Dr Saheb Sahu, MD, MPH

Assisted Dying

Assisted dying, also known as physician- assisted suicide or medical aid in dying, is suicide undertaken with the aid of another person. The term usually refers to physician-assisted suicide, which is suicide that is assisted by a physician or other healthcare provider.

Euthanasia

The word euthanasia comes from Greek euthanatos, (eu-easy, thanatos-death) which means easy death or good death. It is the intentional ending of life of a person suffering from an incurable or painful disease at his or her request.

The evolution of assisted dying

Many people object to assist dying on religious grounds: some faiths (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) deem suicide a sin. Others worry that safeguards will prove insufficient, or legalization is a slippery slope. Critics have long predicted that families exhausted by the demands of caring for the sick, elderly relatives will place undue pressure on them to end their lives.

 Yet such horrors do not seem to have come to pass. In much of the West public opinion has long favored assisted dying. In 2019, 71% of Spaniards (a deeply Catholic country) supported voluntary euthanasia. Change has been rapid. Assisted dying is now legal or decriminalized in at least a dozen of countries. But it is still rare.Most cases are cancer related, and the number of death is tiny. But they are nonetheless changing how people think about dying. In some countries assisted dying has been extended to those with mental disorders and dementia, even to old people who feel tired of life. A clandestine network of interested people who share methods to kill themselves has sprung up on the internet.

 Thirty years ago assisted dying was illegal everywhere except Switzerland. But in 1997 the American state of Oregon approved the Death with Dignity Act, initiating a spate of liberalization. In Oregon two doctors must agree that a patient is of sound mind and has less than six months to live before he or she can receive the lethal drugs. These drugs must be administered by the patients themselves (a physician prescribes it). Since 1997, around 2,000 people have taken advantage of the law in the state of Oregon (250 in 2020), with no wrongful deaths reported. Versions of the law are now on the books of ten American States and the District of Columbia.

 Oregon’s laws are being copied internationally, with some modifications. New Zealand’s Oregon-stylelaw came into effect on Nov, 2021. In Australia, the state of Victoria passed similar laws in 2017. Worldwide, euthanasia is legal in Belgium, Luxemburg, Canada, New Zealand, Spain, the Netherlands and Colombia and ten states in United States. In Britain similar laws passed the House of Commons and waiting to be passed in the House of Lords. Three quarters of Britons support a right to die.

 Canada offers a better model, because it provides more lee-way for individuals to make their own choices. Anyone whose suffering is unbearable can choose an assisted death. They do not have to be terminally ill. What constitutes “unbearable” suffering is for the patients themselves to decide, so long as they are of sound mind. There is a cooling-off period of ten days, in case they have second thoughts. In many cases, simply having the option of an assisted death gives people a sense of comfort and control. In Oregon a third of those people who receive the prescribed lethal drugs ultimately choose not to take it.

Assisted Suicide Methods

In general, once the requesting patient meets the criteria of the state law, a willing physician prescribes the lethal dose of the appropriate drug to assist in dying. The patient buys the drugs.An oral dose of antiemetic drug (to prevent from vomiting) is taken first,followed approximately half an hour later by a lethal doseof the sedative drug dissolved in a glass of water. The overdose of the drug depresses the central nervous system, causing the patient to become drowsy and fall asleep within 3-5 minutes of drinking it. From drowsiness the patient progresses to coma, followed by respiratory arrest and death which occurs within 30-40 minutes of ingesting the drug. The process is painless.

The Indian Context

Prayopavesa (Sanskrit: प्रायोपवेशनम्, IAST prāyopaveśanam, literally resolving to die through fasting) is a practice in Hinduism that denotes the suicide by fasting of a person who has no desire or ambition left, and no responsibilities remaining in life.Sallekhana also known as samadhi-marana or sanysana-marana is a supplementary vow in the ethical code of conduct of Jainism. It is the religious practice of voluntarily fasting to death by gradually reducing the intake of food and liquids. However, British legal codes had made all forms of suicide illegal in India including the horrible practice of sati.

Since March 2018, passive euthanasia (intentionally letting apatient die by withholding artificial life support such as a respirator or feeding tube) has been legal in India under strict guidelines. Patient must consent through a living will (a legal document expressing the wishes), must be terminally ill or in a vegetative state. The same judgement-law also asked for the scrapping of 309, the code which penalizes those who survive suicide –attempts.

Conclusion

No rules in this area of assisted dying are perfect. All should be subject to revision in the light of new evidence about how they work in practice, or take account medical advances. But the overall principle – that individuals are entitled to choose how they end their lives- is a sound one.  According to the Economist magazine (Nov, 2021), “The evidence from countries that allow assisted dying is real and substantial. It relieves suffering, restores a measure of dignity to people at the end of their lives”.

Longevity depends on our genes and our lifestyle. We have no control over what good or bad genes we inherit but we have some control over how we live our lives. Scientific studies are quite conclusive that age-related morbidity can be postponed and longevity can be increased if we live a healthier life style. According to National Institute of Aging, USA-“Finding a “fountain of youth” is a captivating story. The truth is that, to date, no ant-aging remedy has been found.” Hence, do what have been proven to work; do not smoke or drink, be physically active, eat a healthy diet (whole grains, lots of fruits and vegetables, fish and lean meat, low fat dairy products and few eggs a week) and maintain a normal body weight and have some friends.

Death is an event we cannot avoid. Why don’t we die the way we say we want to die? Advances in medicine have eased the line between saving a life and prolonging a dying. Dying is painful, messy, expensive and imperfect. Physician-assisted dying is not an option available to most people. We have no control over when we will die. However, we have some control over where and how we will die. To achieve the twin goals, it will take some advance planning on our parts. When we are old or suffering from a terminal illness, we should discuss with our loved ones about where we want to die, at home or in a hospital. Do we want unnecessary and costly treatments just to live few more months? The decision is ours. But we must let our family members and doctors know our wishes. Putting it in writing in a living will (also known as advance healthcare directive) is even better. As many wise people have said before: “There is no need to rage against the dying of the light. The only way to have a good death is to lead a good life”. Lead a life full of curiosity, compassion, and generosity.

