Ever since the advent of social networking sites methods of communication have changed and along with it the channels of expressing thoughts. I have been very active on facebook over the last two years and this period coincides with my absence from blogosphere. The one major drawback however is the shelf life of words on these sites. The canvass that one expresses on is an active one and so blogs still rule in preserving thoughts. Status messages on my facebook page went through a season of questioning belief in the concept of an almighty and I did not want those thoughts to fade away with the sands of time. They were a series of discussions with the involvement of multiple brains covering different perspectives. In this post I have cut and pasted the series after having edited out irrelevant comments from some people. The entire thread my be viewed on my facebook page http://www.facebook.com/actor.adithya
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ADITHYA أدتيا 'ONE OF THE TRULY BAD EFFECTS OF RELIGION IS THAT IT TEACHES US THAT IT IS A VIRTUE TO BE SATISFIED WITH NOT UNDERSTANDING' -RICHARD DAWKINS
APRIL 10 AT 11:14AM
Rajesh Vasudevan
Adhi... so true......
April 10 at 11:23am
Merlin Reena
Its correct.....Adhithya.
April 10 at 12:14pm
Suresh Gandhi
haii super
April 10 at 1:56pm
Kr Praveen
no comments
April 10 at 3:17pm
Sajith Unni
always amusing to see a no comment, comment :)
April 10 at 3:35pm
Adithya أدتيا
@Sajit- its usually used to express disagreement in a polite way.. it also avoids confrontation :)
April 10 at 6:30pm
Mala Krish Muru
Setuju..I agree with your second comment Adhi.
April 10 at 6:41pm
Veena Maadu
the bitter truth
April 10 at 7:35pm
Sajith Unni
Yes of course Adhi :)
April 10 at 8:46pm
Aarif Mohamed Aarif
its realy true sir
April 10 at 11:40pm
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ADITHYA أدتيا DEFINITION OF THE VERB, 'TO PRAY' - TO ASK AN OMNIPOTENT, OMNIPRESENT, OMNISCIENT ENTITY, THAT THE LAWS OF THE UNIVERSE BE ANNULLED ON BEHALF OF A SINGLE PETITIONER, CONFESSEDLY UNWORTHY
APRIL 11 AT 9:38AM ·
Sathiajith Azad
and still think you are helping without doing anything !!
April 11 at 12:07pm
Rajkumar Seetharaman
Adi...enna indha maadhiri ellam!! orey philosophical aa irukku!! :):):):)
April 11 at 8:56pm
Adithya أدتيا
@Rajkumar - Just trying to highlight a rational perspective
@Tamizh Anban - :) Why dont you ask Sheila out?
April 11 at 10:33pm
Suntharan Muniandy
I wonder why my English teacher didn't teach me that... its awesome bro.. a fruitful lesson for the day..
April 11 at 11:38pm
Neeraj Mohan
reading ur
April 12 at 12:15am
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ADITHYA أدتيا PREDATORS SEEM SO BEAUTIFULLY DESIGNED TO CATCH PREY ANIMALS AND PREY ANIMALS SEEM EQUALLY BEAUTIFULLY DESIGNED TO ESCAPE PREDATORS. WHOSE SIDE IS GOD ON? -RICHARD DAWKINS
APRIL 12 AT 7:04AM
Robby Vincent
both i guess
April 12 at 9:03am
Ramesh Sethuraman
god is on the side of one who gets lucky.
April 12 at 9:06am
Nidhin Girijavallabhan
In real life there are no villains...Everyones right in their own way..But others mite not like it...Same the case of prey nd predators...its matter of their survival...the lucky one survives...
April 12 at 10:58am
Karthik Vijayan
not may bcos of god , thats the SURVIVAL OF FITTEST
April 12 at 11:18am ·
Sathiajith Azad
I strongly sense that there is only one world, the real world, named the material world. There is a strong case against god, with all the statistics we have, i can push my case further to show there is nothing benovelant out there.
April 12 at 11:26am
Adithya أدتيا
I hope people are able to sense the sarcasm in that statement. The very existance of them both, both of whom are supposedly god's creations, is mockery of the whole concept of a benevolant god. Clearly one of the two is a loser in the battle & god is favouring the winner. Is that not unfair?
April 12 at 12:38pm
Sajith Unni
Which god? Zeus or the flying spaghetti monster ?:)
April 12 at 12:52pm
Albe Fa
But that is the delusion we all live in, we see everything 'relatively'. for example we think we are what we are because we fail to remember that the 'bodily cloak' is something that is temporal. No wonder 'Sanathana Dharma' tells that one has to free himself from bondage by following the 'Yama' & 'Niyama' (prescriptive and proscriptive rules) to make the earthly sojourn heavenly.
April 12 at 1:09pm
Adithya أدتيا
@Albe- you have but answered with an alternate philosophy.. santhana dharma is just one among the multitudes of dharma choices available. Your fight will be restricted to whether urreligious concept is the right one over another, but thats all. Eastern philosophies are far more obscure with a lot of space to interpret any incident with more than one meaning. That is hardly helpful. There is no evidence to suggest that there is anything more than the bodily cloak. Please do tell me if you do have evidence for I will be delighted to see the meaning you see
April 12 at 1:47pm
Adithya أدتيا
@Albe- I just had a look at your comment once again. Isnt it depressing to view the life we have as bondage? Something from which we must free ourselves. I think my life is wonderful.
April 12 at 4:26pm
Sajith Unni
Jenthy G sorry but you are off topic and incoherent. Richard Dawkins is questioning the belief in the existence of a benevolent god or a personal god.
April 12 at 7:04pm
Revathi Jayan
dats a gd one. nice quote.
April 12 at 9:51pm
Adithya أدتيا
Here is an exchange I had with someone over the same topic.. she decided to be anonymous, so without revealing names here it is - (her words are within quotes)
"We were created beautifully, yet we have murderers as wellas others, if u ask who's side is God on , it sure will be the one or those who seek him and obey his commands...it's the same foranimals...if u go back to Noah's ark , God destroyed the entoire world because of sin , Noah's household was saved y cause they were under obedience to the Lord along with them there was Animals as well....."
so this god you define is clearly interested in rewarding only those who bow down to him and the claim that he is benevolent is just bullshit.. he (for some reason it isnt a she) will destroy you if you dont acknowledge at all times that you are at his mercy.. to me that sounds rather shitty..
"He's on the side of the animal who call upon the lord for help. If the animal is hungry nd call upon the lord for food the lord provides by giving him animal who doesn't seek the lord vice versa. "
.. just read that again. How sick is he? His own creations.. his children, and yet he will only protect you if you call out to him... you ever treat your children that way? What if both the animals, prey and predator prayed? From that statement are you implying that all those who suffer, suffer only because they dont bow down to this egotistic god, beg and pray to him? How sick is he who needs his creations to keep scrapping the bottom just to make himself feel the boss? You wouldnt do that to your pet dog!!
April 12 at 10:07pm
Sajith Unni
It is obvious that she is not aware of the basics of evolution and natural selection. This is a good primer hosted by the great naturalist David Attenborough for those interested.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6IrUUDboZo
April 12 at 10:47pm
Neeraj Mohan
@all: lolz....richard dawkins waz an atheist .. infact a MILITANT atheist....the above quote looks sarcastic to me......
April 12 at 11:29pm
Adithya أدتيا
@Neeraj- you are absolutely right on both counts. He is a very aggressive atheist & he is being sarcastic in that statement. Whats ur
April 13 at 9:26am
Neeraj Mohan
well...ma views are similar to mr.dawkins...there aint any god....predators r meant to eat prey.. nd the prey is meant to be killed...tis is just some random process...everythin in this world is some random process inter-related...nd wat is the role of the 'so - called' god here??? Man is not GOd's creation.. but 'God' is MAN'S CREATION...
April 13 at 8:01pm
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ADITHYA أدتيا WHY MUST ONE BE SENSITIVE TO THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENTS OF OTHERS WHEN IN REALITY WITHIN ONES CLOSED CIRCLE ONE VOCIFEROUSLY CRITICISES ANY OTHER BUT THEIR OWN?
APRIL 13 AT 11:10AM
Arun Kunjunny
Interesting line of thought bhai....very true!!!
April 13 at 11:15am
Mohammed Rafiq Peer
religious sentiments supposed to be sensitive sir, nothing can do that aspects.......
April 13 at 11:19am
Sajith Unni
Adhi, Here is a ink to an interesting article
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/minette_marrin/article7094227.ece
April 13 at 11:20am
Adithya أدتيا
@Mohammed- my question is why.. Why is it sensitive? It is not sensitive to criticise political ideologies or scientific thoughts but when it comes to religion there is immunity from questioning.. Why?
April 13 at 11:35am
Arun Kunjunny
I guess political ideologies or scientific thoughts seldom support our existence but religion forms the platform for our existence and life beyond it...our education from childhood days, irrespective of religion, has taught us to refrain from questioning it...maybe it is the fear of the unknown or the sheer conditioning by our educational system....in a society, we have a subject called Moral Science, when morals should actually be passed on to the kids by parents, how can we expect anybody to question religion?
April 13 at 11:38am
Mohammed Rafiq Peer
no no .. can't get it clear.... the way what u need to get?? sorry can't understood the exact knot ofur que..
April 13 at 11:40am
Adithya أدتيا
@Sajit- I concur with the author's emotions on that one ↲
@Arun- 'religion forms the platform for our existance & life beyond it', really? I question the very thought behind that statement. As u rightly suspect, it is conditioning that has led to this taboo on questioning religion. I think we must all question dictums & junk it if those who profess it cannot justify it.. even if it is stated in religious texts.
April 13 at 11:59am
Arun Kunjunny
Bhai...what i was trying to state was that the conditioning that we have from childhood has made religiion the platform of our existence....why is it that our parents always believe that belief in God is more important than belief in oneself? Belief is good but these days it has become more of a mass hysteria!!!
April 13 at 12:04pm
Ansar Ahmed
@Adi - Hats off for questioning anthr entrenched beleif...Religions r just a way of workshippin the same God in different ways....it shd b unifying rathr tan dividing us..
April 13 at 12:12pm
Sathiajith Azad
I guess we should initiate Critical thinking and teach the same to children as well. Let them read religious scriptures and also warn them not to Take these seriosuly.
Religion was a babbyish attempt to solve the mysteries during the infancy of our understandings and technology. We need not cling on to this anymore and nothing should remain un questioned.
Mass delusions always end with bad consequences.
April 13 at 12:28pm
Yamuna Ravendran
i think.. existence of religious r the main source of uncivilization in human behavior. Where we tolerate each other in every aspects on daily route.. Surprisingly our mentality towrd religious sentiments r remain the same. Very sad!! if u ask Y?? the answer is EGO… I’m greater than YOU!!
April 13 at 12:32pm
Sathiajith Azad
Well it would be intersting to think about what our moral standards would be, without religion compelling "it" on us.
I guess the ground rules - not to steal, not to murder etc would still remain the same. Without a doubt our technology would have been 1000 years ahead (since we would never have had the "Dark ages" gifted by christianity)
April 13 at 12:40pm
Ajay Mehra
Oye, you can criticise my circle anytime ;-)
April 13 at 6:48pm
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ADITHYA أدتيا IS A GOOD DEED GOOD BECAUSE GOD SAID IT IS GOOD OR DID HE SAY IT IS A GOOD DEED BECAUSE IT WAS GOOD ANYWAY? IF GOD HAD SAID RAPE IS GOOD WOULD THAT MAKE IT A GOOD DEED?
APRIL 15 AT 8:51AM
Noorie Ajmeria
u want to convey that difference between good or bad is not justified on religious basis. Am i right?
April 15 at 9:43am
Tana Lakshmi
At 1st i doubt that god will say rape is good & 2nd god can't talk ...so let me guess ..it's all in the individual ...
April 15 at 9:45am
Adithya أدتيا
@Noorie- you are absolutely right. Our understanding of right & wrong has nothing to do with divine instructions. Bad is bad & we wont do it because we dont want others to perpetrate that on us.
