Skip to main content

Using Faith for Good - The Fatwa Against Wildlife Trade

I have been battling with a dilemma. The concept of god is artificial. I am not going to argue the case for atheism here. It's overwhelmingly argued in thousands of books and blogs, and if you were still in any doubt, just listen to a few creationists or watch any religious service for acres of mumbo-jumbo helping to make the case for a 'wake-up' call. My dilemma is about the idea of perpetuating the brainwashing of populations who haven't woken up, or been allowed to, in order to encourage changes of behaviour to improve the world. In other words, if populations are already led by balmy divine instructions, why not harness its control of their minds to do good (whilst also trying to reach the same muddled brains to encourage a rational view of how the world really works).

At their hearts, religions are sets of rules which:

  1. Justify, protect and propagate their own sources of power (eg 'There is only one god', 'You will not worship any other' etc).
  2. Encourage practices which, at the time they were written, were designed to protect some aspects of their societies (no adultery, no murder (unless it's people who threaten rule set 1), no stealing, no eating stuff that might make you ill, etc).

The cunning of dividing these sets into two distinct parts (even the 10 commandments split into 5 about god and 5 about society), is that if you don't abide by the rules for your society, you've got the wrath of your society's god to deal with. So the 'god rules' enforce the 'society rules'. Some have argued that there's a 'god-gene' which has evolved to ensure successful societies pass on this benefit from generation to generation. Makes sense for it to exist, although Darwin might have found the argument that there is a rational reason for irrational behaviour a little hard to accept. So when man-made powers of control fail, resort to threatening powers that you can't prove don't exist, but which are vastly greater than anything you could imagine or deploy on Earth. And which everyone you know (parents, teachers, tribal leaders, states) demands you believe and obey from birth.

So accepting that this process is effective, whilst continuing to argue that it relies on brainwashing children, I was greatly encouraged to learn that muslim leaders in Indonesia, the world's largest Islamic nation (230m), have this week issued a fatwa banning the killing and trade in endangered species. Time will tell whether it has an effect, but the early signs are apparently promising. What muslim would offend Allah? Unfortunately it seems that an Indonesian fatwa doesn't hold sway in other muslim countries where their own councils of 'wise men' pronounce on what their deity had in mind. But hopefully it sets a precedent that others will follow.

National Geographic published a piece about it here including the fatwa translated. There's a bit more about the implications in the The Guardian.

If this works, where rationality can't or won't, then why not use religions to enforce behaviours that mankind is failing to do on its own?



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

To kill or not to kill.

Had an interesting discussion with a Muslim friend today about the ethics of killing. Could it ever be morally justifiable? Abrahamic scriptures, especially the old testament, are awash with murders and killings, some sanctioned by the prophets and assorted mouthpieces for god. Some killing is even mandatory. For example all Jews are instructed in the old Testament to kill everyone belonging to the 7 Canaanite tribes for example - Deut 20:17 , or to slaughter Amaleks, especially their children - Deut 25:19 . So accepting for a moment that these draconian instructions were written in times when tribal leaders had fewer options available to them with respect to managing miscreants and maintaining some sort of law and order, I suspect that most people today would agree that killing people is a bad thing and should not be condoned except under extraordinary circumstances. My friend and I then proceeded to try to list those circumstances. We started with self-defence or perhaps protecti...

Phillips screws - yes I'm angry about them too

Don't get me wrong. They're a brilliant invention to assist automation and prevent screwdrivers from slipping off screw heads - damaging furniture, paintwork and fingers in the process. Interestingly they weren't invented by Mr Phillips at all, but by a John P Thompson who sold Mr P the idea after failing to commercialise it. Mr P, on the otherhand, quickly succeeded where Mr T had failed. Incredible isn't it. You don't just need a good idea, you need a great salesman and, more importantly, perfect timing to make a success out of something new. Actually, it would seem, he did two clever things (apart from buying the rights). He gave the invention to GM to trial. No-brainer #1. After it was adopted by the great GM, instead of trying to become their sole supplier of Phillips screws, he sold licenses to every other screw manufacturer in the world. A little of a lot is worth a great deal more than a lot of a little + vulnerability (watch out Apple!). My gromble is abo...

Review of the world's first AI product launched in 1988 - Tome Searcher

I am tired of reading and hearing statements by press and politicians alike that companies like OpenAI (the creators of ChatGPT) started the AI revolution. Just today, with the announcement of the Stargate data centre project, the BBC's Verify (?!) website stated "OpenAI kicked off the AI race in 2022". I'm not claiming that a little company in London called Tome Associates Ltd, of which I was a founding director, started AI in the 1980s. There were already plenty of people exploring it around the world at the time. Indeed a project called Logic Theorist, developed in 1955 by Newell and Simon at the Rand Corporation in California, is probably the world's first AI application. But to the best of my knowledge, Tome Associates were the first company in the world to launch a commercial product based on AI... which subsequently met a resounding blank look from everyone we showed it to. People were fascinated, but confused about what to do with it (don't forget Tim ...