[Flashback]
[Scene: A still, dark, room. A nondescript Indian sits and watches television, the grayish white glow of the phosphor drawing fleeting, staccato patterns on his face. Even in the darkness, his eyes are like pieces of coal that burn with fever brightness. His wife sleeps two rooms away.]
TV Commentator: And this is tremendous. This tremendous victory by the Congress. By Sonia Gandhi. Ladies and Gentlemen, India has a new leader. The BJP has been taught a lesson they'll never forget... (Fades)
[Indian clicks off tv and sits silently, head down, eyes on the ground, for a long few minutes. When he looks up, the brightness in his eyes is gone, replaced with something else.]
Indian (to himself, softly): Yes, a lesson. The lesson is that you must not appeal to an average Indian's sense of nationalism. There is no percentage in that.
[Leaves the room. Scene fades to black.]
Once More Into The Breach, My Friends
Note to Latecomers: A long drawn out debate is going on here about This Crazy Little Thing Called God. If you, like me, have no life, and face a rainy, lazy afternoon, you may be entertained if you go through the following series of posts and the associated comments (the comments are important), in that order.
Forgive me this trespass (the post that started it all)
Thinking about God at this ungodly hour
An interesting email
Balajee's has a good comment that calls for a decent response. So here goes. Balajee's comments are in blue italics.
Interesting..
Let's see here. In your opinion, if I may take the liberty here to try to extract from your various posts -
1. God does not exist. Creation is a freak occurance.
I don't recall saying that creation is a freak occurrence. Indeed, it may be a very labored and planned occurrence. I have only questioned (A) its quality and (B) the position that God, if he is indeed responsible for creation, is somehow above being held accountable for the imperfections in it.
2. If God does exist, there is really nothing special about it, as he is in typical nature, imperfect at best, and being imperfect, does not qualify to be called God in the euphoric sense man has made him/her/it to be.
Forgive me this trespass (the post that started it all)
Thinking about God at this ungodly hour
An interesting email
Balajee's has a good comment that calls for a decent response. So here goes. Balajee's comments are in blue italics.
Interesting..
Let's see here. In your opinion, if I may take the liberty here to try to extract from your various posts -
1. God does not exist. Creation is a freak occurance.
I don't recall saying that creation is a freak occurrence. Indeed, it may be a very labored and planned occurrence. I have only questioned (A) its quality and (B) the position that God, if he is indeed responsible for creation, is somehow above being held accountable for the imperfections in it.
2. If God does exist, there is really nothing special about it, as he is in typical nature, imperfect at best, and being imperfect, does not qualify to be called God in the euphoric sense man has made him/her/it to be.
Correct.
Only one minor point: Being imperfect does not imply not being special. Being Perfect, of course, immediately makes you very special. But one can be very special, yet imperfect. You can freely think of God as being special. I have only stated that if he exists, he is not Perfect, judging by the quality of some of his work.
Remember Balajee, Perfection is a dangerous virtue to claim. It requires just one misstep to prove imperfection.
BTW, are you agreeing with me on the imperfect nature of God?
3. Practicing thiests typically tend to glorify God as all-loving, all powerful, blah- blah.. while emperical evidence suggests otherwise, and hence God cannot really be all that.Correct.
4. Man has rationalized God to an extent that it has become a utopian exercise that really has begun to do more harm than good..
Begun? Surely you jest. The amount of harm that has been inflicted in the name of God on one man by another since humankind learned to wipe its ass and say Grace has been recorded in elaborate detail in any history book worth the paper it is printed on. A quick trip to a reasonably well-stocked library should convince anyone of this.
Begun?
I must say, atheists have it really easy. The burden of proof rests squarely on the thiests. It's obviously more important to prove that God exists, rather than proving the God does not exist.
Atheists have it easy, huh? You think so?
Balajee, challenging majority opinions does not make you popular. Since at last count, theists grossly outnumber atheists, it is quite obvious that in this particular rumble, the atheists' backs are pretty close to the wall. Cut us some slack, will you?
I would actually rebut that most of the time atheists bow to reality and accommodate theists, rather than the other way round.
Take this example. Both my mother and my wife are good old-fashioned honest-to-goodness religious folks. Often after a lot of goading and to keep my sanity, I find myself going to temples and standing in front of a piece of a gaudy piece of stone and folding my hands while simultaneously closing my eyes. And feeling rather foolish about the whole business. But I do it to spare feelings. Now, let's say I make my mother this proposition: "Mother," I say, "since I have just spent a good half hour of my time uncritically worshipping God in deference to you, can you now spend half an hour with me uncritically bashing that stupid friggin' bastard?"
You think that she, or any theist for that matter, will oblige? Fat chance.
Only one minor point: Being imperfect does not imply not being special. Being Perfect, of course, immediately makes you very special. But one can be very special, yet imperfect. You can freely think of God as being special. I have only stated that if he exists, he is not Perfect, judging by the quality of some of his work.
Remember Balajee, Perfection is a dangerous virtue to claim. It requires just one misstep to prove imperfection.
BTW, are you agreeing with me on the imperfect nature of God?
3. Practicing thiests typically tend to glorify God as all-loving, all powerful, blah- blah.. while emperical evidence suggests otherwise, and hence God cannot really be all that.Correct.
4. Man has rationalized God to an extent that it has become a utopian exercise that really has begun to do more harm than good..
Begun? Surely you jest. The amount of harm that has been inflicted in the name of God on one man by another since humankind learned to wipe its ass and say Grace has been recorded in elaborate detail in any history book worth the paper it is printed on. A quick trip to a reasonably well-stocked library should convince anyone of this.
Begun?
I must say, atheists have it really easy. The burden of proof rests squarely on the thiests. It's obviously more important to prove that God exists, rather than proving the God does not exist.
Atheists have it easy, huh? You think so?
Balajee, challenging majority opinions does not make you popular. Since at last count, theists grossly outnumber atheists, it is quite obvious that in this particular rumble, the atheists' backs are pretty close to the wall. Cut us some slack, will you?
I would actually rebut that most of the time atheists bow to reality and accommodate theists, rather than the other way round.
Take this example. Both my mother and my wife are good old-fashioned honest-to-goodness religious folks. Often after a lot of goading and to keep my sanity, I find myself going to temples and standing in front of a piece of a gaudy piece of stone and folding my hands while simultaneously closing my eyes. And feeling rather foolish about the whole business. But I do it to spare feelings. Now, let's say I make my mother this proposition: "Mother," I say, "since I have just spent a good half hour of my time uncritically worshipping God in deference to you, can you now spend half an hour with me uncritically bashing that stupid friggin' bastard?"
You think that she, or any theist for that matter, will oblige? Fat chance.
I am not sure I entirely agree with some of your observations. For example, your thoughts on 'disease'. I am sure that you would agree that Nature thrives on a balance. Disturb that balance and things can get pretty messed up. Diseases are a consequence of man messing up that balance. To a large extent diseases including cancer are a consequence of repeated f*** ups by man. And that is true of any disease or even several congenital diseases. Nothing bad has happenend typically untill man has interfered with it.
Many Christians believe that we live in a fallen world. That we have all collectively sinned and hence we are suffering an imperfect world full of imperfections and disease and whatnot. That fairytale, when you cut through all the pious bullshit, is a transference and evasion mechanism. Known in popular parlance as a cop-out.
Okay, let's take the following position. Let's say that humans have too, disturbed the balance and had it coming. Since I am no medical expert, can you explain to me how exactly humans cause Down's Syndrome. Or Proteus Syndrome? Or those cases of cancer that do not obtain from lifestyle choices?
It's really unfortunate that man has created religion as a vehicle of his belief system, and rather than live by those tenets that he believes will take him to God, is more insistent on ensuring that others accept his belief system. That to me is the core issue. Maybe God was never intended to be a super being, all-loving and all that, maybe he has come to be seen that way as each system of beliefs clashed with each other in a 'my God is better than yours' contest and each system fabricated more and more outlandish tales of super-powers to up the ante on what their God can do! Who knows!
I think that is a good, well-reasoned analysis. Right on the ball. You correctly point out that theism misinterpreted and gone wild is a danger to all. You see, when you come right down to it, it is extremely difficult to separate religion from God. You or I may do it with flippant ease, but most cannot get to that elevated plane of thinking even if their lives depended on it.
But let's just be cognizant of the fact that there are several things that man cannot explain scientifically - things like what the heck I am doing up at 5:30 am on a Saturday morning sitting on my computer.. but seriously, things like why the human body works the way it does, occurances of an extra-sensory nature (OBEs, NDEs), heck most of medicine as we know it today is more an exercise of cause and effect, rather than truly understanding why things happen the way it does. Man can try to answer the 'Hows' but is nowhere near asnwering the 'Whys'. He may in due time find out all of that, and perhaps he may find out that there is a sper being or perhaps we will finally have a Theory of Everything and a Law of Everything..
OBE is Out of the Body Experience, am I correct? What is NDE?
Yes, man does not know many things given the limits of science. But are you suggesting that what we don't know as Science may very well be Divine?
You are most certainly not saying the following, but I have heard some people argue this way: Science cannot explain so-and-so; thus it is Divine. To those, I say: Why not Satanic? Or the work of purple-skinned aliens from Betelgeuse? What's wrong with those explanations? No really, are those not equally valid alternate explanations?
5:30 am? 5:30 am?? 5 bloody thirty am??? How do you manage it? You are awake, ready and swinging roughly about the time I go to sleep. Let me in on the secret, man. Reform me.