April 15 at 9:54am
Robby Vincent
God doesnt say anything... good and evil is by man and by man alone. what is good and evil anyways? good in one man's point of view is evil in the other and vice versa. if you say rape is evil, it may be for the victim but for the rapist, it is good, thats why he did it. so one can never define what is good and which is evil?
April 15 at 9:56am
Adithya أدتيا
@Robby- has he never ever said anything? From what I remember he's been sending instructions through all religions on what he likes & what he does not.
April 15 at 10:09am
Shanthi Vincent
My point is any good deed done should not be done for your own good. Even if it makes you happy doing good deed is not a good deed. Any good deed is good only if it is good for others not for you. This kind of good deed only counts in gods good books.
April 15 at 10:11am
Adithya أدتيا
@Shanthi- how sad is that? Any good deed that makes me happy wont count?! So the premise is that I should at the losing end of the activity that is doing good.. Sort of like donating money to religious institutions even if u have to sell ur
April 15 at 10:18am
Shanthi Vincent
I didn't mean you have to suffer. Be thoughtful enought to help others without being self centred. If we were uncivilized rape is nothing but an act of nature in an animal sense. In the civilized world man maderules, where rape is criminal act.
April 15 at 10:33am
Adithya أدتيا
@Shanthi- now if u look at my status message again you will see that my question is entirely different.
April 15 at 10:36am
Sajith Unni
“Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion.” Steven Weinberg
April 15 at 10:40am
Adithya أدتيا
@Sajith- Bravo :) Thats a good quote.
April 15 at 10:45am
Sabu Joseph
Aadi ......what happened to you....r u alright?
April 15 at 10:45am
Adithya أدتيا
@Sabu- I'm perfectly fine. Since I have access to so many people I thougt I should do good to humanity.. I decided to discuss taboo topics so its no longer taboo. Rationality is in terrible short supply and so called religious leaders who only have vested interests are exploiting the gullibility of people who desperately need some magical fix to their problems
April 15 at 10:52am
Suja Abraham
Well as far as i know all religion has their own Holy book and am sure those who believe in their books r following wot ever is written in it ,but those who cant follow do wot ever they like, nd so y we blame God in all of this, God created us out of love and he 'll want us to love others as well not by hurting them, by hurting them means physically or mentally, doing good deeds come under love and comapssion.God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desires, he is dragged away and entices. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death..
April 15 at 10:52am
Adithya أدتيا
@Suja- and the all powerful god who is capable of knowing what is being thought of in the minds of the 6 billion people on this planet wont stop a bunch of lunatics who blow themselves up perfectly convinced they are doing it for the same god thereby destroying the very creations who so worship him? Unless ofcourse it indeed was god who made them go blow themselves up to punish all those victims who probably all were sinners anyway.. just like how god created a natural disaster in the form of a tsunami to kill all the sinners who lived around the indian ocean right? Does that make sense to you? Either he is all powerful or he is not.. Look at the evidence and take a pick.
April 15 at 11:01am
Sajith Unni
Adhi I think most people need to study the science of evolution through natural selection. As you know It is not just a theory as most understand the word theory. There is a mountain of evidence in fossil records. The lack of basic understanding of the fact of evolution is reason behind such incoherent comments by some blindly repeating their scriptures. For those interested in educating themselves here is a link to David Attenborough's Tree of Life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qabl5eIba2g
April 15 at 11:02am
Robby Vincent
@Aadhi: sir, religion is man-made. God never created them... it is our belief that God created religion, gave it rules and is asking us to follow... i dont think so...
April 15 at 11:02am
Sajith Unni
Adhi everyone is an atheist when it comes to another person's religion :) Its just religious platitude by people who say god is one when they all believe in different god's. Every religion has their own spin on how the world came about and who "created" us but not a shred of evidence. As opposed to enough empirical evidence on evolution by natural selection.
April 15 at 11:08am
Gelveen Gill
Adhi, is there a soul or anything of sort in/within our physical body?
April 15 at 11:10am
Suzanne Huffman
I agree with what you just said Sajith.
"Be content with what you are sure of.
And the only thing you can be sure of is 'I' am. The only fact you are sure of is that you are.
The only clue you have is your certainty of being."
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj ~
If we can't be certain that what is good or bad is set by a "god", then the only certain thing is what we know of ourselves and others around us.
April 15 at 11:24am
Adithya أدتيا
@Gelveen- No there isnt in the religious sense. There is awareness of ones existence but that is a product of brain function.
April 15 at 11:33am
Shanthi Vincent
@Adhi I am perfectly in line with your status. God didn't tell us to eat or live in tall buildings . we were born with certain instincts. Life is about common sense, who uses the most survives. Rape, sexual harassment are still a reality even as we speak now. god didn't stop them either.
April 15 at 11:35am
Sajith Unni
Suzanne The only thing that we can be sure off is empirical evidence. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
April 15 at 11:39am
Gelveen Gill
Then I guess we are just bunch of cells
April 15 at 11:39am
Sajith Unni
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIiIsDIkDtg
god and the temporal lobes by Dr. V S Ramachandran
It is an interesting insight into the working of the brain.
April 15 at 11:43am
Suzanne Huffman
right... which empirical evidence is based on observation and experimentation. We can experiment and prove that humans are living beings. We can observe their behavior and derive what is perceived in society as being "good" or "bad". But there is no observation or experimentation that can be done to show that god exists. And so there's no empirical evidence that will ever prove what people claim god says is "good" or "bad".
And yes, we are just a bunch of cells lol!
April 15 at 11:44am
Adithya أدتيا
@Gelveen- Your guess is right
April 15 at 11:44am
Sajith Unni
Suzanne It is for the people making the claim that god exists to come up with the evidence. So far they have not. And they first need to decide on which god !
April 15 at 11:48am
Suzanne Huffman
Well of course they have the burden of proof. People can't even agree on simple things like what to have for dinner, they'll never be able to decide which god...
April 15 at 11:51am
Sajith Unni
LOL @ Suzanne thats true :)
April 15 at 11:52am
Suzanne Huffman
;)
April 15 at 11:56am
Adithya أدتيا
glad to see people involved in discussion.. I'm multitasking here answering assaults on my inbox as well. Majority of those writing in wont even consider the possibility that they could be wrong. They will not question their holy books or as I have been warned, TOLERATE anyone questioning its authenticity.. I wish people had at the least the most basic inquisitiveness to find out how their holy books came into existance..
April 15 at 11:58am
Sajith Unni
Adhi thats religious intolerance for you :)
April 15 at 12:05pm
Suzanne Huffman
And human intolerance. We cling to what we know or have been taught. Its hard to get over the fear that our reality and answers may not be the same reality and answers for other people. And the fear of what will happen if the reality we've known may not be the answer we may find in the future.
But just sad that people can't come together and respect differences of opinion without all of that intolerance.
April 15 at 12:08pm
Adithya أدتيا
which brings us back to the question.. Are deeds classified as good or bad because god segregated them? I have already got the right answer from Noorie .. Would love it if others specifically commented on that
April 15 at 12:13pm
Sajith Unni
Suzanne when opinions are unfounded as in the case of blind belief they deserve no respect. Respect for the individual is a separate issue. Scientific discovery is interesting and fascinating. And if thinking is based on reason, people will change their minds when presented with empirical evidence. There cannot be fundamentalism or intolerance in the scientific approach.
April 15 at 12:17pm
Suzanne Huffman
Well I said that there's no definite proof that god segregated them. There are religious texts, but those were written by man. I would say that no, deeds are not classified as good or bad because god segregated them.
April 15 at 12:18pm
Sajith Unni
“The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.” Arthur C Clarke
April 15 at 12:21pm
Suzanne Huffman
Anyway, I am going to bed.
And Sajith, I did leave religion when I used what I knew about research from my science studies. However, I am one who will still listen to others no matter how wrong I think them to be as long as they are respectful to me as well in turn. If they aren't respectful, then it isn't worth my time or theirs. And I love people and trying to figure out how they think and why lol!
April 15 at 12:23pm
Adithya أدتيا
@Suzanne- Which should lead to the conclusion that the concepts of good and bad that on the face of it so universal is inherent in all of us. There is room or need to credit a god for what is nothing more than common sense
April 15 at 12:28pm
Vinodh Sharma
Will you believe it if i said that God said it was good, and him being the authority would be good anyway???
we will believe what we want to at the end of the day, and all that you need to do is answer to your concience and pay the price... there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so..... so do what you want and pay the price........
you see, Every body wanna go Heaven.... But nobody wanna go Dead.........
April 15 at 12:33pm
Adithya أدتيا
actually I want to go to hell.. All my friends, girls & guys are going to be their. Its going to be one big party :-)
April 15 at 12:42pm
Sajith Unni
We as a species are neither good nor bad. There is no inherent evil in us, no original sin. Neither is there any purity.In Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union millions of people were brought up during the middle decades of the twentieth century in a state that was thoroughly atheist and many of the households and communities within those stateswere also atheist. There was no collapse of morality. You were not more likely to be robbed, raped, murdered or cheated inLeningrad than you were in Manchester
April 15 at 12:49pm ·
Sajith Unni
Religion is not the bulwark of morality any more than the cockerel crowing is the cause of the dawn or virgin sacrifices are the cause of keeping volcanos quiet. This trick has been perpetrated on people for centuries and people continue to fall for it. It is very reminiscent of the great Santa Claus conspiracy. The surest way to lose a job on television is to state clearly that there is no such person as Santa Claus. No adult believes in Santa Claus, but most are part of the conspiracy :)
April 15 at 12:54pm
Noorie Ajmeria
Big Applause for Mr. Sajith Unni.
April 15 at 1:23pm
Azhar Maktoom
Technically, if God had said rape was good, I believe the generations gone past would have been involved in the act without any guilt. It would have been a commonplace and not considered bad or evil at all. So rape would not have been a subject in the your question.
April 15 at 3:00pm
Adithya أدتيا
@Azhar- That exactly is the point my dear. You will never see a religious text that says rape is good because it is detrimental to society.. Its rather redundant of god to go around grading acts as good or bad when we already know it..
April 15 at 3:42pm
Adithya أدتيا
btw I dont believe generations past would have gone around raping for long even if god had said its ok to rape.. Society would have put an end to it because it would not have been desirable.
April 15 at 3:44pm
Suzanne Huffman
And really we are beings who like to enjoy life, and rape isn't enjoyable for most people (ie the victims). So there would have been a stop to it anyway along the way by way of a revolt. In life its majority rules.
And I really like Mr. Sajith's comments about society because it is very true.
April 16 at 12:41am
Gelveen Gill
Does being an atheist mean you invalid the law of natural retribution via the law of nature? Or all that happens through what some may consider the law of nature you consider it to be mere coincidence?
April 16 at 6:56am
Sajith Unni
@Gelveen An atheist does not believe in a personal god or the super natural for the lack of evidence. Atheist is a label for a non believer and is like saying not collecting stamps is a hobby. And it is not up to an atheist to disprove anything. If you say there is a soul you need provide the evidence. so far there is none.
You appear to be conflating the vague concept of karma with global warming to which humans are contributing. Evolution by natural selection is not random or coincidence. Richard Dawkins can tell you more on that subject. Atheism or a lack of belief in a benevolent personal god is only getting half the story right. The other half is about us and that is when naturalism comes in.
Naturalism says there’s a single natural world, the one science shows us, not a world divided up into the categorically natural vs. supernatural. Most atheists consider themselves naturalists in this sense, and indeed atheism is an expression or offshoot of naturalism.
To quote Sydney Hook “Is there a different kind of knowledge that makes ... [the supernatural] an accessible object of knowledge in a manner inaccessible by the only reliable method we have so far successfully employed to establish truths about other facts? Are there other than empirical facts, say spiritual or transcendent facts? Show them to us...”
