188
" All believers assert that they were lucky enough to be born in the religious community to which they belong. All other religions are mystification and distortion of reality. No other community can be as moral as their community, because they don’t obey the divine rules as their community, and they destroy them more or less. That is why for believers only their religious community can be an ideal example for imitation of others, only their holy scriptures and texts hold the absolute truth concerning everything. Similarly, all patriots believe that they are lucky that they were born in the society to which they belong. They sincerely believe that only their historical texts, with their interpretation, can be absolutely correct. No other social community can be as brave and humanistic as they are. For patriots, their social community can be or must have been the center of global historical progress. As a result, both religion and history give you self-confidence and honor, but instead take critical thinking from you. What is first-rate for a reasonable agnostic? — to be self-confident and proud, or increase an intuition that there must be something wrong and illusory moments in any religious or historical ideology. The difference between ideology and science, which may be the only criteria for a reasonable agnostic, is that any ideology divides humans into yours and ours, bad and good, respectively, but for science such badness and goodness don’t exist -- there are only individuals with the brain and mind, desires and emotions, and so on, and so forth. "
― Elmar Hussein
192
" The eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin sense the world around us, and in some cases perform preliminary information processing on the incoming data. But by and large, we do not experience sensation — we experience the outcome of perception — the total package that the brain puts together from the pieces that it receives through our senses and that the brain creates for us to experience. When we look out of the window at a view of countryside, or when we look at the face of a beautiful woman, we don’t just see a mess of colors and shapes — we see, instead, an image of a countryside or an image of a woman. The importance of a science is that it describes and explains each phenomenon in natural and rational way, if it can do this, and never attempts to use impossible illusion and irrationality, if it cannot. When science cannot clarify, religion covers empty space for a while. For instance, most of the mystical hallucinations of vision is the result of a so-called synesthesia — an experience in which one sensation (e.g. hearing a sound) creates experiences in another (e.g. vision). Most people do not experience synesthesia, but those who experience this phenomenon associate varoious perceptions in unusual ways, for instance, when they taste a particular food they can also percieve some colors or when they see certain objects they can clearly hear some sounds. Not knowing what is going on in the brain and sense organs, religion can easily connect this phenomenon with divine intervention, employing incredible myths around it for its benefit. It's true that science cannot explain everything and there is a high probability that it cannot do this forever, but it will never allow someone to wash human brain and keep it under control. "
― Elmar Hussein
198
" International women's day is celebrated as a global day devoted to the defence of women's rights. Although this symbolizes women's solidarity against gender-based discrimination, it also represents subtle discrimination against women, in my mind, practised by women themselves, but not by men in this case. Really amazing, isn't it? Imagine a lonely woman. Maybe she is already old, unattractive, maybe not, but in any case, she is out of attention. Now imagine her mental state when she sees how other women around her accept flowers, gifts or congratulations. Oh my God, look at this young lady, why are you breaking her tender heart? Maybe she's a bit ugly, unattractive, her beauty cannot be charming, maybe not, but in any case, no one deeply and passionately loves her, no one asks her out on a date. İf this is so, why do you still discriminate against other women, my ladies, receiving your love publicly?! "
― Elmar Hussein
199
" To be happy, without any condition, you should seek the roots of the happiness in internal factors -- unconditional happiness means to practice this phenomenon without any spatio-temporal dependency, that is, everywhere and everytime. Unlike external factors, which determine the conditional happiness in a particular spatio-temporal continuum, and which is out of personal control in such a way that a small difference in such a continuum could influence your sense of happiness, internal factors are more likely to be controlled by you, at least to some extent, therefore, are promising a chance to arrange your happiness yourself without any dependence on someone else. "
― Elmar Hussein
