Religious Truth
- From: "Altway" <altway@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2007 16:11:52 -0500
Question:-
I have come accross several pronouncements by scientists and others that
deny that there is such a thing as Truth and science is not about truth but
about what works. This is very confusing. If there is no truth then what is
it science or anyone else is seeking or talking about? Is it what ever is
avantageous to oneself or to the nation or community?
What is the Islamic view?
Comment:-
In Islam Allah is Reality and His word or Command is Truth. So Truth refers
to what Allah has created
not what people say it is.
In this age and in places that are dominated by science, technology and
materialism, people find it difficult or impossible to understand religions
that were formulated in a previous age. They live in an artificial man-made
world, environmentally, socially and also in ideas, that is increasingly
remote from nature. This alienation also affects those who, though they live
in the modern technologically advanced nations, consider themselves
adherents of religion. A distinction has to be made between (i) R - reality
as it exists apart from human perception, (ii) E - human experiences that
depend on interactions with particular environments and (iii) D -
descriptions. These are not the same things though often mistaken for each
other. D is a small subset of E which is a small subset of R. The purpose
of D is to lead to E and the purpose of E is to lead to R. Though there are
several levels of R (corresponding, for instance, to objects, cells,
molecules, atoms, subatomic particles etc.), it refers ultimately to
fundamental processes of which the other levels are surface phenomena. These
affect us at various levels and according to our faculties for reception to
give us experiences. We process these in our minds by analysis, association
and synthesis. A distinction then arises between facts, meanings and values.
Facts refer to isolated bits of information that are by themselves useless
to us. We interpret them by relating them with each other and to ourselves,
our motives and purposes. This provides the meaning. We also create
self-consistent Thought or Descriptive Systems. Values arise from the
relationship of the facts to the system.
In general, the emphasis in Science is on facts and in Philosophy it is on
meaning and in Religion it is on values. The word Truth is understood
differently in these three human Experiential Systems ES, which are not to
be mistaken for the Descriptive Systems DS or Reality Systems RS. But
scientific research makes it clear that "facts" are not items of reality but
items of experience, that depend on human actions and that there are really
no facts that have not been interpreted and that this interpretation depends
on the conceptual system. In general, science provides a description that
depends on a restricted set of experiences based on human interactions with
reality, the community and oneself, and creates a technology that changes
the environment and, therefore, the interactions and experiences of people.
Religion also depends on a set of experiences based on interactions, but
they are different from those of science. But its purpose is not to provide
factual descriptions but to facilitate human adjustment to Reality. It
creates a set of techniques in the form of descriptions (ideas, doctrines
etc. not to be confused with scientific facts), social relationships and
practices (inner and outer disciplines) that create expanded experiences and
changed interactions with Reality, the community and oneself. The result is,
or should be when correctly understood and practiced, transformation of
self, awareness of, and relationship with, Reality. The kind of Way of Life
that religion produces is a reality that should bring people in harmony with
Absolute Reality.
Hamid S. Aziz
.
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