Secularism seems rife with popularizers, dilettantes, ‘keyboard warriors,’ and scientists. However, regarding formal researchers into the world of secularism and the divides and two-storey buildings of seculars  and the religious, Dr. Phil Zuckerman is a rare individual who takes part in some extensive research into the worldviews and worlds of the “seculars,” the “Nones,” or those without a formal religious affiliation, which can be amorphous – gooey and vague – definitions of the non-religious. When he examined some of the results of the research, something noted within the research was the degrees to which, during a pandemic, faith-based belief systems and, thus, responses utterly failed to deliver on the divine promises. In fact, they worsened the circumstances.

“Back in mid-March, nearly 40 percent of congregants who attended services at a small church in rural Arkansas came down with COVID-19, and a few subsequently died. In April,” Zuckerman stated, “at least 70 people who attended a church in Sacramento caught the virus, and a pastor in Virginia who piously defied social distancing orders within his flock died from COVID-19.”

Amazing – God did not help the most dependent upon his succour. (Many turn out as suckers.) The most devoted, most devout, most dedicated, and the most likely to demise based on a formal belief in the saving grace of God Almighty and the power of prayer. Zuckerman went from Idaho Falls to Frankfurt to Cameroon to South Korea to Cameroon to Israel speaking on the devastation of religion and its ill-equipped worldviews in response to a once-in-a-century pandemic, especially in an era of high-tide science relative to prior history and the tools – and knowledge of in general terms – of the reasons for the disease and death: a virus; not demonic possession, for example.

“While most religious people, communities, and congregations have taken COVID-19 seriously and have followed recommended social distancing practices, many of those pushing hardest to denounce or limit social distancing are strongly religious,” Zuckerman explained, “The fact is, this pandemic has brought into stark relief the underlying differences between a staunchly secular worldview and a fundamentally religious worldview.”

A god who helps those who help themselves is a god who either does not exist or cares not to help those most giving in worship to this god, i.e., the god is either a sadist or an insensate. Your pick. In this, the naturally naturalists, or those who adhere to Naturalism – as in natural events following from prior natural events (on the macro scale), deny the supernatural and the ideas of the religious. The religions claim and the religious believe in a supernatural, otherworldly, order to the constituent portions of life, the universe, and everything.

If a pandemic happens, then the, almost, natural follow-through from a naturalist perspective is to look for functional, scientific procedures and empirically-informed policies to mobilizer actions against the proliferation of a, for instance, virus. In a supernaturalist framework, one can pray for help; angels may assist one; and, God may intervene in the affairs of the believer for the protection, for example, one’s flock and oneself, though this didn’t happen in rural Arkansas.

Zuckerman said, “The results of these different orientations can, sometimes, literally be matters of life and death. We see this in terms of the current COVID-19 pandemic. For example, the strongly secular are more likely to accept the findings and dictates of science while the strongly religious are more likely to ignore or distrust such empiricism, favoring instead faith”

He referenced by Brett Pelham, where, as per an obvious prediction from the data on religion & faith-based thinking versus secularism & scientific-based thinking, the highly religious parts of the United States were “markedly less likely to look up scientific advice regarding best-practices for staying safe…” Religious people aren’t stupid; religion enforces or motivates a worldview of ignorance, motivated not-knowing. The correlation held with education, so the mediating factor is religion.

“According to a recent report, those states that are providing the best support systems to protect their at-risk populations from COVID-19 tend to be the more secular states with lower rates of church attendance and faith in God—states such as Vermont, Massachusetts, Colorado, and Maine—while those states with the worst support systems are nearly all states with highly religious cultures, such as Tennessee, Mississippi, and South Carolina,” Zuckerman said.

And yes, religious exemptions for social distancing furthered the poor outcomes of public health too. It held internationally too. Those more “secular populations and secular leaders” were more likely to “on average” perform better in terms of public health of their respective populations. This is not to deny the positive benefits of community and mental wellness coming from religion in the guise of community involvement and a feeling of solidarity and love with those around oneself. However, why do we need supernaturalism for this?