But if you want to have some control over how and where you will die, Prayopavesa or Sallekhana, (a Jain vow) the practice of voluntarily fasting to death by gradually reducing the intake of food and liquidsare not bad options. The most frequently reported symptoms in the early days include thirst or dry mouth and occasional hunger. Wiping the mouth with a wet cloth or glycerin swab on regular basis can help ease symptoms of dry mouth. A person can live quite few days without eating depending on his /her nutritional status. But he /she does not drink any liquid, he or /she will die much sooner from dehydration as it happens in severe diarrhea like-cholera. Most peopleslip into come in 2 to 4 days (depending upon their prior nutritional status) and die in 10-14 days. The process is shorter ifthey do not drink any liquid. But the death is peaceful and painless.

 Source

 The Economist. Nov, 13-20, 2021

Wikipedia .org

Dr Saheb Sahu

Who knows whence this creation had its origin?

He, whether He fashioned it or whether He did not,

He, who surveys it all from the highest heaven,

He knows – or maybe even He does not know.

• Rig Veda, X.129 C1500BCE?

“The only thing I know is that I know nothing”.

• Socrates

What is Doubt?

Doubt is rather complex and multifaceted phenomenon. Both superficial and profound doubt exists. According to the cynics, everything and everybody must be constantly subjected to doubt, since nothing can be held to be true and trustworthy. I like the above quotation from the Rig-Veda- “Who knows- or may be even He does not know.” Rene Descartes said- “Everything ought to be subjected to doubt”.

One can doubt about big and important or small or unimportant thing. One can harbor doubts about one-self, or the world at large, or God or the universe. Doubt is particularly important in science. Without doubt science cannot progress. Doubt is particularly opposed to hasty judgment, prejudgment, and prejudice. Doubt and uncertainty pave the way to knowledge and truth.

What is God?

According to Mortimer J. Adler, ex- chairman of the Board of Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica-“Almost everyone uses the word God, but almost nobody can say what they mean by the word, especially if they are persons without religious beliefs. We have no experience of God, as we do have of cats or dogs. It is a theoretical construct”.

The word god refers to a “supreme being or deity”. The word god comes from the Proto-Germanic word Gaut. The Sanskrit word is “Deva”, the Greek word is “dios” (divine) and the Latin word is “deus”.  The original word “gaut” was of neutral gender. Later on, Christians made it a masculine gender.

 Some of the names for God had (has) been Adonai (Lord, Master), Yahweh (Lord, Jehovah), Elohim (God), Allah (God of Islam), Amon (Egyptian creator God), Anu (Mesopotamian God), Izanagi (creator God in Japan), Itzamna (Mayan creator God) Adroa (creator God of some parts of Africa), Vishnu, Brahma, and Shiva (India).

What is Religion?

Religion is a social-cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations that relates humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual element; however, there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitute a religion. (Wikipedia)

Theist is a person who believes in the existence of a God or gods, specially a creator who intervenes in the universe. An atheist is a person who does not belief in the existence of a God or gods. An agnostic is a person who believes that nothing can be known of the existence or nature of God. A hereticis a person who does not believe in the orthodox doctrines of a religion.

 According to a 2021 survey, 90% of Chinese, 73% Swedish, 40% of British, 39% of American and 5 % Indian population consider themselves to be non-believers or atheists.

Doubters in History

India – 600 BCE-1C.E.

The Carvaka

The extraordinary materialist doctrine came into bloom in India in the seventh century BCE. It was called Lokayata and its adherents were the Carvaka. Their central text Brihaspati Sutra dates back to 600BCE, but no copy has survived. It seems it has been systematically destroyed by the Brahmin class, in defending their own dogma.

 The Carvaka believed that there is no afterlife whatsoever. They believed that our bodies think and feel, wear out and die. There can be nothing to live on after death. The whole universe was constructed of earth, water, fire and air. There was no spirit or life force. This, after all, is the only life we have, so we ought to enjoy it as much as possible. They proclaimed that there were no gods and there was no heaven or hell. They debunked Hinduism by arguing against the idea of gods, karma, and rebirth. They believed that the rituals of the Brahmins were useless, and the Vedas were untruth and full of self-contradictions.

“There is no heaven, no final liberation, nor any soul in another world

Nor do the actions of the four castes, orders, etc., produce any real effect

…While life remains let a man live happily, let him feed on ghee even though he runs in debt;

When once the body becomes ashes, how can it ever return again?

If he who departs from the body goes to another world,

How is that he comes not back again, restless for the love of his kindred?

Hence it is only as a means of livelihood that Brahmins have established

here all the ceremonies for the dead – there is no other fruit anywhere.

-The Sarva-Darsana-samgraha

Jainism and Buddhism

The great leaders of Jainism and Buddhism both lived in the sixth century BCE. Both of them rejected much of the Vedas. Both of them were influenced by the Carvakas.

 Mahavira, the 24^th Tirthankara of Jainism, taught that the gods and goddesses, sacrifices and rituals of Hinduism were irrelevant. The Hindu gods were rejected and were not replaced by any supernatural force. Jainism is generally understood as an atheist religion.

