Tolerancy International

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I found this article valuable to study
Religion, European secular identities, and European integration in the below Link

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2004-07-29-casanova-en.html

and PDF in the below Link
http://eurozine.com/pdf/2004-07-29-casanova-en.pdf

By: José Casanova

He is a professor of sociology at New School University, New York. He is the author of Public Religions in the Modern World (1994) and The Opus Dei and the Modernization of Spain. More about him in the below link:
http://www.newschool.edu/gf/soc/faculty/casanova/

And his CV in the below limk:

http://www.newschool.edu/gf/soc/faculty/casanova/JoseCasanova_CV.pdf

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http://lifewithoutgod.wetpaint.com/thread/1220768/Tolerating+others

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1- See in Washingtonpost:
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/daniel_c_dennett/

2- See his Quotations:
http://atheism.about.com/library/quotes/bl_q_DDennett.htm

3- THANK GOODNESS! On Edge:
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dennett06/dennett06_index.html

See His Competition in Brain On Edge:
http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_11.html

See Dennett on Machines Like us:

http://www.machineslikeus.com/People/Dennett_Daniel.html

Also

You can see my article on my Blog:

http://nonbeleiver.blogspot.com/2008/02/how-and-why-religious-ideas-have.html

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One of the most important mythologies that are widespread among so many thinkers, for example Alvin Plantinga as one of the most influential philosophers, is that the science is being supported by some metaphysical presuppositions as the same way that religious thinking is. However, it seems to me that this viewpoint will collapse just by a more exact exploration of the science metaphysical presuppositions.
The structure of science metaphysical presuppositions
The firs and I think the most important feature behind the metaphysical backgrounds in our scientific structure is their changeability and deformability. There is no metaphysical background in the structure of science that has not been changed. For example in the structure of medieval ages the pair "up-down" way one of the most important metaphysical presuppositions. On the basis of this presupposition there was an essentially preferable direction that it was "up" and down was towards the centre or the surface of the earth. By the light of Newtonian physics this presumption was replaced by the idea of isomorphic and isotropic space. Just for another example in the structure of medieval ages' physics the motion couldn't be produced without any force, but by the light of Galileo and after that Newtonian physics we know that the motion is completely unrelated to the force exerting to the body. A body can be in motion without feeling any force. In this way the motion and stability are just relative notions; the very notions those were imagined to be absolute ones. Nowadays by the light of Einstein we know that "space" and "time" and even especially the notion of "simultaneity" are not absolute notions. The bar, for example, that is one meter for you in a coordination system can be just 1cm for another person in another coordinator system. Two events which are simultaneous for you in a coordination system can happen by an hour delay for another person in another specio-temporal situation. In brief you cannot find any metaphysical presupposition in the structure of science that it has not changed or it cannot be changed; i.e., no body can give you a complete proof to show you that there is one metaphysical presupposition in the structure of science that it cannot be changed, and also there is no scientist who is trying to prove these kinds of propositions.
Now I want to explore some metaphysical presuppositions in the structure of contemporary physical science.
Isotropic space: this metaphysical presupposition just says us that in the process of solving a physical problem that is not important that where are setting on you coordination system. By a closer view it is just a result of the structure of our mathematics. In mathematics we know that it is not important where are setting on your coordination system. Then if we want our physical world to be expressible by our mathematical rules and laws then we should accept this presupposition. The denial of this metaphysical presupposition is in contrast to our determination to use our mathematical laws and rules in our physical science. Another problem that we will encounter to if we deny this presupposition is that we will lose the continuity of the space and time. This continuity is the structure of our physical comprehension. Nowadays even though by the light of Kuhn and Feyerabend we know that the duty of science is not just to express our common comprehensions by some physical language, it is also acceptable that one of our physical sciences duty is to express our common feelings in the structure of the scientific language. The only question that can raise here is that "why our physical world is expressible by our mathematical rules and laws?" this is the question that I will discuss about in what follows. The same goes for the presupposition of "Isomorphic spacio-temporal" structure of our contemporary physical science.
Why our physical world is expressible by our mathematical rules and laws?
Even though this question is very important, I think it is suffering from some kind of faults in its formalism. This is not our world that is expressible by our mathematical rules and laws; these are us who have decided about. We know that in the process of physical research we have so many problems; there are so many notions that they cannot be expressed in a measurable structure, in thee situation we change the notions so that they are fitted to our needs. So many times we find that there are some contradictions between different notions that we have then we try to solve this contradiction. You cannot find any contradiction in the structure of science that nobody is working on it as her/his research program. So many times we find that there are some problems in the structure of some metaphysical presuppositions those prevent us to convert qualitative notions to quantitative ones. We should change them too. This is not nor our world that is expressible in mathematical form; we have decided to do this job then we find some ways to do that.
In the structure of scientific research we are obliged just to make an intersubjective structure. Every structure that has not this property it is not scientific. It is also clear that every intersubjective system is not a scientific one, but every scientific system is intersubjective. This is the most important difference between the structures of science and religion. You cannot find two religious thinkers that they are agreeing about "God", but you cannot find two students of physics that they are nit agreeing on the interpretation of a photo of "Wilson cloud-room". The language of science is independent of the structure of the cultured of individuals, but that is not right for the structure of religion.
By the light of all these realities science and religion has not anything in common, but maybe there is some similarities in the structure of psychological motives that enforces individuals and acts on them. However, the most important discrimination between science and religion is that the first is obliged to solve contradictions but the latter is not. Just for an example let study the Catholic encyclopedia about polytheism and monotheism:
In the unity of the Godhead there are three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, these Three Persons being truly distinct one from another. Thus, in the words of the Athanasian Creed: 'the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there are not three Gods but one God.
Is not it just a very ridicules contradiction which no religious personals not only do not want to solve but tries to save it? You cannot find these kinds of joking in the structure of science. The only way to solve the religious contradiction is to make intrsubjective religious notions. However, the problem is that when you try to do that then you will lose religious notions. All your notion will be converted to scientific ones.

