The Fallacies of Religious Clerics by N. Fakhr - HTML preview

Discouraging Questions About What We Do Not Understand

In some religions, questioning things that we do not understand about the religion is sometimes discouraged.

This does not mean that believers are told never to ask religious clerics or religious authorities questions. Rather, the problem arises when someone does not accept a particular teaching or rule and asks questions about it.

In such cases, the person who has a problem with a religious rule may first be accused of not understanding its wisdom, rather than being recognized as someone who understands the rule but does not accept it.

He may then be told that he should not question the mysteries of God.

Of course, if the religious cleric knows an answer to the person's question, he will usually be happy to give it. He may even encourage the person to go to religious scholars if he still has further questions.

The method I am describing here applies to those occasions when religious scholars themselves do not know the answer or justification, and the problem is so serious that there may be little expectation that a convincing justification for the rule will ever be found.

In such cases, Muslim clerics may even refer to the Quranic story of Moses and Khidr.

In that story, Moses travels with Khidr. But Khidr sets a condition: if Moses sees him doing something strange, he must not ask why. If he questions him, their journey together will come to an end.

Khidr then does several strange things, including killing a young boy.

Eventually, Moses can no longer remain silent and asks why these things were done. Khidr then gives an explanation for each of his actions. Regarding the boy, he explains that the boy's parents were believers, and that they feared he would burden them with rebellion and disbelief. He then says that they wanted God to give the parents another child who would be better in purity and closer to them in affection.

But it is difficult to see what was wrong with Moses asking these questions.

In the events described in the story, receiving an answer would not necessarily have caused Moses to lose his faith. It might not even have caused him to disagree with Khidr. It would simply have increased his knowledge and understanding of what was happening.

In effect, the lesson drawn from this story can become:

“If you see something attributed to the God of this religion and you cannot understand why He would do or command it, do not question it. There must be a reason, just as there was a reason behind the actions of Khidr.”

But as we have seen, someone could reasonably respond that there seemed to be nothing wrong with asking questions even in the story of Moses and Khidr.

And Khidr's “mysteries” were not mysteries that could never be explained. In the story itself, they were eventually explained.

If an action has a good reason behind it, asking for that reason does not make the reason disappear.