An Atheist Explores the Qur'an Part 96: Naturalistic vs. Theological Explanations for Altruism (The City (al-Balad))
The City (al-Balad)
Naturalistic vs. Theological Explanations for Altruism.
Welcome to the next instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Qur’an version).
In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the Qur’an, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.
For more detail, see the introductory post https://bit.ly/2ApLDy0
For the online Qur’an that I use, see here http://al-quran.info and http://quran.com
The City (al-Balad) 1-20
“I swear by this town, as you reside in this town”
I’m guessing that “this town” refers to Mecca, since this is an early Meccan surah (you can also tell it’s a relatively early one because it’s quite optimistic with a minimum of smiting.
An oath is sworn on “the town” that Allah has made man “in travail” with faculties to understand the world, and then presented him with information so that he can use his faculties to choose between good and evil - “Have We not made for him two eyes, a tongue, and two lips, and shown him the two paths [of good and evil]?” This stands in some contrast to the Biblical mythology whereby mankind gains its knowledge of good and evil against the wishes of God, and it made me wonder how Islam addresses the “problem of evil” (theodicy, to get fancy-technical). The Qur’an mentions many times about Iblis trying to trick mankind into disbelieving Allah’s message, but the idea seems to be that mankind is not innately one or the other of good and evil, but has the free will to choose (sometimes; at others it’s told that Allah “seals the hearts” of non-believers). It’s less self-abnegatory than Christianity, which teaches that mankind is inherently sinful and needs to be spiritually purified. Here it’s more of a case of “choose your path and that becomes your destiny”.
The righteous path is here referred to as “the uphill task”. Shades there of the Dark Side being “quicker, easier and more seductive”, or the “strait and narrow” of the Bible. Is it harder to do the “right” thing? It depends, of course, what one defines as the “right” thing; here it’s given as “the freeing of a slave, or feeding [the needy] on a day of starvation, or an orphan among relatives, or a needy man in desolation”. I suppose in some ways it is; all of these involve some form of sacrifice or at least inconvenience on behalf of the actor, it would be easier to ignore the needy and keep stuff for oneself, in the sense of effort and reward. But is it? How does one balance the dopamine and oxytocin reward of an altruistic act vs. the possession of material goods or food? If one has surplus, it should be a no-brainer. I’d be willing to wager there’s some kind of measurable personality trait that correlates to some kind of neurological trait on how inherently generous a person is. We all know of some people that are amazingly selfless with their time and goods, and others that are not. Which is closer, I wonder, to the “average” human behaviour?
The closing verses of the surah discuss peer-group effects on generosity – these are the “People of the Right Hand” “who enjoin one another to patience, and enjoin one another to compassion”. Meanwhile, the selfish “People of the Left Hand” are met with “a closed Fire”. Yeah, that’s quite an interesting chapter, despite being short. The message about compassion seems reasonable enough to me. Does it really need to backed up by supernatural punishment for disobedience? Could one preach such a message based on its own merits for common humanity without invoking gods? I think probably.
Naturalistic vs. Theological Explanations for Altruism.
Welcome to the next instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Qur’an version).
In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the Qur’an, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.
For more detail, see the introductory post https://bit.ly/2ApLDy0
For the online Qur’an that I use, see here http://al-quran.info and http://quran.com
The City (al-Balad) 1-20
“I swear by this town, as you reside in this town”
I’m guessing that “this town” refers to Mecca, since this is an early Meccan surah (you can also tell it’s a relatively early one because it’s quite optimistic with a minimum of smiting.
An oath is sworn on “the town” that Allah has made man “in travail” with faculties to understand the world, and then presented him with information so that he can use his faculties to choose between good and evil - “Have We not made for him two eyes, a tongue, and two lips, and shown him the two paths [of good and evil]?” This stands in some contrast to the Biblical mythology whereby mankind gains its knowledge of good and evil against the wishes of God, and it made me wonder how Islam addresses the “problem of evil” (theodicy, to get fancy-technical). The Qur’an mentions many times about Iblis trying to trick mankind into disbelieving Allah’s message, but the idea seems to be that mankind is not innately one or the other of good and evil, but has the free will to choose (sometimes; at others it’s told that Allah “seals the hearts” of non-believers). It’s less self-abnegatory than Christianity, which teaches that mankind is inherently sinful and needs to be spiritually purified. Here it’s more of a case of “choose your path and that becomes your destiny”.
The righteous path is here referred to as “the uphill task”. Shades there of the Dark Side being “quicker, easier and more seductive”, or the “strait and narrow” of the Bible. Is it harder to do the “right” thing? It depends, of course, what one defines as the “right” thing; here it’s given as “the freeing of a slave, or feeding [the needy] on a day of starvation, or an orphan among relatives, or a needy man in desolation”. I suppose in some ways it is; all of these involve some form of sacrifice or at least inconvenience on behalf of the actor, it would be easier to ignore the needy and keep stuff for oneself, in the sense of effort and reward. But is it? How does one balance the dopamine and oxytocin reward of an altruistic act vs. the possession of material goods or food? If one has surplus, it should be a no-brainer. I’d be willing to wager there’s some kind of measurable personality trait that correlates to some kind of neurological trait on how inherently generous a person is. We all know of some people that are amazingly selfless with their time and goods, and others that are not. Which is closer, I wonder, to the “average” human behaviour?
The closing verses of the surah discuss peer-group effects on generosity – these are the “People of the Right Hand” “who enjoin one another to patience, and enjoin one another to compassion”. Meanwhile, the selfish “People of the Left Hand” are met with “a closed Fire”. Yeah, that’s quite an interesting chapter, despite being short. The message about compassion seems reasonable enough to me. Does it really need to backed up by supernatural punishment for disobedience? Could one preach such a message based on its own merits for common humanity without invoking gods? I think probably.
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