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Dawkins in his very glorious book "The God delusion" has spoken about grief and its role in religion and religious ideas. (Reference) I don’t know that if when he was thinking abut this matter has the same thing in his mind that I want to speak about here or not?
As I will show later the idea of a personal God has been shaped just in Mesopotamia and it has been transferred to the entire world because the idea had and still has two very important strong points; it is an imperialistic idea and it has very strong power to separate people from each other.
God makes a division between people: God divides the world into two parts; divine and evil. God divides people into two parts; believers and infidels.
When people are praying they are individually connected to the God; no mediator or adviser or helper is needed and also it is not possible, unless he or she is the man or woman of God; here we are seeing some division between people. The God gets its power from this separation that it produces between people. This separated people, now, can just listen to its voice. In this way he separates people from each other to produce illusions. These hallucinated people are just like schizophrenic and paranoia individuals who think everybody is their enemy. It is a very good and powerful strategy. Now people are prepared to listen to the one who declares he has a very strong relation with this God; prophet.
God is an Imperialist: this God wants to send its message to the entire world. It is not important that it has signed an agreement with a specific tribe, Yahweh, or it is a universal God. It wants to seize the control of the entire world. All the power that the God has has its roots in the mentioned division. How this division has been produced? As I will show it is just because of the weakness of primitive human language and irritant weather situation that was not under the control of the humankind of the beginning era of Sumer, that it has been said to be the dawn of human civilization. I think that the grief of Gilgamesh has been announced to the world by such a loud voice that nobody can resist hearing; the grief of death, the grief of the Primary Flood that has enforced the ancient Sumerians to migrate from their so called heaven and to descent to Mesopotamian hell, the grief of losing the gold ages; nostalgia. This nostalgia that has its roots just in the weakness of the primitive language and an unwanted migration has shaped the human history. It is this grief that is repeating and duplicating itself in the entire history of humanity. This grief has been resulted to produce a God that it is responsible to reproduce this grief. This grief that can make a very big inscrutable separation wall between people is the main root of God's power. This grief has enforced us to be departure as a schizophrenic personals. It divides us from our physical body.

