The modern period has surpassed every other period in the matter of material progress and scientific exploration. But with all that, the experts in the field of Sociology, Psychology and Medicine are amazed at the alarming increase in the number of neurotics and those suffering from other nervous disorders. An atmosphere of fear and distraction pervades the whole world, in which the future of humanity appears dark. The utopia or at least the golden period that the learned men and thinkers of the nineteenth century had been contemplating on the basis of the scientific inventions and explorations, had soon become a confused dream.
The genocide in Africa, the atrocities committed by the Serbs in Kosovo, and the latest shootings of school children are, perhaps, only few indications to the plight of modern man as he stands at the doors of the 21st Century.
Most of the devastation is brought by man-made technology upon the environment and upon human life itself. One example of the destructive technology developed by man is the war-machines and the weapons for mass-destruction that took the lives of millions in the two World Wars of the 20th Century.
World War-I that witnessed the wide use of explosives, bombs, cannons and machine guns had killed more than 10 million soldiers and wounded 21 million. The casualties among the civilians are not known for certain, but they are estimated to have reached comparable figures. World War-II witnessed the wide use of tanks, fighters, bombers and submarines, and, for the first time ever, the use of nuclear bombs. This war has resulted in more than 17 million soldiers dead and 17 million soldiers wounded.
Aside from wars and nuclear holocaust, technology is causing uncontrollable havoc to the environment in the form of pollution, deforestation, soil erosion, and exhaustion of natural resources. An excellent report on the condition of Earth and its environments and resources was published jointly by The World Conservation Union (IUCN), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF), in 1991 under the title `Caring for the Earth: A Strategy for Sustainable Living'. The report gave a gloomy picture about the misuse of natural resources, the disturbance of natural systems, and the pollution of air, soil, fresh waters and the oceans. In the following we give some excerpts from this report.
On pages 4-5, under the heading "Gambling with Survival", the report says:
“Our civilizations are at risk because we are misusing natural resources and disturbing natural systems. We are pressing the Earth to the limits of its capacity. Since the industrial revolution, human numbers have grown eight-fold. Industrial production has risen by more than 100 times in the past 100 years.
This unprecedented increase in human numbers and activity has had major impacts on the environment. The capacity of the Earth to support human and other life had been significantly diminished. In less than 200 years the planet has lost six million square kilometers of forest; the sediment load from soil erosion has risen three-fold in major river basins and by eight-fold in smaller, more intensively used ones; water withdrawals have grown from 100 to 3600 cubic kilometers a year.
Atmospheric systems have been disturbed, threatening the climate regime to which we and other forms of life have long been adapted. Since the mid-eighteenth century, human activities have more than doubled the methane in the atmosphere; increased the concentration of carbon dioxide by 27%; and significantly damaged the stratospheric ozone layer.
Pollution of air, soil, fresh waters and the oceans has become a serious and continuing threat to the health of humans and other species. Humanity is causing emissions of arsenic, mercury, nickel, and vanadium that are now double those from natural sources; zinc emissions are triple and those from cadmium and lead are respectively five and eighteen times higher than natural rates.
Most astonishing of all, the 5.3 billion people now on Earth are already using 40% of our most elemental resource-the energy from the sun made available by green plants on land. Yet despite this vast takeover of nature, hundreds of millions of people struggle in poverty, lacking a tolerable quality of life. One person in five cannot get enough food properly to support an active working life. One quarter of the world's people are without safe drinking water. Every year millions of children die from malnutrition and preventable diseases. Such conditions are grossly unjust. They also threaten the peace and stability of many countries now, and of the whole world eventually.
The resources of the Earth are overtaxed now, but without calamitous loss of life the global human population cannot stabilize at less than 10 billion. It may reach 12 billion. How can this vast increase in human numbers be supported without doing irreversible damage to the Earth? Clearly not by going on living as we are now. Clearly not by a policy of business as usual.”
The above report contains detailed information that give a complete picture about the status of the Earth environments and resources, and what actions that need to be taken to care for the Earth and sustain human life on it. For the benefit of the reader, more excerpts from that report can be found in the following topic ‘Caring for the Earth’.
Many Western philosophers and writers have realized the effect of modern technology and way of life on humanity and nature. The protection and preservation of Earth resources needs actions from people that are based on ethical values. These values are not the product of scientific laboratories; they are founded on beliefs and moral principles in people. Pure materialism as a system of life is of no help in this situation. On this, Ian Barbour writes the following in the Preface of his book `Religion in An Age of Science':
“Today there is widespread evidence that technology has a mixed impact on humanity and nature. A nuclear holocaust would wipe out modern civilization and produce climate changes and famine that could conceivably jeopardize human life itself. Toxic chemicals, deforestation, soil erosion, and multiple pollutants, together with continued population growth, are severely damaging the environment.
Ours is a planet in crisis. Computers, automation, and artificial intelligence will have powerful impacts on work, social organization, and our image of ourselves. Genetic engineering offers the prospect of altering the structure and behavior of living forms, including those of human beings. Large-scale technologies contribute to the concentration of economic and political power, increasing the gaps between rich and poor within nations and the gap between rich and poor nations.