 The Buddha denied a central Hindu notion, that of atman. The Buddha said: you are never going to find your atman. Why? Because there is no atman. Buddha doubted that starvation helped people to reach enlightenment although it was a technique common among Hindu ascetics. Instead, he proposed a middle ground between gluttony and starvation. He preached a doctrine devoid of rituals, traditions and speculations. For the attainment of enlightenment (Nirvana) Buddha pointed to the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Paths. One of Buddha’s most famous preaching to his disciples was:

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”

 Buddha would have been a great scientist!

Greek Doubters (600BCE-1CE)

The Epicureans

The Greek philosopher Epicurus (341-271BCE) was a fascinating character in history of doubt. He answered fear of gods by simply insisting that gods do exist sort of, but that they are totally unconcerned with human affairs. He wanted to free humanity from idiosyncratic gods. The world was not made by the gods and it was not made for us. We may enjoy it in peace. His theories of astronomy denied the movement of stars had anything to do with gods. For Epicurus, living prudently was road to happiness. Accept the bad things in the knowledge that they are not really bad, get over the idea that the gods are watching you, and be happy.

The Skeptics

Skepticism began with Pyrrho of Elis, who lived from 365 BCE to about 275 BCE. Pyrrho believed that nothing can be known, because opposite of every statement could be asserted with plausibility. Since we know nothing for certain, we should attempt to have no opinion. We thus stand aloof from life and thereby attain peace of mind. In 334 BCE, Pyrrho travelled with Alexander to India, where he studied with the philosophers and ascetics of the Indus Valley.

 Skepticism became more important in the second century BCE when the philosopher Arcesilaus brought it into the Platonic Academy. Thus, many of the Greek philosophers put the gods or God into doubt.

Doubt and the Ancient Jews (600BCE-1CE)

Book of Job and Ecclesiastes (both of the Old Testament) are both rather antireligious and antidogmatic. We need a little background. Very early on their history, the Hebrews (Jews) had some extremely good fortune on the field of war and attributed that fortune to their powerful warrior God. Once they started losing wars, however, they built a theology that they had failed God and he was punishing them.

In 586 BCE Jerusalem was captured by the Babylonians and torched. Thousands of elites, professionals, and skilled workers were exiled to enrich the cities of Babylon. The Book of Job seems to have been written in this period, between 600BCE and 400 BCE. The biblical Job is a story faith, revolt, and doubt.

Ecclesiastes is a beautiful book of the Old Testament. The book was written in the third century BCE (250-225BCE). The author of the book Koheleth doubted every aspect of religion, from the very idea of righteousness, to the traditional idea of divine justice. One of the greatest doubting lines ever written was this:  “Under the sun, the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the neither wise, nor riches to the learned, nor favor to the skillful: but time and chance happens to them all.”

 Koheleth turns directly to the brute facts of death. He does not believe in after life.

“All go to one place; all are of the dust, and all return to dust again”.

 There was some relationship between Greek society and the rise of Jewish doubt. Historians differ whether Koheleth (author of Ecclesiastes) knew Epicurus, but all agree that their doctrines bear a family resemblance worth pondering.

Doubters in Rome, 50 BCE – 200CE

Lucretius (c99-55BCE) was a contemporary of Cicero and the great poet of Epicureanism. His famous poetry book On the Nature of Things, is a heroic poetry of doubt and disbelief. It celebrates Epicurus as then great champion of rational thought and as the conqueror of religion. Lucretius believed that soul dies with the body. He wrote:

“Death, then, is nothing to us, no concern,

Once we grant that the soul will also die.”

Marcus Aurelius

 The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (121-180CE) is often described as a philosophical agnostic and a practical atheist. In his famous book Meditation, Aurelius mentions that perhaps the universe has God, and meaning, and perhaps it does not.

Sextus Empiricus

Sextus Empiricus is the best exemplar of the skeptics of the Roman times. He lived from the mid second century through about the first quarter of the third. There are three serving works by Sextus, each in several volumes. They are all classic works of doubt- doubt of everything. He argued that it is impossible to prove the existence of something (god) that does not make itself apparent. He picks up Epicurus’s idea that a powerful god who knows all does not make sense in a world so full of evil as our own. He wrote:

“If [God] has the power of thought for all things, but not the will, he will be considered malicious. And if he has neither the will nor the power, he is both malicious and weak. But to say this about God is impiety. Therefore God has no forethought for the things in the world.

 But if he takes no thought for anything, and no work or product of his exists, a person will not be able to say where we get the idea that God exists, seeing that he neither appears of himself nor is apprehended by means of any of his products. For these reasons, then, it cannot be apprehended whether God exists”.

Christian Doubters 1-800CE

Doubt was an accepted aspect of Greek, Roman and Jewish life but not the center of it. With Christianity managing one’s doubt and faith, became the central drama.

 Jesus is a difficult historical figure. We have no indication that he wrote anything. The first three Gospels (Mathew, Mark and Luke) which are about his life and work were written about half a century after his death. Jesus, who would come to be understood as one with God of this new religion (Christianity) had a moment of doubt of his God. On the cross, suffering, after he has been there for many hours, he called out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

 Apostle Thomas refused to believe that the resurrected Jesus had appeared to the other disciples, until he could see and feel the wounds received by Jesus on the cross. A doubting Thomas is a skeptic who refuses to believe without direct personal experience- a reference to Apostle Thomas. (John: 20).

 Christianity was a mix of the Greek culture and the Jewish tradition. Built right into the very nature of Christianity, then, were the doubts of both of these traditions.

Augustine (354-430CE)

Augustine is considered one of the greatest of the Latin Church fathers. He is famous for his two books: Confession (400CE) and The City of God (412-27). In Confession he spent five chapters of the book wrestling with his personal doubt and temptation. Speaking directly to God, Augustine asks God: “How did you make heaven and earth, and what machine did you use for so vast an operation?” Cicero had also asked God, the same question. In an odd twist, Augustine praised doubt as the road to knowledge.

