Evolution

Its quite funny reading the Intelligent Design folk's. Evolution cant explain some thing which clearly show a designer (to them). They do however stop short of saying who the Designer is. And then they wonder why people laugh at them. Here are my reasons.
a. Who is the designer. God(and which one?)? Aliens? Our descendants from the future? Fairies? Our duplicates from a parallel world? To be taken seriously the Intelligent design theory would have to make some guesses (including how to verify the guess) about the designer and his motivations. The utter hypocrisy where they stop short of saying the designer is the god of the religion I happen to believe in causes them to be the subject of much ridicule.
b. Who designed the designer? if he always existed or himself evolved then why is it so difficult to believe life evolved.
c. Why did so many species become extinct (even without man's interfering). Was some of the design flawed?
d. Why call it 'Intelligent ' design. Except for our brains, a lot of the other bits of human is not very intelligent. Why wouldn't you have designed man (who is made in god's own image after all) as someone who could tolerate extreme temperatures, be the fastest, strongest species? Why have human's vulnerable to most sickness? Why have two kidneys (when humans can get by with one) but only one heart and one brain? Why have the universe and then have humanity needing to breathe so that we cannot (without a lot of help) explore it? We seem to be as well designed as early version's of MS DOS!. Call it somewhat workable barely intelligent design if you will (we are talkign about an omnipotent designer so I assume the designer could have made us more efficient if the designer wanted that).

Atheists

Seeing a slew of youtube debates on Atheism and related matters. Primary Atheists being Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. Those on God's side being Dinesh D'souza, The Reverend Al sharpton, Tom Haggard et al. Christopher Hitchens appears to come across as someone who is severly disillusioned with humanity and has now given up trying to convince other people and is satisfied insulting them and feeling smug and superior to them. It then quite surprising that I still find I side with some of his views than those opposing them , though Christopher is too extreme (and so are the people who oppose him).
I guess its something to do with the way debates are structured in the wester world. When they debate Atheist's v/s People who believe in God or Atheist's v/s Religion, they are actually debating Atheists v/s Christianity. Or to quote Richard dawkins - I just believe in one less god than you do(or 30,000 lesser if your Indian or a handful if your greek).Which isnt the same debate. The believer's also make the same point's which sound non-sensical to a believer in a non interfering god but not religion.
a. How can morality exist in the absence of God - Easy. Its called a brain.
b. How can you create something out of nothing(referring to the origin of the universe) -The same way in which God was created. There is no way to answer this type of question.
c. Religion has done good too - Oh of course. And it has done some bad. Why not to move towards some scheme that has the good and eliminates the bad? Religion is static(unless you create new ones like scientology - oh waits thats a cult or is it?) and doesnt account for changing culture and sensibilities!
d. Atheists have killed more people than religion (Mao , Stalin, Pol Pot and arguably Hitler) - Umm yes , and it proves what exactly? That some atheists are bad? I wonder why god created them! Free will of course. Oh and thats why we were handed down a set of doctrines?
e. My religion didnt do anything like this! - Umm yes thats kind of the point.
f. Science has been wrong before! Science doesnt know everything - Yes and it freely admits to it. Unlike extremists (on both sides) who claim to know everything. Only an idiot can be 100% certain of anything (Scott Adams). The difference is in ideal science , you question everything and you hope to improve from where you are today noting that tomorrow you may find that you were wrong today. religion on the other hand says its is eternally right, That questioning belief is not good (and for those who say , no way my religion believes that questioning makes the faith grow stronger , try asking these questions out loudly in public). As Isaac Asimov stated , when asked a question to which he doesnt know an answer to, He says as a rationalist he isn't compelled to answer. There are some things he doesnt know. Whereas an extreme religious person will always say it's because God wants it to be so.

It is also quite heartening and not very surprising to see the debates are of much better quality than political ones



One thing that really irritated me watching the Dinesh Dsouza - Christopher Hitchen's debate was Dinesh's assertion that even though his ancestor's might have disagreed , he's quite glad that the portuguese forcibly (in some cases) converted people to Christianity because that's why he's christian today, Its sort of like the British argument that India progressed only because of them , they laid down the trains tracks etc - so the looting and killing is quite acceptable.
There is of course no evidence that we wouldnt have managed it on our own.

Funny too seeing the Reverend Al Sharpton denounce mormon's in the debate with Christopher Hitchens and then try to spin the story to appear that he's not the one to blame. Americans politicians have lots in common with their Indian counterparts. They think their audience are fools. Unfortunately they are quite correct.

