The questions below were asked by Amaranta Wright the founder and co-editor of Bulb, a ground breaking global issues magazine aimed at a teenage readership, for publication in a regular feature entitled ‘Cogitating Cods’. The brief was for representatives of several faiths to answer a question in around 250 words. Although I am unable to reproduce the answers given by other writers although at least one edition is available at
http://www.kubatana.net/html/archive/media/061120bulb.asp?sector=RELIG&year=2006&range_start=1
I therefore dedicate this collection of slightly revised versions of my responses to all survivors of the Argentine Tango.
Are restrictions on Freedom of the press ever justified?
If we lived in a world where other people only wrote about each other what we would like to read about ourselves then there would be no need for any sort of restriction on the press. Unfortunately, we are people who love to gossip and exaggerate stories. Of course, we can always blame wicked reporters or heartless and biased editors but it’s us, the readers, they write for and they give us what we pay for.
When politics or religion become involved we become even worse, only believing the good bits about our own beliefs and what is bad about anyone else’s.
While I believe there is a need for some sort of control exercised by society over the freedom granted to the press it must be limited to defending society from false and malicious articles. In the international human rights documents the right to freedom of speech is a restricted right within which journalists must be given a wide margin of error and yet be held accountable for the consequences of misusing the freedom that we allow them.
Are Western Governments really secular?
Many governments like to think that they are secular but in reality they are as much products of their nation’s religious history as they are of their economic and social development. Often what passes for secularism is in fact a reaction to the excesses of the representatives a former state religion and leads to the notion that secularism is inherently atheistic. However, this attempt to divide the spiritual world from the material is an arbitrary and artificial division.
It can be argued that the fundamental principles upon which societies are built originate in religion. Justice, charity, neighbourliness and honesty that form the basis of good citizenship are the virtues that religion extols and they are what make the regime of law acceptable to human beings. They are what add the human quality to the mundane mechanics of society
Does power always corrupt?
If we consider power to be analogous with wealth then we might draw the simple conclusion that it is the love of power that corrupts and that corruption is not an attribute of power itself. Just as some people seek to acquire and retain the smallest amount of wealth by any means imaginable there are those who do the same for power.
The Qur’an describes the hearts of some, perhaps most, of us as having a black spot upon it that may grow if we allow it to and if it grows it obscures all the good that man has within him. This black spot is the selfish and negative attributes that are attached to the qualities that make us human beings and its growth will manifest itself in our behaviour as inhumanity.
Secondly, if we regard power as a relationship between people we can state, as an example, that all parents have power over their children. Thus if it were power in itself that corrupts we would find all parents to be corrupt but we do not. Parents, in general, exercise their power under the direction of the positive attributes of the heart; love, humanity and justice.
It is one of mankind’s misfortunes that most of those who seek to wield power in this world are afflicted with defective hearts and it therefore becomes the duty of all people, for the good of humanity, to ensure that they do not use power to fulfil their corrupt desires. It is also our duty to ensure that we do not become like them.
"Is Human Rights a Universal Concept"
The trouble with universal concepts is that they tend to remain as concepts and do not get put into practice, and it’s a sad fact that though almost all the nations of the world chose to endorse the Universal Declaration on Human Rights most of them have also found it a good idea to ignore its articles. Yet can we just blame governments for this?
It always seems that we are much slower in fulfilling our obligations than we are to complain about our rights being infringed but the essential element in making Human Rights truly universal is that we accept the obligation to be just as concerned about the rights of others, especially those we do not like or agree with, as we are to defend our own. We can all find excuses to ignore what is happening, or even to justify our self-interest as being important enough to bend a principle, but when principles break no excuse is good enough.
Governments are made up of people just like us. That’s not just sad, perhaps frightening is a better word.
Is it always good to worship? Or is loyalty always a good thing?
Muslims believe that God is free from all needs. He does not need food, water or to be worshipped and yet the Divine command is to worship only God. Another central belief is that God loves the things and beings that He has created and only commands what is good for them. We may, therefore, consider the worship of what it is right to worship and the worship of what is wrong to worship using the criterion of what is most beneficial to man.