Muslim Doubters

Ibn al- Rawandi

We do not know much about Ibn al- Rawandi. Some scholars’ think he died about 860 CE and others that he lived until 912 or so. He wrote many mainstream scholarly works and amazing amount of heretical works. In bold agreement with Aristotle, he supported the eternity of the world, though it meant that God did not create it. He also took such position as: “against the idea that God is wise”, “against the Koran”, “against Muhammad”, and “against all prophets”. His most important book was Kitab alZumurrand or The Book of the Emerald.  The book criticizes prayer, concern for ritual purity, and all the ceremonies of the hajj. Among his other books, Ibn al- Rawandi wrote Against the Koran and a little treatise called The Futility of Divine wisdom. He mocks the philosopher’s idea of God as “universal force” that does not know how to add two and four to get six.

 Even though al-Rawandi was radical in his doubt, he was tolerated by the establishment.

Abu Bakr al Razi (854-925CE)

Abu Bakr al Razi has been called “the greatest nonconformist in the whole history of Islam”. He was a doctor and has been called the most creative genius of medieval medicine. His three famous books are: The Prophet’s Fraudulent Tricks, The Stratagems of Those Who Claim to be Prophets, and On the Reformation of Revealed Religions.In them al- Razi asked ground breaking questions about prophets: “On what ground do you deem necessary that God should single out certain individuals by giving them prophecy that he should set them up above other people, that he should appoint them to be people’s guide, and make people dependent upon them?”

 Al –Razi thought the variety of religions was a good proof that none of them had it right. He was able to get away with this ruthless religious critique because he did so much more.

Abdullah al-Maarri (973-1057CE)

Abdullah al Maarri was born in Syria, contracted smallpox as a child, and eventually went blind from it. He was a fabulous character in the history of doubt. He specifically lauded doubt in God and other spirits. He believed people believe what they are brought to believe.

“Our young man grows up in the belief to which his father has accustomed him.

It is not Reason that makes him religious, but he is taught religion by his next of kin.”

…

“They recite their sacred books, although the fact informs me that there is a fiction from first to last.

O reason, though (alone) speaks the truth. Then perish the fools who forged the religious traditions or interpreted them.”

The other famous Muslim doubters were Avicenna (980-1037) and Al –Ghazzali (1058-111).

Doubters (1400-1600)

Renaissance and Reformation

Desiderius Erasmus (c1466-1536) was a Dutch humanist and scholar and one of the most influential Renaissance figures. In his book Praise of Folly he made fun of the scholars of the Church who praised the glory of the God. He asked: “Could God have taken on the form of a woman, a devil, a donkey, or a Flintstone?” He wrote that humans are too complex and obscure that nothing can be known for certain.

Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) the Italian philosopher and scientist, championed the Copernicus’s theory of earth rotating around the Sun (heliocentric). The theory was against the teachings of the Catholic Church. Bruno disagreed with the Church on countless points. The one that was most shocking was his complete conviction that the universe was infinite and filled with many other suns like ours. Bruno believed that Jesus Christ was not God but merely an unusually skillful magician. He also rejected Jesus’s virgin birth and resurrection (rising from his grave).

 Because Bruno’s views were against the teachings of the Church, he was sentenced to death by fire. He was invited to repent but he would not. In 1592, he was burned at the stake in Rome.

 Another great doubter was Lucilio Vanini (1585-1619). He was well educated by the Jesuits and earned a doctorate from Padua university. From the start he casts doubt on every aspect of Christianity. He insisted that there were no ghosts or spirits and independent human soul do not exist. He wrote that all religions, including Christianity, are human inventions, fictions cooked up by kings and clergy for the sake of power. He believed that allmiracles associated with prayer are just coincidences or have natural explanations. He was burnt to death by the order of the Christian Church, at the age of thirty-four in1619. The charge was blasphemy and atheism.

Doubters (1600-1800)

Baruch Spinoza (1632-77) was born in Amsterdam in 1632. His family had been Jewish. He was an admirer of Bruno and Descartes. He told people that the Torah (Jewish Holy Book) was not literally the word of God, that Jews were not God’s chosen people, and there is no immortal human soul. He was asked to recant but he would not back down and was excommunicated (kicked out of religion) from Judaism in 1656. Although Spinoza never said he was an atheist, he was known as one in his own country, and ever afterward. He was convinced that the Bible had multiple authors and he rejected divine authorship altogether.

Thomas Hobbs (1588-1679) was an English political philosopher. Hobbes is best known today for the political science of his master work, Leviathan. He wrote that without authoritarian government people’s lives would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”. Hobbes said that we do not know anything about God other than he exists. Like Spinoza, he believed that the Bible had multiple authors and not words of God. He believed that religion is there for people in power to control their subjects. In 1666, a bill against atheism was introduced in British House of Common that mentioned Leviathan by name. When a great wave of plague hit England, cry went out to burn Hobbes.

John Locke (1632-1704) studied at Oxford, where he became friends with Newton and Boyle. He went to France, where he met bright new minds of French philosophy and science. Then he went to Holland, where he wrote his Essay Concerning Human Understanding in1690.

 Locke had digested the doubt of the ancient philosophers (there were no anthropomorphic gods) and ancient skeptics (nothing could be known at all). By 1725, J.E.Reimann’s Universal History of Atheism included as atheists: Thomas Hobbes, John Tolland, Count Charles Blount, and Anthony Collins.

Enlightenment

Denis Diderot (1713-1784) and his friend the mathematician Jean d’Alembort (1717-1783) created the Enlightenment’s most famous project the Encyclopedia, a compendium of knowledge and know-how,the latest technology, and most scandalous new ideas. It was considered extremely antireligious. Diderot is often written as an atheist and a world-class doubter. Voltaire and Diderot were the most innovative philosophers of doubt in France.

