God knows exactly what will happen in future ( since he is all-knowing). So actually everything is decided. For example if God knows I will be a non-believer, then no matter what you or anyone does to make me a believer, I simply can't believe in God because that is what God knows my future is, and since God doesn't make mistakes, I am bound not to convert. So it will just look like I have free will, but actually it is what God know will happen, and God can't be wrong.
Check this out as well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnipotence_paradox
What do you have to say about this?
Thursday 21 January, 2010
Sunday 17 January, 2010
Updates
This weekend was not much of a weekend: no sleeping late in the night, no getting up late in the morning. That's different that Monday is off due to the death of Jyoti Basu.
We had school on Saturday, but half the time I wasn't in school. No, I wasn't bunking classes. Nineteen students, from classes eight and nine were supposed to go to Science City to listen to the Prime Minister, Doctor Manmohan Singh give a speech. For those who don't know, Science City, Kolkata is a sort of science centre with experiments and their scientific explanations- however, the average visitor doesn't bother to read the description given below the experiments and just press the button ten times to activate and awe at the experiment, and thus, I think, its aim to spread scientific knowledge remains unfulfilled. As for my opinions about the trip, forgive me for being judgemental, but I believe that to judge is human, to change your perspective is div-oops!-being a superior human*.
1. Everyone, even the Prime Minister has no right to be two hours late, specially if they have got their own private jet. Of course, it could be because of some genuine reason, and then I will pardon the Prime Minister. I hope I have the right to accuse him.
2. He looked like he was in hurry. We waited for 2 hours, the program was for 25 minutes
3. I was looking forward to some interactive session. None, however.
A little disappointing and a little boring.
Today was fun. I was selected for a inter-school history quiz about Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. This was conducted in Netaji Bhavan, residence of Netaji while in Calcutta. This visit to the historic place was what made this experience fun. This place is now a museum, having various records and letter of Bose, the car he used for escaping from house arrest on this date, 69 years back: 17th January, 1941. It was, in fact, in honour of this day that this quiz was conducted. This museum was marked with Bose's exact escape route, across the corridors, down the staircase. Thank Luck* I didn't listen to myself and withdraw from the quiz. And, of course, the fact that we got the first position always makes it better.
Also, I must add, it is my mother's birthday today: Happy Birthday Mummy!
* Being an atheist has its own disadvantages: you can't use 'divine' or 'Thak God'.
PS: That was a joke.
We had school on Saturday, but half the time I wasn't in school. No, I wasn't bunking classes. Nineteen students, from classes eight and nine were supposed to go to Science City to listen to the Prime Minister, Doctor Manmohan Singh give a speech. For those who don't know, Science City, Kolkata is a sort of science centre with experiments and their scientific explanations- however, the average visitor doesn't bother to read the description given below the experiments and just press the button ten times to activate and awe at the experiment, and thus, I think, its aim to spread scientific knowledge remains unfulfilled. As for my opinions about the trip, forgive me for being judgemental, but I believe that to judge is human, to change your perspective is div-oops!-being a superior human*.
1. Everyone, even the Prime Minister has no right to be two hours late, specially if they have got their own private jet. Of course, it could be because of some genuine reason, and then I will pardon the Prime Minister. I hope I have the right to accuse him.
2. He looked like he was in hurry. We waited for 2 hours, the program was for 25 minutes
3. I was looking forward to some interactive session. None, however.
A little disappointing and a little boring.
Today was fun. I was selected for a inter-school history quiz about Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. This was conducted in Netaji Bhavan, residence of Netaji while in Calcutta. This visit to the historic place was what made this experience fun. This place is now a museum, having various records and letter of Bose, the car he used for escaping from house arrest on this date, 69 years back: 17th January, 1941. It was, in fact, in honour of this day that this quiz was conducted. This museum was marked with Bose's exact escape route, across the corridors, down the staircase. Thank Luck* I didn't listen to myself and withdraw from the quiz. And, of course, the fact that we got the first position always makes it better.
