augustine of Hippo who explicitly opposed a literal interpretation of the Bible whenever the Bible conflicted with Science. The literal way to read the sacred texts became especially prevalent after the rise of the Protestant reformation, with its emphasis on the Bible as the only authoritative source concerning the ultimate reality. This view is often shunned by both religious leaders (who regard literally believing it as petty and look for greater meaning instead) and scientists who regard it as an impossibility.

Some Christians have disagreed or are still disagreeing with scientists in areas such as the validity of Keplerian astronomy, the theory of evolution, the method of creation of the universe and the Earth, and the origins of life. On the other hand, scholars such as Stanley Jaki have suggested that Christianity and its particular worldview was a crucial factor for the emergence of modern science. In fact, most of today's historians are moving away from the view of the relationship between Christianity and science as one of "conflict" — a perspective commonly called the conflict thesis. Gary Ferngren in his historical volume about Science & Religion states:

In the Bahá'í Faith, the harmony of science and religion is a central tenet. The principle states that that truth is one, and therefore true science and true religion must be in harmony, thus rejecting the view that science and religion are in conflict. `Abdu'l-Bahá, the son of the founder of the religion, asserted that science and religion cannot be opposed because they are aspects of the same truth; he also affirmed that reasoning powers are required to understand the truths of religion and that religious teachings which are at variance with science should not be accepted; he explained that religion has to be reasonable since God endowed humankind with reason so that they can discover truth. Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith, described science and religion as "the two most potent forces in human life."

Proponents of Hinduism claim that Hinduism is not afraid of scientific explorations, nor of the technological progress of mankind. According to them, there is a comprehensive scope and opportunity for Hinduism to mold itself according to the demands and aspirations of the modern world; it has the ability to align itself with both science and spiritualism. This religion uses some modern examples to explain its ancient theories and reinforce its own beliefs. For example, some Hindu thinkers have used the terminology of quantum physics to explain some basic concepts of Hinduism such as Maya or the illusory and impermanent nature of our existence.

The philosophical approach known as pragmatism, as propounded by the American philosopher and psychologist William James, has been used to reconcile scientific with religious knowledge. Pragmatism, simplistically, holds that the truth of a set of beliefs can be indicated by its usefulness in helping people cope with a particular context of life. Thus, the fact that scientific beliefs are useful in predicting observations in the physical world can indicate a certain truth for scientific theories; the fact that religious beliefs can be useful in helping people cope with difficult emotions or moral decisions can indicate a certain truth for those beliefs. (For a similar postmodern view, see grand narrative).

Middle and Modern period

The Middle Ages (800 AD-1500 AD) was a time of philosophical development for several major religions. As Christianity became the focus of scholarship throughout Europe, Buddhist missions were sent to East Asia, and Islam was spread throughout the Middle East, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, North Africa and parts of Europe and India. Meanwhile, the decline of Buddhism in India led to the flourishing of folk religion there.

Many medieval religious movements emphasized mysticism, such as the Cathars and related movements in the West, the Bhakti movement in India and Sufism in Islam. Monotheism was articulated distinctly in Christian Christology and in Islamic Tawhid. Hindu monotheist notions of Brahman likewise reached their classical form with the teaching of Adi Shankara.

Religion was the dominant ideology behind many conflicts of the Middle Ages. Muslims were in conflict with Zoroastrians during the Islamic conquest of Persia; Christians were in conflict with Muslims during the Byzantine-Arab Wars, Crusades, Spanish Reconquista and Ottoman wars in Europe; Christians were in conflict with Jews during the Crusades, Reconquista and Inquisition; Shamans were in conflict with Buddhists, Taoists, Muslims and Christians during the Mongol invasions; and Muslims were in conflict with Hindus and Sikhs during Muslim conquest in the Indian subcontinent.

Modern period
European colonisation during the 15th to 19th centuries resulted in the spread of Christianity to Sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas, Australia and the Philippines. The 18th century saw the beginning of secularisation in Europe, rising to notability in the wake of the French Revolution. By the 20th century, religion was no longer the dominant ideological force behind international wars, but had generally been unseated by political ideals such as democracy and communism.

