Faith vs. Doubt

By Ali Sina 

Dear Abdul

I assure you I have no intention to introduce any new cult. I am a rationalist and as such a man of doubt and not of faith. Bertrand Russell said, �The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." I promote doubt because doubt is the foundation of wisdom.

This does not mean there is anything wrong with faith. As I said, faith is a human faculty. It is a very powerful tool that is essential for our survival and success. It is the abuse of faith that is harming us.

A child has to have faith in his own ability to walk or he will never try and will never learn to walk. Because he has faith, he will stand up, no matter how many times he falls, and eventually he will learn how to walk. That is faith in action. It is faith that gives us the confidence to overcome the challenges of life and to succeed. We must have faith in our own ability, in our own intellect, in the fact that humans are essentially good and that evil is the symptom of our sickness. We do not do evil unless we are emotionally and spiritually ill.

However, when we have faith in lies, that faith can be dangerous. Lies are harmless on their own. They become parlous when we believe in them. In �Understanding Muhammad,� I quoted the following two stories:

On March 26, 1997, 39 members of the cult known as Heaven's Gate decided to �shed their containers� and get on a companion craft, that they though is hiding in the tail of the Hale-Bopp comet. Consequently, they all committed suicide. They died because they had faith in hocus-pocus.

Dr. Ikuo Hayashi was a renowned doctor who had become one of Shoko Asahara�s zealous followers. He was one of five persons who were ordered to plant the toxic sarin gas in the subways of Tokyo. Hayashi was a trained physician and had taken the Hippocratic Oath to save lives. At one point, before puncturing the packages containing the deadly liquid, he looked at the woman sitting in front of him and for a moment had misgivings. He knew that he was about to cause that woman's death. But he immediately silenced his conscience convincing himself that Asahara knew best, and that it would not be right for him to question his master�s wisdom.

These are examples of faith gone awry. Since 9/11, 2001, thousands of Muslims have sacrificed their own lives, by blowing themselves up in order to kill others. They did this out of faith.

Faith can be lethal if misplaced. Because it is extremely powerful, faith can give life and it can give death. It all depends on how we use it. Dynamite is also extremely powerful. It can be used for road building and construction, and it can be used for death and destruction.

Faith, based on hocus-pocus and absurdities, can be dangerous. Because beliefs are powerful, we must always question them and never believe in things than cannot be validated through reason. You would not use dynamite recklessly and without assessing the outcome of the blast. Likewise, it is important to evaluate things that we want to believe rationally. If you believe in your own ability to overcome the challenges of life, you become empowered to conquer the difficulties that life throws at you. If you lose faith in yourself, you lose hope and lose the battle of life. This is where you have to have faith and a lot of it. But faith in absurdities, such as the nonsense stated in the Quran can be lethal.

I told you I am a man of doubt. But I am also a man of faith. There is no contradiction. Both doubt and faith are human faculties. I do not believe in unsubstantiated claims, but I believe in the immense power that exists within every human being. I am a human and that power exists in me too. I have faith that when truth and falsehood are given equal chances, truth will win.

Today, I have faith that Islam will be demolished in my own lifetime (provided I live a normal life expectancy.) That is because I have faith that Muslims, like all humans, are essentially good and that once the truth is known they will recover from their sickness and will reclaim their lost humanity. I believe that if enough people are enlightened, this can happen very soon. After all, no one wants to live a lie. It is because of this faith that I wake up every morning and continue through the late hours of the night, writing, answering emails, reading and planning to enlighten others despite having to work to pay the bills. I hope to build an army � an army of light, not of war and death � so together we get rid of this curse that is affecting mankind.

Things do not happen on their own. That would be wishful thinking and a false belief. For things to happen there must be a cause. Just as hate has its human agents; such as skinheads, fascists and Muslims to divide mankind; love also needs agents to unite it. I want to be an agent of love and I want to find others who want to join this agency so together we eliminate this disease known as Islam. I know the time is ripe and the world is ready for its unity. I know hate is formidable, but it can be defeated with truth. Here is where I have faith, and plenty of it.

Both doubt and faith are necessary. The whole problem is that fools doubt where they must have faith and they have faith where they must doubt. Have faith in your self, in children and in the future of mankind. Have faith in health, in prosperity, in success and in life. But doubt unsubstantiated beliefs that are based, not on facts, but on logical fallacies.

Furthermore, I have no intention to destroy all religions. After all, I realize that many good people need to believe in a god and in the afterlife. Don�t think that I don�t have those needs. And you know what? There could be an afterlife. Since I have seen no evidence to the contrary, I cannot dismiss it. However, since I have not seen enough evidence that it exists, I am not going to bank on it either. Therefore, I remain skeptical. That is where I think, one must not believe, but doubt.

I am not going to fight against all religions because I have no right to do so. What others choose to believe is not my business. On the contrary, I will fight for the RIGHTS of everyone to believe in any religion they choose even if I do not agree with that religion. If a belief is harmless, there is no reason to fight it, even if it is not true. If you think you are Santa Clause and bring children gifts, your belief is harmless. But if you think you are Dracula and go about sucking people�s blood, you must be stopped. Both these beliefs are false, but they are not comparable.

I do not believe in God but I do not promote atheism. My fight against Islam is precisely a fight for freedom of faith. Because Islam denies such a freedom, it must be eradicated. Islam is not another color in the rainbow of religions. It is the darkness of the night. It aims to eliminate all the colors. No other religion except Islam poses a threat to the peace of the world and the survival of the human civilization. Islam is uniquely evil. All the good people of the world must come together and form a united front to remove this cancer from the body of mankind. The death of Islam marks the rebirth of humanity and will be a victory for peace. It will usher us into a new Era of unity of humankind.

I invite Muslims to be honest to themselves. They will not be rewarded for believing in a lie. If there is a god who is offended when humans worship a false deity, Muslims stand to be punished for worshiping Muhammad and his bogus deity. We cannot afford this lie anymore. It is time to wake up.