In the meanwhile however, if we can all just go about our lives doing the best we can, help each other take care of ourselves, treat everyone with respect, both for their individuality as well as for their social networks, help those less fortunate than ourselves, and try to be happy, we should be ok.. If that takes us go God, so be it, if it does not, then we still did the best we could..
Yes, I agree. And even though that is an extremely noble thought in itself, I am not sure how it is relevant to the discussion at hand. I fully subscribe to what you are saying--being an atheist does not imply not being a humanist.
But what is being discussed here is the nature of God, not how best to clean up his mess. Or what our moral duties are. If you want to, we can start another thread for that one.
One last observation - Hard core Atheists and Theists have one thing is common. Neither is willing to really allow for the possibility that they could be wrong.
Yes, of course. Hence the moniker "hard core". But really Balajee, how many hardcore atheists have you heard about? Have they appeared closed to debate? Have they been wild-eyed and shown a fondness for fire-and-brimstone and automatic weapons?
For my part, I have seen many hardcore theists, some of whom have told me, in so many words, that I am bound for this certain badass place called Hell unless I came around and reformed and subscribed to their stupid insipid fairytales. And then stopped talking to me when I have tried to ask why.
Even more disturbing...I have also heard of many hardcore theists, some of whom make the headlines of major newspapers with monotony. For all the wrong reasons. Or make their way into history books. Osama. St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. Crusades.
I am not confusing religion with God. With the exception of Buddhism and some schools of Hinduism, most major religions revolve around the concept of God. And as pointed out, you may find some way to separate the two, but I think it is safe to say that most haven't. As things stand today, theism and religion are practically indistinguishable. Balajee, we can lament about how things should be, but we do have to deal with things as they are. Today, theism has a more than even chance of going off the handle and causing much out-and-out grief than atheism, with its sad membership rolls and battered siege mentality can ever hope to equal.
But that may change. Once we find more people. About a billion or two more should do it. Would you like to sign up for membership? It's free. And you get a lounge chair.
Many Christians believe that we live in a fallen world. That we have all collectively sinned and hence we are suffering an imperfect world full of imperfections and disease and whatnot. That fairytale, when you cut through all the pious bullshit, is a transference and evasion mechanism. Known in popular parlance as a cop-out.
Okay, let's take the following position. Let's say that humans have too, disturbed the balance and had it coming. Since I am no medical expert, can you explain to me how exactly humans cause Down's Syndrome. Or Proteus Syndrome? Or those cases of cancer that do not obtain from lifestyle choices?
It's really unfortunate that man has created religion as a vehicle of his belief system, and rather than live by those tenets that he believes will take him to God, is more insistent on ensuring that others accept his belief system. That to me is the core issue. Maybe God was never intended to be a super being, all-loving and all that, maybe he has come to be seen that way as each system of beliefs clashed with each other in a 'my God is better than yours' contest and each system fabricated more and more outlandish tales of super-powers to up the ante on what their God can do! Who knows!
I think that is a good, well-reasoned analysis. Right on the ball. You correctly point out that theism misinterpreted and gone wild is a danger to all. You see, when you come right down to it, it is extremely difficult to separate religion from God. You or I may do it with flippant ease, but most cannot get to that elevated plane of thinking even if their lives depended on it.
But let's just be cognizant of the fact that there are several things that man cannot explain scientifically - things like what the heck I am doing up at 5:30 am on a Saturday morning sitting on my computer.. but seriously, things like why the human body works the way it does, occurances of an extra-sensory nature (OBEs, NDEs), heck most of medicine as we know it today is more an exercise of cause and effect, rather than truly understanding why things happen the way it does. Man can try to answer the 'Hows' but is nowhere near asnwering the 'Whys'. He may in due time find out all of that, and perhaps he may find out that there is a sper being or perhaps we will finally have a Theory of Everything and a Law of Everything..
OBE is Out of the Body Experience, am I correct? What is NDE?
Yes, man does not know many things given the limits of science. But are you suggesting that what we don't know as Science may very well be Divine?
You are most certainly not saying the following, but I have heard some people argue this way: Science cannot explain so-and-so; thus it is Divine. To those, I say: Why not Satanic? Or the work of purple-skinned aliens from Betelgeuse? What's wrong with those explanations? No really, are those not equally valid alternate explanations?
5:30 am? 5:30 am?? 5 bloody thirty am??? How do you manage it? You are awake, ready and swinging roughly about the time I go to sleep. Let me in on the secret, man. Reform me.
In the meanwhile however, if we can all just go about our lives doing the best we can, help each other take care of ourselves, treat everyone with respect, both for their individuality as well as for their social networks, help those less fortunate than ourselves, and try to be happy, we should be ok.. If that takes us go God, so be it, if it does not, then we still did the best we could..
Yes, I agree. And even though that is an extremely noble thought in itself, I am not sure how it is relevant to the discussion at hand. I fully subscribe to what you are saying--being an atheist does not imply not being a humanist.
But what is being discussed here is the nature of God, not how best to clean up his mess. Or what our moral duties are. If you want to, we can start another thread for that one.
One last observation - Hard core Atheists and Theists have one thing is common. Neither is willing to really allow for the possibility that they could be wrong.
Yes, of course. Hence the moniker "hard core". But really Balajee, how many hardcore atheists have you heard about? Have they appeared closed to debate? Have they been wild-eyed and shown a fondness for fire-and-brimstone and automatic weapons?
For my part, I have seen many hardcore theists, some of whom have told me, in so many words, that I am bound for this certain badass place called Hell unless I came around and reformed and subscribed to their stupid insipid fairytales. And then stopped talking to me when I have tried to ask why.
Even more disturbing...I have also heard of many hardcore theists, some of whom make the headlines of major newspapers with monotony. For all the wrong reasons. Or make their way into history books. Osama. St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. Crusades.
I am not confusing religion with God. With the exception of Buddhism and some schools of Hinduism, most major religions revolve around the concept of God. And as pointed out, you may find some way to separate the two, but I think it is safe to say that most haven't. As things stand today, theism and religion are practically indistinguishable. Balajee, we can lament about how things should be, but we do have to deal with things as they are. Today, theism has a more than even chance of going off the handle and causing much out-and-out grief than atheism, with its sad membership rolls and battered siege mentality can ever hope to equal.
But that may change. Once we find more people. About a billion or two more should do it. Would you like to sign up for membership? It's free. And you get a lounge chair.
An Interesting Email
I have an interesting email from an acquaintance regarding my last two posts about God. Interesting because she makes the following statement, admittedly half-jokingly: "Yes, sometimes God makes mistakes such as handicapping children, etc. But that is only sometimes. Look at the rest of his creation. Isn't it marvelous? can't his mistakes be overlooked?"
I promised myself I'd get off this topic because it was beginning to dawn on me that this is a sensitive subject. It speaks to a core and cherished notion that most of us hold. But I am compelled to say something, anything, in response to that email. Because if I don't, my head will explode. Please humor me.
I have two points to make.
First, the affirmation that Creation (with a capital C) is marvelous. Yes, yes, it is marvelous. But compared to what? What are we measuring it against? Where is the yardstick?
Humor me and do this simple mental exercise. I request you, using your mind's eye, to roll up and shrink all of Creation into a small football-sized bundle. Proceed to mentally place this bundle in front of you. Now, hopefully this gives you a better mental handle on something that is quite gargantuan otherwise.
Ask yourself this. Is it possible that (A) there are other Creations than the one we are currently looking at, and (B) is it possible that they are better than this one?
Or, even if there is only this Creation, could it have been done better?
I realize that this is getting a little too metaphysical, so allow me to draw an analogy. Let us say that we, using a Time Machine, bring a Neanderthal from prehistoric times into the present day and age. Next, we hand this chap a sack of popcorn and show him exactly one movie. An egregiously bad one. Perhaps starring Vin Diesel. And then we send him back to his own time and place.
I am willing to place a large bet that said Neanderthal will go back and sing fulsomely wondrous praises of this magical thing that he has just witnessed, blissfully unaware that he has been treated to a rather crappy experience. And that he could have been treated to much better. Like Saving Private Ryan, or On Golden Pond.
The point? It is not possible to arrive at a conclusion about the quality of a class of things based on exactly one instance of the class. We have been exposed to just one Creation. "One" is not a good sample size. Ask a statistician.
Okay, let's grant ourselves this. Let us say that this is indeed a wondrous Existence and two thumbs up to God for having come up with it. But simple empirical observation shows us that it is not without blips and bumps. Children are regularly saddled with hideous congential diseases, infants are regularly born without limbs, species are regularly driven to extinction, and natural disasters regularly and indiscriminately kill thousands.
Which brings us to the second point made in the email. The idea that God should not be criticized because he gets it right most of the time.
Analogy time.
Let us say that I am a seemingly wonderful husband. I have a wonderful doll of a wife. I am also a rather wealthy guy who sees that my wife's every whim is satisfied. Her every want taken care of. She drives a Mercedes, wears perfume from Tiffany's, is showered with faux mink coats, and in general is pampered to kingdom come.
But twice a year--exactly twice--I batter her silly. I punch her senseless, shatter her nose, kick in a couple of her teeth, bruise her ribs and break both her arms. I then whip her raw.
Now if I forward the theory to you that I am a wonderful husband because I do extremely good by my wife most of the time, but screw up rather badly only occasionally, would that win your sympathy? Would you consider me a devoted husband and a capital fellow? Would that not fly in the face of everything that you have been brought up to consider right and good?