Also, I must add, it is my mother's birthday today: Happy Birthday Mummy!
* Being an atheist has its own disadvantages: you can't use 'divine' or 'Thak God'.
PS: That was a joke.
Saturday 9 January, 2010
Atheism
Today I am going to discuss a topic which I was reluctant to talk about for quite a while. Indeed, some of you might be offended. So I am warning you before you go on: this topic is about atheism and why I am an atheist.
I am sure all of you have, at some point of time, questioned the existence of God, unless you are brainwashed from your childhood into believing so. Having the freedom to think and believe whatever I like, I finally concluded that there is no such supernatural being in the universe, called God. You might have concluded otherwise, and I am not trying to force you into being an atheist, like me. No! That is what religious fundamentalist do. They, for some reason think that everyone should convert to their religion. What I am trying to do, is give my view point on this matter, and would urge you to give a moment's thought to my argument, if you feel that it has a little bit of chance of being true. It is also my duty to warn you that this is going to be long.
Before you tell me to look around this beautiful world, so diverse and complex and say that this proves the very existence of God, I would ask you to look around ( specially if you look around a developing country) and see how a innocent child, who I think has committed no sin, goes to bed-bed? What am I talking about? The pavement to sleep on- empty-stomach, so many people born with incurable diseases, so many people die( and I don't think all of them would be sinful) in terrorist attacks such as 9/11 or 26/11 ( I must remind you that these terrorist activities are also done in the name of religion.) And death is not the worst. There is torture, forced labour and who knows what other kinds of brutality. The all-loving creator must be really hard hearted to let us face all this, even if all this was some kind of test. If all this is indeed a test, we should be torturing suspects in order to find out whether they are guilty or not. If they can endure the torture, we can be sure they are innocent ...otherwise, they are guilty. A perfect system for judiciary! Based on the laws of God!
Assuming that you take my above argument as true, we have ruled out the existence of a all loving and powerful being, but we still haven't ruled out a creator who is hardly concerned by our mundane mortal lives. In fact, a little bit of me hasn't still ruled out this possibility but there is no compulsion for a creator to exist. The universe could have unfolded itself. And why should a supernatural be responsible for creation? (Mind you, the entire universe was not created in one week.) If everything in the universe needs a cause,then there should not have been anything since even God needed a cause. Saying that God didn't need a cause because he is beyond all laws isn't really convincing. You are assuming the God theory to be true to prove it is true ( which is fine), but you use no other established facts. You cannot take the accused's word of his innocence in any case, ignoring all the other evidence. If we begin doing so, all our jails will be empty. Also, what exactly is the creator doing before and after creating our Universe? Sitting idle is not something Mr. All Powerful and Super Intelligent is likely to do. Yet I am not ruling out the possibility that there was a force which set the clock into motion, and its work ended. SO I can also be called a deist-atheist.( as Wikipedia says, Deism is a religious and philosophical belief that a supreme being created the universe, and that this can be determined using reason and observation of the natural world alone, without a need for either faith or organized religion.) So my conclusion is , if God exists, (s)he cannot be defined by our religions today.
"Right, you are saying we should stop believing what we have been believing since the beginning of civilization?" That's something you might be saying. Why not? People believed that the earth was the centre of the universe. Is THAT true? NO! People believed that the earth was flat. Is THAT true? NO! If people hadn't been ready abandon these theories and accept facts, would human society reach where it is? In fact, I think human development is slowed down by religion. In a country like India, where there is plenty of scope for development, the government's time, energy and money is wasted trying to stop Hindus and Muslims from killing each other. Had Galileo and Copernicus been allowed to spread their scientific discoveries earlier, the following developments would have come earlier and today we would have been a step further.
It is comforting to believe in something more powerful than us, but is it any different from telling someone, right when they are on gun point, that they are perfectly safe? Also many people do good things in the name of religion, or rather fear of God and being thrown into hell. But really, it is better to do good things because that is what you are supposed to do rather than because of fear. And the last argument which people use is believing in God means being humble. They seem to be suggesting atheists are very arrogant.I think, denying a supreme being and believing that all humans are equal isn't called arrogance.
