Modeling Religious People: The Heap of Faith

Imagine a heap of sand the size of a bottle, what happens if you remove one grain of sand from that heap, is it still a heap? The answer is obviously yes, because one grain of sand doesn’t turn a heap into a non-heap. Now keep removing individual grains, and after some time, you will eventually be down to four, three, two, and one grain, at which point we can longer call it a heap. While initially it made no sense to assume that the removal of a single grain from a heap can turn that heap into its opposite, yet somewhere along the way, the removal of some single grain achieved just that. The paradox arises when we try to answer the question: does removing one grain from a heap turn that heap into a non-heap? Both answers are correct. At some point in the life time of the heap, one removed grain couldn’t transfer it into a non-heap, but later on during the lifetime of the same heap, the opposite was correct.

This paradox -known as the Sorites Paradox- is attributed to the Greek philosopher Eubulides of Miletus who lived some 2300 years ago in modern-day Turkey. As you might have guessed, the Sorites Paradox isn’t about heaps of sand per se, but rather about the vagueness of terms in our languages, words like “tall”, “bald”, “Christian”, and Muslim” can all be instantly rendered paradoxical using the same logic. If one centimeter doesn’t make a short man tall, then how come several individual centimeters do turn a short person into a tall one? Likewise, if a person hairs lost, does he become bald? Obviously not, but if we keep adding to the number of the lost hairs, at some point the man will have to choose between hair transplant or new head label. The Paradox has direct implications on existing legal dilemmas present in our societies, when does a fertilized egg become a fetus? When does a clinically dead person become fully dead? After how many cigarettes does a person become a smoker? And after how many sins does a Muslim become an apostate?

Think of the word “religious” as a heap of religious deeds inside an hourglass, each time a sin is committed by a religious person, one drop of faith trickles from the upper chamber of faith down to the lower chamber of sins, the upper heap of faith diminishes, and the lower heap of sins expands. While obviously one sin won’t deplete the chamber of religion nor will it constitute a sufficiently big heap of infidelity, the continuous accumulation of sinful behavior will eventually deplete the chamber of religion, and render the person a certified infidel. One might object by saying that belief in God and his Prophet are sufficient to render one a man of faith, regardless of how many sins that Muslim or Christian has committed. But this definition is refuted both religiously and logically.

In Islam, there is a special list called Nawaqidh Alislam which translates to Nullifiers of Islam, the long list contains several acts each of which can on its own render a Muslim an apostate. Among these acts: seeking help from the deceased (common among Muslims), insulting religion (even more common among Muslims), abandoning prayer (common), fornication (not as common as they want it to be), permitting homosexuality (secretly prevalent), permitting alcohol (they wish they could afford more), and permitting usury (starting to become common), among much of the run-of-the-mill behavior in the Arab World.

Similar lists are present in Christianity and other religions, and this is rightly so. After all, if color red needs some redness in order to be called red, and a man needs some hair to be called haired, shouldn’t Muslims have at least some Islam to be called Muslims? And Christians have a minimum of Christian behavior to be called as such?

Yet the same people that would respond with a “yes” to the first two questions will for some reason opt for a “no” on the third and fourth ones. Somehow, labels like “Muslim” and “Christian” seem to have been linked more to personal identifications and self-proclaimed labels, rather than the physical behavior that materializes these labels into actual identities. People no longer feel the logical and ethical obligations to channel their professed identities into palpable physical actions that would set the people of label A apart from those of Label B.

Some might stick to their guns, arguing that religious labels are more about what’s in the heart than what is on the surface, but does Islam actually allow this stance? Does Islam give the nod to calling yourself a Muslim Mujaheed while tongue-kissing the fourteen-year -old boy on your lab as done in the notorious Bacha Bazi tradition in Afghanistan? And what about the list of Islam-nullifying acts, each of which could paint someone as a certified apostate on a one-way street to hell?

Just as there is a tipping point where the continuous gradual removal of individual sand grains turns a heap into its opposite, there is also a point where the gradual accumulation of small changes erodes the core identity of any other category, rendering any further use of that category a flagrant preposterousness. The amount of absurdity that results from sticking to eroded categories despite accumulated change was wittily caught by George Carlin: “suppose the Bible they hand you to swear on is upside-down. Or backward. Or both! And you swear to tell the truth on an upside-down backward Bible. Would that count? Suppose the Bible they hand you is an old Bible and half the pages are missing. Suppose all they have is a Chinese Bible—in an American court. Or a braille Bible, and you’re not blind! Suppose they hand you an upside-down backward Chinese Braille Bible with half the pages missing. At what point does all of this stuff just break down and become just a lot of stupid shit that somebody made up?” (Gyokusai 2010).

Along the same lines, suppose you have a Saudi Arabian friend, Fahd, who’s flirted a bit with his girlfriend – would you still label Fahd as a Muslim? If yes, then suppose that same friend has also partaken of a few tequila shots – is he still a Muslim? If you insist Fahd remains a Muslim despite sins, let’s take it a step further: imagine this friend skipping prayer for months, watching porn throughout the holy month of Ramadan, getting busy between the sheets with two separate girlfriends, imbibing beers and smoking weed joints with his buddies, and even trying his luck in camel race gambling, and to cap it off, he wraps up the week with a few blasphemous curses due to a breakup with his secret gay partner. Does the label “Muslim” still hold any shred of relevance when applied to this person? And when exactly does the model “Muslim with some sins” turn into “infidel with bits of Islam”?

If by any means you find this portrayal to be an exaggeration detached from reality, consider visiting the coming chapters – a mere glimpse into the hidden world of religious people. Millions of Christians and Muslims have already sailed well beyond the point where tagging them as such is technically inapplicable. As a matter of fact, Islam doesn’t even allow you the luxury of accumulating your sins towards apostasy; instead, there exists a tight catalog of acts that any Muslim should keep their distance from; the moment any of those acts is carried out, that individual is immediately rendered a certified apostate. However, we insist on being generous enough and loose in our definition of the term “Muslim” so as to allow the discussion to take root, and that’s the reason we give the label “Muslim” and “Christian” as much chance to endure as common sense permits.