If I was dragged to court and asked to give an account of myself, and I peddled that same theory as a defence of my behavior, what are the chances that even a marginally fair-minded judge would nod understandingly. Very slim, true? Chances are that I would promptly be locked up in jail. Or perhaps a padded cell.
Now, why exactly our Father in Heaven is not held to those same standards, based on his bloopers and gaffes, is something that I will never understand.
My conclusion: If God exists, he cannot be Perfect. Just how imperfect is a matter of intelligent debate.
I wonder sometimes at how this debate is labeled blasphemous by many. And especially in America. The land of the free and home of the brave. The land of 180 degree evaluations. The land where children routinely speak up and question their parents' judgements. The land where even the highest political power is not above vicious cross-examination. It is a wonder that here, too, in this land, that any criticism of Divinity is promptly deflected, put a lid on and hushed up by an extremely significant number of people. This is something I sometimes do ponder in my idle moments. Verily have I spoken.
I promised myself I'd get off this topic because it was beginning to dawn on me that this is a sensitive subject. It speaks to a core and cherished notion that most of us hold. But I am compelled to say something, anything, in response to that email. Because if I don't, my head will explode. Please humor me.
I have two points to make.
First, the affirmation that Creation (with a capital C) is marvelous. Yes, yes, it is marvelous. But compared to what? What are we measuring it against? Where is the yardstick?
Humor me and do this simple mental exercise. I request you, using your mind's eye, to roll up and shrink all of Creation into a small football-sized bundle. Proceed to mentally place this bundle in front of you. Now, hopefully this gives you a better mental handle on something that is quite gargantuan otherwise.
Ask yourself this. Is it possible that (A) there are other Creations than the one we are currently looking at, and (B) is it possible that they are better than this one?
Or, even if there is only this Creation, could it have been done better?
I realize that this is getting a little too metaphysical, so allow me to draw an analogy. Let us say that we, using a Time Machine, bring a Neanderthal from prehistoric times into the present day and age. Next, we hand this chap a sack of popcorn and show him exactly one movie. An egregiously bad one. Perhaps starring Vin Diesel. And then we send him back to his own time and place.
I am willing to place a large bet that said Neanderthal will go back and sing fulsomely wondrous praises of this magical thing that he has just witnessed, blissfully unaware that he has been treated to a rather crappy experience. And that he could have been treated to much better. Like Saving Private Ryan, or On Golden Pond.
The point? It is not possible to arrive at a conclusion about the quality of a class of things based on exactly one instance of the class. We have been exposed to just one Creation. "One" is not a good sample size. Ask a statistician.
Okay, let's grant ourselves this. Let us say that this is indeed a wondrous Existence and two thumbs up to God for having come up with it. But simple empirical observation shows us that it is not without blips and bumps. Children are regularly saddled with hideous congential diseases, infants are regularly born without limbs, species are regularly driven to extinction, and natural disasters regularly and indiscriminately kill thousands.
Which brings us to the second point made in the email. The idea that God should not be criticized because he gets it right most of the time.
Analogy time.
Let us say that I am a seemingly wonderful husband. I have a wonderful doll of a wife. I am also a rather wealthy guy who sees that my wife's every whim is satisfied. Her every want taken care of. She drives a Mercedes, wears perfume from Tiffany's, is showered with faux mink coats, and in general is pampered to kingdom come.
But twice a year--exactly twice--I batter her silly. I punch her senseless, shatter her nose, kick in a couple of her teeth, bruise her ribs and break both her arms. I then whip her raw.
Now if I forward the theory to you that I am a wonderful husband because I do extremely good by my wife most of the time, but screw up rather badly only occasionally, would that win your sympathy? Would you consider me a devoted husband and a capital fellow? Would that not fly in the face of everything that you have been brought up to consider right and good?
If I was dragged to court and asked to give an account of myself, and I peddled that same theory as a defence of my behavior, what are the chances that even a marginally fair-minded judge would nod understandingly. Very slim, true? Chances are that I would promptly be locked up in jail. Or perhaps a padded cell.
Now, why exactly our Father in Heaven is not held to those same standards, based on his bloopers and gaffes, is something that I will never understand.
My conclusion: If God exists, he cannot be Perfect. Just how imperfect is a matter of intelligent debate.
I wonder sometimes at how this debate is labeled blasphemous by many. And especially in America. The land of the free and home of the brave. The land of 180 degree evaluations. The land where children routinely speak up and question their parents' judgements. The land where even the highest political power is not above vicious cross-examination. It is a wonder that here, too, in this land, that any criticism of Divinity is promptly deflected, put a lid on and hushed up by an extremely significant number of people. This is something I sometimes do ponder in my idle moments. Verily have I spoken.
Thinking About God At This Ungodly Hour
Here, in its entirety, is Rob's well constructed comment to my last, passionate post about God, Forgive Me This Trespass.
What follows below is a discussion, in good faith (har!), of some of the points that Rob raised. Rob's comments are in blue italics.
1) You are entitled to any belief or lack thereof- you wish, provided no harm is done in the name of said beliefs. Many "believers" fail that one right away.
You are absolutely right. No argument there. And yes, most believers fail that above test right away.
2) I meet very few old atheists. That's not to say that there's no fool like an old fool, but as time passes and mortality approaches, many at least concede the possibility.
That is a good and astute observation. And I strongly suspect that you are right. But if you are, then that is a little depressing. Because it implies that our inclination to accept the divine is directly proportional to our sense of insecurity. Not a cheery thought.
Just like a co-dependent spouse clings on to an abusive dead-end relationship not out of love, but from insecurity, this implies that some of us will only get religion when we're upended over a barrel and overtaken by life. I recognize the truth of what you say, but it disturbs me nevertheless.
I need not pursue avenues of futility, raging at demons of poverty, disease, injustice ...
I myself do not rage at poverty. Most poverty is an economic problem and we are responsible for it. Sometimes it is a production problem, sometimes it is an allocation problem (such as in India, where we are agriculturally self-sufficient, yet over half of us are malnourished).
But disease I am not so sure about. Because disease implies that somehow "Creation" is imperfect, at its source. Which is in direct contradiction to the position that most theists take. And I will not accept that we humans are somehow responsible for the existence of disease. I don't remember the last time that I "made" cancer.
... if I am being used by a power greater than myself, or simply driven by a sense of injustice, what's the difference?
There is no difference.
It is just that I would be a whole lot more comfortable if people most of the time were driven by a sense of injustice than they were driven by a belief system. The motivation that comes from belief is also used to justify wholesale murder and plunder of those whose belief systems don't happen to match that of ours. The motivation that comes from a sense of injustice is much less susceptible to that, for the simple reason that the concept of justice is widely uniform across cultures, but beliefs differ wildly.
To press the point, most cultures don't consider it terribly good form to go out and wantonly murder fellow citizens, or steal from fellow citizens. These are widely frowned upon as unjust things to do, following the common-sense principle of reciprocity. If you endorse murder and plunder in a society, there is a chance that you will suffer too.
On the other hand, some belief systems that we shall not name expressly call on their their followers to go out and murder and plunder deviants from the faith, or at best, spare no effort to convert them. Indeed, their very Holy Books codify this in no uncertain terms.
I simply allow for the possiblity that there is a power greater than I- and I am not that power.
I heartily acknowledge that there are many powers that are greater than I. A twister is a greater power than I. George W. Bush is a power greater than I. Saddam Hussein would have been a power greater than I if I had been a citizen of Iraq in the year 2000. And yes, let us, for the sake of argument, say that somebody named "God" is a power greater than I.
So far so good. What I don't understand is this.
Why do we then proceed to assign qualities to this God dude: like All-Loving, All-Powerful, All-Knowing?
How do we know this? Certainly not from his handiwork. If we assume the conventionally accepted notion of him as being the Absolute Unquestioned Lord of All Creation, clearly he is not All-Loving. He routinely handicaps a not statistically insignificant number of his underlings for no apparent reason. Some are mysteriously earmarked for less lovin' than others.
Also, interestingly, he distinctly shows a marked preference for a subset of his creation over others. To wit, he seems to have a particular fondness for humans as compared to the rest of animalkind as is evident from the different endowments. Clearly not All-Loving. All-human-loving is closer to the mark.
One can argue that it is not malice that drives him to fuck up the lives of some of his brood. But then one must reach an even more disturbing conclusion. Which is that he is not insanely bright at what he does and is just as imperfect as the rest of us; it's just that the job is bigger. And his QA methods suck ass, given the criticality of the process (that of creating sentient beings). So not All-Knowing either. Or All-Powerful for that matter.
That by the way, is the danger of perfection tags and absolute certainties. I don't have to find numerous screw-ups to disprove the tag. It is enough to find just one counter-example to prove imperfection. And the house of cards comes tumbling down.
Is that a fair analysis on my part?
Hasty Footnote:
I don't discourage theism by stepping hard on other people's beliefs. In fact, if I had a dollar for the number of times I have been targeted for sermons versus the reverse, I would today be many dollars richer and thus be able to avoid cafeteria food more often.
But theism should not be an exercise in specious rationalization. It should be a scientifically undertaken search for a broader, if not necessarily higher, organizing principle. Which, if and when we find it, may or may not square with the conventional and broadly accepted notion of an All-Loving, All-Knowing, Uppity God. As far as I can tell, the only theistic school of thought that even half-heartedly attempts to do this is Hinduism and Buddhism, once you cut through all the superstitious deadwood. Most of the rest appear to be quite smug with their certainties, thank you very much.
