Tolerance

It seems the hottest topic for anyone to discuss today is “Tolerance”. Unfortunately, both the proponents of the establishment and those opposed to it are very rigid in their observations and practice. If anything, these two groups are intolerant of each other.

I remember many instances where a politician insulted an opponent and the opponent immediately claimed that the insult was directed at all Indians (or at least people from his perceived vote bank). Narendra Modi said something about Nitish Kumar’s (or was it Laloo?) DNA and they made it an insult to all Biharis. As a neutral observer, I found it really funny that an insult can be generalized so easily. How exactly did it get directed at all of Bihar instead of just the target who was named by the Prime Minister?

This is the exact same mechanism which the supporters of today’s government are using to divert the “Tolerance” discussion. They say that their opponents are maligning the entire country by talking about rising intolerance. This is patently false and can never be justified once you start comparing statistics for example. And because it is false, it is easily defended against. It is also convenient because if people believe you, they would be convinced every single person who is protesting today is anti-national.

The problem isn’t Tolerance of lack thereof. The problem is the lack of action against the miniscule intolerant minority. On both sides of the communal divide.

    I don’t know who came up with the term “Tolerance” to convey what was missing in society today. It is a self-defeating term for a discussion like this. The people of this country for the most part are happy to live and let live. Most won’t have enough time to discuss politics or religion except when it is election time. To say that a BJP government at the center has changed the mindset of the entire nation and made it more intolerant is ludicrous.

The issue as far as I see is not that the people of this country are intolerant. It is the lack of action against people who are flaming communal hatred by issuing reckless statements in public. Coming to everyone’s favourite topic of discussion these days: Dadri. A man was killed by a mob over suspicion that he had cow meat in his fridge. There is also a narrative that says that it wasn’t a communal killing at all and he was killed because they suspected him of theft.

To my mind, the only response which is feasible to such an event is unequivocal condemnation of the perpetrators. Even if it wasn’t a communal incident, it was still a murder. It was mob-justice which shouldn’t have a place in a democracy. This is what an ordinary citizen of this country will tell you if you ask them about it (or I hope it is).

When you come to our representatives though, it is a different story altogether. There have been a few statements by local leaders which are probably more unfortunate than the incident itself. Except the Prime Minister, Amit Shah and to some extent Arun Jaitley, no one has said what needs to be said or done what needs to be done. Yes, it is possible the people who made the statements were just being defensive because unfair allegations were being thrown at them. Even so, I doubt they can be justified. If you look on the other side of the fence, Owaissi is equally culpable.

The problem is the difference between what we think should happen and what a few of our elected representatives think we want should happen. What the proponents of either side do not understand is that by supporting these parties without so much as a caveat against these troublemakers, they are providing tacit acceptance to them.

The other argument which supporters of the government bring to bear is that the fringe is not something which has suddenly come into existence. They ask why people are so bothered about the acts of a few mad men when it has always been happening. Where was your sense of outrage when this happened when Congress was ruling they ask?

If you try to understand the people who are protesting without resorting to demonizing every single of them it should not be too difficult. The BJP-govt. will have a stigma (so to speak) of anti-minority actions. It has resulted from a long history of those same fringe elements being given the long rope. To top it all the Prime Minister is still looked at with suspicion by the minority community because of the Gujarat riots. This might well be totally undeserved but it is what it is. Perceptions cannot be changed with a clean chit from the Supreme Court. In this situation, the BJP government will need to do more than the Congress in terms of protection of the minorities to just be equated with them. Unfair? Certainly. Understandable? I would think so, yes.

Even if we let go of all this, how can we justify the current government comparing itself to its predecessor? It was because we found that the Congress government was not good enough that we elected you guys, wasn’t it? If we expect you to be better than them, is it too much to ask?

So how do we win over the opponents you ask? Simple: Change the perception they have of you. Dismiss any person who indulges in hate speeches against any community from the party. Prosecute them if possible. In short, make it amply clear that divisive activities will not be tolerated no matter which party you belong to. And when you do that, trust the people of the country,majority and minority, that they will reward you for doing the right thing.