This is a reasonable demand that any cognitively responsible supernaturalist should be able, and feel obligated, to meet. Of course it isn’t as if naturalists claim to have all the answers to the big or even middle-sized questions, but the methods of inquiry we stick with have been proven pretty reliable. If there are any rival methods that establish the existence of something beyond nature that informs such answers, we want to know about them. If there aren’t, then supernaturalists are skating on thin epistemic ice.
April 16 at 7:56am
Adithya أدتيا
@Gelveen -
"Does being an atheist mean you invalid the law of natural retribution via the law of nature?"
You will have to define this question more clearly. What is this law of 'natural retribution' that you are talking about? The way you have worded it, to me, sounds like you have made the assumption that everyone agrees with a concept called 'natural retribution'.. that in itself is not acceptable.
"Or all that happens through what some may consider the law of nature you consider it to be mere coincidence?"
Here again you will have to narrate a particular case as example to show what 'some may consider the law of nature' .. as far as 'mere coincidence' is concerned, well let me explain it this way - atheists see no evidence of an intelligent supernatural entity that makes decisions and has the capacity to either positively or negatively interfere with any activity in the universe... so yes, nothing happens for any particular reason
April 16 at 9:08am
Gelveen Gill
Adhi and Sajith...thank you...
April 16 at 9:18am
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ADITHYA أدتيا 'THE FACT THAT A BELIEVER IS HAPPIER THAN A SCEPTIC IS NO MORE TO THE POINT THAN THE FACT THAT A DRUNKEN MAN IS HAPPIER THAN A SOBER ONE.' - GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
APRIL 16 AT 9:18AM ·
Mala Krish Muru
If I may write, skepticism reigns supreme.
April 16 at 1:20pm
Sajith Unni
hehe true ;)
April 16 at 1:39pm
Adithya أدتيا
I dont want to encourage people who shoot from behind the bushes .. be informed folks that I will reprint what you delete -
Here is one (as usual deleted) by Suja Abraham - "A believer is happy because there's nothing holding him back nor theres no more sadness in his life because he has found joy in his Lord how can that be compared to a drunkard, a man drinks and get drunk to forget his troubles and problems!!"
April 16 at 2:45pm
Adithya أدتيا
@Suja - A drunkard is happy because there's nothing holding him back nor theres no more sadness in his life because he has found joy in his booze .. :)
April 16 at 2:47pm
Adithya أدتيا
@Suja - and may I add that people are always advised to pray and leave their troubles and problems to god and let him take care of it.. strange but I see a lot of similarity here :)
April 16 at 2:49pm
Adithya أدتيا
@Suja - Again not very different from someone who never lets the joy of his booze wear off..
April 16 at 9:29pm
Neeraj Mohan
looks like suja is on weed - atheist
April 16 at 9:45pm
Sajith Unni
I agree Suja Ad hominem is a fallacy and Neeraj is out of line. Personal attacks are not necessary.
Suja your interpretation of the Bernard Shaw quote is twisted:)
Being a true believer ( without evidence) is a psychological cause of fanaticism. And if some one is hearing voices in his or her head and talking to an imaginary person, its a sign ofhallucination. Here is a interesting video of a true believer questioning Richard Dawkins. Although the title to the video is added by a religious apologist.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKGtcVoBhBQ
April 17 at 7:58am
Adithya أدتيا
@Suja - There are multiple points here that need deliberation:
1."am talking abt drunkard men, nd not occacssional nd social drinkers" - a perpetual alcoholic is whom I too am referring to. Just as how you as an observer sees alcohol as 'a way of escaping from reality', atheists as observers see belief in a supernatural entity in just the same light. All other points that you attribute to drunkards, like 'he's got no hope or has nothing to look forward in his life and he looses his sense of bearing' may well define the other side. The 'hope' is false for there is no evidence that belief yields results, what you look forward to in life has the same probability of realisation as that for an atheist and a theist's bearing I suspect is skewed thanks to the masking of reality by belief.
2. "and am talking abt true believers and not others" - there is no authority that can vet a true believer. I can bet my savings that there will be someone to contradict and show how a person you point out is a true believer is not. Within each religion there are subsets, for instance, in hinduism there are dvaitas vs advaitas, in christianity there are catholics vs protestants, in muslims there are shias vs sunnis and so on.. and for the sake of example I just mentioned pairs but there are many more within each religion. Any person from any one of these groups will fight tooth and nail to justify that he is the true believer. It wont end there.. within the subset you will still have differences of opinion and these conflicts will extend right to individual members within families.
3. "a believr is happier than a sober man and happier than a skeptic is because he found his joy in the Lord nd not Alcohol, and it doesn't wear off like alcohol" - how different is that from a perpetual alcoholic who never gets sober? I can assure you that there exist such individuals.. if not alcohol its drugs and that should help you understand Marx's statement, "Religion is the opium of the masses".
Suja, all you need do is to try understand the perspective of an atheist. When you debate after having understood then there will be more credence to your statements. Most of what you say I suspect is made from the assumption that everyone understands and agrees with your concepts but for some reason is refusing to admit to it. I am not expecting and neither will you change your stance for you have taken your whole life to construct a model of life based on belief in the supernatural. It takes extreme courage to even think of a possibility that you could be wrong.
April 17 at 8:16am
Adithya أدتيا
@Sajith - Thats a good one :) You are a storehouse of data my friend.
April 17 at 8:24am
Sajith Unni
Adhi blind believers are also victims of pascal's wager :) an idea to which Bertrand Russell had a great answer.
April 17 at 9:26am
Adithya أدتيا
@Sajith- lay it on us buddy.. Like I said.. YOU are the storehouse of references :)
April 17 at 9:54am
Sajith Unni
Suja sure any one is free to believe in santa claus or the tooth fairy and remain deluded. But false beliefs are the root cause of serious problems that humanity faces. Even peer reviewed scientific research usually do not convince blind believers as their minds are closed. Blind believers have only one source of reference their respective holy books which are without a doubt man made. This refusal to think beyond one book is the result of being indoctrinated. Personal experiences do not count as evidence with regard to the supernatural. And leads us back to the Bernard Shaw quote as it holds true.
April 17 at 11:31am
Suja Abraham
Let us agree to disagree.....
April 17 at 12:10pm
Neeraj Mohan
@suja: u think tat waz a personal attack?? well... wat i conveyed waz i don agree u...tats it...nm... anywayz sorry for ma uncouth behaviour ( personally i don feel so...well..tats the way i am)
@sajith: i ll go with u man...way to go!
April 17 at 12:14pm
Sajith Unni
@Suja sure, I am not surprised that you don't agree, for reasons I have already stated.
April 17 at 12:20pm
Suja Abraham
Lol..;)
April 17 at 12:25pm
Adithya أدتيا
This is like the song 'there's a whole in the bucket' .. you guys ever hear it? We are back to the start .. 'The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.'
@Suja - "at the end of the day each of us will believe wot ever we think it's right for us" .. this is exactly the reason why its bitter to just disagree and let go.. see if it is a benign individual who believes his or her supernatural ghost is going to cure cancer his or her cancer and dies we dont give a crap.. but there is this small sect within the believers of every religion who are pain in the ass .. you see they believe they are going to go to heaven by pleasing their ghost and in the bargain they harm others in numerous ways.. I have a problem with that. No religion in any form or degree does any good and in forms that are more severe they destroy lives .. I have a problem with that and I cannot agree to just disagree and part ways
April 17 at 12:31pm
Adithya أدتيا
lol Suja.. if you want to live on past glory well religion is also the reason for mass genocide, regression in development and a whole list of negatives .. what is your point? Look on the positive side alone and stay blind to the muck? BTW there is enough evidence to suggest that these so called glories you claim were achieved by individuals who were rationalists but had no choice in their day and age to get patronage from anyone other than the rich religious institutions..
April 17 at 1:18pm
Adithya أدتيا
@Suja- To assume it is one particular genocide (in which you invoke Richard Dawkins) that I am referring to, is exactly the kind of behaviour that I so warned you about. You have some bits of information that topics on genocide are being discussed about in parts of the world by the likes of Dawkins and then you draw the conclusion that I get my information from him. Its not just one, there have been multitudes of genocides throughout history in the name of religion. When muslims and christians kill each other, when hindus and muslims kill each other, when crusades happened across europe , when conquistadors wiped out native americans, it was all in the name of religion. Do you know of people who were burnt alive when their behaviour was considered anti-church? Do not brush it away as being racial and tribal and show disrespect to all those who were killed in the name of religion.
religious institutions sponsored people who made art to glorify the gods and considering that the religious institutions looted everyone to fill their coffers no one else could pay and support an artist. For example, take the case of Leonardo da Vinci who painted The Last Supper. He wanted to showcase his talent, religion paid for it.. after all, he too must eat.
April 17 at 4:21pm
Sajith Unni
Well said Adhi.
April 17 at 4:59pm
Adithya أدتيا
@Suja- You have jumped points here.. I dont see a mention of human beings being harmed during fabrication in anything I wrote. I will take you on anyways.. Harm may befall humans at anytime during the construction of any edifice.. people died during the making of the Hoover Dam for instance but the difference is that, there is a concept ofacknowledging and compensating the loss of human life and in addition to this, people who partake in such works do so out of their own will..
Attacking your first point (and I use the word attack because your justifications are getting rather insulting to human existence) .. I cant help but notice that your language has suddenly improved .. I applaud your communication skills provided you have not 'cut/paste' from some other source. Let me point out why your example is bad. I am in complete agreement that humans would have indulged in 'culling of their own race' whether religious or not BUT the problem is that so called people who have discovered god, go about 'culling' fellow humans without guilt because their religion helps them feel no remorse.. their actions are justified.
April 18 at 10:08am
Sajith Unni
April 18 at 10:55am
Adithya أدتيا
@Suja - How did Shahjahan figure in the picture and in what way is he relevant? There is no point wavering from the topic. You tried to defend religion by trying to credit is with growth of art and architecture.. I countered you on that. Whether people were harmed during construction of edifices is irrelevant as I have explained in the last comment. Your sly reference to funding coming from unfair means, all I can point out is your ridiculous contradiction .." looting of the subjects of the kingdom to fill the builder's coffers", only equates Shahjahan and heads of religious institutions. He too was a religious zealot, so what is the point?
The whole world's experience tells you otherwise, not just Freud and Jung .. this reference btw is unnecessary name dropping .. this form of argument is called 'Argumentum ad verecundiam (Appeal to authority).. humans are influenced by animal instincts of 'survival of the fittest'.. its a part of natural selection to get ahead of the pack.. you cannot expect mankind to be kind.. I have already agreed with you that people will indulge in all the negative points you mentioned BUT the conflict in thought being that atrocities committed in the name of religion are immune to guilt.. it is god's work... despite the 'ten commandments', more religious people commit murder.. especially in the name of religion.
One of the things Krishna to Arjuna to do is to go kill..
April 18 at 12:39pm
Sajith Unni
@Suja religion and morality was already discussed on the earlier thread. I am reposting it :
We as a species are neither good nor bad. There is no inherent evil in us, no original sin. Neither is there any purity.In Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union millions of people were brought up during the middle decades of the twentieth century in a statethat was thoroughly atheist and many of the households and communities within those states were also atheist. There was no collapse of morality. You were not more likely to be robbed, raped, murdered or cheated inLeningrad than you were in Manchester
Religion is not the bulwark of morality any more than the cockerel crowing is the cause of dawn or virgin sacrifices are the cause of keeping volcanos quiet. This trick has been perpetrated on people for centuries and people continue to fall for it. It is reminiscent of the great Santa Claus conspiracy. The surest way to lose a job on television is to state clearly that there is no such person as Santa Claus. No adult believes in Santa Claus, but most are part of the conspiracy.
April 18 at 3:18pm
Adithya أدتيا
@Suja - "I am glad that you have finally started agreeing with me on the unfairness in human society" - You are claiming credit for thoughts that I believe in, independent of you?? ... my dear your responses and statements are turning out to be a joke. Stick to the point and respond to that and that alone.. read through all that you have typed and look at the trail of thoughts you have left behind .. no two thoughts link to form an idea in support of what you are saying.
