A Précis of the Main Arguments of the Book

Abstract

Challenging the faith versus reason dichotomy more than being an entertaining intellectual game is a politically necessary action. During the last two centuries, the dichotomy, with all of its variants such as ‘religion versus science’, ‘the sacred versus the secular’ and ‘church versus state’, was the cornerstone of both religious and secular violent ideologies. The ideological followers of each side of the dichotomy, by making stereotypical and simplistic conceptions of both faith and reason, have demonised the followers of the other side. The idea is that when we discover the common battle-grounds, by and by we will see that the real division is not between believers and non-believers. The real division is between those who are in a good shape, trained and ready for the next battle for a better society and those who are lazy and escaping from any serious engagement. The role of a public intellectual, at this juncture, is to facilitate such co-practices.