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“What disturbs me most is the rise of religious certainty. Be it Hindu, Islamic or Christian fundamentalism.” Says a friend, well-known for his intellectual depth. This position is one that many “of us” will agree with. Implicitly ‘our own’ position of Western liberalism, a product of atheism is portrayed as non-fundamentalist. Is this really true? Or is the Plural, Western Liberal stance as much a form of fundamentalism as any other?

“We are in a time of siege. Whether it is the Gujarat Carnage. Or the Iraq carnage.’ To quote Githa Hariharan loosely, at the book reading for her book ‘In Times of Siege’, few years ago. We are under siege by conservatism in different forms, was the underlying implication of her talk and her polemical book. The fact is Githa’s protagonist was similar to someone she detests - President Bush. Both are going about their lives. Both are rudely shaken out of their complacence by fundamentalists. Githa’s protagonist has the post-modern cop-out of being powerless. Bush better armed and less wimpish bops them on the head. Githa's liberaism enlightened to her is no less rigid, no less an orthodoxy.

Now most of us see fundamentalism as religious: Islamic, Hindu or Christian fundamentalism. Actually few of us the true fundamentalism of our times lies elsewhere.

It is clear to us ‘that all humans are equal, that all those from varied cultures are equal, that one religious belief structure should not dominate another’. What is not so clear is that underlying matrix of beliefs and systems that today justify and support such freedoms are distortive, fundamentalist and restrictive in other ways.

These beliefs form a neo-religion that we can call Plural-Coated-Technocratic-Fundamentalism or the spawn of medieval science. It has its statements of faith that are unquestionable. They are written into laws, are part of virtually every system of governance.

- The physical is all that exists.
- The universe and consciousness is a product of blind chance.
- Man is a beast restrained by a thin veneer of rationality.
- All man’s actions are driven by selfishness.
- Meaning is rooted in a meaningless dance of the physical.
- God is dead. God does not exist. An overarching intelligence does not exist, but an overaching principle can.
- The only truths possible are scientific. The only source of power is technology.

The question is do you or I believe in this set of beliefs?

There is a fable where two warring rabbits had an arbitarator, a monkey. Accusing each other of having an unfair share of the pie, the monkey took bites of the rabbits' pie till he ate it all. who is the arbitarator that seemingly brings us together but is eating up the pie in entirety?

The So-Called Neutral Umpire is Not Neutral: A recent Catholic Bishop’s Conference has termed the monkey Atheistic Secularism {2016}. Now we have lived in the rainshadow of Fundamental Religions. And few of us want to return there. An Inquistional Christianity. A Caste-Imprisoning Hinduism. A By-The-Sword Islam.

The vast population of Man, 80% believes there is a greater power, force and principle. That underpins existence. But because differences in faith exist, because each fiercely propounds its views. Burning heretics, pushing believers into narrow pens of belief. Each fiercely suspicious of the other has chosen a so-called neutral umpire, a monkey. But the umpire is not neutral, the monkey is a monkey.

Plural-Coated-Fundamentalism or what the Catholic Church terms Atheistic Secularism is a fundamentalism. Make no mistake it is a Fundamentalism.

 

The Bias is there for all to see: Salman Rushdie’s protection by Britain for his book on the prophet is arguably, not because anyone believed in his book or placed any value to it, but because it serves the atheistic fundamentalism in its fight versus fundamentalist Islam. If the book au contraire had been about Christ there would have been less fuss. But also the book would have been thrown in the rubbish heap for its lack of depth.

Joyous Man Versus Damned Man:  ‘Truths are objective and ahuman, Humans are subjective and irrational’ is a core statement of belief of pre-quantum science. The so-called neutrality that atheistic secularism gives mankind is at a great price.

The basic premise of pluralism, of atheistic secularism is not that we are all innately wonderful. But we Humans are all equally suspect. At the heart of Fundamentalist Pluralism is the belief that a society built on the ‘non-scientific’ basis that man is not a purely material being leads one to the medievalism that the inquisitionary church typified. From this perspective, any who uphold the innate spirituality of man as the basis for a civilisation are misguided and dangerous. A classic case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

The Rationalist blind faith in Selfish Man has no scientific basis. The simple truth is both scientists and spiritualists acknowledge the same principles. As strong as man's selfishness is man's altruism says both psychologists and developmental biologists. Precisely what all spiritualists broadly hold. We have both sides, the petty and the wondrous.

Dawkins talks about the selfish gene that presumes the gene has a self.

The only source of meaning is meaninglessness. The physicalism at the core of Western science relentlessly turns a root assumption or rather prejudice into a finding. From the meaningless movement of atoms the universe and we have risen by some blind chance argues medieval science. Life then is simply meaningless. Or rather meaning is merely the sops we use to keep ourselves sane. Now this belief that we are just happenchance that will be extinguished totally creates a frenzied state of anxiety-driven greed that some equate with happiness.

But none of this is essentially scientifically true. At a sub atomic level, every electron and quark behaves in quixotic ways. As if possessed by a whimsicality. Every fact is only an observed fact. Predicating awareness at every level. The observer shifts every observation is a fundamental quantum truth. But it is not a fact that its bastard child rationalism has internalised. At a deeper level, scientists themselves argue that The Earth is a living entity. That a vast low level intelligence pervades the universe.

We have all heard of Newton, few of us have heard of another mathematician, physicist, scientist and thinker, Leibnitz; he held the the atom or monad far from being duh, just matter compressed into a billiard ball was intelligent it is precisely what many physicists and scientist tend towards.