“To be sure, being religiously-involved has been correlated with many health benefits, especially in societies lacking a well-functioning welfare state that provides free and excellent health care to all citizens,” Zuckerman said, “For example, here in the U.S., people who attend church regularly tend to live longer and report lower stress levels. But what we see today is that the strongly religious appear to not be faring as well as the strongly secular in the face of this global pandemic.”

So, the real culprit is religion in general with hyper-religiosity, specifically; the issue is the extremes of religious belief leading to a denial of the obvious aspects of reality and hoping for some magical cure.  

Photo by Katarzyna Urbanek on Unsplash

Christian is a Philosopher that comes from Belgium. What identifies him the most and above all is simplicity, for everything is better with “vanilla flavour.” Perhaps, for this reason, his intellectual passion is criticism and irony, in the sense of trying to reveal what “hides behind the mask,” and give birth to the true. For him, ignorance and knowledge never “cross paths.” What he likes the most in his leisure time, is to go for a walk with his wife.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Mozart or Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart was a prolific composer of music. You love him, or the performances of the music. You mentioned Die Zauberflöte or “The Magic Flute.” Any further commentary on it?

Christian Sorenson: In my opinion, it is a musical composition loaded with “esoteric symbolism,” about which much can be speculated, but can hardly be deciphered.

Jacobsen: Now, there was some Freemasonic influence on the music. Is there any freemasonry background for you? I cannot shake the hand to be sure with the peculiar handshakes.

Sorenson: Depends on who asks…

Jacobsen: Are there any particularly trashy Mozart pieces? He couldn’t have made everything perfect with the music.

Sorenson: I estimate Mozart “did nothing perfect,” and in that sense it is necessary to distinguish between “mediocrity and perfection,” since “not being mediocre,” does not means unconditionally “something less perfect.” In relation to “Requiem,” which is its last composition, and to “Allegro Molto,” I feel there’s “something lacking.” Regarding the former, the reason was evident since it was left unfinished due to his death, but in relation to the last one, in my opinion there’s “a talent lack,” because both, the “musical notes wealth,” and “musical harmony,” are not evident as well as in the rest of the body of its musical work.

Jacobsen: Love and romance go hand-in-hand with music. We’re an auditory species for many emotions. Mozart, in fact, had trouble finding himself a partner, even Constanze was clumsily courted. As Seinfeld would say, “What’s the deal?” Why did he suck at this? It is one of those baffling aspects of highly intelligent people, even geniuses. There can be an attainment of the height of creative productions and the devilish failures in amour. It is as if the gods made a Faustian bargain with most of the great geniuses of ye olde worlde order. I could list a long scroll of names who admit to utter failures in romance while being amongst the most highly intelligent.

Sorenson: Indeed, “love and romanticism” go hand in hand with music, since these “are emotions,” and this last can “ignite and feed” them. Nevertheless, I believe that “romanticism and love” usually “don’t go hand in hand,” as occurred to Mozart and generally happens to geniuses, due to the fact that many times, though they are people “in love with love,” they instead “approach awkwardly” towards “the beloved” one, perhaps because they lack emotional and social skills, and therefore “fail in their attempt.” From my point of view, “romanticism is risky” in reason that “exacerbates love desire,” and this last brings as consequence the “evidence sign” of “love object non-existence.” If I could summarize it in one simple sentence, I would say that “to find love you better not talk about it.”

Jacobsen: Mozart’s music, it is almost a synesthetic experience. Why?

Sorenson: Because Mozart was a genius, and as geniuses we are able “to experience synesthetic experience,” and to produce in others that kind “of experiences,” since “our perceptions” are not always “fixed,” regarding to “perceptual organs” and to “supposed sensible objects” related to these.