The BJP should consider it a privilege that the people of this country expect them to do more for them than they did with the Congress. After all, we expect things only from people who are capable of providing them, don’t we?

In all this doom and gloom, today there was a silver lining. The Centre told the Supreme Court that there is a need to punish hate speeches. Yes, it is too early to rejoice. But at least this shows that some of the people in the ruling party have their heart in the right place.

Will the opponents of the government give them credit for taking this stance? I seriously doubt it. At the end of the day, what hurts this country the most is the inability of its major political groups to see anything good in the opposite side.

What are we meant to do?

I have been meaning to put this down for sometime now but have somehow not found the time. Every time I check the news these days, there is some report of extremism. The Middle East has the ISIS who are pretty much killing anything that doesn’t follow their interpretation of the world. Closer home, we have our home brewed Indian Mujahideen and associates who blow up a few people every once in a while because they feel they are being persecuted. And to a lesser extent as far as extremism is concerned, we also have our hardline Hindutva groups who have renewed their programs with vigour which can be only be understood if we assume they have some support from the top.

However, this post is not meant to tell everyone else what they are supposed to do. We have too many people doing that and it is not helping. Every side has its own justifications and stories which show their enemies to the devil incarnate. Every conflict has two sides at the very least. And we have forever made the mistake of telling the other side what they should be doing to resolve the problem while not looking at ourselves even for a moment.

As a Christian, I believe it is my duty to look at myself first before asking everyone else to change. And by myself, I mean the whole Christian community in this country and the world at large. We have been in the news recently on account of the ‘Ghar Wapasi’ programs which are being run by the Hindutva groups. There are allegations of forced conversions, people being offered money to convert etc etc. First and foremost, it would be stupid to assume that all of these stories are fabricated. And if we agree that there is a fraction which might be true, then it is our to duty to root out the elements which are doing this and bringing a bad name to the whole community.

But even more than this, what really bothers me is this question: If we are converting people, what exactly are we bringing them into? Are we really Christians that we can claim to convert another person? I seriously doubt that Jesus Christ would recognize the vast majority of us as His followers based on the actions of our community. To my mind, it is not enough to be the same as everyone else on the planet to be recognized as a Christian. We argue like everybody else, we fight for what we believe to be our rights like everybody else. At the end of the day it comes down to a simple question: How does the world know that we are Christians? If our answer is that they know it because they see us going to church, or partaking in Christian rituals or because we wear a cross or worse, because they see us fighting them in the name of our religion, then we are sadly mistaken.

The world is supposed to know we are Christian based on what we do for it. Yes I know He said spread the Good News. The Good News is “Repent from your sins and you will be saved”. Or words to that effect. Do we for a moment believe that people around us do not have a basic understanding of what sin is? And that too in this country which has a culture which predates Christianity by at least a few thousand years. If this country and its culture has survived this long, it is safe to assume that the people here know what is wrong and what is right. We simply have no business trying to tell them how they are supposed to worship their Creator. At the most we can ask them to repent from whatever sins they think they are committing and turn back to God. After that we have to let them decide what is sinful and what is not. And in any case, one person not accepting bribes will do much more for this country than the same person renouncing his idols.

And in any case, He never meant us to go preaching his message with words alone. That would be the easiest thing to do and sadly that is what most of us are doing. How about carrying out a few of those commandments too? How about “Love each other like you love yourself”? How about “Forgive seventy times seven”. More difficult to do that just sing some hymns and talk about religious intolerance right? Unfortunately, that is what He is going to ask of us when our time comes.

We have got the whole thing upside down. We are looking to get the label of Christianity first and then maybe do what we are asked to do at our convenience. We know a few rituals and we know some history. Some of us can claim to be descended from Christian families which are a thousand years old. But what good is all of that if we are not Christian in our actions and our outlook to life?

So to the question which began this: What are we converting people into? I doubt it is Christianity. Christianity doesn’t need you to convert people into it. If you are a true Christian, people will want to be like you and that is how you spread the Good News. It is a way of life which cannot be eradicated as long as there are good people in the world. And I know of many who are Christians in everything but name. They don’t have the label, they don’t sing the hymns and they don’t partake in our rituals. They do His work without ever having heard of Him. And we, who claim to be rightful heirs of His kingdom, should we really be trying to give people Christianity in name?