In the 20th century, the regimes of Communist Eastern Europe and Communist China were explicitly anti-religious. A great variety of new religious movements originated in the 20th century, many proposing syncretism of elements of established religions. Adherence to such new movements is limited, however, remaining below 2% worldwide in the 2000s. Adherents of the classical world religions account for more than 75% of the world's population, while self-reported alliegance to indigenous folk religions has fallen to 4%. As of 2005, an estimated 14% of the world's population identifies as nonreligious.

Criticism of religious belief

The most widely known Western criticism of religious constructs and their social consequences has come from atheists and agnostics. Anti-Catholic/anti-Christian sentiment first gathered force during the 18th century European Enlightenment through pioneering critics such as Voltaire and his fellow Encyclopedists, who were for the most part deists. The French Revolution then instituted what later became known as secularism, a constitutional declaration of the separation of church and state. In addition to being adopted by the new French and United States republics, secularism soon came to be adopted by a number of nation states, both revolutionary and post-colonial. Marx famously declared religion to be the "opium of the people".[36] This conception was applied in the state atheism of social systems inspired by Marx's writings, most notably in the Soviet Union and China, and most notoriously in Cambodia, although Marx himself believed that religion would disappear by itself once the perceived social ills of capitalism were eliminated, therefore requiring no actual repression of religion. Systematic criticism of the philosophical underpinnings of religion paralleled the upsurge of scientific discourse within industrial society. T.H. Huxley in 1869 coined the term "agnostic," a term subsequently adopted by such figures as Robert Ingersoll. Later, Bertrand Russell told the world Why I Am Not a Christian.
Many contemporary critics fault religion as being irrational. Some assert that dogmatic religions are in effect morally deficient, elevating to moral status ancient, arbitrary, and ill-informed rules—taboos on eating pork, for example, as well as dress codes and sexual practices—possibly designed for reasons of hygiene or even mere politics in a bygone era.
In North America and Western Europe the social fallout of the 9/11 attacks contributed in part to the appearance of numerous pro-secularist books, such as The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, The End of Faith by Sam Harris, and God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens. This criticism is largely, but not entirely, focused on the monotheistic Abrahamic traditions.

Mysticism and esotericism of Religion

Mysticism focuses on methods other than logic, but (in the case of esoteric mysticism) not necessarily excluding it, for gaining enlightenment. Rather, meditative and contemplative practices such as Vipassanā and yoga, physical disciplines such as stringent fasting and whirling (in the case of the Sufi dervishes), or the use of psychoactive drugs such as LSD, lead to altered states of consciousness that logic can never hope to grasp. However, regarding the latter topic, mysticism prevalent in the 'great' religions (monotheisms, henotheisms, which are perhaps relatively recent, and which the word 'mysticism' is more recent than,) includes systems of discipline that forbid drugs that can damage the body, including the nervous system.
Mysticism (to initiate) is the pursuit of communion with, or conscious awareness of ultimate reality, the divine, spiritual truth, or Deity through direct, personal experience (intuition or insight) rather than rational thought. Mystics speak of the existence of realities behind external perception or intellectual apprehension that are central to being and directly accessible through personal experience. They say that such experience is a genuine and important source of knowledge.
Esotericism is often spiritual (thus religious) but can be non-religious/-spiritual, and it uses intellectual understanding and reasoning, intuition and inspiration (higher noetic and spiritual reasoning,) but not necessarily faith (except often as a virtue,) and it is philosophical in its emphasis on techniques of psycho-spiritual transformation (esoteric cosmology). Esotericism refers to "hidden" knowledge available only to the advanced, privileged, or initiated, as opposed to exoteric knowledge, which is public. All religions are probably somewhat exoteric, but most ones of ancient civilizations such as Yoga of India, and the mystery religions of ancient Egypt, Israel (Kabbalah,) and Greece are examples of ones that are also esoteric.