With no connection to the original discussion, your brought in art, architecture .. when the irony of religious institutes sponsoring art was pointed out you, you assumed that was a brownie point for religion.. then when it was pointed out to you that religious institutions loot the masses for funding such activities you bring up Shajahan to try and equate looting done by a ruler to that of looting done is god's name as donations .. in anycase no one is supporting Shajahan's extravagance.. then you bring Krishna , Mosses .. try to equate the gita to the ten commandments both of which might have common ground but both spoken in completely different contexts and there too when its pointed out that Krishna asked Arjuna to kill as opposed to what Mosses received in the human user manual, you conveniently omit that fact and fire back with an assumption that I am agreeing with you.. that's audacious.
"It is the very exsitence of the ten commandments that makes the killing of another person wrong".. really? It would be ok to kill otherwise? How many pages you want me to point out from that same book you quoted from where it says its ok to kill? What is your take on the following verse- Exodus 21:17?
April 18 at 5:45pm ·
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ADITHYA أدتيا WHY NOT LIVE LIFE IN THE NOW? THEISTS OF THE SEMITIC RELIGIONS SPEND THEIR WHOLE LIVES PREPARING TO DIE TO GO LIVE IN HEAVEN ... EASTERN RELIGIONS STATE
APRIL 17 AT 4:28PM ·
Arun Kunjunny
Very interesting thought bhai...i was thinking something along similar lines yesterday....people are so caught up in creating for a secure future that they forget the present and by the time, they reach the future, they regret a spent past probably...an irony of life!!!
April 17 at 4:29pm
Adithya أدتيا
@Arun - I wrote a blog on that a few years ago
April 17 at 5:19pm
Sathiajith Azad
Few months ago, i read about Indian Schools of Philosophy, namely Lokayata & Carvaka, which gave more importance to human happiness and the present world (which they beleived to be the only world - the material world)
However these were schools which taught what can be called as "Humanism" today and also went against brahmanism.
April 17 at 5:41pm
Mini Rao
pretty deep but I love discussions like this........why do people always want to go someplace else and not enjoy their present stay ???
April 17 at 9:54pm
Sheila Veeraian
adithya wish u all the good things happening to u! may this new year fill up with cheers!
April 17 at 9:59pm
Cinematographer Vicky
you are very philosophical now a days interesting and very intellectual thoughts ...
April 17 at 10:26pm
Raakhee Sathish
hey guys....the three of you forming some kinda philosophy club or some'thin???!!!!:)
April 17 at 11:06pm
Suja Abraham
Fortunately our western societies ( so called mainstream Christians) are blissfuly unaware of this Semitic theological out look, and are always building for posterity.
April 18 at 5:17am
Suja Abraham
So we in Austalia, NorthAmerica and Europe will reap the fruit of far sighted planning and wisdom while you 'les miserables' will be whingeing and whining about lost oppertunities and poor leadership.
April 18 at 5:23am
Ayisha M. Nazar
c adithya y looking at them ur loosing ur present, however one tries to explain the fact they wont change, so better its time to take the attention from them and concentrate on something which is different...let them live at peace
April 18 at 8:47am
Sathiajith Azad
While life remains, let a man live happily, let him feed on butter though he runs in debt; When once the body becomes ashes, how can it ever return again? - Charvaka - School of Thought (300 BC)
April 18 at 10:00am
Mahadevan Sankaran
Well Adithya...it is an interesting string of thoughts that U ve started here where one can express oneself with fear or favor for none.As for me, I feel we are all so trained to be caught up in a sysytem of branding with an attitude of duality with a feeling of mine is better than yours.In that process we are missing to enjoy the essence that we are: as life unflods at every given moment.Even atheist and non-atheist is a branding of attachement to something.We should be free and to find this freedom one should allow the self within to unfold to its true nature i.e. its Original Natural Energy(ONE) which is part of the Almi8ghty Cosmic Energy(ACE) and once this is realised and felt in the crux of our hearts, one will be Powered by Almighty Cosmic Energy(PEACE) and when peace becomes the MATRIX of the being than Lots of Vibrating Energy(LOVE) will ooze out to FEEL the crux of another heart and when that is felt one will convey ones message of See Me I Love Everyone(SMILE) and give a genuine and natural smile to any Source of Universal Light(SOUL) that resides in any hearts be it in humans,animals or plants. We should involve to evolve in order to touch others with love and peace....Love and Peace Mahadevan
April 18 at 10:55am
Sathiajith Azad
Original Natural Energy(ONE), Almi8ghty Cosmic Energy(ACE) , Powered by Almighty Cosmic Energy(PEACE), MATRIX of the being, Vibrating Energy(LOVE), Source of Universal Light(SOUL) ..???
That went like Bret lee's bouncer. from what i understand, you were trying to relate these words to the concept of "Brahmn". You have been very generous with Enegrgy and Light but there is nothing that proves your proposition. If it makes you happy, that is another thing !!
April 18 at 11:09am ·
Mahadevan Sankaran
Exactly...y do i need to prove to someone else my happiness...i just have to flow with the flow...express my joy just as a flower expresses its essence.How U perceive my joy is ur CHOICE just as how i enjoy my CHOICE....Love and Peace.
April 18 at 3:14pm
Sathiajith Azad
You don't have to prove anything, If this makes you happy, keep believing in it. However dont call it as truth. If you are to call it as "Truth", then i would ask for proof.
"Extraordinary claims like these require extra ordinary evidences."
Well, regarding the happiness that you are feeling - "The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one"
April 18 at 4:57pm
Mahadevan Sankaran
I AM the evidence of of my own truth that I have Fully Accepted In Heart(FAITH).I am neither the believer nor the skeptic I AM just ME enjoying my SELF that i have realised..I dont implore but i explore.Unity in Diversity is what i enjoy. Just as different colors of flowers make a garden beautiful,different types of people make our world beautiful.Love All and Peace to U.
April 18 at 7:23pm
Sathiajith Azad
Good Luck "Kapila Muni" !!!
April 18 at 7:26pm
Mahadevan Sankaran
Thank you and same 2 u.
April 18 at 8:10pm
Sathiajith Azad
Nope .. I work with other skills .. have never relied on Luck !!! so u can keep my share of luck too !!! ;)
April 18 at 8:12pm
Mahadevan Sankaran
Luck to me is Labour Under Correct Knowledge...so i too am like u...i explore with enthusiasm and work to sharpen my skills!!!
April 18 at 8:21pm
Rajkumar Seetharaman
@Aadhi....enna orey philosophical?? Konjam engalukkum puriyara maadhiri ezhudhunga sir... :):):):):)...Remain Aadhi and not Aadhiyaananda..:):):):):)
April 18 at 9:08pm
Adithya أدتيا
So many comments... glad to hear from you all
@ Mini - This has been the flavour on my wall for over a week now .. wish you had spotted it earlier.. it would be great to hear your thoughts on all this too.
@ Vicky - I am utilising the opportunity to reach out to everyone.. rationality is in terrible short supply and I am hoping to get people to understand that there is probably no god so just go about enjoying your life.. all evidences suggest that this is all the life you will get :)
@ Raakhee - just thought these are better topics to spend time discussing
@ Suja - if you are 'blissfuly unaware' then its called ignorance and that is not excusable. Unfortunately for you 'western societies ( so called mainstream Christians)' are part of the Semitic religions.. I need elaborate no further about your ranting or sarcasm.. You are also 'blissfuly unaware' that us 'les miserables' are actually better off not being thrashed by a bunch of unemployed curry bashers on your progressive australian soil. I am glad you are reaping the fruits of far sighted planning and wisdom under the leadership of Kevin Michael Rudd whilst he cuts a sorry figure in front of India
@ Ayisha - The mistake societies make is to turn a blind eye towards anything that does not directly bother them.. it is important to be vigilant. It will save generations to come. Imagine if Ghandi and the freedom fighters had thought that way.. you and I would have officially continued being second class citizens.
@ Mahadevan - Shrinking your philosophical statements into acronyms that resemble words does not impress me... We played that in school for silly sounding nonsense like AIDS - 'Ass infected dont screw'.. as you can see this is crap. I agree with Sathiajith on this issue.. please continue living the way you desire and please use your right to speech to spread your thoughts but be prepared for criticism. My apologies if I've been too harsh and vocal.
@ Sathiajith - I have nothing to say to you.. we think alike :)
April 18 at 9:40pm
Rajkumar Seetharaman
I would still go by..90% luck and 10% hard work for success... :)
April 18 at 9:49pm
Suja Abraham
@Adhi this is an example of how you read the words that I write without actually understanding any of it. You speak of my sarcasm but miss my irony. Accusing Kevin Rudd of curry bashing is like accusing Manmohan Singh of all riots happening in India Krishna was holding Arjuna back from killing his cousins, uncles and friends by delaying him with the Gita. Even if u don't understand what I am saying at least try to capture the light-hearted spirit with which I say them.
April 19 at 3:19am
Mahadevan Sankaran
Don't worry Adhi...."Sticks and stones can break my bones but words will not hurt me".Also,I am enjoying myself as criticism is envitable like breathing.Btw even in the scriptures it says one should go beyond the scripture and question the scripture as a scripture....Facebook is giving us the platform to debate and do exactly that.This is what our forefathers have been doing for ages...eg.Tamil Sangam where philospohers and thinkers come from all corners of the land to express their thoughts.The only differrence is that they had to travel thousands of miles to do that but we do it from the comfort of our homes through this spiritual realm ca;;ed as internet....Btw Adhi i too dont believe in RELIGION but I believe that every individual as got the right to be a scientist of his own to explore nature and dwell in the various dimensions nature as set for us to explore and travel.Those words that i shared are not mere acronym that i connote out of the blues as i wish but i am a wordsmith who spend time hitting and beating on the words till i get the feel of the original creator of the words - on why he choose a specific letters to create a specific word.Through ethomology i ponder on those words and eureka! i will get the answers sometimes whiile bathing.U see English is an infant language that depended alot on the more matured language of our forefathers.Just as Valuvar did for his Kurals some 2000 years ago, the early English word creators used a process called "siers" to create words within words.one good e.g. is sms which is for 'short message service'.Today sms as become a word by itself and not an acronyms.Just like that most English words wre butwors within words to make a message concise and precise.Even ur name is a combination of two words - adhi and satya which means the truth of the origin and thats why you are doing a wonderful job in exploring the truth in your own given way.Viva La Vilda!!!
April 19 at 4:24am ·
Ever since the advent of social networking sites methods of communication have changed and along with it the channels of expressing thoughts. I have been very active on facebook over the last two years and this period coincides with my absence from blogosphere. The one major drawback however is the shelf life of words on these sites. The canvass that one expresses on is an active one and so blogs still rule in preserving thoughts. Status messages on my facebook page went through a season of questioning belief in the concept of an almighty and I did not want those thoughts to fade away with the sands of time. They were a series of discussions with the involvement of multiple brains covering different perspectives. In this post I have cut and pasted the series after having edited out irrelevant comments from some people. The entire thread my be viewed on my facebook page http://www.facebook.com/actor.adithya
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ADITHYA أدتيا 'ONE OF THE TRULY BAD EFFECTS OF RELIGION IS THAT IT TEACHES US THAT IT IS A VIRTUE TO BE SATISFIED WITH NOT UNDERSTANDING' -RICHARD DAWKINS
APRIL 10 AT 11:14AM
Rajesh Vasudevan
Adhi... so true......
April 10 at 11:23am
Merlin Reena
Its correct.....Adhithya.
April 10 at 12:14pm
Suresh Gandhi
haii super
April 10 at 1:56pm
Kr Praveen
no comments
April 10 at 3:17pm
Sajith Unni
always amusing to see a no comment, comment :)
April 10 at 3:35pm
Adithya أدتيا
@Sajit- its usually used to express disagreement in a polite way.. it also avoids confrontation :)
April 10 at 6:30pm
Mala Krish Muru
Setuju..I agree with your second comment Adhi.