American Founding Fathers

American Founding Fathers:  Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson were deists. Deists believe in the existence of a superior being, specifically of a creator who does not intervene in the universe.

Thomas Paine (1737-1809) was involved in American Independence as well as in French Revolution. While in France he wrote his major treatise on religion, The Age of Reason (1794). Paine was bold: “Every national Church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God… Each of these Churches accuses the other of unbelief; and for my part, I disbelieve them all”.  He wrote: “I do not believe in the creed professed by any church. My mind is my own church… All preachers are pious frauds, always have been”.

 The Age of Reason wrecked his reputation in America. He was branded as an atheist and free –thinker and was ostracized by his friends.

Thomas Jefferson (1735-1826), the third president of the United Sates was a deist and a mellow doubter. In private letter to a friend, Jefferson wrote; “As you say of yourself, I too am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us”. It was Jefferson who put together the bill for establishing religious freedom in the United Sates. This was his great contribution and he fought for it his whole life.

Age of Science and Reform: 1800-1900

The nineteenth century was easily the best documented moment of wide spread doubt in human history. The big new element was the reformists. They begin the century demanding an end to religious persecution. Many of the famous calls for reform-for an end to slavery, for women’s rights, for free speech-were made by doubters.  Doubters thus established the term of democracy. Quitea few of these reformist doubters were female.

 In this century, doubters of all stripes, from Elizabeth Cady Stanton (women’s voting right), to John Keats, to Karl Marx, were committed to their doubts. In an 1844 paper (on philosopher Hegel) Marx wrote: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of the heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people”.

 Of all the great doubters among American reforming women, the greatest were Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her comrade in arms, Susan B. Anthony. Both were vocal doubters. Stanton spoke out on myriad of church-and-state issues and initiated feminist biblical criticism. As she proclaimed in 1882: “According to Church teaching, woman was an afterthought in the creation, the author of sin, being at once in collision with Satan. Her sex was made a crime, marriage a condition of slavery, owing obedience, maternity a curse, and the true position of all womankind one of inferiority and subjection to all men; and the same ideas are echoed in our pulpits today”.

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was a German philosopher and avowed atheist. As he saw it, there is no God, nothing made the world, we are accidental animals, and our way of knowing creates the world as we know it. In 1813, Schopenhauer discovered Buddhism and Hinduism. He pointed out the similarities between his philosophy and the atheist religions of India.

 Another famous German philosopher and scholar, Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) said: “God Is dead”.

Principles of Uncertainty, 1900

 The twentieth century began with a great variety of doubters: women’s rights and birth control activists, Russian communists, German materialists and many more.  In a 1909 speech Lenin said, “Marxism is materialism and as such relentlessly opposed to religion”. All the communists in the world followed his lead. Mao Zedong followed Marx and Lenin. Mao believed that religion drained resources from the state and deceived people. During the Cultural Revolution many monasteries and churches were destroyed in China.

 When the Ottoman Empire fell in 1923, Turkey was proclaimed a republic. Kemal Ataturk its first president said of religion, “I have no religion, and at times I wish all religions at the bottom of the sea”. In 1923 he abolished religious orders and made Turkey a secular country, a first among the Muslim countries.

In India, Gandhi was a believer but its first Prime Minister Nehru was an atheist. In 1950, India became a secular country.

 For doubters, the rise of Darwinism (the theory of evolution of species by natural selection advanced by Charles Darwin) was a triumph. Something similar happened in physics. Quantum mechanics holds that it is impossible to measure the position of a particular particle, at a particular moment. That is doubt. Albert Einstein said: “The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish”.

Philosophers of Science

Twentieth-century philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) was an outspoken and engaged doubter. In his essay “Why I Am Not a Christian” (a 1927 lecture), Russell revived an old approach: he enumerated the proofs of god and why they no longer held. He added a new voice of contented doubt. He said, “I believe that when I die I shall not, and nothing of ego will survive”.  Russell believed that doubt was nice and science was route to truth.

 Russell’s wife, Dora Black Russell (1894-1986), had becomea freethinker at a young age and joined local Heretic’s Society while still in high school. Her first book, Hypatia(1925), was about women’s reproductive and sexual freedom and a critique of Christianity.

The teachings of Vedas, Confucianism and Buddhism came to the west in later part of the nineteenth century. The Theosophical Society in New York was founded in 1875. By the 1960s meditation was growing in popularity, as were courses in Zen Buddhism. The famous Zen maxim, “Great doubt: great awakening. Little doubt: little awakening. No doubt: no awakening”.

 Some of the other famous doubters of twentieth century were A.J Ayer (British philosopher), Albert Camus (French philosopher and author), Simone de Beauvoir (French writer and feminist), George Santayana (philosopher, he called himself a Catholic atheist) and John Rawls (American political philosopher).

India

 Among the prominent Indian doubters of God and Religion were Debi Chattopadhyay (1918-1993) Marxist philosopher, Periyar E.V.Ramasamy (1879-1973), philosopher, social activist and founder of Dravidian movement, and Jawaharlal Nehru(1889-1964) the first Prime Minister of India.Nehru described himself as Hindu Agnostic. He thought that religious taboos were preventing India from going forward and adapting modern conditions: “No country or people who are slaves to dogma and dogmatic mentality can progress”. He also wrote: “The spectacle of what is called religion, or at any rate organized religion, in India and elsewhere has filled me with horror and I have frequently condemned it and wished to make a clean sweep of it. Almost always it seemed to stand for blind belief and reaction, dogma and bigotry, superstition, exploitation and the preservation of the vested interests”. During his entire long career as the Prime Minister of India, Nehru remained a secular leader.