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The Writer is a memeber of "Tolerancy International", WWW.Tolerancy.org, a newly establishe regional NGO in the Middle East, the main concern of wich is dissemination of the culture of "Tolearance" as the most important basis for Secularism, Democracy and Liberalism.

There are many analysis defending the idea of Isolating the Islamic Republic and there are so many analysis against that in the space. But in this article I want to open a new viewpoint about the matter that why we should continue our relations and make some debates with this regime. My analysis will be based upon some critics to the idea that Islamic republic is lying all the people for its own expansion aspirations in the region and in the entire world . My analysis will be based upon two main subjects. The first analysis is based upon a philosophical viewpoint. In this analysis I will prove that all the analysis based upon this idea is epistemologically false and then they just make the problem more and deeper. In the second one I will show some realities in this government and will result that its ideology is based upon some kind of contradictions that force us to make a debate with.

1) Epistemological viewpoint

Lying by definition means that somebody has something in her or his mind but hide that and try to say something else to conceive others. But I ask you when I am speaking to you, how can you understand that I am lying or not? It is useful to concentrate on contradictions in my different statements or between what I have said and the realities. But it is not enough. To detect my lying, it is necessary to point out these contradictions, but not enough. For instance if there is some contradictions in my epistemological system it is very clear that my different claims would contradict each other, or maybe I am making just a mistake about the realities, or maybe I am interpreting the realities in some other ways. In these situations you, at most, can say that I am wrong about the matter not lying. In the other way, this is impossible to every person to reach others Qualia (the quality of mind state). Our evaluation about others state of mind is just based upon some kind of guesses that we make by seeing their behavior or listening their speeches. When, we are encountered to the lying subject that is not easy to be sure about. At first we should be sure and justified enough that we have found all the necessary testifiers. Even though, in that situation we cannot be strictly sure.

This subject is so important to choose a good strategy in our relations with others, that is why I am concentrated on. When we charge others to lie, then we would be in the war situation, but when we think that the problem is in other places not in lying then we can choose a better strategy to solve that and not to make the difficulty more and deeper. In result in this new position we will try to pass all the hard obstacles and will try to make good relations and networking in any possible way.

2) The structure of Totalitarian governmental systems

Basically, any totalitarian system is based upon contradictions. To show that any totalitarian system is based upon contradictions, I will concentrate on two most important matters. At first, pay attention to the simple reality that all the totalitarian systems expect to be believed without any quest or doubt. They ask for absolute believe. On the other hand, we know from Gödel that every system that is more complicated than a specific verge we cannot decide about its internal compatibility . This means that if some day we find some contradictions in that we shouldn't be surprised. Gödel's claim is just about arithmetic. I accept that any system that is evaluating or describing societies is more complicated than arithmetic. Then we cannot prove that they enjoy internal compatibility. But we have found always some kind of contradiction in any sociological system or interpretation. Without accounting this reality at least we can say that, no ideological viewpoint can prove that that is enjoying internal compatibility. This weakness along with demanding for unquestioned faith and believe are at the first point incompatible with each other in any totalitarian ideology. Maybe they say that they aren't caring for compatibility of their ideas or system. Then we can say that they are confessing to accept contradictions. When some systems are being disturbed by this kind of contradiction we should not expect them for compatible outcomes or upshots.

2-1) the structure of Islamic Republic Ideology

This system is suffering from many contradictions not just one, but I mention just one of them. The Muslims and the Mullahs that are in the high levels of the power structure in the regime have accepted two incompatible ideas. The first is a narrative of Muhammad, the prophet of Muslims. Mullahs say that he had said that "say right even though that damages your benefits". But at the same time in Shiite's idea we see that they believe some doctrine that is called as "Taqiyeh" . This means that every time you feel danger for your life in front of your enemies you can lie and trick them. And there is no good criterion that who is your enemy or who is your friend. This matter was mentioned just for an example. The only way to realize somebody as your enemy is your own evaluation . In this way an by having in mind the reality that I mentioned in 4th subscript I repeat that the Muslims world is not just isolated from all other parts of human society, but it is divided in many isolated parts in itself that each part sees others as enemy.