April 10 at 6:41pm
Veena Maadu
the bitter truth
April 10 at 7:35pm
Sajith Unni
Yes of course Adhi :)
April 10 at 8:46pm
Aarif Mohamed Aarif
its realy true sir
April 10 at 11:40pm
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ADITHYA أدتيا DEFINITION OF THE VERB, 'TO PRAY' - TO ASK AN OMNIPOTENT, OMNIPRESENT, OMNISCIENT ENTITY, THAT THE LAWS OF THE UNIVERSE BE ANNULLED ON BEHALF OF A SINGLE PETITIONER, CONFESSEDLY UNWORTHY
APRIL 11 AT 9:38AM ·
Sathiajith Azad
and still think you are helping without doing anything !!
April 11 at 12:07pm
Rajkumar Seetharaman
Adi...enna indha maadhiri ellam!! orey philosophical aa irukku!! :):):):)
April 11 at 8:56pm
Adithya أدتيا
@Rajkumar - Just trying to highlight a rational perspective
@Tamizh Anban - :) Why dont you ask Sheila out?
April 11 at 10:33pm
Suntharan Muniandy
I wonder why my English teacher didn't teach me that... its awesome bro.. a fruitful lesson for the day..
April 11 at 11:38pm
Neeraj Mohan
reading
April 12 at 12:15am
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ADITHYA أدتيا PREDATORS SEEM SO BEAUTIFULLY DESIGNED TO CATCH PREY ANIMALS AND PREY ANIMALS SEEM EQUALLY BEAUTIFULLY DESIGNED TO ESCAPE PREDATORS. WHOSE SIDE IS GOD ON? -RICHARD DAWKINS
APRIL 12 AT 7:04AM
Robby Vincent
both i guess
April 12 at 9:03am
Ramesh Sethuraman
god is on the side of one who gets lucky.
April 12 at 9:06am
Nidhin Girijavallabhan
In real life there are no villains...Everyones right in their own way..But others mite not like it...Same the case of prey nd predators...its matter of their survival...the lucky one survives...
April 12 at 10:58am
Karthik Vijayan
not may bcos of god , thats the SURVIVAL OF FITTEST
April 12 at 11:18am ·
Sathiajith Azad
I strongly sense that there is only one world, the real world, named the material world. There is a strong case against god, with all the statistics we have, i can push my case further to show there is nothing benovelant out there.
April 12 at 11:26am
Adithya أدتيا
I hope people are able to sense the sarcasm in that statement. The very existance of them both, both of whom are supposedly god's creations, is mockery of the whole concept of a benevolant god. Clearly one of the two is a loser in the battle & god is favouring the winner. Is that not unfair?
April 12 at 12:38pm
Sajith Unni
Which god? Zeus or the flying spaghetti monster ?:)
April 12 at 12:52pm
Albe Fa
But that is the delusion we all live in, we see everything 'relatively'. for example we think we are what we are because we fail to remember that the 'bodily cloak' is something that is temporal. No wonder 'Sanathana Dharma' tells that one has to free himself from bondage by following the 'Yama' & 'Niyama' (prescriptive and proscriptive rules) to make the earthly sojourn heavenly.
April 12 at 1:09pm
Adithya أدتيا
@Albe- you have but answered with an alternate philosophy.. santhana dharma is just one among the multitudes of dharma choices available. Your fight will be restricted to whether urreligious concept is the right one over another, but thats all. Eastern philosophies are far more obscure with a lot of space to interpret any incident with more than one meaning. That is hardly helpful. There is no evidence to suggest that there is anything more than the bodily cloak. Please do tell me if you do have evidence for I will be delighted to see the meaning you see
April 12 at 1:47pm
Adithya أدتيا
@Albe- I just had a look at your comment once again. Isnt it depressing to view the life we have as bondage? Something from which we must free ourselves. I think my life is wonderful.
April 12 at 4:26pm
Sajith Unni
Jenthy G sorry but you are off topic and incoherent. Richard Dawkins is questioning the belief in the existence of a benevolent god or a personal god.
April 12 at 7:04pm
Revathi Jayan
dats a gd one. nice quote.
April 12 at 9:51pm
Adithya أدتيا
Here is an exchange I had with someone over the same topic.. she decided to be anonymous, so without revealing names here it is - (her words are within quotes)
"We were created beautifully, yet we have murderers as wellas others, if u ask who's side is God on , it sure will be the one or those who seek him and obey his commands...it's the same foranimals...if u go back to Noah's ark , God destroyed the entoire world because of sin , Noah's household was saved y cause they were under obedience to the Lord along with them there was Animals as well....."
so this god you define is clearly interested in rewarding only those who bow down to him and the claim that he is benevolent is just bullshit.. he (for some reason it isnt a she) will destroy you if you dont acknowledge at all times that you are at his mercy.. to me that sounds rather shitty..
"He's on the side of the animal who call upon the lord for help. If the animal is hungry nd call upon the lord for food the lord provides by giving him animal who doesn't seek the lord vice versa. "
.. just read that again. How sick is he? His own creations.. his children, and yet he will only protect you if you call out to him... you ever treat your children that way? What if both the animals, prey and predator prayed? From that statement are you implying that all those who suffer, suffer only because they dont bow down to this egotistic god, beg and pray to him? How sick is he who needs his creations to keep scrapping the bottom just to make himself feel the boss? You wouldnt do that to your pet dog!!
April 12 at 10:07pm
Sajith Unni
It is obvious that she is not aware of the basics of evolution and natural selection. This is a good primer hosted by the great naturalist David Attenborough for those interested.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6IrUUDboZo
April 12 at 10:47pm
Neeraj Mohan
@all: lolz....richard dawkins waz an atheist .. infact a MILITANT atheist....the above quote looks sarcastic to me......
April 12 at 11:29pm
Adithya أدتيا
@Neeraj- you are absolutely right on both counts. He is a very aggressive atheist & he is being sarcastic in that statement. Whats
April 13 at 9:26am
Neeraj Mohan
well...ma views are similar to mr.dawkins...there aint any god....predators r meant to eat prey.. nd the prey is meant to be killed...tis is just some random process...everythin in this world is some random process inter-related...nd wat is the role of the 'so - called' god here??? Man is not GOd's creation.. but 'God' is MAN'S CREATION...
April 13 at 8:01pm
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ADITHYA أدتيا WHY MUST ONE BE SENSITIVE TO THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENTS OF OTHERS WHEN IN REALITY WITHIN ONES CLOSED CIRCLE ONE VOCIFEROUSLY CRITICISES ANY OTHER BUT THEIR OWN?
APRIL 13 AT 11:10AM
Arun Kunjunny
Interesting line of thought bhai....very true!!!
April 13 at 11:15am
Mohammed Rafiq Peer
religious sentiments supposed to be sensitive sir, nothing can do that aspects.......
April 13 at 11:19am
Sajith Unni
Adhi, Here is a ink to an interesting article
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/minette_marrin/article7094227.ece
April 13 at 11:20am
Adithya أدتيا
@Mohammed- my question is why.. Why is it sensitive? It is not sensitive to criticise political ideologies or scientific thoughts but when it comes to religion there is immunity from questioning.. Why?
April 13 at 11:35am
Arun Kunjunny
I guess political ideologies or scientific thoughts seldom support our existence but religion forms the platform for our existence and life beyond it...our education from childhood days, irrespective of religion, has taught us to refrain from questioning it...maybe it is the fear of the unknown or the sheer conditioning by our educational system....in a society, we have a subject called Moral Science, when morals should actually be passed on to the kids by parents, how can we expect anybody to question religion?
April 13 at 11:38am
Mohammed Rafiq Peer
no no .. can't get it clear.... the way what u need to get?? sorry can't understood the exact knot ofur que..
April 13 at 11:40am
Adithya أدتيا
@Sajit- I concur with the author's emotions on that one ↲
@Arun- 'religion forms the platform for our existance & life beyond it', really? I question the very thought behind that statement. As u rightly suspect, it is conditioning that has led to this taboo on questioning religion. I think we must all question dictums & junk it if those who profess it cannot justify it.. even if it is stated in religious texts.
April 13 at 11:59am
Arun Kunjunny
Bhai...what i was trying to state was that the conditioning that we have from childhood has made religiion the platform of our existence....why is it that our parents always believe that belief in God is more important than belief in oneself? Belief is good but these days it has become more of a mass hysteria!!!
April 13 at 12:04pm
Ansar Ahmed
@Adi - Hats off for questioning anthr entrenched beleif...Religions r just a way of workshippin the same God in different ways....it shd b unifying rathr tan dividing us..
April 13 at 12:12pm
Sathiajith Azad
I guess we should initiate Critical thinking and teach the same to children as well. Let them read religious scriptures and also warn them not to Take these seriosuly.
Religion was a babbyish attempt to solve the mysteries during the infancy of our understandings and technology. We need not cling on to this anymore and nothing should remain un questioned.
Mass delusions always end with bad consequences.
April 13 at 12:28pm
Yamuna Ravendran
i think.. existence of religious r the main source of uncivilization in human behavior. Where we tolerate each other in every aspects on daily route.. Surprisingly our mentality towrd religious sentiments r remain the same. Very sad!! if u ask Y?? the answer is EGO… I’m greater than YOU!!
April 13 at 12:32pm
Sathiajith Azad
Well it would be intersting to think about what our moral standards would be, without religion compelling "it" on us.
I guess the ground rules - not to steal, not to murder etc would still remain the same. Without a doubt our technology would have been 1000 years ahead (since we would never have had the "Dark ages" gifted by christianity)
April 13 at 12:40pm
Ajay Mehra
Oye, you can criticise my circle anytime ;-)
April 13 at 6:48pm
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ADITHYA أدتيا IS A GOOD DEED GOOD BECAUSE GOD SAID IT IS GOOD OR DID HE SAY IT IS A GOOD DEED BECAUSE IT WAS GOOD ANYWAY? IF GOD HAD SAID RAPE IS GOOD WOULD THAT MAKE IT A GOOD DEED?
APRIL 15 AT 8:51AM
Noorie Ajmeria
u want to convey that difference between good or bad is not justified on religious basis. Am i right?
April 15 at 9:43am
Tana Lakshmi
At 1st i doubt that god will say rape is good & 2nd god can't talk ...so let me guess ..it's all in the individual ...
April 15 at 9:45am
Adithya أدتيا
@Noorie- you are absolutely right. Our understanding of right & wrong has nothing to do with divine instructions. Bad is bad & we wont do it because we dont want others to perpetrate that on us.
April 15 at 9:54am
Robby Vincent
God doesnt say anything... good and evil is by man and by man alone. what is good and evil anyways? good in one man's point of view is evil in the other and vice versa. if you say rape is evil, it may be for the victim but for the rapist, it is good, thats why he did it. so one can never define what is good and which is evil?
April 15 at 9:56am
Adithya أدتيا
@Robby- has he never ever said anything? From what I remember he's been sending instructions through all religions on what he likes & what he does not.
April 15 at 10:09am
Shanthi Vincent
My point is any good deed done should not be done for your own good. Even if it makes you happy doing good deed is not a good deed. Any good deed is good only if it is good for others not for you. This kind of good deed only counts in gods good books.
April 15 at 10:11am
Adithya أدتيا
@Shanthi- how sad is that? Any good deed that makes me happy wont count?! So the premise is that I should at the losing end of the activity that is doing good.. Sort of like donating money to religious institutions even if u have to sell
April 15 at 10:18am
Shanthi Vincent
I didn't mean you have to suffer. Be thoughtful enought to help others without being self centred. If we were uncivilized rape is nothing but an act of nature in an animal sense. In the civilized world man maderules, where rape is criminal act.
April 15 at 10:33am
Adithya أدتيا
@Shanthi- now if u look at my status message again you will see that my question is entirely different.
