I conclude my personal research on the subject of religion under attack with this interview. It's actually a too large topic to be dealt with three measly articles but I hope that readers will have found some food for thought and maybe you pose questions, as I did and I do.
I believe there is a profound difference between a person of Science (any Science) who honestly cannot believe or may not believe, but which maintains a deep intellectual coherence, and all the others who are just as sold. I also continue to believe that the research presented in Current Biology is not only deeply stupid but also ominous of times ahead. It was this research that led me to write these three interviews and maybe I should like to thank the guys who have conducted it, but I will not. The mindful readers will have noticed that the first and the last question are always the same: it's a deliberate choice, not dictated by the laziness of writing. After philosopher Diego Fusaro and journalist Maurizio Blondet, today is the turn of Milani Mostafa Amin, Iranian Sheikh from Qom, who once before shared with us his wisdom.
Q) Shaykh Milani, why in your opinion someone felt the need to analyze a characteristic of the human soul as altruism in a "atheists Vs believers"?
A) To partisanship, from both sides: the virtues, like every other thing good and valuable, have always been exploited, they have always been prisoners of the factions and the factions. False believers say that you cannot be at all altruistic if you do not believe in God and the false atheists speak of altruism while, according to their principles, they should deny its existence and consider it an illusion and superstition, as well as consider non-existent God, the angels and the Hereafter. There are many people who do not believe in God, but that at least once in their lives they had experienced altruism or they had been themselves altruistic toward others, or they liked the altruism of others against them. So this dispute, in my opinion, has always had a political character and was brought back and fomented for political reasons and interests. Altruism is an innate virtue given by God to man, to all human beings. Rather, it must be kept, fed, made to grow and reach the climax with sincere action, not limited only to words and pretensions. But behind all there is Sincerity: a non-believer sincere and altruistic, is far ahead and promises more than a false believer hypocritical and selfish!
Q) But there can be really altruism without God? Or was right Dostoyevsky when he said that "without God, everything is possible to man"?
A) In a materialistic view, absolutely not! It is for this reason that today the West, hedonistic and materialistic, is not selfless and has no more interest and inclination for values and virtues. It is strongly selfish and hypocritical and try to destroy each other real and sublime human virtues and replaced them with false values that now, as everyone knows, are only a means and a tool to overwhelm people and civilizations other than Western. Examples are the claims of human rights by Americans who now of human have almost nothing left [the rights]. Obviously I do not mean to ordinary people, but to those who are in power and those who support them knowing to support the worst and wicked tyrants in human history. So I can confirm the wise aphorism of Dostoyevsky: without God, everything is possible to man. You can build atomic bombs and detonate them on the heads of men, women and innocent children, sending them to ashes in a few seconds, as the Americans did in Japan. You can occupy an entire country and to drive out and kill the inhabitants, as the Zionists did in Palestine. You can cause a holocaust of thousands dead suffocated in the hot sun in a few hours in the Mecca and Mina, among the pilgrims engaged in acts of worship and prayer, as the Saudis did during the last pilgrimage, for their ineptitude and guilty negligence! There are many examples, tragic and painful, but I will limit myself to these, clear and illuminating, enough to anyone who wants to understand.
Q) What the Noble Quran teaches about altruism?
A) The Noble Quran speaks of altruism in every sura, and it does so in terms of charity, forgiveness, mercy, benevolence, defending the rights of the oppressed and fight the oppressors. The verses that speak directly or indirectly the question of altruism are so many. I only mention what is the most important in the Quran and Islam, one that speaks of the noble act of self-sacrifice and selflessness that saved the precious life of the Supreme Prophet, the night of his run from Mecca to Medina. The brave Ali ibn Abi Talib, his cousin and son-vicar, slept in his house, in his bed to make it appear to the enemies of the Prophet, that on that night they wanted to assassinate him, that the Prophet was at home. This courageous act of self-sacrifice and altruism of Ali allowed the Prophet to escape and get away from Mecca and thus saved his precious life. The verse is this: "And among men there is one who sacrifices himself seeking the pleasure of Allah. And Allah is kind to [His] servants" [Quran II:207]. This was indeed the greater act of altruism and self-sacrifice in Islam as it has saved the most precious thing of Islam itself: the life of its Prophet.
Q) Shaykh, is it so great the fear that religion inspires to induce someone to attack it relentlessly?
A) The Prince of Believers, Ali ibn Abi Talib, in his famous aphorism, narrated in Nahj al-Balaghah, says: "People are enemies of what they ignore." This short aphorism explains everything there is to say on the matter: people railed against things that sometimes do not know anything. The problem is so Ignorance: this also happens with Islam. Western nations know Islam through the Western media, controlled and manipulated by the Americans and Zionists, who see in Islam their main enemy and so it is obvious that they give their people a vision and a version distorted, as well as fake. They censor or misrepresent the version really revolutionary and anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist, restored and exposed by the Islamic Revolution of Iran and Imam Khomeini, while pointing the spotlight on their bogus Islam Wahhabi and Salafi, crude, cruel, ignorant and terrorist, presenting it to Westerners as the true Islam. This is in a nutshell the Islamophobia. When they fail to scare their people with Wahhabism, when they see that they cannot stop the increase in conversions, they pull out Plan B: they direct toward a Western-good Islam that does not interfere in the political affairs and who abhors the revolution, an Islam indifferent to the sufferings of the oppressed and the injustices of the oppressors, calling these fake versions with misleading names like "moderate Islam", "peaceful Islam", "democratic Islam". I will call them "American Islam", which like the Americans, while the true and pure Islam, as well as being really moderate, peaceful and democratic, is also and above all revolutionary: it defends all the oppressed of the Earth and does not compromise with any oppressor!
Q) How do you see our future in twenty or thirty years? What solutions can you propose to stem the materialistic drift in which we are drowning?
A) I want to be optimistic and believe that the West will be able to eradicate from its societies the American-Zionist cancer who is leading them to total ruin. The advice I have ever given to all, both to the West than to the East, both Muslims and non-Muslims, is to strive to restore sublime values such Science, Intellect, Free Speech and Thought, Dialogue, Respect and others genuine values known and appreciated by all of us innately. Today these values are altered, falsified and manipulated in favor of power centers, hypocrites and despotic, and in fact no longer exist in almost all human societies, especially Western ones, whose governments preach well but scratching evil! I pray for you and I'm close to you in this struggle against evil and ignorance.
Costantino Ceoldo - Pravda freelance