Additionally, and this is important, the fact should be kept in mind that we may not like what we find as a result of our search. We may find, instead of a Loving, Knowing, Powerful, Benevolent God, a Cruel, Base, Naked, Elemental Force. Something more like Gravity, perhaps, than a man with a white flowing beard. Is a theist willing to accept those findings?
Hi Sougata..
I think you are looking for answers as to "why" in the wrong
place- Or perhaps in the right place, but nonetheless, answers are not forthcoming. At least answers that suit the questions posed.
Here's my take- For what it's worth.
1) You are entitled to any belief or lack thereof- you wish, provided no harm is done in the name of said beiefs. Many "believers" fail that one right away.
2) I meet very few old atheists. That's not to say that there's no fool like an old fool, but as time passes and mortality approaches, many at least concede the possibility.
In my particular case, I am more concerned with the "how" as opposed to the "why". Let me explain further..
I need not pursue avenues of futility, raging at demons of poverty, disease, injustice and so on. To do something about those things? That's I am here for. I can do something, and if I am being used by a power greater than myself, or simply driven by a sense of injustice, what's the difference?
I simply allow for the possiblity that there is a power greater than I- and I am not that power.
What follows below is a discussion, in good faith (har!), of some of the points that Rob raised. Rob's comments are in blue italics.
1) You are entitled to any belief or lack thereof- you wish, provided no harm is done in the name of said beliefs. Many "believers" fail that one right away.
You are absolutely right. No argument there. And yes, most believers fail that above test right away.
2) I meet very few old atheists. That's not to say that there's no fool like an old fool, but as time passes and mortality approaches, many at least concede the possibility.
That is a good and astute observation. And I strongly suspect that you are right. But if you are, then that is a little depressing. Because it implies that our inclination to accept the divine is directly proportional to our sense of insecurity. Not a cheery thought.
Just like a co-dependent spouse clings on to an abusive dead-end relationship not out of love, but from insecurity, this implies that some of us will only get religion when we're upended over a barrel and overtaken by life. I recognize the truth of what you say, but it disturbs me nevertheless.
I need not pursue avenues of futility, raging at demons of poverty, disease, injustice ...
I myself do not rage at poverty. Most poverty is an economic problem and we are responsible for it. Sometimes it is a production problem, sometimes it is an allocation problem (such as in India, where we are agriculturally self-sufficient, yet over half of us are malnourished).
But disease I am not so sure about. Because disease implies that somehow "Creation" is imperfect, at its source. Which is in direct contradiction to the position that most theists take. And I will not accept that we humans are somehow responsible for the existence of disease. I don't remember the last time that I "made" cancer.
... if I am being used by a power greater than myself, or simply driven by a sense of injustice, what's the difference?
There is no difference.
It is just that I would be a whole lot more comfortable if people most of the time were driven by a sense of injustice than they were driven by a belief system. The motivation that comes from belief is also used to justify wholesale murder and plunder of those whose belief systems don't happen to match that of ours. The motivation that comes from a sense of injustice is much less susceptible to that, for the simple reason that the concept of justice is widely uniform across cultures, but beliefs differ wildly.
To press the point, most cultures don't consider it terribly good form to go out and wantonly murder fellow citizens, or steal from fellow citizens. These are widely frowned upon as unjust things to do, following the common-sense principle of reciprocity. If you endorse murder and plunder in a society, there is a chance that you will suffer too.
On the other hand, some belief systems that we shall not name expressly call on their their followers to go out and murder and plunder deviants from the faith, or at best, spare no effort to convert them. Indeed, their very Holy Books codify this in no uncertain terms.
I simply allow for the possiblity that there is a power greater than I- and I am not that power.
I heartily acknowledge that there are many powers that are greater than I. A twister is a greater power than I. George W. Bush is a power greater than I. Saddam Hussein would have been a power greater than I if I had been a citizen of Iraq in the year 2000. And yes, let us, for the sake of argument, say that somebody named "God" is a power greater than I.
So far so good. What I don't understand is this.
Why do we then proceed to assign qualities to this God dude: like All-Loving, All-Powerful, All-Knowing?
How do we know this? Certainly not from his handiwork. If we assume the conventionally accepted notion of him as being the Absolute Unquestioned Lord of All Creation, clearly he is not All-Loving. He routinely handicaps a not statistically insignificant number of his underlings for no apparent reason. Some are mysteriously earmarked for less lovin' than others.
Also, interestingly, he distinctly shows a marked preference for a subset of his creation over others. To wit, he seems to have a particular fondness for humans as compared to the rest of animalkind as is evident from the different endowments. Clearly not All-Loving. All-human-loving is closer to the mark.
One can argue that it is not malice that drives him to fuck up the lives of some of his brood. But then one must reach an even more disturbing conclusion. Which is that he is not insanely bright at what he does and is just as imperfect as the rest of us; it's just that the job is bigger. And his QA methods suck ass, given the criticality of the process (that of creating sentient beings). So not All-Knowing either. Or All-Powerful for that matter.
That by the way, is the danger of perfection tags and absolute certainties. I don't have to find numerous screw-ups to disprove the tag. It is enough to find just one counter-example to prove imperfection. And the house of cards comes tumbling down.
Is that a fair analysis on my part?
Hasty Footnote:
I don't discourage theism by stepping hard on other people's beliefs. In fact, if I had a dollar for the number of times I have been targeted for sermons versus the reverse, I would today be many dollars richer and thus be able to avoid cafeteria food more often.
But theism should not be an exercise in specious rationalization. It should be a scientifically undertaken search for a broader, if not necessarily higher, organizing principle. Which, if and when we find it, may or may not square with the conventional and broadly accepted notion of an All-Loving, All-Knowing, Uppity God. As far as I can tell, the only theistic school of thought that even half-heartedly attempts to do this is Hinduism and Buddhism, once you cut through all the superstitious deadwood. Most of the rest appear to be quite smug with their certainties, thank you very much.
Additionally, and this is important, the fact should be kept in mind that we may not like what we find as a result of our search. We may find, instead of a Loving, Knowing, Powerful, Benevolent God, a Cruel, Base, Naked, Elemental Force. Something more like Gravity, perhaps, than a man with a white flowing beard. Is a theist willing to accept those findings?
Forgive Me This Trespass
I have been the target of conversion attempts from an early age.
From a early age, I lost belief in what is conventionally known as "God". Because nothing I saw pointed to the existence of an All-Loving, All-Knowing, All-Powerful, Fair-minded Higher Entity. In fact, there was plenty of evidence to the contrary.
I made no secret of this. And that is sometimes a mistake because it opens you up to targeted advertising by well-meaning people who, with tender empathy and patient understanding, try to lead you out of darkness. Unfortunately for them, I am not an easy target. And I don't know who is more traumatized after such conversion attempts.
Having patiently listened to many sermons though, here's a counter-sermon of mine that theists have an obligation to listen to. Turnabout is fair play.
Humans, I have observed, are great rationalizers. Most of our religious urges begin from our attempts to rationalize things that we have dim hope of understanding with any clarity. It is comforting to believe that there is a big plan. It is comforting to believe that things will all work out in the end. It is far less comforting to accept that we live in a probabilistic and chaotic universe where the future is a complex outcome of our present and past actions with a unsettlingly hefty dose of randomness thrown in.
Take an example. An airplane crashes, killing all 300 people on board.
And the poor bastard is supposed to draw comfort from that?
Sometimes, mercifully, those who have a particularly debilitating handicap are not sufficiently aware of it. A child with severe Down's Syndrome may not internalize the pain of the condition. But sometimes, just for the heck of it and to add variety, the Great Architect from up above gives a person a severe handicap and also simultaneously gives him the blessing of full awareness of it. Step right up folks, because this is always fun to watch!
Yes, it is fun to watch the incessant agony of a person who must bear an unwanted cross all his life. Have you seen the movie The Elephant Man? If you have, do you remember when the severely deformed Joseph Merrick, while being teased mercilessly on the streets of London, screams at his tormentors, "I ... am ... not ... an ... animal! I am a human being! I am a man!"
Joseph Merrick had Proteus Syndrome, an incurable and horrific congenital condition. Did you feel his pain? Can you imagine what it must be like to be a Joseph Merrick? With an unremitting lifelong condition that you are agonizingly aware of but can do nothing about?
Do not, with a clear conscience, talk to me about an all-Loving God. Just fucking don't.
Postscript and Warning: I don't want to indulge in sensation-mongering. But if you have the stomach for it, do look at the pictures by following the link below. This is what a person with Proteus Syndrome looks like. Take a look. And then tell me that there is a God.
http://www.proteus-syndrome.org.uk/psf_photos.html
From a early age, I lost belief in what is conventionally known as "God". Because nothing I saw pointed to the existence of an All-Loving, All-Knowing, All-Powerful, Fair-minded Higher Entity. In fact, there was plenty of evidence to the contrary.
I made no secret of this. And that is sometimes a mistake because it opens you up to targeted advertising by well-meaning people who, with tender empathy and patient understanding, try to lead you out of darkness. Unfortunately for them, I am not an easy target. And I don't know who is more traumatized after such conversion attempts.
Having patiently listened to many sermons though, here's a counter-sermon of mine that theists have an obligation to listen to. Turnabout is fair play.