It would be nice if right thinking minds in all religions also looked within themselves and reined in their more extremist brethren. But as Christians, it is imperative that we do it even if we are the only ones to do so.

My $0.02 on Elections 2014

    It has become fashionable to discuss politics these days for obvious reasons. I have been reading a lot of comments from all kinds of people. There are Modi – fans, AAP – fans, development – fans, secularism – fans and even some Congress – fans (last time I checked there were 3 of you). Everyone has their own viewpoint and is trying to convince everyone else about its validity. I have my own views and I have been meaning to put this down for a few months now. The elections have started and this post might already be irrelevant.

   This post is aimed at all right thinking citizens among whoever will read it. Let me initially state that I am no expert when it comes to the machinery of politics. I have no favourites when it comes to political parties (yes I did like AAP for a while when they began, but they have made far too many of the same mistakes which other parties have made now). 

   I have a few questions. Lets start with the BJP/Modi supporters first because you seem to be the majority this time. I know there are patriots among you who will be able to think about these issues in an unbiased manner. Yes, there will be hardcore ideologues in all groups, but I am assuming that at least some of you still have the capacity for rational thought. So yes, back to the questions: First, do you think the aggrieved parties in the Gujarat riots of 2002 deserve an apology for what happened? I am not even asking for an uncondtional apology. Just something on the lines of “If there has been any lacunae in my administration which caused you harm, I am sincerely sorry for it. I will ensure that no such thing will ever happen again”. Notice the “If” in that statement. In no way can a statement like that be construed as an admission of guilt if that is what you are worried about. Why do you think it is that Narendra Modi is unwilling to talk about the 2002 riots (let alone apologize for it)? In most interviews I have seen he is keen to just brush it away under some pretext or the other.

   Usually this refusal to apologize would not be such an issue. You would be absolutely right in assuming that if it had been a ‘secular’ chief minister who did this, it wouldn’t raise any alarms. And a lot of you will now be asking me just that. My answer: Do you think any other leader except Modi would have a problem with making a statement like that? You might have different answers to that question but I doubt anyone else would have a problem. A statement like that would be inferred to be reaching out to the aggrieved party and would only enhance their poll prospects. So yes, I think any other party leader in his place would be willing to make that statement.

   Which leads me to think: What does Modi have to lose by making it? To my mind there is only one thing he would lose: His image as a hardcore Hindu leader. This would probably cause him to lose some sympathy from the RSS. And it is also likely that it will cause him to lose a few Hindu votes. Now I know that the majority of people in this country are tolerant of other communities and religions at heart. They would not be fazed by a statement like that. If anything, they would only be encouraged to trust him to make life better for all communities in India. 

  What bothers me is this: If Modi is not willing to make a statement like that, the damage he perceives it will cause to his campaign has to be significant. This would lead me to conclude that there is a sizable number of people in this country who are misguided at best and anti national at worst. Voting for the BJP today would be a dangerous gamble because of these people. 

  Some of you (the ones who are not abusing me in the comments section already) will be thinking that this is a pretty big judgement to make based on the lack of one statement. And you would be right. My problem is that it is not just on this basis that I have reached this conclusion. You just have to listen to any of his speeches. The way he taunts Rahul Gandhi by calling him “Shahazade” for instance. I read an article in the times a week back which analysed just that. The idea is to paint him as a leader of the minority community in this nation. Now, does that make a difference to you or me? I doubt it makes a difference to anyone except the most hardcore communalists in his audience. And yet, if he persists on using it over and over again, it would mean only one thing: The fraction of the audience which is communal is sizable. 

   And what bothers me is not Modi per se. One man can do only so much damage. And it is also very highly probable that all this posturing is just to get the votes of the communalists. He might be the best PM India has ever seen. He might be able to deliver justice to all citizens in this country. We can only hope that this is the case. 

  What bothers me is that fraction of his audience which needs him not to mend his bridges with the minorities and call Rahul Gandhi “Shahzaada”. 