Note: I am not saying religious people are wrong. In fact, many of them are really compassionate and loving because of religion. But why do we need God who'll throw us into hell for not doing good. Why can't we have a good moral character by ourselves? I would gladly welcome your polite and un-rude counter-arguments and replies.
I am sure all of you have, at some point of time, questioned the existence of God, unless you are brainwashed from your childhood into believing so. Having the freedom to think and believe whatever I like, I finally concluded that there is no such supernatural being in the universe, called God. You might have concluded otherwise, and I am not trying to force you into being an atheist, like me. No! That is what religious fundamentalist do. They, for some reason think that everyone should convert to their religion. What I am trying to do, is give my view point on this matter, and would urge you to give a moment's thought to my argument, if you feel that it has a little bit of chance of being true. It is also my duty to warn you that this is going to be long.
Before you tell me to look around this beautiful world, so diverse and complex and say that this proves the very existence of God, I would ask you to look around ( specially if you look around a developing country) and see how a innocent child, who I think has committed no sin, goes to bed-bed? What am I talking about? The pavement to sleep on- empty-stomach, so many people born with incurable diseases, so many people die( and I don't think all of them would be sinful) in terrorist attacks such as 9/11 or 26/11 ( I must remind you that these terrorist activities are also done in the name of religion.) And death is not the worst. There is torture, forced labour and who knows what other kinds of brutality. The all-loving creator must be really hard hearted to let us face all this, even if all this was some kind of test. If all this is indeed a test, we should be torturing suspects in order to find out whether they are guilty or not. If they can endure the torture, we can be sure they are innocent ...otherwise, they are guilty. A perfect system for judiciary! Based on the laws of God!
Assuming that you take my above argument as true, we have ruled out the existence of a all loving and powerful being, but we still haven't ruled out a creator who is hardly concerned by our mundane mortal lives. In fact, a little bit of me hasn't still ruled out this possibility but there is no compulsion for a creator to exist. The universe could have unfolded itself. And why should a supernatural be responsible for creation? (Mind you, the entire universe was not created in one week.) If everything in the universe needs a cause,then there should not have been anything since even God needed a cause. Saying that God didn't need a cause because he is beyond all laws isn't really convincing. You are assuming the God theory to be true to prove it is true ( which is fine), but you use no other established facts. You cannot take the accused's word of his innocence in any case, ignoring all the other evidence. If we begin doing so, all our jails will be empty. Also, what exactly is the creator doing before and after creating our Universe? Sitting idle is not something Mr. All Powerful and Super Intelligent is likely to do. Yet I am not ruling out the possibility that there was a force which set the clock into motion, and its work ended. SO I can also be called a deist-atheist.( as Wikipedia says, Deism is a religious and philosophical belief that a supreme being created the universe, and that this can be determined using reason and observation of the natural world alone, without a need for either faith or organized religion.) So my conclusion is , if God exists, (s)he cannot be defined by our religions today.
"Right, you are saying we should stop believing what we have been believing since the beginning of civilization?" That's something you might be saying. Why not? People believed that the earth was the centre of the universe. Is THAT true? NO! People believed that the earth was flat. Is THAT true? NO! If people hadn't been ready abandon these theories and accept facts, would human society reach where it is? In fact, I think human development is slowed down by religion. In a country like India, where there is plenty of scope for development, the government's time, energy and money is wasted trying to stop Hindus and Muslims from killing each other. Had Galileo and Copernicus been allowed to spread their scientific discoveries earlier, the following developments would have come earlier and today we would have been a step further.
It is comforting to believe in something more powerful than us, but is it any different from telling someone, right when they are on gun point, that they are perfectly safe? Also many people do good things in the name of religion, or rather fear of God and being thrown into hell. But really, it is better to do good things because that is what you are supposed to do rather than because of fear. And the last argument which people use is believing in God means being humble. They seem to be suggesting atheists are very arrogant.I think, denying a supreme being and believing that all humans are equal isn't called arrogance.