Jacobsen: If we take music, live classical music, as a form of art, let’s say of Mozart, it’s a mix of three things. One of them is sound in minute ways in the manipulation of waves in air. Another is the visual presentation of the community of experts who play instruments – almost miraculous a primate species has been adapted to this purpose for the species enjoyment qua species enjoyment. A last is the, if close enough to the stage, the second acoustic resonance; the powerful resonance from the reverberations of the instruments on one’s body – truly remarkable. It is visual. It is auditory, primary and secondary forms. It is triggering for emotions. Emotions triggering certain memories, as keys unlocking feelings for emoting’s sake or for bringing forth, calling forward, buried moments of awareness. What are some other elements of the musical experience? How do the live performance and the recorded experience differ from one another?

Sorenson: The difference between both kinds of music, is similar to what occurs “when sucking a candy with or without its paper,” due to the way of approaching to it, and though it’s the same object, it leads to sensations that rather “oppose each other.” By listening to live music, what is lived is an “experience of real experience,” while doing it with recorded one, what arrives is the “experience of an inexistent experience.” In consequence, strictly speaking within the last “nothing is there” and our conscience is aware of it, meanwhile the former unlike this, possesses the “unpredictable and unexpected,” through which “uncertainty” of outcome is faced, in order to “increase emotionality” and to “trigger a pleasure chain,” associated with the “sensible experience” of “feeling nothingness.”

Jacobsen: For the unmeasurably gifted, such as yourself, what is the importance of intense emotionality to balance out the intense cognitive life?

Sorenson: “Emotional intensity” is an “intrinsic constitutive condition,” of being an “unmeasurable genius,” linked to the fact of possessing a very low “stimulus threshold” that leads in turn to be “hyperreactive” and “emotionally susceptible.” Therefore, this last “is necessary” as part of our life, but it “is not enough,” in itself for allowing us to achieve an adequate personal balance. Indeed, the latter will depend on the consequence fundamentally on the “quality and connotation” that “intensity within emotion” and “nature of emotions” adopt in order to achieve a “harmonic” and “stable balance.” Anyhow, we “are not balanced” precisely because everything “is balanced.”

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Christian.

Sorenson: Thanks to you, and I hope I have “silenced the noise of the stones carried by the river.”

Image Credit: Christian Sorenson.

Mubarak Bala is one of the most articulate and intelligent humanists in the world today. Not heard of much in the mainstream of some of the secular discourses for several reasons, as Dr. Sikivu Hutchinson has been noting for years, Humanism remains Euro-centric, as in Caucasian and Western culture; nothing wrong with either the ethnic groupings or the culture, but the over-emphasis can exclude other voices deserving a platform, due respect and dignity, and a presentation of a different side of problems, experiences, and, thus, manifestations of Humanism in order to make Humanism true to the universalist visions and aims of Humanism and humanists. Here’s the catch if you’re not aware: Bala is in jail.

Or so we think, he could be dead. We really don’t know. And that’s another reason for considering this a crime and a human right injustice (violation). As the innovator and freethinking leader of Nigeria, Dr. Leo Igwe, has noted repeatedly, there is a long-term trend of persecution of atheists and humanists throughout Nigerian society with one of the biggest manifestations in the northern parts of Nigeria, especially places like Kano because of the strong adherence to fundamentalist versions of Islam. Igwe and Bala are brilliant people. They’re extremely well-known and articulate, in life and word, humanists. There’s no doubt some fundamentalist believers are relishing this persecution of Bala. Many humanists, around the world mind you, are not enjoying this one bit.

As this is part of an ongoing series of opinion pieces, as with Igwe and several others, we won’t stop until there is justice for Bala. We’ve won the media war on a number of fronts. Don’t doubt international humanists’ resolve in this matter, the religious fundamentalist have messed up on all fronts in handling this case; if they want even a semblance of ass-covering, then one way in which to do this would be the release or fair trial in a secular court of Bala. Even in those cases, there would be failure on their parts. There’s only damage control left for this fundamental mistake on the part religious fundamentalists to try to subvert proper law and order, and international human rights, and the rights due to the President of the Humanist Association of Nigeria as stipulated in the Nigerian constitution.