   And now to answer another question which BJP fans often ask: If not Modi then who? You are right in assuming that there are no leaders in the Congress who are capable of running this nation. A lot of people will say Arvind Kejriwal might deserve a look in. He is an IIT graduate, has clean antecedents, and is honest by any reasonable definition of the term. But lets face it, a lot of people were disappointed with how he handled the Delhi CM’s chair. Whether he can do better if given a clear mandate is a matter for another debate, but at this moment, lets just concede the point that he is not ready yet. But have looked into your own party for better candidates? There is one man who you have often seen compared with Arvind Kejriwal. He is also an IIT alumnus, has a clean reputation, has experience of governing a state, and that too pretty well if you consider that his name is never in the news for anything. So why has his name not even figured anywhere when deciding the PM candidate for BJP? The answer is again the same: Modi’s image and its attraction to the wrong kind of people in this country. 

   Another thing that always amazes me is the assumption by people that their chosen leader is going to be perfect for the nation. Again, this is mostly seen in BJP fans and to a lesser extent in AAP followers. I mean, how can you be so sure? It is not like you can read your beloved leader’s mind. You know for a fact that politics is largely a game of perception. Every statement and every gesture is designed to project an image. This is true for all political parties. And knowing this, how can you campaign for these leaders? Don’t you have a responsibility to your readers and listeners to tell them that what you are saying is your interpretation of things and may not necessarily be correct? Don’t you have a responsibility to admit that to yourself?

   I have seen a lot of vitriolic comments against a lot of leaders. A lot of this information is just shared without a thought. If you find something positive about your chosen party you share it. If you find something negative about the rivals, you share it and tag your friends :). 

  A case in point is the articles against Arvind Kejriwal. He has a total experience of 49 days in the government. The number of articles lampooning him would suggest that he has been ruling the nation ever since it got its independence. Articles are written by people who have never met him, and never will. A lot of it is probably paid. Why do you think political parties spend so much money on false propaganda? It is because they know that people like me and you will not try to verify the facts mentioned in them and will simply propagate them based on our political leanings. 

  This is a dangerous trend. We have forgotten that we were Indians before we became BJP, AAP or Congress followers. By doing this we are playing right into the hands of the political parties. We have a responsibility to only share what we definitely know to be true and not just things which we think will benefit our chosen party. 

   Because face it, once the elections are over, we will go back to being ordinary citizens and not a prospective vote. No one is going to be bothered about us for the next five years. And then we will again be divided into groups which bay for each others blood. 

Making Professor X

The X – Men have always fascinated me. I think I am just enamoured with the whole evolution of mankind into superheroes concept. Yes, it is fantasy, so they haven’t really given too much thought to how the evolution from ordinary John Doe to Wolverine happens. Nothing is mentioned about the circumstances which necessitate the evolution. And Darwin definitely didn’t have anything to do with the script for the movies considering nothing is mentioned about how the forefathers of Wolverine evolved step by step. But then that is to be expected since the paying public is not as invested in the journey as in the destination.

Be that as it may, it still doesn’t stop us from dreaming about it being true. Could we really evolve into immortal beings who can read other people’s minds? One of the problems I can see with the X Men model is that only a few people evolve. Evolution normally works on an entire population, from what little I understand anyway. So if one person becomes super quick healing, I would expect everyone else in the same generation to have the same ability, albeit in different degrees maybe. Wolverine might not be too uncomfortable with this notion, but it would really spoil Charles’s party. Imagine putting thoughts into people’s heads just to hear them give you a piece of their mind right back, and quite literally at that. Secondly, there are just too many powers involved. I think we will be hard pressed to explain why one person evolves telepathy while another becomes a chameleon and yet another learns how to control the elements.

In any case, the biggest hurdle to evolution, to my mind is the amount of comfort we have today. Whoever said “Necessity is the mother of invention” probably hadn’t meant it in an evolutionary context, but that is probably true. It seems that evolution works a lot better under unfavourable circumstances. Maybe not just that, it might even be necessary to have said circumstances to continue evolving. Is it possible that as our lives become more and more comfortable and our natural abilities become redundant, that we stop evolving all together?