Note: I am not saying religious people are wrong. In fact, many of them are really compassionate and loving because of religion. But why do we need God who'll throw us into hell for not doing good. Why can't we have a good moral character by ourselves? I would gladly welcome your polite and un-rude counter-arguments and replies.
Tuesday 5 January, 2010
School Reopens and Boring Days Continue...
Yeah, so the bad news is vacations are over and now I have to lead a very monotonous life, doing the same thing everyday. Today school was normal, that is as normal as a boring school day could get.
I don't really understand why I hate school so much. Nobody bullies me. I do fairly good in class. Teachers... er ...some of them are really not meant to be teachers unless teachers should say, "There will be no more discussion about this topic," when they can't answer a question a student asks them. But still I get on fine with them.
What I think the reason is I don't like doing the same thing everyday. The time I get to do what I want, I don't do the same thing. But with school, you have to get up at 6 in the morning (by the way, I don't like getting up early in the morning as well), board the bus at half past six, return at 4 in the evening and so on. But at home, I do whatever I want and usually I don't do the same thing. And I don't have any sort of timetable for home. So when I try to tell someone I don't do school work all the time, and when they demand what I do at home, I usually don't have any answer because I doubt they will understand that anything besides video games and psp is worth spending time on.
What do you think? Regularity or doing something different everyday? By the way, don't choose the second one just because it sounds different and cooler.
As I go for bed, I am feeling really sad about the fact that I have to go to school tomorrow. Why can't school shut down again?
I don't really understand why I hate school so much. Nobody bullies me. I do fairly good in class. Teachers... er ...some of them are really not meant to be teachers unless teachers should say, "There will be no more discussion about this topic," when they can't answer a question a student asks them. But still I get on fine with them.
What I think the reason is I don't like doing the same thing everyday. The time I get to do what I want, I don't do the same thing. But with school, you have to get up at 6 in the morning (by the way, I don't like getting up early in the morning as well), board the bus at half past six, return at 4 in the evening and so on. But at home, I do whatever I want and usually I don't do the same thing. And I don't have any sort of timetable for home. So when I try to tell someone I don't do school work all the time, and when they demand what I do at home, I usually don't have any answer because I doubt they will understand that anything besides video games and psp is worth spending time on.
What do you think? Regularity or doing something different everyday? By the way, don't choose the second one just because it sounds different and cooler.
As I go for bed, I am feeling really sad about the fact that I have to go to school tomorrow. Why can't school shut down again?
Monday 4 January, 2010
Actors Have Become Directors
Actors Have Become Directors
Actors have become directors
And now they decide how the film must go on
The spotlight should be upon them
The days when actors only acted, are long gone.
However some of them couldn't win the race to direct
For them, it's a lost game
They do not share the spotlight
With no glamour, no fame.
You will perhaps know what I'm saying
Yet I will give you a hint
I am not talking abut Hollywood or Bollywood
Just go and ask an environmentalist.
The earth was the stage
Nature directed all of us
Now you can decide who are the actors and directors
And who is making all the fuss.
PS: Want to know who's making the fuss? Grab a mirror.
-Yash
January 4, 2010
Please help me punctuate this poem properly. I am horrible at punctuations.
Actors have become directors
And now they decide how the film must go on
The spotlight should be upon them
The days when actors only acted, are long gone.
However some of them couldn't win the race to direct
For them, it's a lost game
They do not share the spotlight
With no glamour, no fame.
You will perhaps know what I'm saying
Yet I will give you a hint
I am not talking abut Hollywood or Bollywood
Just go and ask an environmentalist.
The earth was the stage
Nature directed all of us
Now you can decide who are the actors and directors
And who is making all the fuss.
PS: Want to know who's making the fuss? Grab a mirror.
-Yash
January 4, 2010
Please help me punctuate this poem properly. I am horrible at punctuations.
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