Humans, I have observed, are great rationalizers. Most of our religious urges begin from our attempts to rationalize things that we have dim hope of understanding with any clarity. It is comforting to believe that there is a big plan. It is comforting to believe that things will all work out in the end. It is far less comforting to accept that we live in a probabilistic and chaotic universe where the future is a complex outcome of our present and past actions with a unsettlingly hefty dose of randomness thrown in.
Take an example. An airplane crashes, killing all 300 people on board.
To see how the rationlization starts, lets go down the line.
You start with a Christian. Why did that happen? Why did 300 innocent people die? Maybe every one of those people are paying for their sins, he says. There were several infants on board, what was their sin, you ask. They sinned in their past lives, the Hindu pipes up. Have you seen a past life, Mr. Hindu? And why did they get away with what they did in that past life? Wasn't God paying attention? Justice delayed and all that.
Better a bad explanation than no explanation at all, I suppose.
But do you know what causes me the most disquiet? This also counts among the most difficult thing for an apologist to rationalize away. I vainly search for an explanation when I see a child who is congenitally handicapped to the point of being condemned to live a harrowing life of sub-normalcy. This is what happens to those with severe Down's Syndrome, for example. A child who will, throughout his life, look upon the rest of humanity with a wistful eye.
Pray tell. What notion of sin or what theory of free will, would you dredge up to explain the condition of this child? A human who is irrevocably and royally screwed, so to speak, from the moment of his birth.
What comfort do you have to offer him? What theological explanation for his condition? What philosophical band-aid do you have handy?
I once asked a religious friend of mine this very thing once, but only after he had badgered me to the point of impatience. He had this explanation. Yes, he is suffering. But his Suffering is noble. Because he will, one day, get a chance to stand in front of God and tell Him about his Suffering. And ask him about his Suffering. And thus will he be redeemed.
Let me get this straight.
What you're telling the poor bastard is this, in effect: Yes, you will have a miserable, godawful life. All through your life, you will be pissed on, ridiculed and belittled. You will be, variously, (a) an object of sympathy or, (b) a target of derision, depending on the mood of your tormentors, and believe me, there will be many.
Better a bad explanation than no explanation at all, I suppose.
But do you know what causes me the most disquiet? This also counts among the most difficult thing for an apologist to rationalize away. I vainly search for an explanation when I see a child who is congenitally handicapped to the point of being condemned to live a harrowing life of sub-normalcy. This is what happens to those with severe Down's Syndrome, for example. A child who will, throughout his life, look upon the rest of humanity with a wistful eye.
Pray tell. What notion of sin or what theory of free will, would you dredge up to explain the condition of this child? A human who is irrevocably and royally screwed, so to speak, from the moment of his birth.
What comfort do you have to offer him? What theological explanation for his condition? What philosophical band-aid do you have handy?
I once asked a religious friend of mine this very thing once, but only after he had badgered me to the point of impatience. He had this explanation. Yes, he is suffering. But his Suffering is noble. Because he will, one day, get a chance to stand in front of God and tell Him about his Suffering. And ask him about his Suffering. And thus will he be redeemed.
Let me get this straight.
What you're telling the poor bastard is this, in effect: Yes, you will have a miserable, godawful life. All through your life, you will be pissed on, ridiculed and belittled. You will be, variously, (a) an object of sympathy or, (b) a target of derision, depending on the mood of your tormentors, and believe me, there will be many.
But then, and here's the good part, you will die. And then--are you still getting this--you will have your chance to go ask this Perfect, All-Knowing Supreme Entity who apparently fucked up while creating you exactly how One Such As Him could have made such a total screw-up during the process of creation of a human life. So just wait patiently to die. Then you will be redeemed.
And the poor bastard is supposed to draw comfort from that?
Sometimes, mercifully, those who have a particularly debilitating handicap are not sufficiently aware of it. A child with severe Down's Syndrome may not internalize the pain of the condition. But sometimes, just for the heck of it and to add variety, the Great Architect from up above gives a person a severe handicap and also simultaneously gives him the blessing of full awareness of it. Step right up folks, because this is always fun to watch!
Yes, it is fun to watch the incessant agony of a person who must bear an unwanted cross all his life. Have you seen the movie The Elephant Man? If you have, do you remember when the severely deformed Joseph Merrick, while being teased mercilessly on the streets of London, screams at his tormentors, "I ... am ... not ... an ... animal! I am a human being! I am a man!"
Joseph Merrick had Proteus Syndrome, an incurable and horrific congenital condition. Did you feel his pain? Can you imagine what it must be like to be a Joseph Merrick? With an unremitting lifelong condition that you are agonizingly aware of but can do nothing about?
Do not, with a clear conscience, talk to me about an all-Loving God. Just fucking don't.
Postscript and Warning: I don't want to indulge in sensation-mongering. But if you have the stomach for it, do look at the pictures by following the link below. This is what a person with Proteus Syndrome looks like. Take a look. And then tell me that there is a God.
http://www.proteus-syndrome.org.uk/psf_photos.html
It's Gonna Be A Bright Sunshiny Day
Human beings are complex creatures.
And being the complex pieces of work that we are, we exhibit some interesting psychological behaviour.
One example of such interesting behaviour is what is known as hindsight bias. This is when we suddenly seem very informed about an event after it has already happened and it seems like the event was inevitable: "I knew it all along."
And being the complex pieces of work that we are, we exhibit some interesting psychological behaviour.
One example of such interesting behaviour is what is known as hindsight bias. This is when we suddenly seem very informed about an event after it has already happened and it seems like the event was inevitable: "I knew it all along."
Hindsight gives us false confidence because we incorrectly believe that we could have predicted the outcome. Hindsight bias has a side effect because we dismiss the idea that other equally likely outcomes could have happened, and we do not plan for those in the future.
Hindsight bias crops up everywhere. Stock market analysts show plenty of hindsight bias. After a market downturn, many analysts smugly tell us that the market was overdue for a correction. Well Mr. Hot Shot Analyst, why didn't you tell us before?
Another example would be the Kargil War. We were, to put it unkindly, caught with our pants around our ankles. But after the war happened--after the fact--many "experts" suddenly popped up all around us like curious prairie-dogs and told us, in tones of authority, that we were simply asking for it. No shit, sherlock.
It is my contention that we humans not only exhibit hindsight bias, we also exhibit what I am cleverly calling foresight inertia. This can be operationally defined as those times when we foresee a grave future consequence of a present action--using things like collected data, past performance and our educated judgement--and yet do very little about it because the solution is "too hard". Or because we believe that a less energetic solution will work equally well.
Take India's population figures. We are told by demographers that India's population, given the current trajectory of growth of about 1.4% every year, will reach 1.7 billion people by the year 2060. At which point, it will stablize because we will have achieved zero population growth.
[NB: Forgive me for redundancy, but to achieve Zero Population Growth, a country needs to reach Replacement Fertility Rate. This is when a couple has no more than two children and essentially just replaces themselves. The actual figure for Replacement Fertility is slightly higher than 2. It is 2.1 I think, to account for those who die prematurely without having children of their own. India's current fertility rate is about 3.01 children per woman. These numbers may seem quite small and the difference between them insignificant, but remember that these are rates that are applied to very large numbers of the order of a billion, and that too in geometric progression. Even a small difference in these rates can have serious non-convergent effects.]
That number, 1.7 billion, is itself a scary number because it essentially means that we will have about twice the number of people to support, mouths to feed, bodies to clothe. Given that we are currently not exactly doing a bang-up job of doing these tasks, it is only fair to ask if our current rate of GDP growth will cover these bases? I personally wouldn't bet on it.
What if we are wrong and India's population does not stabilize in 2060? And we don't have to be wrong by much; a tenth of a percentage point will do it.Will fertility education work or do we have to do a "China"?
These are valid questions. Those who ask these questions are sometimes seen as pessimistic alarmist doom-and-gloom types. I think that these labels are a little unfair. Because these questions are meant to shake us out of foresight inertia.
In the interests of fairness, let me say that foresight inertia is not always a good thing. Since it is very difficult to predict the future it is conceivable that we will often get it wrong. Attempting to fix a problem that will not occur in the future may very well make the future worse rather than better. It would be a troubled society indeed if everybody always jumped up and acted on every little "foresight" that they had.
But foresight inertia is negligent and immoral, maybe even criminal, in situations where the cost of sitting still is very high.
Let me explain. What if I say to you, "Look here so-and-so, we are heading for a demographic catastrophe in India. If population growth is not checked, it will dilute any economic gains. What do we do?"
You, being a sunnier sort, say, "Well, look at the bright side. Haven't you heard how everybody is talking of India's Demographic Dividend? Lighten up, my friend, and chill. Here, have a gin-and-tonic."
Now either you are right or I am right. If we choose to be alarmist (my way) and implement a contingency plan that I come up with, and turns out that you were right, we should still be ok. A little sheepish perhaps, but basically ok.
But if , perchance, I am right, and we take your approach of doing nothing or too little, we, my bright-eyed friend, are dead.
Yes, this is maybe Pascal's Wager rehashed, but if you are reading this, then you read all the way through, didn't you? Sucker!
Hindsight bias crops up everywhere. Stock market analysts show plenty of hindsight bias. After a market downturn, many analysts smugly tell us that the market was overdue for a correction. Well Mr. Hot Shot Analyst, why didn't you tell us before?
Another example would be the Kargil War. We were, to put it unkindly, caught with our pants around our ankles. But after the war happened--after the fact--many "experts" suddenly popped up all around us like curious prairie-dogs and told us, in tones of authority, that we were simply asking for it. No shit, sherlock.