The medical term is atrophy I think. We stop using a particular part of our anatomy and it sort of shrivels into non existence out of a sense of neglect maybe. Maybe we would have evolved telepathy if we had spent a couple of million more years without inventing the telephone. And might we also have evolved invulnerability and super healing abilities if we didn’t have our current dependency on modern medicine? It seems to me that the more technologically advanced we get, the lower is our rate of biological evolution.

So how do we find out if all this is possible? Simple, we plan an expedition to one of the less hospitable planets in the solar system. The volunteers (or pioneers if you prefer) are not provided with any conveniences of modern technology except those which are essential for life support. I think we would need people with really low mental abilities so that they do not invent themselves out of their purpose (a few politicians come to mind immediately).

Once established, we monitor their progress over the millennia, to ensure that they do not evolve technologically (we put out the first fire they create and break their first wheel), and only do it biologically. It would be nice to imagine what a super evolved human being could do with super evolved technology after a few hundred millennia.

FM transmitting Cellphones

I have been downloading a lot of songs on my phone lately. My free Nokia music subscription is expiring in August and as such I am getting as much as I possibly can before that happens. The phone has become sort of my primary music repository. The songs which are downloaded are in the mp4 format and are very space efficient (most songs are about an MB in size). So far so good.

The trouble started when I tried to play the mp4 files on the car stereo. It seems my car stereo doesn’t appreciate mp4 files through the USB player. I guess it is probably more of a purist than I am. Yes, I could write a CD and hope that it has less exacting standards. But somehow I doubt that is going to work either. Meanwhile, I also got myself an auxiliary input cable so that I can play the songs on the phone itself and just use the speakers in the car. Seemed a good enough plan, till I realized that Fiat in their infinite wisdom had decided that an auxiliary input port was passé.

The only remaining option is to play the songs through the car radio. I would be able to do that if there was some way for my phone to transmit radio signals (FM to be specific as one of my friends pointed out). I think this is the part where I say: Think about it. The possibilities are endless.

The possibilities are multiple in any case. If the signal can be made strong and clear enough, it might be a viable alternative to CDs and USB sticks (at least for ordinary music fans like me). Secondly, since FM signals can be picked up by any ordinary radio set, you would be able to easily share your music with your friends. And also with total strangers. Maybe cars on the highways can have a display with the name of the song they are currently playing and the frequency. Music is a good way to make friends, and heaven knows we need more friendly behaviour on our roads.

However, what might be more useful is the possibility to send an SOS message in an emergency. If your vehicle meets with an accident, your cellphone automatically starts transmitting a distress signal at a pre defined frequency. It would obviously need to be a higher strength signal than the usual one. I wouldn’t even mind if the distress signal is sent over the popular radio frequencies (think Widhwa Bharati) as it would ensure a larger audience. Alternatively, we could have emergency services listening in at a particular frequency.

Maybe it would also be possible to broadcast your own voice. You could become the next highway singing sensation. Or you would just scare a few school children. After all, with great power comes great responsibility.

Should we SETI?

“ A Dyson sphere is a hypothetical megastructure originally described by Freeman Dyson. Such a “sphere” would be a system of orbiting solar-power satellites meant to completely encompass a star and capture most or all of its energy output. Dyson speculated that such structures would be the logical consequence of the long-term survival and escalating energy needs of a technological civilization, and proposed that searching for evidence of the existence of such structures might lead to the detection of advanced intelligent extraterrestrial life.”   -Wikipedia

The idea expressed is very simple to comprehend. As a technological civilization matures, its energy requirements also grow proportionately (or exponentially if you prefer hyperbole). Soon, a point is reached when the energy sources on the home planet are not sufficient and the species looks towards its sun for sustenance. It is already happening on our planet, albeit on a much smaller scale. As our technology matures, it is not difficult to imagine orbiting satellites around the sun as predicted by Dyson. As such, looking for these structures is definitely a viable method to find intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.

