Introduction:
Most religions demand belief in two invisible abstract entities, God and Soul. Billions of people’s lives are shaped around these two ideas. Yet the question remains, whether these two concepts can withstand scientific and logical scrutiny.
This essay does not claim to present any original philosophical discoveries but discusses afresh, the ideas already explored by great thinkers, scientists, logicians and philosophers across centuries, with the latest scientific understanding. The issue is not whether religions provide comfort, culture; arts, music, poetry; or moral guidance. The issue is just whether the central claims of the religions about reality are supported by evidence and logic.
The ‘Creator God’ and ‘Soul’:
Most organized religions are built upon two fundamental concepts –
1) The idea of existence of ‘Creator God’ and
2) The idea of existence of ‘Atma / soul/ spirit’.
Every religion adopts a definite stance about these two concepts. Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism, Judaism etc. believe in one supernatural, supreme, formless, omnipotent ‘Creator God’ who created this universe and governs its functions (monotheism). They also believe in an immortal ‘Soul’ that survives bodily death.
The present-day Hinduism, presided over by the Vedic culture, functions in two levels. It believes in many personal Gods (Polytheism) in practical level but believes in monotheism, the existence of one supreme Creator God, ‘Brahman’ in philosophical level, just like the above mentioned religions. It also believes in the eternal soul, Atma. But it slightly differs from the above religions by claiming multiple lives after death (rebirth) rather than a single afterlife in heaven or hell.
Nastika (non-vedic) religions like Buddhism and Jainism have different views. Buddha denied the existence of Atma and was called Anaathmavaadhi (one who rejects the idea of existence of Atma). But contemporary Buddhism has accepted the idea of existence of Atma, claiming rebirth of specific individuals as Dalai Lamas. Jainism accepted the idea of Atma right from its inception. But these non-vedic religions are agnostic in outlook and are said to be silent about the idea of the Creator God.
Thus we see that most of the organized religions of the world are centered around these two assumptions, the Creator God and Atma. Now, the question arises, ‘how scientifically and logically justified are these assumptions’.
Consciousness and Atma:
We are aware of the existence of our body. We are aware of a mind, thoughts, memory, and consciousness inside that body. According to modern mainstream neuroscience, these phenomena are the functions of the brain and the nervous system. When the body dies, the brain and the nervous system die. When the brain dies, its functions end. Therefore consciousness, mind, thoughts, and memory cease to exist when the life ends.
Walking is a function of the leg. When the leg dies, ‘walking’ ceases. ‘Walking’ alone cannot transcend the dead leg and get into another person’s leg. The function of an organ cannot detach itself and transmigrate. Likewise, the functions of the brain cannot detach themselves from the brain and transmigrate. But many religious scholars equate Atma/ soul to consciousness or mind.
If consciousness or the mind is itself claimed as Atma, then it is clearly vulnerable to physical intervention. An anesthetist can temporarily switch it off and on, during a surgery! Brain injury can alter it. Disease can erase memory and consciousness. So how can Atma be eternal and indestructible, as claimed by the religions?
But what then, is Atma? Do we experience it as an entity independent of our body? What is it that transcends the dead body and goes on to take another new body or an afterlife in heaven or hell?
The Burden of Proof:
The famous Mathematician and Logician, Bertrand Russell argued that the burden of proof lies with the person making a claim. He illustrated this with his famous analogy of a China teapot orbiting around Mars, somewhere in Space. If someone claimed such a teapot existed, the responsibility to prove it lies with the claimant and not with the others to disprove it. He used this argument in his very first article in 1952, ‘Is there a God?’ to question the existence of Creator God.
The same logic of Bertrand Russell holds true for the question of existence of an eternal Atma or Soul that transcends body. Those who claim its existence have to prove it. Without the proof, the claim remains just a claim.
Hence, if religions claim that,
l A Creator God exists,
l Atma, an immortal entity inside our body survives death, Miracles occur,
l Divine beings intervene in human affairs,
then the responsibility to provide convincing evidence rests upon the Religions themselves.
Charles Darwin Richard Dawkins Christopher Hitchens
(1809 – 1882) (1941 born) (1949 – 2011)
Complexity and Evolution:
Related articles
One of the most common arguments for God is the argument from complexity.
Life on Earth is extraordinarily complex, comprising billions of species. Therefore many argue that such complexity could not have arisen by mere chance. They claim it as a result of intelligent design by a Creator God.
