Things getting hotter!

The topic of global warming is the hot topic these days (pun unintended :D). Especially singers the world over seem to be concerned more than everyone else about it. Why singers is something that escapes me, some other people, notably politicians are always averse to talking about it. In fact, the biggest user of fuels, the USA actually refuses to commit to any changes. The fact that emerging powerhouses, China and India, also do not wish to do anything, doesn't help anyone. They can probably hide behind the argument that their fragile developing economies cannot take the load. While the USA hides behing their fragile developed economy. Actually a lot of people also place doubts on the accuracy and truth behind claims that our actions are responsible for global warming. Some data has been thrown around that it's actually become cooler at some place, god knows where. My hometown has become progressively hotter in the summers and colder in the winters, rainy season is now dry (it rains more in the winters), and the list goes on.

The wonderful work of researchers is evident. Someone (Aaron Levenstein actually, who's he??) once said that, "Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital." . I'd like to add, like a bikini, what's revealed depends a lot on ur vantage point. You can make interesting conclusions from the same statistics, even completely contradicting stuff.

Still, no one can deny that the earth is definitely heating up. And sense dictates, that like any other natural calamity we try our best to avert it. But, most world leaders seem to be convinced that this is not the case. From what I know, this phase is usually a precursor to a coming ice age, meaning the ice caps at the poles will melt completely, flooding the planet, and eventually freezing to ice. Kinda like Day After tomorrow showed, but a little less dramatic. Well, maybe we'll be around to see whether things actually happen the way it's claimed. Maybe it will, the earth hasn't lost its supremacy to any puny creature as yet, it has ways to show who's boss.

The big fuss about religion

Whether you like it or not, religion remains one of the most powerful phenomenon in this world today, and, has occupied this position of power and prestige for most of known civilized human existence. The kind of blind belief that religion can attract is, in the least, quite amazing. Even though most people would like to believe that religion has been separated from state, it's not true (ya, even in the predominantly christian west). Need proof? for islamic nations, it's simple, but even in the USA, evidence is clear. According to current rules, the USA enforces a limitation on the AIDS funding it provides that one third of it must go to spreading awareness on abstinence. Though some would find this contentious, this is something that stems primarily from religion.

Even more interestingly, most interpreters of religion, i.e. the clergy, defend their right to interpret it the most. Clergy will never tell you to go read the religious texts, even if they do, they find it ok till your interpretation matches theirs. Anyone who has even a basic knowledge of any language, knows that language is inherently ambiguous. Even the same sentence can say a lot of different things depending on the context, and our frame of mind. But first, one must understand the need for religion. For this, I'll borrow from my previous post, the purpose of life. Simply put, it's a question that tends to haunt us throughout our lives. And interestingly, we always wait for that one enlightened one who we wish would come and tell us all the answers we need. And religion tends to pretend to be this one. Though it's irrelevant to this topic, I also feel that this urge is also our basis for our love for superheroes, even more so for ones who are commoners who rise to the challenge. Getting back to topic, this stems from our inability to decide. To quote "Taken", a choice is the death of all other possibilities. And we dread making a choice as it means losing out on the other 'goodies'. So, I actually dread having more options than not having sufficient ones. Having a lot of options usually tends to lead to a lot of heartburn later on whether your decision was correct. It's this insecurity, that religion, and for that matter, most of society exploit for their benefit. They tend to provide answers sanctioned by higher beings, or, just everyone else. Answers that will make you belong, to a group at least. Our herd mentality is legendary(refer to the Gaussian paradox, my post). We find security in the company of others.

I love history, and so know much more about it than most usual people. An interesting fact is, that Christianity itself was born a few centuries after the birth of christ. It was born at a council conducted at the time of Emperor Constantine. Now this emperor is one of the legendary rulers of history, he carved out his empire from the collapsing roman empire, and built the foundations for its successor, the Byzantines, and Constantinople, or modern day Instanbul in Turkey. It's famous walls were of such repute that very few ever dared to even challenge it, and while europe went through the Dark Ages, Byzantium was a haven for new thinkers. And while his empire was safe from outsiders, it was torn by some civil strife within. Romans took pleasure in rounding up christians (which at that time had multiple sects having vastly different beliefs) and putting them in the colloseums, and basically killing them gruesomely. This was the time, when romans were mostly jews. This had started to turn by Constantine's time, and christians were a large enough number that could not be ignored. Hence he organised the first Council of Nicaea(google it), where bishops argued, and decided that Jesus was divine, and not mortal, and basically most of what you see today, including his teachings etc.