April 15 at 10:36am
Sajith Unni
“Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion.” Steven Weinberg
April 15 at 10:40am
Adithya أدتيا
@Sajith- Bravo :) Thats a good quote.
April 15 at 10:45am
Sabu Joseph
Aadi ......what happened to you....r u alright?
April 15 at 10:45am
Adithya أدتيا
@Sabu- I'm perfectly fine. Since I have access to so many people I thougt I should do good to humanity.. I decided to discuss taboo topics so its no longer taboo. Rationality is in terrible short supply and so called religious leaders who only have vested interests are exploiting the gullibility of people who desperately need some magical fix to their problems
April 15 at 10:52am
Suja Abraham
Well as far as i know all religion has their own Holy book and am sure those who believe in their books r following wot ever is written in it ,but those who cant follow do wot ever they like, nd so y we blame God in all of this, God created us out of love and he 'll want us to love others as well not by hurting them, by hurting them means physically or mentally, doing good deeds come under love and comapssion.God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desires, he is dragged away and entices. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death..
April 15 at 10:52am
Adithya أدتيا
@Suja- and the all powerful god who is capable of knowing what is being thought of in the minds of the 6 billion people on this planet wont stop a bunch of lunatics who blow themselves up perfectly convinced they are doing it for the same god thereby destroying the very creations who so worship him? Unless ofcourse it indeed was god who made them go blow themselves up to punish all those victims who probably all were sinners anyway.. just like how god created a natural disaster in the form of a tsunami to kill all the sinners who lived around the indian ocean right? Does that make sense to you? Either he is all powerful or he is not.. Look at the evidence and take a pick.
April 15 at 11:01am
Sajith Unni
Adhi I think most people need to study the science of evolution through natural selection. As you know It is not just a theory as most understand the word theory. There is a mountain of evidence in fossil records. The lack of basic understanding of the fact of evolution is reason behind such incoherent comments by some blindly repeating their scriptures. For those interested in educating themselves here is a link to David Attenborough's Tree of Life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qabl5eIba2g
April 15 at 11:02am
Robby Vincent
@Aadhi: sir, religion is man-made. God never created them... it is our belief that God created religion, gave it rules and is asking us to follow... i dont think so...
April 15 at 11:02am
Sajith Unni
Adhi everyone is an atheist when it comes to another person's religion :) Its just religious platitude by people who say god is one when they all believe in different god's. Every religion has their own spin on how the world came about and who "created" us but not a shred of evidence. As opposed to enough empirical evidence on evolution by natural selection.
April 15 at 11:08am
Gelveen Gill
Adhi, is there a soul or anything of sort in/within our physical body?
April 15 at 11:10am
Suzanne Huffman
I agree with what you just said Sajith.
"Be content with what you are sure of.
And the only thing you can be sure of is 'I' am. The only fact you are sure of is that you are.
The only clue you have is your certainty of being."
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj ~
If we can't be certain that what is good or bad is set by a "god", then the only certain thing is what we know of ourselves and others around us.
April 15 at 11:24am
Adithya أدتيا
@Gelveen- No there isnt in the religious sense. There is awareness of ones existence but that is a product of brain function.
April 15 at 11:33am
Shanthi Vincent
@Adhi I am perfectly in line with your status. God didn't tell us to eat or live in tall buildings . we were born with certain instincts. Life is about common sense, who uses the most survives. Rape, sexual harassment are still a reality even as we speak now. god didn't stop them either.
April 15 at 11:35am
Sajith Unni
Suzanne The only thing that we can be sure off is empirical evidence. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
April 15 at 11:39am
Gelveen Gill
Then I guess we are just bunch of cells
April 15 at 11:39am
Sajith Unni
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIiIsDIkDtg
god and the temporal lobes by Dr. V S Ramachandran
It is an interesting insight into the working of the brain.
April 15 at 11:43am
Suzanne Huffman
right... which empirical evidence is based on observation and experimentation. We can experiment and prove that humans are living beings. We can observe their behavior and derive what is perceived in society as being "good" or "bad". But there is no observation or experimentation that can be done to show that god exists. And so there's no empirical evidence that will ever prove what people claim god says is "good" or "bad".
And yes, we are just a bunch of cells lol!
April 15 at 11:44am
Adithya أدتيا
@Gelveen- Your guess is right
April 15 at 11:44am
Sajith Unni
Suzanne It is for the people making the claim that god exists to come up with the evidence. So far they have not. And they first need to decide on which god !
April 15 at 11:48am
Suzanne Huffman
Well of course they have the burden of proof. People can't even agree on simple things like what to have for dinner, they'll never be able to decide which god...
April 15 at 11:51am
Sajith Unni
LOL @ Suzanne thats true :)
April 15 at 11:52am
Suzanne Huffman
;)
April 15 at 11:56am
Adithya أدتيا
glad to see people involved in discussion.. I'm multitasking here answering assaults on my inbox as well. Majority of those writing in wont even consider the possibility that they could be wrong. They will not question their holy books or as I have been warned, TOLERATE anyone questioning its authenticity.. I wish people had at the least the most basic inquisitiveness to find out how their holy books came into existance..
April 15 at 11:58am
Sajith Unni
Adhi thats religious intolerance for you :)
April 15 at 12:05pm
Suzanne Huffman
And human intolerance. We cling to what we know or have been taught. Its hard to get over the fear that our reality and answers may not be the same reality and answers for other people. And the fear of what will happen if the reality we've known may not be the answer we may find in the future.
But just sad that people can't come together and respect differences of opinion without all of that intolerance.
April 15 at 12:08pm
Adithya أدتيا
which brings us back to the question.. Are deeds classified as good or bad because god segregated them? I have already got the right answer from Noorie .. Would love it if others specifically commented on that
April 15 at 12:13pm
Sajith Unni
Suzanne when opinions are unfounded as in the case of blind belief they deserve no respect. Respect for the individual is a separate issue. Scientific discovery is interesting and fascinating. And if thinking is based on reason, people will change their minds when presented with empirical evidence. There cannot be fundamentalism or intolerance in the scientific approach.
April 15 at 12:17pm
Suzanne Huffman
Well I said that there's no definite proof that god segregated them. There are religious texts, but those were written by man. I would say that no, deeds are not classified as good or bad because god segregated them.
April 15 at 12:18pm
Sajith Unni
“The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.” Arthur C Clarke
April 15 at 12:21pm
Suzanne Huffman
Anyway, I am going to bed.
And Sajith, I did leave religion when I used what I knew about research from my science studies. However, I am one who will still listen to others no matter how wrong I think them to be as long as they are respectful to me as well in turn. If they aren't respectful, then it isn't worth my time or theirs. And I love people and trying to figure out how they think and why lol!
April 15 at 12:23pm
Adithya أدتيا
@Suzanne- Which should lead to the conclusion that the concepts of good and bad that on the face of it so universal is inherent in all of us. There is room or need to credit a god for what is nothing more than common sense
April 15 at 12:28pm
Vinodh Sharma
Will you believe it if i said that God said it was good, and him being the authority would be good anyway???
we will believe what we want to at the end of the day, and all that you need to do is answer to your concience and pay the price... there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so..... so do what you want and pay the price........
you see, Every body wanna go Heaven.... But nobody wanna go Dead.........
April 15 at 12:33pm
Adithya أدتيا
actually I want to go to hell.. All my friends, girls & guys are going to be their. Its going to be one big party :-)
April 15 at 12:42pm
Sajith Unni
We as a species are neither good nor bad. There is no inherent evil in us, no original sin. Neither is there any purity.In Eastern Europe and the
April 15 at 12:49pm ·
Sajith Unni
Religion is not the bulwark of morality any more than the cockerel crowing is the cause of the dawn or virgin sacrifices are the cause of keeping volcanos quiet. This trick has been perpetrated on people for centuries and people continue to fall for it. It is very reminiscent of the great Santa Claus conspiracy. The surest way to lose a job on television is to state clearly that there is no such person as Santa Claus. No adult believes in Santa Claus, but most are part of the conspiracy :)
April 15 at 12:54pm
Noorie Ajmeria
Big Applause for Mr. Sajith Unni.
April 15 at 1:23pm
Azhar Maktoom
Technically, if God had said rape was good, I believe the generations gone past would have been involved in the act without any guilt. It would have been a commonplace and not considered bad or evil at all. So rape would not have been a subject in the your question.
April 15 at 3:00pm
Adithya أدتيا
@Azhar- That exactly is the point my dear. You will never see a religious text that says rape is good because it is detrimental to society.. Its rather redundant of god to go around grading acts as good or bad when we already know it..
April 15 at 3:42pm
Adithya أدتيا
btw I dont believe generations past would have gone around raping for long even if god had said its ok to rape.. Society would have put an end to it because it would not have been desirable.
April 15 at 3:44pm
Suzanne Huffman
And really we are beings who like to enjoy life, and rape isn't enjoyable for most people (ie the victims). So there would have been a stop to it anyway along the way by way of a revolt. In life its majority rules.
And I really like Mr. Sajith's comments about society because it is very true.
April 16 at 12:41am
Gelveen Gill
Does being an atheist mean you invalid the law of natural retribution via the law of nature? Or all that happens through what some may consider the law of nature you consider it to be mere coincidence?
April 16 at 6:56am
Sajith Unni
@Gelveen An atheist does not believe in a personal god or the super natural for the lack of evidence. Atheist is a label for a non believer and is like saying not collecting stamps is a hobby. And it is not up to an atheist to disprove anything. If you say there is a soul you need provide the evidence. so far there is none.
You appear to be conflating the vague concept of karma with global warming to which humans are contributing. Evolution by natural selection is not random or coincidence. Richard Dawkins can tell you more on that subject. Atheism or a lack of belief in a benevolent personal god is only getting half the story right. The other half is about us and that is when naturalism comes in.
Naturalism says there’s a single natural world, the one science shows us, not a world divided up into the categorically natural vs. supernatural. Most atheists consider themselves naturalists in this sense, and indeed atheism is an expression or offshoot of naturalism.
To quote Sydney Hook “Is there a different kind of knowledge that makes ... [the supernatural] an accessible object of knowledge in a manner inaccessible by the only reliable method we have so far successfully employed to establish truths about other facts? Are there other than empirical facts, say spiritual or transcendent facts? Show them to us...”
This is a reasonable demand that any cognitively responsible supernaturalist should be able, and feel obligated, to meet. Of course it isn’t as if naturalists claim to have all the answers to the big or even middle-sized questions, but the methods of inquiry we stick with have been proven pretty reliable. If there are any rival methods that establish the existence of something beyond nature that informs such answers, we want to know about them. If there aren’t, then supernaturalists are skating on thin epistemic ice.
April 16 at 7:56am
Adithya أدتيا
@Gelveen -
"Does being an atheist mean you invalid the law of natural retribution via the law of nature?"
You will have to define this question more clearly. What is this law of 'natural retribution' that you are talking about? The way you have worded it, to me, sounds like you have made the assumption that everyone agrees with a concept called 'natural retribution'.. that in itself is not acceptable.
"Or all that happens through what some may consider the law of nature you consider it to be mere coincidence?"
Here again you will have to narrate a particular case as example to show what 'some may consider the law of nature' .. as far as 'mere coincidence' is concerned, well let me explain it this way - atheists see no evidence of an intelligent supernatural entity that makes decisions and has the capacity to either positively or negatively interfere with any activity in the universe... so yes, nothing happens for any particular reason
April 16 at 9:08am
Gelveen Gill
Adhi and Sajith...thank you...
April 16 at 9:18am
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ADITHYA أدتيا 'THE FACT THAT A BELIEVER IS HAPPIER THAN A SCEPTIC IS NO MORE TO THE POINT THAN THE FACT THAT A DRUNKEN MAN IS HAPPIER THAN A SOBER ONE.' - GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
APRIL 16 AT 9:18AM ·
Mala Krish Muru
If I may write, skepticism reigns supreme.