2-2) against other kind of analysis

There are so many analysis in the current discussion space claming that Islamic republic intends to capture all the Middle East; it intends to seize control of the region in regard to its expansive aspirations. But I think that all of these analyses are mistake. I am not saying that Islamic Republic hasn't any expansive aspirations but I am saying that this kind of strategies is not in the core part of Iran's attentions. Its main concern is about its Shiite ideology; its ideology about returning the twelfth absent Shiite's Imam, Mahdi. In the light of this knowledge we can expect that it is interpreting the realities in some other ways than others. When for example Khamenei says that: "The present conditions in Iran are excellent …." He is not lying; he is interpreting the realities in a completely different way. He thinks that the same situation that we interpret as "bad" is good. Because he isn’t thinking about the living in the world, he is thinking about the presence of Mahdi and saving the entire corrupted world. For a brief analysis about this doctrine in Iran see the article "The Doctrine of Mahdism" that is published by MEMRI. In his idea and the idea of many others in the powerful wings of Iran the entire world is sinking in the sin, all the people are lost; they have forgotten the right and are obeying evil that its main figure that is represented in Iran is "USA". They think that they are the right representative of the God of Islam, Allah, on the earth. In this manner Islamic Republic is isolated now. That is because of this that you cannot isolate it more. It is isolated and economic sanctions cannot solve any problem.

Islamic republic is not lying, its claims is not just a response and a reaction to westerns slogans and propagandas . It is unfortunately saying right and is so serious. These kinds of responses are not composing just in a reaction to west, but in reaction to west Iranian government just get hot and overt their hidden intentions. Its intention is not to seize the control of the world to enjoy all of its resources to rule on that, but its aspirations are just to spread out the idea of Shiite that has based upon that returning of the rescuer is very near. They think that in the age of presence of the absent Imam the entire world is full of sin, guilt and crime and they are interpreting all the way of thinking except their own one as deviance. Maybe somebody asks why? Why they are thinking in this way? This is because of their way of living before capturing the political power. They were not in relations with the other parts of the world and with the other kind of ideas. They were educated by some very closed and tight viewpoints for the most part of their life. They are educating the new generation with the same kind of ideas, not as some kind of deception, but just because they think that all other people are in wrong way. This is natural for every isolated man or system. Many people are surprised by Ahmadinezhad when he suddenly announced that the British sailors will be released. Many people were surprised because they didn't know and cannot understand the main reason to detain and then suddenly releasing them. This kind of surprising is just because of lack of understanding this new kind of regime. The Islamic Republic is not based upon the common international conventions and agreements because it has not begun with them. This regime has its roots in segregation, severance and separation not relations and networking. For example see Ayatollah Khomeini. What did he do when he was in Paris? Was he in close relations with western leaders? Was he in any relation with any intellectuals, Iranian or form abroad? Was he in any relations with other ideas? No, he was living alone in a village. All the people that are living spiritually and intellectually alone they have very closed view about life and when they seize the power of a political system will treat like a totalitarian and will rule as dictators. Even though these are not less in population, but they are just enjoying internal relations as before. I want to warn that there are so many isolated societies in the Middle East. The strategy that we choose vis-à-vis Iran can be an exemplar to use for others, and I think that it is better to adopt a good one.

Conclusion

Cutting all the relations with Iran will increase the misunderstandings between the regime and the entire world. To solve the problem, to show that Iranians are wrong we should not cut all the relations, we should not announce the war against that, but we should make our relations closer and friendly. I know that this is so hard to make a good relation with such kinds of regimes, but I think that we, all of us, as adult bodies should realize that war has some sustainable bad phenomenon. War cannot solve the problem. I hope that we as adult persons are wise enough to know that solving some problems needs to stability, durability, insistence and patience. We should wait to see the outcomes of our discussions with the Iranian Ideologues. We should invite them to discuss about their ideas about everything, even their anti-Semitic ideas. In this way, I think that we could better overcome the problems. We should open a scholar debates with the Iranian main ideologues. I am not saying just about the negotiations between Iranian politicians and diplomats with other countries like USA, I am insisting on opening a new way. For the first time as people who are living in the age of science let the scientific method -that is based upon discussion- and not just science itself, make a decision about our world's destiny.