The control and direction of technology involves ethical values such as justice, freedom, and environmental stewardship. Respect for persons and for nature is not a scientific conclusion; wisdom in applying knowledge toward humane goals is not a product of the laboratory.... Our view of nature will influence the way we treat nature, and our view of human nature will affect our understanding of human responsibility”
The problems and diseases suffered by modern societies can be attributed to the nature of the Western Civilization. The bases on which this Civilization rests are purely materialistic; materialism has evolved as a substitute "religion" to modern man; the temples of this "religion" are the gigantic factories, research laboratories, banks, cinemas, dancing halls; and its priests are the engineers, scientists, managers, lawyers, movie- and sport-stars, bankers, finance magnates. The unavoidable result of this craving after power and pleasure is the creation of hostile groups armed to the teeth and determined to destroy one another whenever and wherever their respective interests come to a clash. And on the cultural side, the result is the creation of a human type whose morality is confined to the question of practical utility alone, and whose highest criterion of good and evil is the material success!
Commenting on the nature of modern life and its craving for materialistic pleasure, Alexis Carrel, the Nobel prize winner French Surgeon, observes on page 30 of his book `Man, the Unknown':
“In truth, modern life has set them free. It incites them to acquire wealth by any and every means, provided that these means do not lead them to jail... It allows them to frequent excitation and the easy satisfaction of their sexual appetites. It does away with constraint, discipline, effort, everything that is inconvenient and laborious.”
And on pages 38-39, he writes:
“The environment born of our inelegance and our inventions is adjusted neither to our status nor to our shape. We are unhappy. We degenerate morally and mentally. The groups and the nations in which industrial civilization has attained its highest development are precisely those which are becoming weaker and whose return to barbarism is the most rapid. But they do no realize it. They are without protection against the hostile surroundings that science has built around them. In truth, our civilization, like those preceding it, has created certain conditions of existence which, for reasons still obscure, render life itself impossible. The anxiety and the woes of the inhabitants of the modern city arise from their political, economic and social institutions, but above all, from their own weakness. We are the victims of the backwardness of the sciences of life over those of matter.”
Then, on pages 50-51, Carrel writes:
“No advantage is to be gained by increasing the number of mechanical inventions. It would perhaps be as well not to accord so much importance to discoveries of physics, astronomy and chemistry... What is the good of increasing the comfort, the luxury, the beauty, the size and the complications of our civilization, if our weakness prevents us from guiding it to our best advantage? It is really not worthwhile to go on elaborating a way of living that is bringing about the demoralization and the disappearance of the noblest elements of the great races. It would be far better to pay more attention to ourselves than to construct faster steamers, more comfortable automobiles, cheaper radios or telescopes for examining the structure of remote nublae... There is not the shadow of doubt that mechanical, physical and chemical sciences are incapable of giving us intelligence, moral discipline, health, nervous equilibrium, security and peace.”
Also, in describing the level of materialism into which modern societies have been driven, a prominent writer,
Abulhassan.A. Nadwi, writes the following:
“Questions pertaining to spiritual truths used to arise in Europe also before the Renaissance, but as the innate character of its civilization gradually unfolded itself and the West got lost in the adoration of its material achievements, they were disregarded. If one still hears of them there, it is only as problems of metaphysics. They do not occupy any place in practical life. The anxiety, the solicitude, the uneasiness which for thousands of years these questions evoked in the East is not at all felt there. And this is so, not because the soul of the West has become illumined with Divine truth or that peace has dawned upon it. The surroundings that the West has succeeded in creating for itself are not related to the eternal and the infinite; they have imprisoned man in the world of matter and the West has made him oblivious of his true self...
In modern age there has appeared a class of people in every community whose material cravings and worldly occupations have ejected religion from the domain of practical calculations. The hearts of such people are adamant and their minds sealed against truths transcendental...
Most of the evils of modern age come from this indifference to religion. The propagation of religion was easier by far in the olden days of open and violent opposition than in the current atmosphere of quiet disinterestedness. One may put one's very heart into one's preaching, but when the inner selves of the listeners have become paralyzed, they cannot be moved to realize the beauties of Divine Revelation.”
The same report 'Caring for the Earth' that has been reviewed above, has also emphasized the role of religion in implementing the strategy to sustain living conditions on Earth and to protect its resources and environments. It has been realized that what people do depends on what they believe, and widely shared beliefs are often more powerful than government edicts. Therefore, the establishment of the ethic for living sustainably on Earth needs the support of the world's religions. On pages 14-15, the report says the following:
“Winning support for the ethic for living sustainably will require action on a broad front. It is not enough to publicize and teach the new approach, because well-informed people do not necessarily take the right decisions. Since value systems determine how people pursue political, legal, economic or technological goals, values associated with the ethic must pervade all spheres of human action it is to succeed... Action is therefore needed to:
Establish purposeful communication among religious leaders and thinkers, moral philosophers, leaders of organizations concerned with conservation and development, and politicians and writers concerned with the principles of human conduct;
Continue the process by which major religions have begun to identify and emphasize the elements of their faiths and teachings that establish a duty of care for nature;
Involve people in development of the world ethic through existing religious and citizens' groups and through environmental and humanitarian non-governmental organizations;
Establish new coalitions of groups concerned with respecting and caring for the community of life, and with the consequent personal and social obligations. These coalition should be formed nationally, and linked in a simple and inexpensive international network through which each can learn how the others are progressing. Existing partnerships such as WWF's Network on Conservation and Religion and IUCN's Ethics Working Group should be brought within this framework.”
This site has several objectives that can be outlined in the following:
To emphasize the important role religion plays in our lives, and discuss how religion can solve the problems of modern societies.
To explore the position of Islam among world religions, and examines the basic beliefs of Islam.
To clarify some of the misunderstandings about Islam.
To show that Islam is a religion to all mankind.
Dr.Muhammad M. Mandurah,
Managing Director &CEO of Mandurah Consulting Office