Doubters of Late Twentieth and Early Twenty First Century

 Some of the well-known doubters of God and Religion in later part of the twentieth century are Edward Wilson, Professor of Biology at Harvard, Francis Crick and James Watson, co-discoverer of DNA and Nobel Laureates, Richard Dawkins, Professor of Biology at Oxford, Daniel Dennett, Professor of Philosophy at Tuft University, Peter Singer, Professor of Bioethics at Princeton, Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011), journalist, essayist and a world class debater.

Conclusion

 In the ancient world doubt emerged very early on.  The Rishis of Indian Rig-Veda (c1500BCE) said: “Who knows when the creation had its origin?” The Carvakas (7^th century BCE) rejected God, gods, karma, and life after death and the concept of atman. They declared religion as a trap used by leaders and priests for power and money. Both Mahavira and Buddha taught that gods, goddesses, sacrifices and rituals were irrelevant.

 Greek philosopher Socrates said:” The onlything I know is that I know nothing”. Epicurus of Greece insisted that gods do not exist. Greek skeptic Pyrrho believed that nothing can be known for certain as our senses and memories are not reliable. Famous Roman doubters were Lucretius, Marcus Aurelius and Sextus Empiricus. Greek teachings influenced the Romans, Jews and Christians. Jewish books: Book of Job and Ecclesiastes of the Old Testament (7^thCenturyBCE) both are anti-religious and anti-dogmatic. Jesus on the cross called out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Apostle Thomas (doubting Thomas) refused to believe that the resurrected Jesus had appeared to the other apostles.

 Muslim doubters al- Rawandi and al -Razi (9^th century CE) asked: “On what ground do you deem it necessary that God should single out certain individual as Prophet?”

From the 15^th century onward, multiple philosophers, scholars and scientists from Desiderius Erasmus to Stephen Hawkins have argued against the existence of gods or God and usefulness of religion in human lives.Many of them believe that religion has been harmful for mankind.

The Jews have been persecuted by the Christians since the 4^th century CE, even though Jesus was a Jew and both the religions came out of The Old Testament. Religious conflicts between the Shias and Sunnis have been documented from the beginning of Islam up until the present time. Europe in the 16^th and 17^th centuries was torn by bloody wars between Catholics and Protestants, a feud that still festered in 20^th century Ireland. The Partition of India in 1947 was accompanied by violent Hindu-Muslim conflict with killing of 200,000 to 2 million and displacement of 10 to 20 million people. When communist Yugoslavia fell apart, Orthodox Christians and Muslims waged bloody war in the Balkan. Recently, Buddhists in Myanmar have killed more than 25,000 and displaced more than one million of Rohingya people (a Muslim minority group in Myanmar). The Muslim world is currently going through another cycle of Shias-Sunni conflict.

 But everything about religion is not bad. Religion can lead to better lives for is its followers. All religions emphasize ethics: treat others as you like to be treated, tell the truth, take care of your parents, and help the poor and so on. Many of the religious rituals are good for mental health. However,problem arises when the followers of any religion claim that: “Our religion is better than yours, our God is the only true God, and our scriptures are the only one with true words of God”.  It is “We vs “Them”. That leads to religious intolerance and conflict.

 I will conclude this article from a quote from the former Professor of Mathematics and Physics of Cambridge University, Stephen Hawking (1942-2018).In 2011, Professor Hawking kind of summarized the thinking of most modern scholars about God and Religion as:

“We are free to believe what we want and it is my view that the simplest explanation is there is no God. No one created the universe and no one directs our fate. This leads me to a profound realization. There is probably no heaven and no afterlife either. We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe, and for that, I am extremely grateful”.

Remember Buddha’s last message to his disciples: “Appo Deepo Bhava”, meaning “be light unto yourself”. 

Sources

1- Jennifer Michael Hecht. Doubt a history. New York: HarpersSanFrancisco, 2003

2-Peter Berger and Anton Zijderveld. In Praise of Doubt, How to Have Convictions without Becoming a Fanatic, New York: Harper One, 2009

3- Wikipedia.org-October 2021

Dr Saheb Sahu

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will”.

Frederick Douglas (American anti-slavery leader)

Civil Disobedience- Nonviolent Resistance-Satyagraha

Civil disobedience refers to the active refusal to obey certain law, demands and commands of a government or an occupying power without resorting to violence. The expression was first coined by Henry David Thoreau in his essay “Civil Disobedience”, in 1849, although the concept has been practiced longer before.  In 1907, Gandhi read Civil Disobedience while in South African Jail for protesting for the repeal of the racist Asiatic Registration Laws.  Over the course of seven years, thousands of striking Indians were imprisoned, including Gandhi himself. The law was repealed in 1914, proving to Gandhi that nonviolent resistance could be effective method even for people living under colonial rule. In 1915 Gandhi returned to India and started numerous satyagrahas against the British, culminating in the famous 1930 Salt March, 240 miles from Ahmadabad to the Arabian Sea.

The concept of civil disobedience has inspired leaders as Susan B. Anthony of U.S. women’s suffrage (women rights) movement in the late 1800s, Saad Zaagdoul in the 1910s culminating in the Egyptian Revolution of 1919 against the British occupation and Mahatma Gandhi in 1920s against the British Raj in India, Martin Luther King Jr’s civil rights movement in the 1960s in the United States.

Besides Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr, other notable advocates of nonviolent resistance are Leo Tolstoy (Gandhi also learned from him) , James Bevel, Vaclav Havel, Andrei Sakharov, Lech Walesa, Gene Sharp, Nelson Mandela, Jose Rizal, (of Philippines) and many others.