The tottering of Fundamentalist technocracy.
The religion of Fundamentalist technocracy which ruled the world from the renaissance till today however is now with its back to the wall. While every certainty has been stripped, quixotically its power has grown infinitely. The irritating vagueness of quantum uncertainties showed black and white Aristotlean logic to be hopelessly simplistic. The silly rag tag underpinning called logical positivism which claimed the only truth to be verifiable was wrenched off by physicists themselves. Standing in an almost irretrievably violated world, only an idiot would believe that progress leads to progress. The ideal of rationality now retrospectively is just a force-fit of the human into the ideal of the machine. The so-called enlightened actions that supposedly accompany rationality has few takers.

As we examine so-called atheistic premise after premise we realise it is just fundamentalism. Every single Rationalist Truth has been proved wrong by Science.

Does Science believe the physical is all that exists? No Science does not believe that, Atheistic Secularism does.

Does Science believe we can only touch with our hands? No, biologists and psychologists know that we are bound by a deep synchronicity often attributed to magnetism or the invisible spectrum.

Does Science believe everything emerges from blind chance? No, once a consciousness exists it will shift things to suit its drives. Why no physicist worth his weight in salt even considers matter without an observer.

Does Science believe that we end with death? A true scientist must argue that both possibilities must be considered. A great body of knowledge exists which show consciousness is not restricted by our skins, or ends with death.

Does Science believe that we are selfish pigs? No.

Does Science believe that time, space and matter are invariants? No.

Does Science believe this is the only world? No.

Does Science believe this is the only realm? No.

Does Science any longer believe the earth is dead matter? No, No, No.

The Space For A New Consensus:

The truth is that Atheistic Secularism, Scalpel Hungry Rationalism is not in synch with us, our times Science or Religion.

Consider a broad consensus that may be said to represnt mainstream thinking... It is spiritual.

Old: The physical is all that exists. New: The Physical rests on Energy Fields.
Old: The universe and consciousness is a product of blind chance. New: Intelligence pervades, planets, stars, The Universe.
Old: The only truths possible are scientific. New: The Truth is The Truth, Science is but one way to Approach it.
Old: The only source of power is technology. New: Technology serves technology. Man must Ride The Tiger not Be Ridden.  
Old: Man is a beast restrained by a thin veneer of rationality. New: Man is a multi-levelled creature, where reason is but one part of the mix.
Old: All man’s actions are driven by selfishness. New: Altruism, Caring, Selfishness, Spirituality are all part of an extraordinary dance.  
Old: Meaning is rooted in a meaningless dance of the physical. New: we are creatures of Meaning, the universe is seen through the prism of our being. Without us, can the universe be said to exist?

“It is Us Versus Them” the medieval cleric and the rational man both seem to cry out. “We are under siege it is a time to commit oneself.” “On whose side are you?” They ask.

I don’t know about you, but neither would I like to be the Western duck-billed platypus known as rational man who will one day become a cyborg in some weird hellish earth resembling a laboratory. Nor would I like to live in a blood-stained country as a mind-chained medieval believer told what to do by weird clerics. The cleric, who owns God’s word and the scientist who has dissected God are both equally obsolete pictures of man.

We stand at a rare time, where the birth of a new conception of man is possible. Where man’s rationality and spirituality are seen as the systole and diastole of life. Where Man is seen not as a greedy pig, but for what he is a spiritual being celebrating the spiritual through the physical. Where the physical is seen for what it is the playpen of consciousness. Where Life is not by assumption meaningless, but deeply meaningful. Where Earth is not a large abattoir owned by the most powerful species.

A picture of man that leaves out either his spirituality or his clarity amputates him. A picture of the universe without consciousness at its centre is plain silly. Those that portray man as a greedy pig should be sent to pig pens.

Awhile ago, provoked by the death of a rationalist Maharashtra passed a bill which outlawed lack magic. a knee jerk legislation which essentially supports the religious cult of atheistic secularism or 18th century rationalism.

We, a few years ago, lived in a house we termed the national integration house. The first floor was occupied by an Hindu family, the second floor by a Muslim one, the third by us, liberals/Christians. We spent three years in the same building during which time we lived without interaction and so in relative peace. A false pluralism.

Finding a true new platform, however will take effort. For a Buddhism that doesn't believe in God but in Buddha and The Void and a Christianity that believes in God The Father and Lord Jesus are uneasy co-passengers, a Hinduism that holds the greatest inner truth is a paramatma, based on a a shunyata, has great seeming differences with mono-theistic Islam. Blood brothers Judaism has great synergies and deep differences with its neighbour Islam. Enlightened Science that sees an underlying pattern beneath all existence, is in truth close to all religions that talk of a point, or principle that Christianity calls Logos, Islam calls God's Word, Buddhism terms NadaBramha, Hindusim talks of the cosmic vibration, Jainism as the expanding-contracting universe...

If the varied religions cannot talk to one another then the monkey will rule. Atheistic Secularism will eat up all the grains of goodness.

We need to put down our core values. And find synergies. a Hinduism that believes in a paramatma must find synergies with a Islam that believes in The Supreme Lord Allah. leaping over obvious differences. If they cannot The Monkey will Win.

If Christianity that believes in God The Father cannot hold hands with monotheistic Islam then it is sad for they are so close. The alternate is that The Monkey will Win.

The price of The Monkey Winning in a nuclear armed world, in a world of artificial intelligence is terrifying.

By Tarun Cherian, this article was written some in roughly 2005, it has been readapted and issued post the Catholic Bishop's Conference in 2016 identifying of what we termed Plural Fundamentalism as atheistic secularism. It is even more relevant now in 2022.