We didn’t want this campaign; we didn’t want this fight. It was thrust on the community based on the bigotry, fear, prejudice, and superiority complex inherent in some religious minds, usually fundamentalist, about the non-religious. For this post, I want to focus the penal code of Kano in brief. Because this was part of the longer article the day of the arrest of Bala, unjustly. S.S. Umar & Co. were the ones filing the complaint to the police from Kano about a Facebook post by Bala in Kaduna. Bala was dragged out of his own place of residence by two out of uniform cops and then placed in jail. This entire situation is unfair and should be openly condemned from the outset. I know moderate and ordinary Christians in southern Nigeria and moderate and ordinary Muslims in northern Nigeria know the justice due to Bala because of the outrageous acts being demanded in order to appease religious fundamentalists in northern Nigeria.

We have international humanist support. We have ordinary religious believers’ support. It is only a small minority of religious fundamentalist believers who have proclaimed themselves the arbiters of the faith for all Muslims, which, in and of itself, should be seen as, and probably is perceived as, a blasphemous act or behaviour within the conceptualization of the ordinary Muslims and Christians in northern Nigeria and southern Nigeria, respectively. Nigeria, technically, has a secular constitution; as a fundamental tenet of Humanism, in some regards, is a separation between religion and state, or faith and governance.

The Penal Code of Kano State has a subtext of being a Sharia law-based legal code in which religion becomes imposed on the entirety of the population of Kano while within a larger context of Nigeria’s secular or humanistic constitution. How is this not wrong? How is this not unfair and unjust, and illegal in some manner? Because it has a larger secular law for all and then a secondary religious law precisely for the religious only; a religious or faith-based law that many want to impose on Mubarak Bala in which a humanist, an atheist, and a former Muslim would be subject to the death penalty because of the religious zealots who a) cannot handle open criticism, b) cannot handle an open and extremely intelligent and articulate humanist, c) cannot handle a prominent leader within the humanist communities, and d) cannot handle a individual who uses freedom of expression guaranteed within the constitutional setup of Nigeria. This is, fundamentally, unjust and shall be challenged by humanists, whether Humanists International, or the Humanist Association of Nigeria, or individual activists like Dr. Sikivu Hutchison, Mandisa Thomas, and others.

There are towering figures like the aforementioned and Professor Anthony Pinn who have provided an in-depth and rich intellectual analysis and contextualization for comprehension of the issues facing us as humanists. It is useful here. And to all humanists young and old, how ever much they may make you feel unwelcome and as if you’re not deserving of and granted the same human rights as them, these are your societies and your global community and, therefore, your identical rights too.

As per the complaint from S.S. Umar & Co., they stated, Bala “publically [insulted] Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) on his Facebook page contrary to Section 210 of the Penal Code of Kano State ad Section 26(1)(c) of the Cybercrimes (Prohibitions, Prevention, Etc.) Act of 2015.”

Cybercrimes (Prohibitions, Prevention, Etc.) Act of 2015 Section 26(1)(c) states:

26. (1) Any person who with intent –

(c) insults publicly through a computer system or network–

(i) persons for the reason that they belong to a group distinguished by race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin, as well as religion, if used as a pretext for any of these factors; or

(ii) a group of persons which is distinguished by any of these characteristics;

What does this complaint mean? It implies a dead man, a man six feet under (or purportedly in heaven), has been insulted. How can someone know this? By principle of parsimony, a more pragmatic interpretation is a select group of Muslims claiming to speak for all Muslims feel insulted over a Facebook post and, thus, declare this an insult to a dead man – leaving aside the idea of a religion being insulted.

I have seen on social media numerous death threats against Bala because he is an atheist (or a humanist and a former Muslim). In this, the real crime radar should be utilized to focus more rightly on real individuals making more than insulting claims and, in fact, declarations of public intent to murder against an individual because of a set of beliefs and a particular rejection of a systematized religious series of beliefs. Who is this justice system kidding? Bala should be released without question or given a fair trial in a secular court; otherwise, the logical implication, by the penal code and the cybercrimes bill would imply a far more grievous and larger set of open charges, by their own stipulations, of the need to jail and potentially charge numerous individuals proclaiming open harm against a living individual, Mubarak Bala.

Free Mubarak Bala.

Image Credit: Mubarak Bala.