The question that really bothers me is this: Do we really want to find another species based on just their inherent intelligence? Yes, the idea is romantic .From “Imagine what we could learn” to “My Prince Charming carries a Gravity Bender which he uses to sweep me off my feet every time”. And everything in between. Yes, there would be a lot to learn and we might get answers to a lot of questions.

What really matters though is this: Do they value life as we know it? Does it mystify them like it does us? Or do they already know how every cell in a living organism works and so don’t have any qualms in extinguishing a few billion at a time? I think it is basic common sense to ensure that the person you are about to meet doesn’t intend to bash your skull in, even if he is Stephen Hawking.

So how do we go about ensuring that? I think we will just need to observe how they treat other species on their own planet. The less fortunate ones which are not blessed with intelligence. Do they have other life forms on their planet which they do not directly benefit from? Are these other life forms allowed to survive and flourish and develop intelligence of their own if they could?

So how do humans fare on the scale of universal approachability? Not very well I am afraid. We are on the brink of destroying our ecosystem even if it means the end for our own species for one. Yes, we have initiatives to preserve other life forms on the planet from extinction. For now. But what happens when our population increases to the point where there is just no space for any other species?

Yes, we need a few species on the planet for the moment. Like plants. And chicken of course. But then last week I came across this.

I don’t think we are a compromising species. History is witness that every other life form on this planet have always been eradicated when push comes to shove.

So to all inter galactic adventurers, I have this to say: Stay away from us. Unless you have gravity benders.

 

Things I want in the next NFS Most Wanted Release

Ok, so Sergeant Cross has issued a national warrant against me because he couldn’t catch me in Rockport. All through the game, I wished I could cause some more active damage to the police vehicles in general and Cross’s black Corvette in particular. Yes, we are still able to trick them into a few pursuit breakers, but that hardly is a fitting reply to guys like Cross.

So I would like a few changes the next time I meet Cross :

1) A new weapons shop in the game: This would allow you to buy weapons and fit them to your car pretty much like you buy normal performance and visual parts in the current version. Lets have a few car mounted rocket launchers, Gatling guns and other assorted weapons of destruction.

2) An auto-pilot mode: This would come in handy when you have to shoot a few cops and also control the car. At a touch the car will start to steer on its own, leaving you to concentrate on blowing the following police cars off the road. The time the car can steer itself would be limited of course, something along the lines of the speed breaker in the current version.

3) Death Match milestones: In these, you go head to head against other armoured players (Razor would be nice), with the aim to blow them up and any police cars which are seen in the vicinity. I think there should be a warning system in place which lets you know when a player has a missile lock on you. Once that flashes, it is up to you to either dodge the incoming missile using the Speed breaker, or send out decoys to mislead the missile.

4) Better equipped police vehicles: Needless to say, the police vehicles will also have to be armed. But who cares about them anyway. The worst that would happen to you is that you will get busted.

Pointless Musings

Einstein says nothing can travel faster than light. Stephen Hawking explained this quite lucidly in his book “A Brief History of Time”. When any object approaches the speed of light, its mass increases. The increase in mass is governed by Einstein’s famous equation E=MC². For example, when an electron is travelling at 99% the speed of light, its mass increases by around 7 times. And since the mass increases, we need ever increasing amounts of energy to accelerate it. To accelerate that puny electron to the speed of light and beyond we would require an infinite amount of energy.

This has some nice effects. When we look at the night sky, we are always looking into the past. The most recent happenings we can detect happened around 4 and a half years ago in the Alpha Centauri system (leaving out our own solar system of course). The next time you hear that a new ‘Earth-like’ planet has been discovered, remember that we are looking into its past. Who knows what has happened on it in the time which has passed when the light we detected off it was in motion?  Coming back to our own solar system, if the sun stops shining suddenly, it would be eight minutes before we came to know of it, since that is the time sunlight takes to get to us.

This also means that here on earth too we are forever looking into the past. I know the effect is too negligible to even be measured, but what if light wasn’t all that lightning fast? A few years back, I read about an experiment to reduce the speed of light to around a ‘vehicular’ (that’s the term the article used) 60 miles per hour.