People will worship and desire to possess almost anything; wealth and power; health and beauty; cars, pop-stars or a home in the country but most of us will never own them and they will certainly never answer our prayers. Instead, we will be filled with disappointed envy and our lives will become as empty and two-dimensional as the photographs of the things we have worshipped. The worship of false things is like having loyalty to the thief who steals our contentment.
The worship of God not only fulfils a duty. It leads us to a state of being that loves and cares for what He loves, our fellow human beings and the creation of which they are part. It enables us to value and prepare for the future, the world we will not live in but that our actions will shape for people, whom we may never meet, to prosper in.
Is it wrong to cheat the system if the system is corrupt?
If by cheating we mean one individual interest group using the corrupt nature of a system for an excuse to act in a way that serves their own self interests to the disadvantage of others then, in most cases, it is wrong. Cheating when it takes away someone else’s rights can rarely be excused. However, there are many times when complying with the letter of the law or following the “rules” maintains or produces injustice and we should all avoid assisting immoral and unjust systems.
During the halcyon days of Mrs Thatcher’s rule the word cheat was used about the unemployed and people who refused to pay Poll Tax while Third World debt spiralled up and bankers grew rich. It seems that at some point of class, education or wealth people cease to be called cheats and are instead praised for seizing opportunities. Islamic Law holds that if a starving man steals to feed himself and his family he has not committed a crime because he has acted under duress to preserve life. So, I would suggest that if we have the wealth of justice and caring for the dignity of other human beings to govern our actions then we should never cheat but always be ready to seize opportunities when they are forced upon us.
Is there such a thing as a “Holy War?
Any conflict that is justly initiated to protect human beings and their rights from oppressors and aggressors is essentially a “Holy War” what is not acceptable by this definition are wars waged for material gain or ideological advantage. One question for people of faith is whether a war is Holy and just or if it is something else, having its true purpose cloaked with the justification of holiness. The popular understanding of terms, that have genuine religious meanings, such as crusade and jihad have been corrupted and debased to serve as tools for warmongers who justify their unjust ambitions.
The inflexible zealot mentality that perverts diplomacy to a process of making impossible demands and ultimatums cannot be considered as a manifestation of genuine religious belief or democracy. Within concepts of human rights, justice and freedom, peoples and nations have the right to develop their own understanding of a good society and the methods for its implementation. Just as the American democratic process and the very different English system have each developed with good points and flaws, so other nations have the right to develop their own systems of good government free from the threat of external tyranny and un-just war.
Is there such thing as good and evil?
The question suggests that good and evil are linked to each other, as they are part of a relative scale, but such a relationship is just a means to measure the effects of good and evil so that we humans may file them under the headings of desirable or undesirable. It is not essential for a person wishing to commit an evil act to consider that it is not good or anti-good, it is sufficient for them to want to do a thing as cause for doing it.
If a person locks them self in a cellar, by accident, and experiences a slow and horrific death we cannot say that the absence of a good outcome indicates that evil was present. Similarly, if someone else has locked them in deliberately to make them suffer, but they escape we cannot say that evil was not there because there was a good outcome.
I believe that good and evil exist independently of phenomena, that they are forces sentient of each other and of mankind’s ability to make choices. We may believe, as I do, that they are forces external to man’s existence or that they are internal to his consciousness, collective or individual, but to deny their existence must also deny man’s capacity to reason and choose what outcome is most desired from action.
What is Wisdom?
Being wise does not depend upon knowledge, learning or being clever. There are no classes entitled ‘Wisdom’ although people of all ages and all walks of life seek to become wise. So if it cannot be taught how can it be acquired and what is it?
In people whom I regard to be wise there seem to be common characteristics that they share even though they come from different belief systems. They all welcome listening to others and not just to the words but to what the whole person is saying; the body language and the subtleties of inflection. Behavioural scientists and advertising consultants also observe people in this way and it must be concluded that this observation is but the first step towards acquiring wisdom and that is in the way that information is used that denotes wisdom.
Wise men and women exhibit the ability to discern what is beneficial or harmful in what people want and express their conclusions in a manner that compel listeners to be content with the answer. In effect by caring they enter into a problem or another person to find the best solution for everyone involved.
I think I am wise enough to know that I have not given the real answer to the question and beg your permission to end with another question, “Why do wise people care so much for others that they seem to not care for themselves?”