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Westernization and Human Welfare · Maryam Jameelah

whw 0016

In this chapter (3 sections)

II

super.ego to which it gave rise was the elaborate system ot taboos relating to every aspect of behaviour which were epitomized in the Law of Moses. Such codes of . tabooa provided those who kept them with a sense of security comparable to that of the good child who is. able to remember everything his father told him to do. God is theportrait of the typical Semitic father with his patriarcbaJ, authoritarian qualities abstracted and exaggerated.

Freud, not content to deny the divine origin of religion, rejected the idea that religious faith was justified on any grounds.

It seems not to be true that there is a Power in the universe which watches over the well-being of every individual with parental care, bringing all within His fold to a happy ending. On the contrary, the destinies of men are incompatible with any univenal principle of justice. Eathquakes, floods and fires do not distingujab between the good and devout man and the sinner and unbeliever.· Eyen if· we leave inanimate nature out of account and consider Oftly the destinies of individual men in [^10]far as they depend on their relations with othen of their own kind, it is by no means the rule that virtue is rewarded and wickedness~ punished. It often happens that the violent, crafty and unprincipled seize the desirable goods of this world while the pious go away empty. Dark, unfeeling and unloving powen determine human destiny; the concept of Divine j~tice, which, according to religion fUles the world, seems to have no existence. No attempt to minimize the supremaI:)’ of science can alter the fact that it takes into account our dependence on the real, external world whUe religion is only a childish illusion deriving ita strength from the fact that it happens to fall· in with our instinctual desires.-Frnul: GrealThinkersqftil,WestmaWorld,E”9Clo- JlldiaBrillmniea.

Materialistic philosophy reached its -climax in its chief protagonist-Karl Marx.

According to Karl

Cite this chapter

Jameelah, Maryam. “whw 0016.” In Westernization and Human Welfare (1976). Scan: archive.org, https://archive.org/download/al-islam-maryam-jameelah/English_WESTERNIZATION_AND_HUMAN_WELFARE.pdf. Online text: Islamic Internet Archives, https://islamicarchives.org/works/mj-westernization-and-human-welfare/whw-0016/

© Mohammad Yusuf Khan (publisher); free scan at Internet Archive