April 16 at 1:20pm
Sajith Unni
hehe true ;)
April 16 at 1:39pm
Adithya أدتيا
I dont want to encourage people who shoot from behind the bushes .. be informed folks that I will reprint what you delete -
Here is one (as usual deleted) by Suja Abraham - "A believer is happy because there's nothing holding him back nor theres no more sadness in his life because he has found joy in his Lord how can that be compared to a drunkard, a man drinks and get drunk to forget his troubles and problems!!"
April 16 at 2:45pm
Adithya أدتيا
@Suja - A drunkard is happy because there's nothing holding him back nor theres no more sadness in his life because he has found joy in his booze .. :)
April 16 at 2:47pm
Adithya أدتيا
@Suja - and may I add that people are always advised to pray and leave their troubles and problems to god and let him take care of it.. strange but I see a lot of similarity here :)
April 16 at 2:49pm
Adithya أدتيا
@Suja - Again not very different from someone who never lets the joy of his booze wear off..
April 16 at 9:29pm
Neeraj Mohan
looks like suja is on weed - atheist
April 16 at 9:45pm
Sajith Unni
I agree Suja Ad hominem is a fallacy and Neeraj is out of line. Personal attacks are not necessary.
Suja your interpretation of the Bernard Shaw quote is twisted:)
Being a true believer ( without evidence) is a psychological cause of fanaticism. And if some one is hearing voices in his or her head and talking to an imaginary person, its a sign ofhallucination. Here is a interesting video of a true believer questioning Richard Dawkins. Although the title to the video is added by a religious apologist.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKGtcVoBhBQ
April 17 at 7:58am
Adithya أدتيا
@Suja - There are multiple points here that need deliberation:
1."am talking abt drunkard men, nd not occacssional nd social drinkers" - a perpetual alcoholic is whom I too am referring to. Just as how you as an observer sees alcohol as 'a way of escaping from reality', atheists as observers see belief in a supernatural entity in just the same light. All other points that you attribute to drunkards, like 'he's got no hope or has nothing to look forward in his life and he looses his sense of bearing' may well define the other side. The 'hope' is false for there is no evidence that belief yields results, what you look forward to in life has the same probability of realisation as that for an atheist and a theist's bearing I suspect is skewed thanks to the masking of reality by belief.
2. "and am talking abt true believers and not others" - there is no authority that can vet a true believer. I can bet my savings that there will be someone to contradict and show how a person you point out is a true believer is not. Within each religion there are subsets, for instance, in hinduism there are dvaitas vs advaitas, in christianity there are catholics vs protestants, in muslims there are shias vs sunnis and so on.. and for the sake of example I just mentioned pairs but there are many more within each religion. Any person from any one of these groups will fight tooth and nail to justify that he is the true believer. It wont end there.. within the subset you will still have differences of opinion and these conflicts will extend right to individual members within families.
3. "a believr is happier than a sober man and happier than a skeptic is because he found his joy in the Lord nd not Alcohol, and it doesn't wear off like alcohol" - how different is that from a perpetual alcoholic who never gets sober? I can assure you that there exist such individuals.. if not alcohol its drugs and that should help you understand Marx's statement, "Religion is the opium of the masses".
Suja, all you need do is to try understand the perspective of an atheist. When you debate after having understood then there will be more credence to your statements. Most of what you say I suspect is made from the assumption that everyone understands and agrees with your concepts but for some reason is refusing to admit to it. I am not expecting and neither will you change your stance for you have taken your whole life to construct a model of life based on belief in the supernatural. It takes extreme courage to even think of a possibility that you could be wrong.
April 17 at 8:16am
Adithya أدتيا
@Sajith - Thats a good one :) You are a storehouse of data my friend.
April 17 at 8:24am
Sajith Unni
Adhi blind believers are also victims of pascal's wager :) an idea to which Bertrand Russell had a great answer.
April 17 at 9:26am
Adithya أدتيا
@Sajith- lay it on us buddy.. Like I said.. YOU are the storehouse of references :)
April 17 at 9:54am
Sajith Unni
Suja sure any one is free to believe in santa claus or the tooth fairy and remain deluded. But false beliefs are the root cause of serious problems that humanity faces. Even peer reviewed scientific research usually do not convince blind believers as their minds are closed. Blind believers have only one source of reference their respective holy books which are without a doubt man made. This refusal to think beyond one book is the result of being indoctrinated. Personal experiences do not count as evidence with regard to the supernatural. And leads us back to the Bernard Shaw quote as it holds true.
April 17 at 11:31am
Suja Abraham
Let us agree to disagree.....
April 17 at 12:10pm
Neeraj Mohan
@suja: u think tat waz a personal attack?? well... wat i conveyed waz i don agree u...tats it...nm... anywayz sorry for ma uncouth behaviour ( personally i don feel so...well..tats the way i am)
@sajith: i ll go with u man...way to go!
April 17 at 12:14pm
Sajith Unni
@Suja sure, I am not surprised that you don't agree, for reasons I have already stated.
April 17 at 12:20pm
Suja Abraham
Lol..;)
April 17 at 12:25pm
Adithya أدتيا
This is like the song 'there's a whole in the bucket' .. you guys ever hear it? We are back to the start .. 'The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.'
@Suja - "at the end of the day each of us will believe wot ever we think it's right for us" .. this is exactly the reason why its bitter to just disagree and let go.. see if it is a benign individual who believes his or her supernatural ghost is going to cure cancer his or her cancer and dies we dont give a crap.. but there is this small sect within the believers of every religion who are pain in the ass .. you see they believe they are going to go to heaven by pleasing their ghost and in the bargain they harm others in numerous ways.. I have a problem with that. No religion in any form or degree does any good and in forms that are more severe they destroy lives .. I have a problem with that and I cannot agree to just disagree and part ways
April 17 at 12:31pm
Adithya أدتيا
lol Suja.. if you want to live on past glory well religion is also the reason for mass genocide, regression in development and a whole list of negatives .. what is your point? Look on the positive side alone and stay blind to the muck? BTW there is enough evidence to suggest that these so called glories you claim were achieved by individuals who were rationalists but had no choice in their day and age to get patronage from anyone other than the rich religious institutions..
April 17 at 1:18pm
Adithya أدتيا
@Suja- To assume it is one particular genocide (in which you invoke Richard Dawkins) that I am referring to, is exactly the kind of behaviour that I so warned you about. You have some bits of information that topics on genocide are being discussed about in parts of the world by the likes of Dawkins and then you draw the conclusion that I get my information from him. Its not just one, there have been multitudes of genocides throughout history in the name of religion. When muslims and christians kill each other, when hindus and muslims kill each other, when crusades happened across
religious institutions sponsored people who made art to glorify the gods and considering that the religious institutions looted everyone to fill their coffers no one else could pay and support an artist. For example, take the case of Leonardo da Vinci who painted The Last Supper. He wanted to showcase his talent, religion paid for it.. after all, he too must eat.
April 17 at 4:21pm
Sajith Unni
Well said Adhi.
April 17 at 4:59pm
Adithya أدتيا
@Suja- You have jumped points here.. I dont see a mention of human beings being harmed during fabrication in anything I wrote. I will take you on anyways.. Harm may befall humans at anytime during the construction of any edifice.. people died during the making of the Hoover Dam for instance but the difference is that, there is a concept ofacknowledging and compensating the loss of human life and in addition to this, people who partake in such works do so out of their own will..
Attacking your first point (and I use the word attack because your justifications are getting rather insulting to human existence) .. I cant help but notice that your language has suddenly improved .. I applaud your communication skills provided you have not 'cut/paste' from some other source. Let me point out why your example is bad. I am in complete agreement that humans would have indulged in 'culling of their own race' whether religious or not BUT the problem is that so called people who have discovered god, go about 'culling' fellow humans without guilt because their religion helps them feel no remorse.. their actions are justified.
April 18 at 10:08am
Sajith Unni
April 18 at 10:55am
Adithya أدتيا
@Suja - How did Shahjahan figure in the picture and in what way is he relevant? There is no point wavering from the topic. You tried to defend religion by trying to credit is with growth of art and architecture.. I countered you on that. Whether people were harmed during construction of edifices is irrelevant as I have explained in the last comment. Your sly reference to funding coming from unfair means, all I can point out is your ridiculous contradiction .." looting of the subjects of the kingdom to fill the builder's coffers", only equates Shahjahan and heads of religious institutions. He too was a religious zealot, so what is the point?
The whole world's experience tells you otherwise, not just Freud and Jung .. this reference btw is unnecessary name dropping .. this form of argument is called 'Argumentum ad verecundiam (Appeal to authority).. humans are influenced by animal instincts of 'survival of the fittest'.. its a part of natural selection to get ahead of the pack.. you cannot expect mankind to be kind.. I have already agreed with you that people will indulge in all the negative points you mentioned BUT the conflict in thought being that atrocities committed in the name of religion are immune to guilt.. it is god's work... despite the 'ten commandments', more religious people commit murder.. especially in the name of religion.
One of the things
April 18 at 12:39pm
Sajith Unni
@Suja religion and morality was already discussed on the earlier thread. I am reposting it :
We as a species are neither good nor bad. There is no inherent evil in us, no original sin. Neither is there any purity.In Eastern Europe and the
Religion is not the bulwark of morality any more than the cockerel crowing is the cause of dawn or virgin sacrifices are the cause of keeping volcanos quiet. This trick has been perpetrated on people for centuries and people continue to fall for it. It is reminiscent of the great Santa Claus conspiracy. The surest way to lose a job on television is to state clearly that there is no such person as Santa Claus. No adult believes in Santa Claus, but most are part of the conspiracy.
April 18 at 3:18pm
Adithya أدتيا
@Suja - "I am glad that you have finally started agreeing with me on the unfairness in human society" - You are claiming credit for thoughts that I believe in, independent of you?? ... my dear your responses and statements are turning out to be a joke. Stick to the point and respond to that and that alone.. read through all that you have typed and look at the trail of thoughts you have left behind .. no two thoughts link to form an idea in support of what you are saying.
With no connection to the original discussion, your brought in art, architecture .. when the irony of religious institutes sponsoring art was pointed out you, you assumed that was a brownie point for religion.. then when it was pointed out to you that religious institutions loot the masses for funding such activities you bring up Shajahan to try and equate looting done by a ruler to that of looting done is god's name as donations .. in anycase no one is supporting Shajahan's extravagance.. then you bring
"It is the very exsitence of the ten commandments that makes the killing of another person wrong".. really? It would be ok to kill otherwise? How many pages you want me to point out from that same book you quoted from where it says its ok to kill? What is your take on the following verse- Exodus 21:17?
April 18 at 5:45pm ·
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ADITHYA أدتيا WHY NOT LIVE LIFE IN THE NOW? THEISTS OF THE SEMITIC RELIGIONS SPEND THEIR WHOLE LIVES PREPARING TO DIE TO GO LIVE IN HEAVEN ... EASTERN
APRIL 17 AT 4:28PM ·
Arun Kunjunny
Very interesting thought bhai...i was thinking something along similar lines yesterday....people are so caught up in creating for a secure future that they forget the present and by the time, they reach the future, they regret a spent past probably...an irony of life!!!
April 17 at 4:29pm
Adithya أدتيا
@Arun - I wrote a blog on that a few years ago
April 17 at 5:19pm
Sathiajith Azad
Few months ago, i read about Indian Schools of Philosophy, namely Lokayata & Carvaka, which gave more importance to human happiness and the present world (which they beleived to be the only world - the material world)
However these were schools which taught what can be called as "Humanism" today and also went against brahmanism.
April 17 at 5:41pm
Mini Rao
pretty deep but I love discussions like this........why do people always want to go someplace else and not enjoy their present stay ???
April 17 at 9:54pm
Sheila Veeraian
adithya wish u all the good things happening to u! may this new year fill up with cheers!
April 17 at 9:59pm
Cinematographer Vicky
you are very philosophical now a days interesting and very intellectual thoughts ...