Some of the well-known nonviolent resistance movements in History

1. 1848-1920– Suffrage movement (for women’s rights) in USA led by Susan Anthony and others. Women got voting rights in USA in 1920.
2. 1917-1947-Indian independence movement against the British Raj, led by Gandhi and Indian National   Congress.  Gandhi had his first civil resistance victory in 1907 in South Africa. He returned to India in 1915 and in 1917 led the Champaran Satyagraha, followed by Kheda Satyagraha in 1918, Dandi Salt march in 1930, and Quit India movement 1942. Gandhi was imprisoned six times in South Africa (1908-1913), and seven times in India (1918-1942).
3. 1919-1922-Egptian Revolution of 1919. It is considered one of the earliest successful civil-disobedience movements world-wide. It led to the end of British occupation of Egypt in 1922.
4. American Civil Rights movement was a struggle for justice and equality for African Americans that took place mainly in 1950s and 1960s. It was mostly nonviolent struggle led by Martin Luther King Jr. and others civil rights leaders.
5. Protests against the Vietnam War took place in the 1960s and 1970s. The antiwar movement began mostly in US college campuses and spread to major cities around the world.
6. 1968– Prague Spring was a mass nonviolent protest in communist Czechoslovak Socialist Republic from 5Jan, 1968 -21 Aug, 1968. It was crushed by 600,000 Warsaw Pack troops.
7. The 1974 Bihar Movement was initiated by college students against misrule and corruption of the Congress Government in Bihar. Later on it became an all India movement led by Jayaprakash Narayan against the emergency rule imposed by P.M Indira Gandhi. Indira Gandhi was voted out in 1977 and emergency was over.
8. 1979 – Iranian Revolution, locally known as Islamic Revolution led to the overthrow of the Shah and brought Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers to power.
9. 1986 – People Power Movement in Philippines led to the end of Ferdinand Marco’s 20-year dictatorship and restoration of democracy in Philippines.
10. 1989– Tiananmen Square Protest, Beijing, China, led by students calling for democracy, free speech and free press. The protest was brutally crushed with 250,000 troops, who killed thousands of protestors and arrested more than 10,000 of them.
11. Rose Revolution, in Georgia from Nov, 3-23, 2003, toppled the duly elected but corrupt government of President Eduard Shevardnadze.
12. Tunisian Revolution, also called the Jasmine Revolution, was an intensive 28-day campaign of civil resistance, which led to the ousting of long time president/dictator Ben Ali in Jan, 2011.
13. Egyptian Revolution (Tahir Square) also known as Arab Spring (25^th Jan-11Feb 2011), consisted of demonstrations, marches, occupation of plazas and other nonviolent actions that ended the 30 –year Presidency/dictatorship of  Hosni Mubarak.
14. Umbrella Revolution in Hong Kong was a series of Sit-in Street protests from 26^th Sept to –Dec, 15, 2014 demanding “true universal suffrage’ and “semi autonomy” from mainland China. The struggle is ongoing.
15. 2020- 2021 – Indian farmers’  ongoing protest against three farm acts which were passed by the Parliament in Sept, 2020.The farmers fear that the bills would render the current Minimum Support Price(MSP) procurement system ineffective, leaving them at the mercy of “big farmers”.

Civil Resistance Works

Harvard professor Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan, through their extensive research have concluded that civil resistance works. They analyzed success rate of 627 violent and non-violent revolutionary campaigns from around the world between 1900 and 2019. Examining the data set of 627campaigns, they found that non-violent movements worldwide were twice likely to succeed as violent ones (50%vs 26%). They also found that over the previous fifty years, non-violent campaign have grown both more numerous and more successful.

The 3.5% Rule

 Chenoweth and Stephan found a direct correlation between the success of a campaign and the popular involvement it managed to invite. No campaign failed once they achieved the active and sustained participation of just 3.5 percent of the population and lots of them succeeded with less than that. For example, in a country of 100 million people, it will take active involvement of around 3 million people for a movement to succeed. Sometimes it took even less. Active public support consists of at least 3 components: to show up for marches and other events, if there is an election, vote with the movement, and persuade others ( social media etc.) to join.

Methods of Non-Violent Actions

 There are three general classes of non-violent action:

A- Protest and Persuasion

 These methods include vigils, petitions, walkout and picketing. These are largely symbolic in their effect and produce an awareness of existence of dissent.

B- Noncooperation

 These methods include social boycott, labor strike and many forms of political noncooperation.

C- Intervention

 These methods include hunger strikes, sittings nonviolent obstructions, creation of alternative institutions and parallel government. They possess some of the qualities of both previous groups.

 Gene Sharp in his book “The Politics of Nonviolent Action” has described 198 methods of nonviolent action. He stresses that to sustain a long struggle, activists cannot display just one tactic; rather, they need to create a sequence of actions that builds over time. The goal is “escalation of disorder without violence”.

The Discipline

Nonviolent campaign’s discipline consist of two components: (1) adhering to the broader strategic plans for the struggle and (2) refraining from violence. Maintaining the persistent nonviolent discipline is critical to the long term success of the movement. Even limited violence by resistors or their supporters, gives an excuse to the authorities to use brutal methods to suppress the movement. Many times the authorities infiltrate the movement and knowingly provoke violence. Maintaining discipline within the movement is a difficult task but an essential one.

Is there a formula for effective civil disobedience campaigns?

 No universal formula is likely to exist. Every country, every citizenry, every outrage is unique. But there are some striking patterns that seem consistent across successful campaigns. Historically, movements with massive and diverse participation (students, women, farmers, laborers, politicians and others), nonviolent discipline and the ability to withstand repression have been able to force those in power to change. No movements have failed after getting 10% of the nation’s population to be actively involved in their peak event. Most succeed after mobilizing 3.5% of the population. On average, scholars agree that fringe violence does not help civil resistance campaigns succeed in the long term. Most onlookers especially women favor non-violent movements over violent ones. Nonviolent action is also more likely to gain support from across the social, economic, and political spectrum. Violence tends to repel potential allies and hurts a movement’s chance of success.