So, interestingly, current versions of christianity are basically what a few people felt at some time in history, as the "correct" beliefs, a choice. What, Jesus actually wanted to tell people, we may never know, and whether he was a son of god, well, lets not even get to that, no one can answer that. The point i'm trying to make here, is that most, if not all, religions are attempts by some enlightened to answer the important questions of their time. And after that, these answers have been twisted and filtered by others to what they see fit. And over time, more people have tried to interpret and and fit the phrases to current problems. It's kind of like Microsoft Windows, it's changed so much over time, that little of what it originally was, remains. The same is true of religions. The original texts were translated into different languages, and again went through multiple sequences of interpretation. The Church, islamic leaders, and others, have changed their interpretation of the texts over the ages, sometimes under pressure from others. Otherwise, how come religion has changed its attitude towards women, no god came over later to tell people to change the texts. Religion is really a function of its texts and the needs and demands of society. To put it very crudely, it's like a very, I mean very long running play. Which is why, it is necessary to read and understand the religious texts on your own, if you wish to make them the basis of your decision making. And to be completely correct, you also must understand the historical background in which these were written, otherwise it's an incomplete picture, like trying to recognise someone from a picture of their butt. But it's necessary to do so, because most of what you hear is someone's interpretation, and that someone stands to lose his job if you bypass him. The clergy is like a fast food chain for religion, to serve the needs of people who have no time to pay attention. And don't get me wrong, it tends to get interpreted to suit the needs of people in power. As for considering the clergy holy, that's almost laughable. If you look at the number of cases against clergy of any religion or country, especially those of sexual exploitation, you'll find my statement correct.

The reason for my writing this is that religion has done more to split up this world than any other force. A large part of our problems are due to people sticking fast to their stands, and trading insults over whose religion is better. The problem is, innocent people are brainwashed into doing rash acts in the name of religion, which don't serve god, but only the selfish wishes of some. So next time, before trusting any holy man or clergy, remember what Sigmund Freud said, man first thinks about his primal needs - food, water, survival, and to the clergy, keeping you from the texts is most essential for fulfilling this need.

Quotes

Some of my, and others' quotes

"There's a big difference between tourism and immigration"

(me :D)

"One ring to rule them all, One ring to find them,

One ring to bring them together, and in darkness, bind them"

(The one ring, LOTR)

"After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things. Terrible! Yes. But great"

(Ollivander, Harry Potter)

"The beauty of war is that it simplies things, it simplifies them to a binary choice, life, or death"

(me again!)

Gaye Firdaus Barruye zameen ast,

Hameen asto, hameen asto, hameen ast

(If there is heaven on earth,

It is here, it is here, it is here)

(Humayun, Mughal emperor, on Kashmir)

The purpose of life

This is one question, I believe everyone has asked themselves atleast once in their lives. Believe me, I've asked this question many many more times than that :D . From childhood, we're brought up to believe that we can make a difference, that we can change this world. In our parents' eyes, there is probably no one more deserving for anything, or more intelligent, than us. We even spend most of our childhood and adolescent life to further such goals of achieving more. Yet, this one question tends to stop u dead in your tracks, knock you down while you search for some hope or answer to cling on to. That's because the question tends to go hand in hand with other questions like "am I doing the right thing, or choosing the right path". I think even a lifetime of pondering is unlikely to give you a satisfactory, or more accurately, a mind pleasing answer.

If we go into some thought and facts for answering this question, things don't look as good. History tells us that "making a difference" is something that changes with every civilisation. Our current society tends to measure this by power and wealth. Don't get me wrong, these are the more prominent factors in defining success over the ages. But, some other factors tend to trump these over time. For example, Spartans, or even the samurai, gave more preference to bravery on the battlefield than money or power. Then if you go into mathematics, well, mathematics and statistics are never known to let you down easily. They tend to hit u in the face with knockout punches. Quantum physics and statistics paint a picture of nature playing a game. Where nature tries out every possible alternative, or so to say, an answer to a question. Since there are so many of us, it can be taken as a continuous curve, which in most cases, is close to my favourite Gaussian curve(see earlier post). Then, we must wonder, if we are only an infinitesimal speck in a curve, then what's the point of undertaking any activity?

Well, then, after the bad news, the good news. This statistical curve( or hyperplane in many dimensions - for u purists :D) tends to change itself over time. Society tends to dictate what most people will choose and this is a kind of average or mean of the curve. So, the choices some people make will change this curve. One must also wonder, why do people choose different options?? some answers can be found in the study of Game Theory, a marvellously simple theory that answers many complex questions with simple logic. Even a layman can understand its intricacies with ease. Then, I also must quote something I heard in Steven Speilberg's mini series called 'Taken' (ya i'm a sci-fi fan and sort of fixated on aliens), that "a choice is the death of all other possibilities".