Let’s leave Einstein for a minute and move to Heisenberg. He is best known for his Theory of Uncertainty. In layman’s terms it states that by observing a phenomenon we change it. Now ordinarily this would be consistent with Einstein’s “my light fastest” theory, since most of our observation techniques (or at least our fastest ones) rely on light. Hence we can change a phenomenon only as fast as we can observe it which is again limited to the speed of light.

But haven’t you ever had the feeling that by thinking of something you modify it in some way?  There are the largely unexplained phenomena of psychokinesis, telepathy etc. Then we have our own (often stupid) superstitions regarding talking about an event. Remember your colleague who wouldn’t tell about his interview call till everything was confirmed? And not because the management might get wind of it, but because he might be jinxed. Arun Lal while commentating on that Sachin 175 match in Hyderabad said “I shouldn’t say it….but if he goes at this rate, he might get a double hundred”. People won’t talk about marriage plans, vacation plans or even a trip to theater in the evening for fear of jinxing it.

This might not be something we can dismiss as simple superstition. It just might be that we alter the course of an event by thinking about it. We have any number of books and motivational speakers extolling the virtues of positive thinking.  Jesus once said “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you” We have assumed for centuries that he was talking about faith in Him. Could it be that he was talking about faith in ourselves there?

Finally, if thinking about something does make some kind of a change the thing which is thought about, doesn’t it contradict the “nothing faster than light” theory?

Why Does “Life” Go On?

Ever wondered why life goes on? Why do all plants and animals have an instinct to reproduce and then care for their offspring? Come to think of it, there is no real benefit to a parent from a child. On the contrary, it costs the parent resources which it could have used itself. Hence there is no reason for an animal to develop (in an evolutionary sense) feelings of love or protectiveness towards its young. There is no reason for an animal to give birth in the first place. Yet, every animal and plant on this planet makes sure that it is not the last of its kind and procreates. Is this simply an unexplainable characteristic of intelligent life?
I have been pondering that question for a couple of days now. The morning mass today has made some ideas clearer (My church is a good place for pondering). If an organism reproduces it has to have some benefit from the act. I can think of one evolutionary objective: Immortality.
What if reproduction is our way sending our personalities, our very consciousness into another, and younger body? We already know that a lot of physical and mental characteristics are shared between parents and their off spring. What if we are still evolving a way to send more and more characteristics into our children? I would want to think that in another (million/billion/trillion….make your choice based on your optimism) years, we would be able to send our entire consciousness into our progeny and thus become immortal.
Now, to test this theory, if someone is willing to risk the ridicule, we would need to compare the similarities between babies and their parents in a population over the ages. If the similarities progressively increase over a period of time (and I am talking evolutionary time scales here) then we might be getting somewhere.
I have never been a fan of dying. Maybe that’s why I come up with such ideas.

Can we trust history?

It is said that history is written by the victor. That is probably where the notion of triumph of good over evil also comes from. The victor will always describe himself as the righteous one and his enemy as the latest incarnation of the devil.

I remember the movie 300. Xerxes threatens Leonidas not with death and destruction but with expungement of his legacy, with obscurity in time. “There will be no glory in your sacrifice. I will erase even the memory of Sparta from the histories! Every piece of Greek parchment shall be burned. Every Greek historian, and every scribe shall have their eyes pulled out, and their tongues cut from their mouths. Why, uttering the very name of Sparta, or Leonidas, will be punishable by death! The world will never know you existed at all! ”. So how would history view Leonidas and Xerxes if the Persians had won?

There are almost always two sides to the tale. The British are likely to think of our freedom fighters as terrorists. And the Islamic Jihadists who ravage our homeland are possibly referred to as freedom fighters by their people (if they have any people to call their own that is). We base so many of our prejudices and our judgments on history. But if it is all written from the perspective of the victor, does it merit our trust? Especially when it means that we learn to hate our fellow man even before he has a chance to prove his devilishness.

Jesus Christ once said that no one will enter the kingdom of heaven unless he becomes like little children. I do not see little children fighting over what their forefathers did. They would have had a chance for the trip to heaven if we didn’t cloud their minds with the hatred of history. And that to my mind is the greatest injustice we inflict on our kids.