It is my contention that we humans not only exhibit hindsight bias, we also exhibit what I am cleverly calling foresight inertia. This can be operationally defined as those times when we foresee a grave future consequence of a present action--using things like collected data, past performance and our educated judgement--and yet do very little about it because the solution is "too hard". Or because we believe that a less energetic solution will work equally well.
Take India's population figures. We are told by demographers that India's population, given the current trajectory of growth of about 1.4% every year, will reach 1.7 billion people by the year 2060. At which point, it will stablize because we will have achieved zero population growth.
[NB: Forgive me for redundancy, but to achieve Zero Population Growth, a country needs to reach Replacement Fertility Rate. This is when a couple has no more than two children and essentially just replaces themselves. The actual figure for Replacement Fertility is slightly higher than 2. It is 2.1 I think, to account for those who die prematurely without having children of their own. India's current fertility rate is about 3.01 children per woman. These numbers may seem quite small and the difference between them insignificant, but remember that these are rates that are applied to very large numbers of the order of a billion, and that too in geometric progression. Even a small difference in these rates can have serious non-convergent effects.]
That number, 1.7 billion, is itself a scary number because it essentially means that we will have about twice the number of people to support, mouths to feed, bodies to clothe. Given that we are currently not exactly doing a bang-up job of doing these tasks, it is only fair to ask if our current rate of GDP growth will cover these bases? I personally wouldn't bet on it.
What if we are wrong and India's population does not stabilize in 2060? And we don't have to be wrong by much; a tenth of a percentage point will do it.Will fertility education work or do we have to do a "China"?
These are valid questions. Those who ask these questions are sometimes seen as pessimistic alarmist doom-and-gloom types. I think that these labels are a little unfair. Because these questions are meant to shake us out of foresight inertia.
In the interests of fairness, let me say that foresight inertia is not always a good thing. Since it is very difficult to predict the future it is conceivable that we will often get it wrong. Attempting to fix a problem that will not occur in the future may very well make the future worse rather than better. It would be a troubled society indeed if everybody always jumped up and acted on every little "foresight" that they had.
But foresight inertia is negligent and immoral, maybe even criminal, in situations where the cost of sitting still is very high.
Let me explain. What if I say to you, "Look here so-and-so, we are heading for a demographic catastrophe in India. If population growth is not checked, it will dilute any economic gains. What do we do?"
You, being a sunnier sort, say, "Well, look at the bright side. Haven't you heard how everybody is talking of India's Demographic Dividend? Lighten up, my friend, and chill. Here, have a gin-and-tonic."
Now either you are right or I am right. If we choose to be alarmist (my way) and implement a contingency plan that I come up with, and turns out that you were right, we should still be ok. A little sheepish perhaps, but basically ok.
But if , perchance, I am right, and we take your approach of doing nothing or too little, we, my bright-eyed friend, are dead.
Yes, this is maybe Pascal's Wager rehashed, but if you are reading this, then you read all the way through, didn't you? Sucker!
Oh Kashmir, My Kashmir
Have you seen a Hieronymus Bosch painting? Or a Dali? Or an Edvard Munch? Or read William Burrough's Naked Lunch?
All pretty surreal stuff. But they all pale, and how, when compared to the surreality of the reports on Kashmir in the Indian media. Take the following rapid-fire series of articles in rediff.com:
(1) Return To Paradise -- in which one Rashmi Bhure tells us in glowing terms how everything, especially tourism, is really looking up in Kashmir because the people there have finally understood how not bloodshed, but peace, will lead to peace. Aaahhh, finally we can all relax.
(2) 14 Dead, 100 Hurt in Pulwama Blast -- in which we are told, rather bluntly, how a huge explosion wiped out innocent lives, including those of two students. You see, the terrorists had, with tender empathy, set up the bomb right outside a school.
(3) Hurriyat backs Musharraf's Kashmir formula -- in which the Hurriyat Conference tells us, in no uncertain terms, that being the f***ing ungrateful weasels that they are, they would very much like for Kashmir to be "autonomous", according to a "formula" that Pakistani President Musharraf has put forward. That, not being simply content with the special status that Kashmir already enjoys, they would further like to distance themselves from the rest of India, presumably in preparation for joining Pakistan. Note to Indian Government: Please send a few more buses to Pakistan, and hurry! We are clearly short a few buses. Or maybe plan on reserving a few more IIT seats for them. How about some free food for them while we're at it? We have plenty. Why, only 60 percent of us are malnourished. We can afford to give away some food, surely.
Leave alone the media. What about us, the thinking, educated Indians? How do we characterize the Kashmir problem? I have heard at least two Indians, among my acquaintances here in the United States, make the nonsensical statement that Kashmir is a political problem and not a religious problem. I am further assuming that unless I move in the wrong circles, my acquaintances are a random sample and thus there are likely many, many more thinking (tongue firmly in cheek), educated Indians who hold similar views.
In my studied opinion, those who say that Kashmir is not a religious but a political problem are functional idiots who likely drool helplessly all over their shoes in the morning. Remember that if Kashmir was simply a Kashmir-versus-the-Central-Government sort of problem, all Kashmiris of every stripe would be involved in the process of a solution. But this is not the case. One of the first things that happened when the knockdown-dragout Kashmir problem started is that the Muslim majority in Kashmir ethnically cleansed Kashmiri Hindu Pandits from the valley. Three quarters of a million of them. Not religious, my behind.
I regret to inform that I have reached a rather sad and disheartening conclusion after spending a few decades on this here earth. Which is as follows.
Hindus have no self-respect. None. And I don't care if Ram or Shyam or Rajesh individually shows spine. The collective dominant impression that Hindus radiate is that of utter, abject, fawning spinelessness in the face of minority posturing and aggression. That is why Kashmir, in spite of egregiously bad behaviour, gets per-capita, ten times the aid from the Central Government that other states receive. That is why a certain, statistically significant number of Hindus, out of a misplaced sense of political correctness and quite possibly grovelling dhimmitude, fail (or refuse) to see the Kashmir problem in proper light.
That is why we Hindus breast-beat and make ten times the noise when 750 Muslims are killed in Godhra and don't bat our secular eyelashes when hundreds of thousands of Kashmiri Pandits live in squalor in refugee camps in their own country, or two thousand Sikhs are butchered mercilessly in Delhi. Children of a lesser god indeed are Hindus and Sikhs.
And some of us complain about how Hinduism is (and Hindus are) negatively portrayed in Western media and textbooks. Why the surprise? Why exactly will other cultures respect us when we don't respect ourselves? What do you expect others to make of a culture that suffers more angst and spends more sleepless nights fretting over Sourav Ganguly's current batting average than the fact that we chipped in and voted to be ruled by a half-literate Italian immigrant?
But this is okay, par for the course. Let's get back to worrying over whether Jinnah was secular or not.
All pretty surreal stuff. But they all pale, and how, when compared to the surreality of the reports on Kashmir in the Indian media. Take the following rapid-fire series of articles in rediff.com:
(1) Return To Paradise -- in which one Rashmi Bhure tells us in glowing terms how everything, especially tourism, is really looking up in Kashmir because the people there have finally understood how not bloodshed, but peace, will lead to peace. Aaahhh, finally we can all relax.
(2) 14 Dead, 100 Hurt in Pulwama Blast -- in which we are told, rather bluntly, how a huge explosion wiped out innocent lives, including those of two students. You see, the terrorists had, with tender empathy, set up the bomb right outside a school.
(3) Hurriyat backs Musharraf's Kashmir formula -- in which the Hurriyat Conference tells us, in no uncertain terms, that being the f***ing ungrateful weasels that they are, they would very much like for Kashmir to be "autonomous", according to a "formula" that Pakistani President Musharraf has put forward. That, not being simply content with the special status that Kashmir already enjoys, they would further like to distance themselves from the rest of India, presumably in preparation for joining Pakistan. Note to Indian Government: Please send a few more buses to Pakistan, and hurry! We are clearly short a few buses. Or maybe plan on reserving a few more IIT seats for them. How about some free food for them while we're at it? We have plenty. Why, only 60 percent of us are malnourished. We can afford to give away some food, surely.
Leave alone the media. What about us, the thinking, educated Indians? How do we characterize the Kashmir problem? I have heard at least two Indians, among my acquaintances here in the United States, make the nonsensical statement that Kashmir is a political problem and not a religious problem. I am further assuming that unless I move in the wrong circles, my acquaintances are a random sample and thus there are likely many, many more thinking (tongue firmly in cheek), educated Indians who hold similar views.
In my studied opinion, those who say that Kashmir is not a religious but a political problem are functional idiots who likely drool helplessly all over their shoes in the morning. Remember that if Kashmir was simply a Kashmir-versus-the-Central-Government sort of problem, all Kashmiris of every stripe would be involved in the process of a solution. But this is not the case. One of the first things that happened when the knockdown-dragout Kashmir problem started is that the Muslim majority in Kashmir ethnically cleansed Kashmiri Hindu Pandits from the valley. Three quarters of a million of them. Not religious, my behind.
I regret to inform that I have reached a rather sad and disheartening conclusion after spending a few decades on this here earth. Which is as follows.