Conclusion

Social change does not happen without a struggle. Nobody gives up power voluntarily.  According to Saul Alinsky, mankind has been and is divided into three groups. The Haves, the Have-Nots and the Have-a-Little. On top are the Have, with power and wealth, security forces, courts and the bureaucracy with them. They want to keep things as they are and opposed any change. On the bottom are the world’s Have-Nots. They are powerless and poor. In a truly democratic country only power they have is the power to vote. In the middle are the Have-a-little. They want little more. The main reason to fight for social change is to benefit the Have-Not and the Have-a-little.

 What can be done to change the situation? The answer is nonviolent struggle. Professor Chenoweth has shown that nonviolent struggles are twice as likely to succeed as the violent one. To succeed it takes active participation of about three percent of the population. Violent struggle costs lives, properties, and misery and ultimately is likely to fail. It gives an excuse to the authorities to crush the movement using violent means. Bottom lines, if you want any kind of social change, organize and use nonviolent means. It is likely to work. But it will likely to take time.

Now, go and organize and protest in a nonviolent way for change you want!

Sources:

1- Henry D. Thoreau, Walden and Civil Disobedience. New York: Barnes and Noble, 2003

2-Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011

3- Erica Chenoweth, Civil Resistance, What Everyone Needs To Know. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021

4-Gene Sharp, Waging Nonviolent Struggle, 20th century practice and 21^st century potential. Boston: Porter Sargent Publishers, 2005

5- Wikipedia.Org/ civil disobedience, Nov, 12, 2021

Dr Saheb Sahu

William Sloane Coffin Jr. (June 1, 1924 – April 12, 2006) was an American Christian clergyman and long-time peace activist. In his younger days he was an athlete, a talented pianist, a CIA officer, and later chaplain of Yale University, where the influence of H. Richard Niebuhr‘s social philosophy led him to become a leader in the Civil Rights Movement and peace movements of the 1960s and 1970s. He was the President of SANE/Freeze (now Peace Action), the nation’s largest peace and social justice group, and prominently opposed United States military interventions in conflicts, from the Vietnam War to the Iraq War. He was also an ardent supporter of gay rights.

Some of his sermons (preaching) were published in 2004 under the title-“CREDO”. Credo is a Latin word defined as “a statement of beliefs” or “aims which guide someone’s actions”. Here are some excerpts from the book on the topic of “Social Justice and Economic Rights”:

“We have democracy or we have great wealth concentrated in the hands of the few. We cannot have both.

• US Supreme Court Justice- Louise Brandeis

 “Public good does not automatically follow from private virtue. A person’s moral character, sterling though it may be, is insufficient to serve the cause of justice, which to challenge the status quo, try to make what is legal more moral, to speak truth to power, and to take personal or concerted action against evil, whether in personal or systemic form.”

“Not to take side is effectively to weigh in on the side of the stronger.”

 “Compassion and justice are companions, not choices”.

 ‘ For evil is not so much the work of a few degenerate people or groups of people as it is the result of the indifference and negligence of the many.”

“Never in the recent history have we had so blatant a plutocracy: a government of the wealthy, by the wealthy, and for the wealthy.”

“When the rich take from the poor, it’s called an economic plan. When the poor take from the rich, it is called class welfare.”

“We may be repelled by materialism, but we are caught up in it. We are troubled by widespread poverty, but overly esteem wealth.”

“Human nature is sinful, and therefore the virtue of the few will never compensate for the inertia of the many. Rich people and rich nations will not voluntarily open their eyes to see the biblical truth that poor have ownership rights on their surplus…. Given human goodness, voluntary contributions are possible, but given human sinfulness, legislation is indispensable. Charity, yes always; but never as a substitute for justice. What we forgetting in this country is that people have rights, basic rights: the right to food, the right to decent housing, the right to medical care, the right to education”.

“There are two ways to get rich: one is to have lot of money; the other to have few needs. Let us remember that Jesus- who influenced history more than any other single person, institution, or nation- when he died, his single possession a robe.”

 “The primary problems of the planet arise not from the poor, for whom education is the answer; they arise from the well-educated, for whom self-interest is the problem”.

 “Let us indeed not delude ourselves: you cannot have a revolt without revolting conditions. Communism has never come to a nation that took care of its poor, its aged, its sick, and its handicapped.”

“Charity is a matter of personal attributes; justice, a matter of public policy. Charity seeks to alleviate the effects of injustice; justice seeks to eliminate the causes of it”

“Handouts to needy individuals are genuine, necessary response to injustice, but they do not necessarily face the reason for the injustice”.

“The prophet did not say, “Let charity roll down like mighty waters”- because giving without receiving is a downward motion. The prophet said, “Let justice rolldown like mighty waters, and righteousness like an over-flowing stream.”… The exodus story tells us that liberation is primarily the work of the oppressed themselves.”

“In the best prophetic tradition Jesus stood for the relief and protection of the poor and the persecuted; for such use of the riches of creation that the world might be freed from famine, poverty, and disaster.And in the best prophetic tradition, he saw that the real troublemakers were not the ignorant and the cruel, but the intelligent and the corrupt. In contrast to so many of today’s pulpiteers (preachers), Jesus knew that “Love your enemies” didn’t mean “Do not make trouble”. 

“Heaven- and Hell- begin here and now, both for individuals and for nations, in what theologians call “realized eschatology”(Eschatology-the part of theology concerned with death, judgment, and the final destination of the soul and of mankind).

 “In his time on earth Jesus “stood tall” but not by making others cringe. He had power but used it solely to empower others. He healed, but with no strings attached. He competed with none, loved all, even when we were least lovable, even to the point of dying for us on the cross”.

 Source:

William Coffin, Credo. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004