So, in the end, what is the purpose of life? It means different things for different people. To me, it means the fulfillment of your one truest desire, be it money, family, career or anything else. A life lived while suppressing your desires is probably not quite worth it. You get only one after all. Some (and, well religion) might call this the wrong way, but does not even religion ask for total devotion to it as the best way to live life? So you might say, what about your parents who slogged their entire lives without enjoying themselves to earn so that we may not have to undergo the hardships they did? well, in doing so they made improving their childrens' lives their topmost priority, and someday go and ask them so, they'll tell you that they find even more happiness in your achievements, than they would have found in something else.
Some even say, that those who look for the purpose of life are doomed to never find it, while it'll drop into your lap if you're not looking. Seems weird? try looking up at the night sky once, look at a star and u'll notice lots of other stars near it, look towards them, and they'll disappear(It's not a trick, it's called peripheral vision, rods are better at finding low intensity objects - google it). To conclude, I'll quote one statement from 'Taken' again, "In our lives, we ask questions that we know we may never find the answers to, but finding answers is not that important, what is important is that we never stop asking questions"

Wars and terrorism

Some give the credit to the oldest profession, to, well we know what. But I believe we've been having wars and fights for about as long. Which makes the soldier as roughly the second oldest profession. Soldiers have always been the focus of our attention, be it accolades or derision. And they've always been needed, wars have never been a rare quantity in our history. And if you ever track what wars actually accomplish, they mostly cause more wars. The most famous of these are the crusades and ensuing battles over Jerusalem. I always found them interesting as religious wars never quite die out. And one can consider the modern day phenomenon of terrorism as an extension of the conflict. The current "war on terror" as dubbed by the media always reminds me of a story in Hindu mythology. It's the story of a demon named Raktabeej, which literally translates as blood seeds. His power was that for each drop of his blood that fell to the floor, he would be born anew with a thousand times strength. Eventually, the goddess Kali slayed him by collecting all his blood in a tumbler, and drinking it while she was fighting him.

This story, atleast to me, has odd similarities with the terrorism situation. The problem that most of the west faces is the seemingly deluge of people who come up to replace slain terrorists. This to me has eerie similarities with the demon I talked about. And it seems like the west is trying to almost bleed the monster to death. to truly resolve the problem requires something other than war. Like Kali drinking the blood, the west needs to address the actual source of the problem. Though neither party may agree on the actual issues causing the conflict, it is obvious that a direct assault is futile, they simply have to resolve the underlying issues. And even though terrorists have done some very bad things, they have had some pretty bad things done to them and their families as well. So unless both sides come together and drink each drop of their sins, a solution is unlikely, and the future remains dark.

The men that shaped this world

When we usually talk about men who shaped this world, names like Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and others are tossed about. I always feel that this is a slightly one sided view, as these are people who did good. You must also look at the other extreme, i.e. the accepted "bad" people. I quote from what Harry Potter, where Ollivander says about Voldemort, that "After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things. Terrible! Yes. But great".

In recent history(the past century I mean), none are remembered with as much hate as Adolf Hitler. The wounds of his deeds still have to heal completely. The second World War shaped this new world, and caused much of its problems as well. If it were not for the war, we may not have the current Palestine problem. After the war Britain decreed that Israel was the new home for all Jews, as it was a British controlled territory. The ensuing events displaced a lot of the existing residents and caused a catastrophic chain of events which is a big factor in the terrorism the world faces today. I leave the details of the events for historians, as they obviously are contentious.

Interestingly, most of the other problems, Hitler or the Nazis did not cause. The problems I refer to are the wars between split up nations that propped up after the war. World War II did made some very important changes to the power equation of the world. Europe, was destroyed by the war, and other countries largely weakened. Britain, which was the dominant power of the world before the war, was heavily in debt to America, which effectively was the arms supplier and financier for much of the war. Britain and other countries had taken large loans to finance their campaigns in the war, and most of these came from the USA. This made the dollar the dominant power, and Britain never recovered it position of power. Its weakness resulted in the freedom of most of the nations which were under its control. The interesting concept pioneered by the British, and much of the west, was divide and rule. The new countries mostly got freedom as 2 independent nations. Be it India and Pakistan, North and South Koreas, and Vietnam. These are the big examples of the wars that resulting from the partition of the nation. Vietnam did eventually unite, but the wars and hostilities between the other 2 pairs still continue and form a large part of the terrorism and arms race problems.

If I'm right, close to 6 million jews were killed at concentration camps. No one has as yet attempted an estimation of the number of people killed to date by the wars in the above cases and the Palestine, Israel struggle. If you calculate, you'll probably find the number is a lot more than the 6 million. So who's more evil, is upto you to decide. Just remember Winston Churchill's famous quote, "History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it".