Hindus have no self-respect. None. And I don't care if Ram or Shyam or Rajesh individually shows spine. The collective dominant impression that Hindus radiate is that of utter, abject, fawning spinelessness in the face of minority posturing and aggression. That is why Kashmir, in spite of egregiously bad behaviour, gets per-capita, ten times the aid from the Central Government that other states receive. That is why a certain, statistically significant number of Hindus, out of a misplaced sense of political correctness and quite possibly grovelling dhimmitude, fail (or refuse) to see the Kashmir problem in proper light.
That is why we Hindus breast-beat and make ten times the noise when 750 Muslims are killed in Godhra and don't bat our secular eyelashes when hundreds of thousands of Kashmiri Pandits live in squalor in refugee camps in their own country, or two thousand Sikhs are butchered mercilessly in Delhi. Children of a lesser god indeed are Hindus and Sikhs.
And some of us complain about how Hinduism is (and Hindus are) negatively portrayed in Western media and textbooks. Why the surprise? Why exactly will other cultures respect us when we don't respect ourselves? What do you expect others to make of a culture that suffers more angst and spends more sleepless nights fretting over Sourav Ganguly's current batting average than the fact that we chipped in and voted to be ruled by a half-literate Italian immigrant?
But this is okay, par for the course. Let's get back to worrying over whether Jinnah was secular or not.
All Bruised Up And Nowhere To Go
I face an interesting problem. I can't decide which part of my body hurts the most.
No, I haven't been broad-sided by a semi and am not writing this from a hospital with my body all in traction, though it sometimes feels this way. You see, I went mountain-biking this weekend.
It is disturbing just how often meddling individuals will take two perfectly nice, individually acceptable things, tinker with them and combine them to produce a freakish monster. Mountain-biking is a good example of this. On the one hand, you have a mountain, a perfectly acceptable bump in the ground. And then on the other hand, you have a bicycle, a pretty nifty device that transports lazy humans from point A to point B. Take them, put them together in a medium-size wok, baste with warm butter, and voila, a sure-fire recipe for trauma of the body and spirit.
Now, do let's get one thing squared away. In a dim and masochistic way I actually like mountain-biking. I used to do it when I lived in Dallas and I do it now sometimes. But liking something does not mean that you gorge on it. Or are good at it.
No, I haven't been broad-sided by a semi and am not writing this from a hospital with my body all in traction, though it sometimes feels this way. You see, I went mountain-biking this weekend.
It is disturbing just how often meddling individuals will take two perfectly nice, individually acceptable things, tinker with them and combine them to produce a freakish monster. Mountain-biking is a good example of this. On the one hand, you have a mountain, a perfectly acceptable bump in the ground. And then on the other hand, you have a bicycle, a pretty nifty device that transports lazy humans from point A to point B. Take them, put them together in a medium-size wok, baste with warm butter, and voila, a sure-fire recipe for trauma of the body and spirit.
Now, do let's get one thing squared away. In a dim and masochistic way I actually like mountain-biking. I used to do it when I lived in Dallas and I do it now sometimes. But liking something does not mean that you gorge on it. Or are good at it.
Being "a moderate enthusiast" (sometimes referred to in scientific circles as "a wussy wuss"), I would usually choose the easy trails when I went biking. Mountain-biking can actually be a fun thing to do. I can think of worse ways to spend your weekend. Maybe not at the moment, but I can.
This time was different though.
My friend J and I went. For the nosy, the trail is called John Muir Trail (for a map, click here) and is about 20 miles long, give or take, if you do all the loops. And since we both are on a bit of a fitness kick right now--hope springs eternal--I thought, "What the heck, let's do the trail twice. That oughta be fun."
For those of you who labored through this post and made it to this point, and also for those shameless, attention-span deficient people who skipped through most of this post and made it to this point--here's the takeaway message from this post.
This time was different though.
My friend J and I went. For the nosy, the trail is called John Muir Trail (for a map, click here) and is about 20 miles long, give or take, if you do all the loops. And since we both are on a bit of a fitness kick right now--hope springs eternal--I thought, "What the heck, let's do the trail twice. That oughta be fun."
J, being of the male persuasion and being only slightly smarter than I am, agreed. Oh come now, if he were super-smart, would he be my friend?
"That oughta be fun." ...If somebody with way too much time on his hands ever compiled a list of famous last words, it is my wager that those words will surely figure in the top five.
The plan of doing the trail twice was a bad one from the start for several reasons. First, we didn't know the trail and it turned out to be much tougher than any I had seen so far. Second, doing a 20-odd mile track twice with not a break in-between was asking too much of our level of fitness. Third, it was an unseasonably hot and sweaty day.
Fourth, to add insult to injury, my bicycle is not all that good. In fact, that is being quite charitable, putting it that way. It actually sucks ass. It has five gears, only four of which will engage. It has a wobbly wheel that goes every which way, and a not very good brake. Also--and I don't know why I say this but am sure this matters somehow--it is puke-blue in color. If somebody ate a whole lot of blue M&Ms and threw up, that's what my bike would look like, only it would be bigger. I've been meaning to get a new bike for sometime now, but hey, I'm cheap.
We didn't have much trouble going through about 15 miles of the trail the first time. The second time was pure white-hot torture. There was this one section of the track that went up about 80 feet in about a quarter mile--a pretty steep gradient--and to add to the fun, was littered with rocks the size of soccer balls. Well before halfway through the second time, J and I were, to put it kindly, not having fun. Hands raw from gripping the handlebars too long and too tight, thighs and calves screaming in agony, unable to sit straight on our bikes because it hurt so bad, sweat pouring out from places we didn't know we had. We looked like a couple of haggard, punched-out characters from some sort of existential film noir. It was a lesson in humility that J and I will not forget in a hurry.
All we wanted to do, and our minds sang this to us in a sickening refrain, was get back to our cars. Our comfortable, lovely cars. With airconditioners in them.
And to get the hell home.
Aside: The more astute among the readers will make the observation at this point that we should simply have gotten off our bikes and walked. Would have been easier on the bones, they would say. Let me say this to the astute reader: "O astute reader, thou art too clever for your own good. Thou art, in fact, a smart-ass who doesn't account for one simple fact. Both J and I are guys. If I was alone on the trail, or if one of us had been a girl, who BTW are innately smarter than guys and therefore live longer, this is exactly what would have happened. We would have walked. But we were both guys. Heaven forbid that one of us would actually shed our manly macho-musk swagger and be the first to suggest that we get off our bikes and walk."
All things that have a beginning must have an end, and this sorry tale, too, has an end. Just when we thought we would slowly sink and die of exhaustion on that trail and birds whose names we didn't know would pick our bones clean, we turned a corner and through pain-dulled eyes, we saw...on a sign...in gleaming black on egg-shell white...the two sweetest, most exhilarating words ever created by human beings.
"That oughta be fun." ...If somebody with way too much time on his hands ever compiled a list of famous last words, it is my wager that those words will surely figure in the top five.
The plan of doing the trail twice was a bad one from the start for several reasons. First, we didn't know the trail and it turned out to be much tougher than any I had seen so far. Second, doing a 20-odd mile track twice with not a break in-between was asking too much of our level of fitness. Third, it was an unseasonably hot and sweaty day.
Fourth, to add insult to injury, my bicycle is not all that good. In fact, that is being quite charitable, putting it that way. It actually sucks ass. It has five gears, only four of which will engage. It has a wobbly wheel that goes every which way, and a not very good brake. Also--and I don't know why I say this but am sure this matters somehow--it is puke-blue in color. If somebody ate a whole lot of blue M&Ms and threw up, that's what my bike would look like, only it would be bigger. I've been meaning to get a new bike for sometime now, but hey, I'm cheap.
We didn't have much trouble going through about 15 miles of the trail the first time. The second time was pure white-hot torture. There was this one section of the track that went up about 80 feet in about a quarter mile--a pretty steep gradient--and to add to the fun, was littered with rocks the size of soccer balls. Well before halfway through the second time, J and I were, to put it kindly, not having fun. Hands raw from gripping the handlebars too long and too tight, thighs and calves screaming in agony, unable to sit straight on our bikes because it hurt so bad, sweat pouring out from places we didn't know we had. We looked like a couple of haggard, punched-out characters from some sort of existential film noir. It was a lesson in humility that J and I will not forget in a hurry.
All we wanted to do, and our minds sang this to us in a sickening refrain, was get back to our cars. Our comfortable, lovely cars. With airconditioners in them.
And to get the hell home.
Aside: The more astute among the readers will make the observation at this point that we should simply have gotten off our bikes and walked. Would have been easier on the bones, they would say. Let me say this to the astute reader: "O astute reader, thou art too clever for your own good. Thou art, in fact, a smart-ass who doesn't account for one simple fact. Both J and I are guys. If I was alone on the trail, or if one of us had been a girl, who BTW are innately smarter than guys and therefore live longer, this is exactly what would have happened. We would have walked. But we were both guys. Heaven forbid that one of us would actually shed our manly macho-musk swagger and be the first to suggest that we get off our bikes and walk."
All things that have a beginning must have an end, and this sorry tale, too, has an end. Just when we thought we would slowly sink and die of exhaustion on that trail and birds whose names we didn't know would pick our bones clean, we turned a corner and through pain-dulled eyes, we saw...on a sign...in gleaming black on egg-shell white...the two sweetest, most exhilarating words ever created by human beings.
"Parking Area," it said.
I have heard that when Columbus made his rather mixed-up voyage to discover the New World, the sailors under his command, after spending countless days seeing nothing but the ocean, flung themselves on the ground, and kissed the ground when they finally made landfall.
