How God Makes Lives Easier...

The Blissful lives of God's own children
To someone who believes in God, natural phenomena - the concept of life, death, evolution, natural disasters, disease, and so on - are very easy to explain. There is a God who is omnipotent and omnipresent. He* has a will that determines the destiny of each individual. You keep God pleased (in whatever manner your religion preaches -- a contradiction considering God imposes his will, but who cares?) and God keeps you pleased. Everything in Nature is creation of God - disease, earthquakes, other natural disasters when He is unhappy (Nature's wrath) and the beautiful weather, meadows, warm weather, sunlight when He is happy. God protects you if you're good. God punishes you for sin (refer your respective religions for specific ways in which you can commit sin. If you're too lazy to do that, just do whatever you want to do. You're sure to commit one sin or the other in the book irrespective of your religion). So, life is in this manner so simple and well defined for followers of God - God's own children.

Enter Muddled Non-believers
Most (not all) of these guys are mathematicians and physicists - who've spent their lives trying to understand how Nature manifests itself (without assuming God created it one monday morning). They find it difficult to explain how the world (and the universe) has come to be what it is today. Astrophysicists delve into the beginnings of the universe at time of the Big Bang to present time. Geophysicists study rocks, tectonic movements, etc. to explain earthquakes, mountain formations, etc. And so on and so forth.... Though lots of things are still unexplained in these fields, lots of things are explained quite well using the tools available to these guys (calculus, quantum physics, relativity, et al). Most of the natural phenomena seem like they're just following the forces of Nature. Let me take an example to put this in perspective. The earth has an atmosphere that came into existence when these gases were released by rocks that were beginning to cool. The oceans were formed in a similar manner when water was released. The temperature ensured some portion remained as water, other as ice and rest as water vapor. The motions of the molten lava moves landmasses and results in mountains, gorges, etc. etc. So, a lot of things do seem to be explicable.... If asked, anyone from this team would explain the present by a series of events that happened one after the other. But there is something that science has not been able to explain so far...

*A note to feminists, or anybody else annoyed by this pronoun: I don't know whether God is a He or a She or a combination but I'm just using this pronoun as it is the most commonly used. So, just following convention here!

Great quote

"Nothing comes out of nothing" (Ex nihilo nihil fit - René Descartes)

-- one of my all time favourite quotes.

Laws of Argumentation

I must confess I like getting into arguments. Not of the violent, virulent kind. Just pointless (or sometimes with a point) debates that keep both sides entertained during the time they last. If it provokes further thoughts and leads to further arguments, even better. Thankfully, it is surprisingly easy to start one. Whenever I'm in the mood (for an argument that is), I just have to throw a harmless stray comment on anything and there would be someone in the audience ready to take up arms against my "stand".

I generally prefer that useful arguments should lead to a conclusion - a set of ideas agreed upon by both sides and possibly another set on which they have agreed to disagree (Ideally this set should be null if the brainstorming has been sufficient and egos are not involved).

1. It is not jihad. So take it easy and do not involve your egos if you want to have fun!
2. An argument is valid if it does not contradict what you have agreed upon earlier. OR. If the new argument contradicts a previous stance, you choose to forgo the earlier argument in light of new knowledge.
3. Disagreement without valid reason is not allowed. If you have an opinion, you have a reason. No opinion without reason.
   

I believe these rules should almost always result in arguments that end with some common ground. Of course, if you don't agree with the rules, we can sit down for a lively argument :D

Agnostic or Atheist

This Friday evening while waiting for Raju to finish his work, I got into small talk with Indraneel who was the only other person in office still working. After the initial rattle, the conversation changed as follows:

Me: Indraneel, do you believe in God? (I like asking this question to people. This almost always results in an interesting conversation when I am not able to find something else to talk :))
Indraneel: No. I don't.
Me: So you're an atheist? A non-believer?
Indraneel: No.
Me: So what are you?
Indraneel: I'm agnostic.
Me: What does that mean? How is it different from being an atheist?
Indraneel: Well, an atheist is someone who does not believe in the existence of God. An agnostic is someone who does not know whether God exists.
Me: So, in this sense, he is someone sitting on the fence -- neither a believer or a non-believer.
Indraneel: True.
Me: And why are you confused?
Indraneel: Because Fred Hoyle once remarked "........" (I've forgotten what Indraneel exactly quoted but it meant that Hoyle was confused about the existence of God... and since he, being a great physicist that he was, was confused, so was Indraneel. And that justified his on-the-fence thinking. A fairly logical explanation indeed - if you don't completely understand something believe someone who you know knows more about it.)
Me: Hmm... So what do you think of all the people who believe in God? What do you think of religion?
Indraneel: Well, people are free to choose what they believe. I have no issues with people following one faith or the other. I am a Hindu by birth but not by practice.
Me: So you don't participate in rituals like the Durga pooja?
Indraneel: I do. But, to me, that is more of a social gathering than a religious one.
Me: What purpose do you think religion serves? Does it help if people believe in God? (Another of my favorite questions :))
Indraneel: Religion does serve an important purpose. If you tell a layman not to do something because it is wrong, he isn't likely to follow you. But, if you tell the same person not to do something because if he did that, he will surely go to hell... as God had forbidden it. He won't.
(Hmm... why would anyone want to go to hell... that too after suffering life on earth! Nothing's worth paying for with a visit to hell... a bad bargain always!

I liked the way the conversation was going. This guy had really thought out the whys and wherefores of religion and God.)
Me: Great....! So you too believe that religions have been conceived by our enormously shrewd (or wise, in the positive sense) ancestors who came out with a set of rules for ordinary mortals to follow. Each rule was conveniently attributed to God (or one of his messengers). Compliance with them promised everlasting happiness for yourself and your loved ones. Non-compliance was a confirmed ticket to hell.
Indraneel: Yes. We have so many wars in the name of religion. So many people die. But, if there was no religion, there would be more conflicts.
Me: Sure. Religion does serve a purpose. It oppresses a large number of people for their own good. Think of what would happen if "thou shalt not steal" wasn't one of the commandments. There would be anarchy. Not that people don't steal anymore but the number of people stealing would be a lot more without this commandment for they would fear no God. So religion contains anarchy. Religion fights nature and natural desires of human beings. It differentiates humans from animals and puts us on a different plane. Animals don't have to go to hell... and they have no chance of making it to heaven either.. so they can do whatever they want without worrying about anything or feeling guilty. Not so for humans. Religion tries to make us forget the cardinal rule that nature follows - survival of the fittest. But that is what civilization is all about. We no longer have to fight like animals. Though fights are there on different levels now. But that's another story.....

Yearning for equality....

Quest for equality has become one of the most predominant virtues of modern society, a founding principle of democracy. The Americans and the French pioneered the idea after great revolutions in their lands. Others followed suit as and when they were able to... that is, when they were able to come out of the clutches of colonialism themselves. But has any society achieved it? More pertinently, is equality achievable at all? Or do we simply need to confine equality to a fixed boundary and leave the rest to, well, nature...

Let me put some questions that come to my mind when I think of equality in a society.

• Are all new borns equal?
  
• Does a government, and its agents, avowed to the principle of equality, act in a manner that befits equality in its letter and spirit?
  
• Can the Marxist dream of a classless society ever be achieved?
  

The answers to these questions should have been in the affirmative but one does not have to be Einstein to see that this is not the case. What is the solution then? Or rather, what is the problem, with the society or with us? Is the idea of equality too utopian for human society to enforce? Or is the ever benevolent Mother Nature against the idea herself?

I will try to ponder over this, as I request anyone reading this blog to ponder as well...

Looking for your comments...