* EDITOR'S NOTE - Edwin Tanji died Sept. 12 after losing a battle with cancer. He wrote several columns in his final weeks. This is his final column.
Acceptance and tolerance among diverse elements of all communities can strengthen rather than divide society. That religious beliefs more often are divisive can be nothing more than a refusal to accept the nature of knowledge.
Knowledge essentially comes in two forms, as faith and reason, sometimes called just science. The irony for society is that for the individual, faith - internalized belief that does not require hard proof - is the more absolute. Through the millennia, reason/scientific knowledge - information gathered by investigation of evidence to a conclusion - has been less concrete. Scientific information is open to changes in conclusions as more evidence surfaces, more research is conducted, more data collected, and anomalies in theoretical constructs are discovered.
There are scientific theories that hold up. In chemistry, understanding properties of materials can be concrete, until new materials are discovered. Catalogs of elements in the various sciences, from naming of species in biology to chemical compounds to atomic elements in physics, are accepted by all students of each, until there are discoveries that change them.
But faith does not require proof for the believer to be absolutely certain. Science does.
Philosophy student turned neuroscientist Sam Harris, in raging against faith-based knowledge, protests that all religion is counterproductive to society, inevitably fostering extremism. It's because religion allows people to deal with their fear of death ("The End of Faith," Sam Harris, W.W. Norton & Co., 2004).
"What one believes after death dictates much of what one believes about life and this is why faith-based religion, in presuming to fill in the blanks in our knowledge of the hereafter, does such heavy lifting for those who fall under its power. A single proposition - you will not die - once believed, determines a response to life that would be otherwise unthinkable," he says.
It excuses acts of violence against those judged to be without faith, whether by Christian inquisitors or Islamic jihadists.
"There is something that most Americans share with Osama bin Laden, the 19 hijackers and much of the Muslim world. We, too, cherish the idea that certain fantastic propositions can be believed without evidence. Such heroic acts of credulity are thought not only acceptable but redeeming - even necessary."
Reason offers little to moderate a fear of death. As individuals we are all conscious, believe in personal existence and wonder whether that is all there is. A natural assumption is that consciousness means there is more, a soul or spirit.
Reason/science suggests life is merely a biological function. That is what can be proved by studies of life, from its early forms on Earth to its evolution into complex life forms that science is still investigating. That knowledge does little to deal with the fear of what comes after the life we know ends.
Cultures have dealt with the issue by treating their dead as bodies that may return with elaborate ceremonies. The elite had bodies preserved and protected with sacrifices. Egyptians mummified their pharaohs; Chinese kings had thousands of ceramic warriors created and buried.
Harris offers little consolation to those who rage against death with his suggestion that the individual is part of a biological process of evolution that runs from the precursors of the cell to Homo sapiens.
"As a collection of self-regulating and continually dividing cells, you are also continuous with your genetics precursors: your parents, their parents and backwards through tens of millions of generations. . . ."
We have to think, what about me?
The approaching holidays represent a high point in Christian beliefs, as Christmas has been commercialized into a secular festival. No other holy period of any religion achieves the level of global recognition that draws nonbelievers into "celebrating" with ceremonies of gift-giving and festivals. But secular tolerance does not apply to all Christians with strong faith-based knowledge. They resent the intrusion into their sacred, just as Islamic terrorists see nonbelievers fouling their sacred with temptations of earthly pleasures.
Reason, which carries the weight of uncertainty, can be more difficult to accept.
(This is a final "Haku Mo'olelo" column by a writer contemplating his own death.)
* Edwin Tanji was a former city editor of The Maui News. "Haku Mo'olelo," "writing stories," is about stories that are being written or have been written.