Bertrand Russell challenges this reasoning with a simple but powerful question. If complex life requires a designer, then the designer of such immense complexity must be an even more complex entity. In that case, who designed the designer? To this, theists typically respond that God is eternal. He has no beginning or end and has no parents or creator.
Russell exposes the inconsistency in this theory proposed by the Religions. He questions, why not the same logic be applied to the Universe itself. Instead, we marvel at the complexity of the Universe, assume that it should have been created by deliberate design of a Creator and then refuse to question who created the Creator and go on to declare that the Creator is eternal. Hence, the theory of the Creator God does neither answer for the complexity of the Universe nor the origins of the Universe.
So what is the necessity of creating a Creator God? The concept of eternity can directly be applied to the Universe.
This is a Logician’s argument. But evolutionary biology goes further to give an answer to the question, ‘could such complexity appear purely by accident or chance?’. The famous evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins says that so far debates are framed only with a dichotomy of ‘appearing by chance’ and ‘Creation’. He points out the existence of a third possibility, ‘evolution’. The present complexity of life forms neither was designed nor appeared by chance, but evolved through natural selection over millions of years.
The theory of evolution proposed by Charles Darwin some two hundred years ago has now been overwhelmingly supported by evidence through biology, paleantology, genetics and other branches of science. The theory explains how a single replicating cell on this planet has gone on to evolve by natural selection through millions of years, into what we are now.
Richard Dawkins gives innumerable illustrations in his book “The Greatest Show on Earth” to prove that the present complexity of life forms was achieved through evolution by natural selection and not by the ‘Divine Design’. One striking example involves the recurrent laryngeal nerve of the giraffes. Rather than taking the shortest route from the brain to the larynx, the nerve travels down the neck, loops around the heart, and then returns upward. This is a highly inefficient design.
If organisms were independently designed from scratch by a Creator God, such a structure is inelegant. But evolution explains it smoothly. Giraffes evolved from ancestors like fish with no necks, carrying older anatomical pathways with them.
Therefore, Evolution explains both the brilliance and imperfections of biological life far more convincingly than the theory of Design by the Creator God.
“The present complexity of life forms was achieved through evolution by natural selection and not by the ‘Divine Design’. One striking example involves the recurrent laryngeal nerve of the giraffes. Rather than taking the shortest route from the brain to the larynx, the nerve travels down the neck, loops around the heart, and then returns upward. This is a highly inefficient design”
God, the personification of Divinity and Mercy:
Religions describe God as compassionate, merciful and morally perfect. Yet the natural world operates through relentless struggle. Species compete with one another for survival.
At the very foundation of life lies the FOOD CHAIN. Survival and growth for every species is by consuming another form of life. This is not an accidental feature but the main part of the design itself. Predation and suffering; fear and attack; disease, starvation, death and extinction are not exceptions to the design but they are its essential components.
Such a design is not merely inelegant but it completely contradicts the characterization of the Creator as both divine and merciful. A system that requires universal violence, for it to function, raises a profound moral question: how can a world structured upon unavoidable suffering be the design and making of an entity, described as compassionate and merciful?
Earlier, while watching a predator hunt its prey on wildlife documentaries, I used to wonder why a ‘deeply unethical’ act according to the human mind is ‘normal’ within the framework of the Creator God’s design. The explanations offered by various religions conflict with either science or logic.
Zoroastrianism and the Abrahamic religions introduce an additional entity ‘Satan’ as the source of all evil in the world. Yet this merely shifts the problem rather than resolving it, for it immediately raises the unanswered question: who created Satan?
Hinduism offers a different explanation through the doctrine of karma. According to this view, the consequences of a person’s deeds travel with the soul across multiple births of different species, and the nature of each birth and the suffering is determined by accumulated karma.
Implicit in this explanation is the assumption that the soul’s initial birth is ‘human being’, because plants and animals cannot create negative karma (Paapa). This assumption directly contradicts scientific findings. Fossil evidence shows that Homosapiens are among the most recent species to appear on Earth. Human beings were not the starting point of life but a late outcome of evolutionary processes. If karma determines suffering, why did suffering exist on Earth, long before humans appeared?
Moreover, a deeper question remains unanswered. What is the origin of the evil impulses within the human mind that generate negative karma in the first place? If these tendencies arise within the framework of a divinely designed universe, then they too must fall within the scope of the Creator’s design.
Natural selection, as presented by Science, is not guided by compassion, justice, or morality. It is a blind process. Species survive not because nature is ethical, but because successful adaptations survive. Thus, Evolutionary theory makes the picture more intelligible.
(to be continued)
