The arrogance of secularists

By batsman 

This is not about whether God exists or does not exist. This is not a discussion about whether God exists or not under the guise of whether prayers work or not. This is not about empirical proofs.

Since neither science nor logic can prove whether God exists or not, I think it is a waste of time to discuss this with secularists. What is marginally more fruitful is a discussion on the arrogance of secularists. 

Just because scientists discovered some physical laws of the material world and were able not only to repeat their discoveries but also use them to invent new powerful machines (mostly weapons of war, but also efficient industrial machinery), the secularists believe they have the right solutions to everything including their marginalization of Faith. I challenge this arrogance and put it to you that this belief in “almighty secularism” is also based on faith – a faith that is faulty and weak. 

I grant that the capitalists with their weapons of war, their industrial and communications machines and their commercial and financial might are indeed powerful. It is precisely this power that they use to marginalize Faith, but this is still not adequate so they have to co-opt science as the new religion of the secularists. 

Science is a new religion to some. Just to give a simple example – how many commentators in Malaysia-Today understand the theory of relativity and the maths that go into it? How many truly understand quantum mechanics or string theory? Yet these simpletons, many of whom never pass Form 5 roar mightily about the Theory of Relativity, the absolute truth of science and put up Einstein as their demi-god. Their confidence is based on the understanding of others. If this is not an act of faith, what is? 

Even the real men of science admit that about 73% of the universe comprise of an unknown entity or entities which they call vaguely dark matter and dark energy. Yet with only about 27% of the universe that real scientists can see, touch or measure, some arrogant secularists even claim to deny the existence of God. If this is not arrogance, what is? 

There was a time when scientists claimed that what cannot be seen measured, felt or detected is not matter or energy and therefore does not exist. The 73% dark matter and dark energy cannot be seen, measured, felt or detected. By right they shouldn’t exist, yet the mathematical calculations go haywire and the numbers cannot be explained without dreaming up something called dark matter and dark energy. One of the holy grails of science is now to be able to detect dark energy. Imagine what can be accomplished if dark energy can not only be detected but harnessed! Energy galore! Great dreams for something which cannot be seen, measured or detected. Is it any different from believing that God exists? 

Yet some arrogant secularists go around claiming that science is absolute truth. 

There is even dispute about global warming and the dispute is so serious that suppression is used in the form of denial of scientific grants and denial of publishing benefits to those in the “heretical” camp. 

They used to say that the melting of the polar ice-caps will flood the world. Now that some of the ice has melted, they say it has been miscalculated and the effect is “not so bad”. Yet some arrogant secularists still go around claiming that science is the absolute truth. If this is not a form of religious fanaticism, what is? 

They used to treat the Theory of Evolution as the absolute truth. Those who taught anything else in schools were sacked or forced to resign. Now they are saying that the Theory of Evolution has to be slightly adapted to new findings. After all, natural selection may be influenced by female selection and these days it may even be wholly dependent on viral selection. 

Viruses are now said to be necessary for mammalian (and thus also human) birth and that the human genome may just be a compilation of various viral genes (apes have now taken second place). This theory just about gives the classical Theory of Evolution a whack out of alignment, yet some arrogant secularists continue to oppress creationists and treat creationists as heretics who need to be burned at the stake of scientific orthodoxy. If this is not scientific obsession of the religious kind, what is? 

Even the much vaunted physical laws of the material world seem to apply only on the earth and thereabouts. In 73% of the unknown universe and especially inside the black holes, physical laws don’t seem to apply. The universe itself is said to begin as a small pea or baseball sized “something” that blew up and became eternal in size. Shades of Gungamesh of Babylonian “scientific” thought? How is this explanation more understandable to the ordinary person than the old one that the universe was created by God? Don’t mention the ordinary person – I think even university graduates have problems with this theory of the Big Bang. 

Things have become so bizarre that the newest theory – String Theory, says that reality comprises up to 12 dimensions and our universe is just one of them (comprised of 3 or 4 dimensions). This means that there are other dimensions that we cannot see, cannot measure and cannot detect. With so much at stake, some secularists still have the arrogance to claim definitively that God does not exist. 

What can you say about these secularists? In my view, they are just exercising power possessed by capitalist scientific orthodoxy to suppress and marginalize Faith. These people must have the first word and the last word and all the words in between. It has nothing to do with the humility of life and Truth. 

Seriously – I personally don’t think these arrogant secularists are very much different from UMNO.