Believe you me, those sailors were pretty button-down, straight-laced, emotionally undemostrative sort of guys. J and I woulda tore our clothes right off and made love to the ground of the parking lot, when we finally saw it, if our deeply ingrained sense of decency (and more importantly, the park authorities) had let us.
Thus and so, to get back to the main point, every part of my body hurts. Some embarassing parts much more than others, if you get my drift. But every trying experience has some insights. This short saga (Look Ma, I just made an oxymoron) has one too. While getting home after biking, I discovered a new stylish techinque that just might catch on and become as popular as Yoga and Tae-bo, given enough time and lack of imagination.
I have heard that when Columbus made his rather mixed-up voyage to discover the New World, the sailors under his command, after spending countless days seeing nothing but the ocean, flung themselves on the ground, and kissed the ground when they finally made landfall.
Believe you me, those sailors were pretty button-down, straight-laced, emotionally undemostrative sort of guys. J and I woulda tore our clothes right off and made love to the ground of the parking lot, when we finally saw it, if our deeply ingrained sense of decency (and more importantly, the park authorities) had let us.
Thus and so, to get back to the main point, every part of my body hurts. Some embarassing parts much more than others, if you get my drift. But every trying experience has some insights. This short saga (Look Ma, I just made an oxymoron) has one too. While getting home after biking, I discovered a new stylish techinque that just might catch on and become as popular as Yoga and Tae-bo, given enough time and lack of imagination.
So help me God, I did come up with a new fad. I haven't thought of a marketable name for it yet, but I am, for the moment, calling it "How to drive a car safely and reasonably well without actually sitting down".
Necessity, my dear fellow, is a bitch.
For those of you who labored through this post and made it to this point, and also for those shameless, attention-span deficient people who skipped through most of this post and made it to this point--here's the takeaway message from this post.
Only the congenitally dim, irretrievably obtuse, unabashedly stupid and unfathomably dense will ever, ever, seriously consider taking up mountain-biking as a pastime. Verily have I spoken.
J and I plan to go back next Saturday.
J and I plan to go back next Saturday.
A Long Overdue Economic Analysis
The Indian movie industry is the largest in the world, releasing about 800 movies every year like clockwork. The largest slice of this particular pie, in turn, is the Hindi movie industry, which alone releases a few hundred movies annually.
It is my educated and perhaps generous guess that only about five to ten percent of Hindi movies released in any particular year is worth watching. The rest, in my studied opinion, is little more than raw, steaming sewage. Moreover, it is vast quantities of, raw, steaming sewage.
Anybody with a passing interest in economics would be surprised by the dynamics of the market for Hindi movies. How, we must wonder, can a bunch of people produce and sell copious amounts of garbage with monotony at what appears to be far above the market-clearing price? It would be understandable if the market was a market for garbage (there do exist markets for garbage), but it is not. It is a market for entertainment.
The market for Hindi movies is a relatively free market without any externalities that I can see. For example, there are no constraints placed on the movie industry by the government to limit quantity. It is a private market and laws of supply and demand should operate well enough. On the demand side, consumers are free to choose the amount and type of movies consumed. In any free market, the price mechanism should ensure that the cost of a product is close to the equilibrium price where all products clear the market.
So how much are you, the consumer, prepared to pay for raw sewage? A cursory modeling exercise would suggest that unless you happen to deal with the stuff, the market-clearing price for raw sewage would settle at zero. But surprisingly, this is not the case in reality. Consumers in India regularly pay upwards of Rs. 50/- for the price of a movie ticket. There is even a thriving black market for tickets which suggests that demand actually far outstrips supply in many cases. People are chugging it down and asking for more! Consider further that renting a video in India costs Rs. 15/-. Renting a Hindi video in the US costs $1. Both are sums that we happily pay. There is a huge difference between the predicted market-clearing price and the observed market-clearing price. Why is this so?
In any economic analysis, there are two sides: a supply side and a demand side. There seems to be some consensus among thinking people that it is the supply side of the Hindi movie industry that needs fixing. We all, on occasion, have agreed heartily that the assorted producers, directors, scriptwriters, songwriters, etc. of Bollywood are drooling idiots who wouldn't know a good movie if it came up and bit them on their blubbery behinds. Let us examine this proposition more closely.
In any market for goods and services, suppliers will only supply as much as the market is willing to consume. If demand is low, prices are close to zero and suppliers are forced to get creative in order to increase demand. In the case of the Hindi movie industry, demand is obviously not low and hence suppliers have no incentive to change their methods. On the contrary, the existence of black markets suggests that there is an artifical price ceiling and that prices of tickets could actually be far more if they were allowed to float freely. The supply side of the Hindi movie industry is thus functioning quite well, thank you very much. It is not the source of the problem.
The problem, therefore, must be on the demand side.
What makes up the demand side in this instance? The demand side is us. We, the paying public, who rent these movies and throng to the theaters; we who sing mind-shrivelling songs like Didi Tera Dewar Deewana and What is mobile number, what is your style number and Ande Ka Fanda (I will personally slap anyone who ever sings that song aloud in front of me; that's a promise). It is we who watch, against our better judgement, Devdas and Om, Jai, Jagdish. Do we, I ask in all sincerity, retain the mental makeup of a ten-year old well into our middle ages?
And are the moviemakers really stupid? No, they are pretty smart cookies. They have correctly figured out that whatever swill they serve up will be gratefully consumed by the Indian public, almost regardless of class, caste, religion and levels of education. And that their profit, regardless of quality, is assured. They are not in it for the giggles.
So the next time you are watching a rented Hindi movie and you throw down that remote in disgust and yell at the screen, "What is the guy who made this bloody movie smoking? Is he f**king stupid?", remember that the answer is: No, HE is most certainly not stupid.
Footnote: My apologies to anybody who actually liked Devdas, the movie. I personally thought it was an awful rendering of a pretty good novella.
It is my educated and perhaps generous guess that only about five to ten percent of Hindi movies released in any particular year is worth watching. The rest, in my studied opinion, is little more than raw, steaming sewage. Moreover, it is vast quantities of, raw, steaming sewage.
Anybody with a passing interest in economics would be surprised by the dynamics of the market for Hindi movies. How, we must wonder, can a bunch of people produce and sell copious amounts of garbage with monotony at what appears to be far above the market-clearing price? It would be understandable if the market was a market for garbage (there do exist markets for garbage), but it is not. It is a market for entertainment.
The market for Hindi movies is a relatively free market without any externalities that I can see. For example, there are no constraints placed on the movie industry by the government to limit quantity. It is a private market and laws of supply and demand should operate well enough. On the demand side, consumers are free to choose the amount and type of movies consumed. In any free market, the price mechanism should ensure that the cost of a product is close to the equilibrium price where all products clear the market.
So how much are you, the consumer, prepared to pay for raw sewage? A cursory modeling exercise would suggest that unless you happen to deal with the stuff, the market-clearing price for raw sewage would settle at zero. But surprisingly, this is not the case in reality. Consumers in India regularly pay upwards of Rs. 50/- for the price of a movie ticket. There is even a thriving black market for tickets which suggests that demand actually far outstrips supply in many cases. People are chugging it down and asking for more! Consider further that renting a video in India costs Rs. 15/-. Renting a Hindi video in the US costs $1. Both are sums that we happily pay. There is a huge difference between the predicted market-clearing price and the observed market-clearing price. Why is this so?
In any economic analysis, there are two sides: a supply side and a demand side. There seems to be some consensus among thinking people that it is the supply side of the Hindi movie industry that needs fixing. We all, on occasion, have agreed heartily that the assorted producers, directors, scriptwriters, songwriters, etc. of Bollywood are drooling idiots who wouldn't know a good movie if it came up and bit them on their blubbery behinds. Let us examine this proposition more closely.
In any market for goods and services, suppliers will only supply as much as the market is willing to consume. If demand is low, prices are close to zero and suppliers are forced to get creative in order to increase demand. In the case of the Hindi movie industry, demand is obviously not low and hence suppliers have no incentive to change their methods. On the contrary, the existence of black markets suggests that there is an artifical price ceiling and that prices of tickets could actually be far more if they were allowed to float freely. The supply side of the Hindi movie industry is thus functioning quite well, thank you very much. It is not the source of the problem.
The problem, therefore, must be on the demand side.
What makes up the demand side in this instance? The demand side is us. We, the paying public, who rent these movies and throng to the theaters; we who sing mind-shrivelling songs like Didi Tera Dewar Deewana and What is mobile number, what is your style number and Ande Ka Fanda (I will personally slap anyone who ever sings that song aloud in front of me; that's a promise). It is we who watch, against our better judgement, Devdas and Om, Jai, Jagdish. Do we, I ask in all sincerity, retain the mental makeup of a ten-year old well into our middle ages?
And are the moviemakers really stupid? No, they are pretty smart cookies. They have correctly figured out that whatever swill they serve up will be gratefully consumed by the Indian public, almost regardless of class, caste, religion and levels of education. And that their profit, regardless of quality, is assured. They are not in it for the giggles.
So the next time you are watching a rented Hindi movie and you throw down that remote in disgust and yell at the screen, "What is the guy who made this bloody movie smoking? Is he f**king stupid?", remember that the answer is: No, HE is most certainly not stupid.
Footnote: My apologies to anybody who actually liked Devdas, the movie. I personally thought it was an awful rendering of a pretty good novella.
Out Of Commission
Am hosting a virus. The virus is having a blast. Can't say the same about me. Blog will be down, much like its creator, till virus is banished.
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