April 17 at 10:26pm
Raakhee Sathish
hey guys....the three of you forming some kinda philosophy club or some'thin???!!!!:)
April 17 at 11:06pm
Suja Abraham
Fortunately our western societies ( so called mainstream Christians) are blissfuly unaware of this Semitic theological out look, and are always building for posterity.
April 18 at 5:17am
Suja Abraham
So we in Austalia, NorthAmerica and
April 18 at 5:23am
Ayisha M. Nazar
c adithya y looking at them ur loosing ur present, however one tries to explain the fact they wont change, so better its time to take the attention from them and concentrate on something which is different...let them live at peace
April 18 at 8:47am
Sathiajith Azad
While life remains, let a man live happily, let him feed on butter though he runs in debt; When once the body becomes ashes, how can it ever return again? - Charvaka - School of Thought (300 BC)
April 18 at 10:00am
Mahadevan Sankaran
Well Adithya...it is an interesting string of thoughts that U ve started here where one can express oneself with fear or favor for none.As for me, I feel we are all so trained to be caught up in a sysytem of branding with an attitude of duality with a feeling of mine is better than yours.In that process we are missing to enjoy the essence that we are: as life unflods at every given moment.Even atheist and non-atheist is a branding of attachement to something.We should be free and to find this freedom one should allow the self within to unfold to its true nature i.e. its Original Natural Energy(ONE) which is part of the Almi8ghty Cosmic Energy(ACE) and once this is realised and felt in the crux of our hearts, one will be Powered by Almighty Cosmic Energy(PEACE) and when peace becomes the MATRIX of the being than Lots of Vibrating Energy(LOVE) will ooze out to FEEL the crux of another heart and when that is felt one will convey ones message of See Me I Love Everyone(SMILE) and give a genuine and natural smile to any Source of Universal Light(SOUL) that resides in any hearts be it in humans,animals or plants. We should involve to evolve in order to touch others with love and peace....Love and Peace Mahadevan
April 18 at 10:55am
Sathiajith Azad
Original Natural Energy(ONE), Almi8ghty Cosmic Energy(ACE) , Powered by Almighty Cosmic Energy(PEACE), MATRIX of the being, Vibrating Energy(LOVE), Source of Universal Light(SOUL) ..???
That went like Bret lee's bouncer. from what i understand, you were trying to relate these words to the concept of "Brahmn". You have been very generous with Enegrgy and Light but there is nothing that proves your proposition. If it makes you happy, that is another thing !!
April 18 at 11:09am ·
Mahadevan Sankaran
Exactly...y do i need to prove to someone else my happiness...i just have to flow with the flow...express my joy just as a flower expresses its essence.How U perceive my joy is ur CHOICE just as how i enjoy my CHOICE....Love and Peace.
April 18 at 3:14pm
Sathiajith Azad
You don't have to prove anything, If this makes you happy, keep believing in it. However dont call it as truth. If you are to call it as "Truth", then i would ask for proof.
"Extraordinary claims like these require extra ordinary evidences."
Well, regarding the happiness that you are feeling - "The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one"
April 18 at 4:57pm
Mahadevan Sankaran
I AM the evidence of of my own truth that I have Fully Accepted In Heart(FAITH).I am neither the believer nor the skeptic I AM just ME enjoying my SELF that i have realised..I dont implore but i explore.Unity in Diversity is what i enjoy. Just as different colors of flowers make a garden beautiful,different types of people make our world beautiful.Love All and Peace to U.
April 18 at 7:23pm
Sathiajith Azad
Good Luck "Kapila Muni" !!!
April 18 at 7:26pm
Mahadevan Sankaran
Thank you and same 2 u.
April 18 at 8:10pm
Sathiajith Azad
Nope .. I work with other skills .. have never relied on Luck !!! so u can keep my share of luck too !!! ;)
April 18 at 8:12pm
Mahadevan Sankaran
Luck to me is Labour Under Correct Knowledge...so i too am like u...i explore with enthusiasm and work to sharpen my skills!!!
April 18 at 8:21pm
Rajkumar Seetharaman
@Aadhi....enna orey philosophical?? Konjam engalukkum puriyara maadhiri ezhudhunga sir... :):):):):)...Remain Aadhi and not Aadhiyaananda..:):):):):)
April 18 at 9:08pm
Adithya أدتيا
So many comments... glad to hear from you all
@ Mini - This has been the flavour on my wall for over a week now .. wish you had spotted it earlier.. it would be great to hear your thoughts on all this too.
@ Vicky - I am utilising the opportunity to reach out to everyone.. rationality is in terrible short supply and I am hoping to get people to understand that there is probably no god so just go about enjoying your life.. all evidences suggest that this is all the life you will get :)
@ Raakhee - just thought these are better topics to spend time discussing
@ Suja - if you are 'blissfuly unaware' then its called ignorance and that is not excusable. Unfortunately for you 'western societies ( so called mainstream Christians)' are part of the Semitic religions.. I need elaborate no further about your ranting or sarcasm.. You are also 'blissfuly unaware' that us 'les miserables' are actually better off not being thrashed by a bunch of unemployed curry bashers on your progressive australian soil. I am glad you are reaping the fruits of far sighted planning and wisdom under the leadership of Kevin Michael Rudd whilst he cuts a sorry figure in front of
@ Ayisha - The mistake societies make is to turn a blind eye towards anything that does not directly bother them.. it is important to be vigilant. It will save generations to come. Imagine if Ghandi and the freedom fighters had thought that way.. you and I would have officially continued being second class citizens.
@ Mahadevan - Shrinking your philosophical statements into acronyms that resemble words does not impress me... We played that in school for silly sounding nonsense like AIDS - 'Ass infected dont screw'.. as you can see this is crap. I agree with Sathiajith on this issue.. please continue living the way you desire and please use your right to speech to spread your thoughts but be prepared for criticism. My apologies if I've been too harsh and vocal.
@ Sathiajith - I have nothing to say to you.. we think alike :)
April 18 at 9:40pm
Rajkumar Seetharaman
I would still go by..90% luck and 10% hard work for success... :)
April 18 at 9:49pm
Suja Abraham
@Adhi this is an example of how you read the words that I write without actually understanding any of it. You speak of my sarcasm but miss my irony. Accusing Kevin Rudd of curry bashing is like accusing Manmohan Singh of all riots happening in
April 19 at 3:19am
Mahadevan Sankaran
Don't worry Adhi...."Sticks and stones can break my bones but words will not hurt me".Also,I am enjoying myself as criticism is envitable like breathing.Btw even in the scriptures it says one should go beyond the scripture and question the scripture as a scripture....Facebook is giving us the platform to debate and do exactly that.This is what our forefathers have been doing for ages...eg.Tamil Sangam where philospohers and thinkers come from all corners of the land to express their thoughts.The only differrence is that they had to travel thousands of miles to do that but we do it from the comfort of our homes through this spiritual realm ca;;ed as internet....Btw Adhi i too dont believe in RELIGION but I believe that every individual as got the right to be a scientist of his own to explore nature and dwell in the various dimensions nature as set for us to explore and travel.Those words that i shared are not mere acronym that i connote out of the blues as i wish but i am a wordsmith who spend time hitting and beating on the words till i get the feel of the original creator of the words - on why he choose a specific letters to create a specific word.Through ethomology i ponder on those words and eureka! i will get the answers sometimes whiile bathing.U see English is an infant language that depended alot on the more matured language of our forefathers.Just as Valuvar did for his Kurals some 2000 years ago, the early English word creators used a process called "siers" to create words within words.one good e.g. is sms which is for 'short message service'.Today sms as become a word by itself and not an acronyms.Just like that most English words wre butwors within words to make a message concise and precise.Even ur name is a combination of two words - adhi and satya which means the truth of the origin and thats why you are doing a wonderful job in exploring the truth in your own given way.Viva La Vilda!!!
April 19 at 4:24am ·
5 comments:
As an atheist I find your defence of atheism fascinating. But may I caution you that disbelief in god may not always make a person righteous or just. For instance, an atheist (due to lack of knowledge) may have developed a false consciousness concerning history, or sociology, or politics, or geography and could thus contribute involuntarily to harming someone else.
Disbelief in god does not eliminate the need to seek the truth on subjects where we lack knowledge.
Sometimes a believer may be closer to the truth in specific cases than an atheist. A believer who has a Physics PhD may know more about superconductivity than an atheist who failed high school physics.
For instance, I sense from your posts that you see all religions as equally evil. But the actual historical record shows otherwise.
The coding of some religions has lead to far more barbarism than others.
For instance, Islam actually justifies all manner of crimes - such as rape, murder, arson and slavery if the person harmed is an infidel or an apostate.
So your assertion that no religion justifies rape is false. You have to read the Quran and the Hadith in detail to understand the political context of its morality.
In Islamic morality, the expansion and spread of Islam, and strict adherence to the Quran take precedence over universal morality.
The world is divided between those who accept the precepts of Islam and those who reject them. Thus, there is no immorality in oppressing or harming the enemies of Islam.
For that reason, this discussion is a little too abstract. Buddhism and Jainism which preach non-violence can never cause harm in the way Islam can. Likewise, many Hindu philosophical systems only tolerate violence in cases of self-defence.
So I would caution you from equating atheism with universal truth and all religions with evil. Some are more harmful - others less so.
And there are many truths in the world. Some of those truth may be discovered by believers!
@Shishir
You are suggesting that Adithya is a denier of evidence. That is incorrect.
And you are conflating various issues. Disbelief in a personal god obviously does not automatically eliminate the need to improve the body of knowledge. That is what science does. Its a process of discovery as we know. And scientists like Dawkins are more serious about the god question than most religious people.
How can you compare a scientist who has a PHD in physics to a novice in the same subject, atheist or not? That is a straw man.
The same scientist if a believer must provide the evidence for his/her belief in a personal god and get it peer reviewed. The burden of proof is on this scientist.
This is a project that requires empirical evidence. We are not talking about emotions or subjective experiences or truths as you call it.
I agree that religions like the Abrahamic faiths are more dangerous than others, but that does not make any of the other eastern religions like Jainism, Buddhism (how it has been practiced as the founders have been made gods) or hindu beliefs benign. They are harmful none the less. I think you would agree.
Here is a link which is useful reading.
http://nirmukta.com/2009/05/11/hinduism-religion-culture-or-way-of-life/
Sajith
the inconvenient truth!
Being a non-believer, I have always refuted topics like God and his miracles.
But there is one thing that I do agree with a non-believer can be converted into a believer, but a believer can never turn a non-believer. Well, that is just my opinion, though
I am a Hafiz. I read the bible. I love the Gita.
I am born a Muslim. I enjoy the nicotine. I love the wine
I am none to judge but neither am i someone to blindly believe.
History has their say. We have our life to speak of.
Humanity came first, then came politics and then after that Religion.
@Shishir - My apologies for this delay. Sajith has covered most of my thoughts in his response so I dont want to repeat any of that. It is not my endeavor to compare religions and grade them according to the intensity of their barbarism. Neither am I trying to pitch that believers cease to be authority in academics merely because of their religious faith.
It is my understanding that an atheist would not indulge in commenting on an issue without study and research, therefore a high school physics failed atheist, should/would refrain from debating on physics with a physics phd theist lest he can back it up with evidence.
I agree with your first paragraph completely and may I add, belief in god may not always make a person righteous or just either. To me that is just an observation of human behavior and that aspect is devoid of belief.
Coming back to the topic of religious barbarism, I egg you to rewind further into history from your present reference point of islam. Make an independent study of the east before the advent of the semitic religions. I can provide you with reliable references to Indian hindu dynasties slaughtering believers of faiths like buddhism.
I am not equating atheism to universal truth. That is not how atheism is defined. Which leads me to rethink on your proclamation of being an atheist. As you so correctly point out, 'Some are more harmful - others less so', the understanding to take back is that the bottom line is they are all harmful.
@Janani - I agree with you a 100%
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