Belief

Reading The Miracle Detective, I wondered , if someone appeared before you and said he/she was God(or related to God), what would it take for you to be convinced?
Lets assume that any act (e.g. turning night into day, blossoming flowers in winter, levitation, teleportation) etc are performed by said entity at a snap of a finger. Would you believe?
And then I wonder suppose there is a devout Hare Rama Hare Krishna type who believes say Krishna is the only true god and also believes lets say the Bhagwad Gita as the literal word of Krishna. If the entity appears to him, says Yes I am Krishna , But the Bhagwad Gita are not my words , my teachings are actually closer to whatever Buddha(Or Christ or Mohammed) taught. Would the devout person believe? or would he think he is being hoodwinked by an Asur?
What if the entity says, yes the Bhagwad Gita are actually my(God's) words but Im not krishna Im actually Buddha(Or Christ or Mohammed) would the devout person believe? or would he think he is being hoodwinked?
And what if the entity says sorry , you chose the wrong gods neither the philosophy nor the god you believe in are correct. Would the devout person believe?
Note that any miraculous activity can be performed by said entity without any problem.
In most cases I think we'd only believe if the entity said exactly what we believed in before we encountered the entity.
I guess Mark Millar touched upon this topic in Chosen , before he chose the ending for shock value (oh what a book it would have been if Millar had chosen(pun) a different ending).

News Roundup

India wins the Twenty 20 Cup! Hooray , everyone's hooked into cricket again, Will we beat the Aussies? Let's hope so.

The Iranian president is called to Columbia University and is roundly insulted. I have no pity for the Iranian president , but still, he was a guest. What is it about American's that they feel they have to insult the other guy in order to show they disapprove or disagree?
Laughable really , the president's answer to how badly gays are treated in Iran , he said they aren't any gays in Iran , which caused everyone to laugh. Not a laughing matter and people should have been able to show lists of the people executed for their sexual preference in Iran. Sadly no one seems to go into a debate prepared.
Someone on the net had written. Ahmedijinad and Bush , a dangerous maniac and a nutcase. The only question is which is which.

Ram Setu. Sigh.

Hindu Muslim riots caused by Twenty 20 celebrations. Sigh.

It looks like there is nothing that a bunch of extremists cant spoil. The moral ground gained after the Pak captain's comments has been lost. Perhap's shah rukh khan should bring out a national integration movie after his success with Chak De! Speaking of which , its quite surprising how a cliched predictable movie can be quite entertaining.(Perhaps the company in which you watch the movie has something to do with it :) )

An interesting question raised by the high court. if various castes can be added to the list of Backward castes for reservations, how is it that none of the existing castes are dropping off from that list.? Speaks for the (lack of) success of caste based reservations, no?

I wonder if like Musharraf we can also deport most of our politicians to saudi arabia or someplace far away?

On Religion

I have been undertaking a particularly unpleasant task the past few days. Ive been reading various discussions that people have undertaken on topics that have been kicked off , directly or indirectly by Robert Spencer. See for example the discussions related to his books on Amazon or his website. Some have reviewed his book(s) unfavorably with a memorable line 'My God is better than your Allah nyah, nyah, nyah'.
Rather than commenting on the comments which truth be told leave a bad taste(by both sides), there are some general observations that can be made.
Religious right wing characters generally have no sense of humour. I wonder if this also implies that having a good sense of humour means a person wont be deeply religious.
The quality of debate on any controversial topic is extremely poor. Most indulge in ad hominem attacks. There will always be some people who believe that saying the same thing multiple times makes it true.

A question that bothers me about religion is whether it should be judged by what it preaches or whether it is to be judged by what is practised by it's followers. Earlier I believed that it is obvious that it is the latter. But what if the practice is not ascribed to religion?
e.g. If a person says he bombs a place for his religion is his religion to blame?
If a person says he bombs a country A because his country B is threatened by A and not for his religion , is his religion to blame?
What if the religion tacitly approves of acts of war ?
(If you believe that this religion is a euphemism for Islam, you haven't read the Bhagwad Gita or the Old Testament)
If I think about it, I believe that the problem is not with only due to religion. When a person gives up the right to think for himself, and lets other's choose his path for him, it has always caused problems. Someone will probably point out that the people doing the choosing are thinking for themselves and they cause the problem too. Perhaps , but if some leader say's kill those bunch of people who differ from us in X ways, and a mob goes ahead and kills them, who does the blame lie with more? The leader or the mob?
I'd currently go with the mob.
And religion does tell you that it will do the thinking for you. It will lay down the guidelines for you to follow. It will determine the right and wrong. It is perfect, absolute and the only way. There is no doubt, only faith, doubt is a sin.
History suggests that religion or atleast the followers of religion have caused many problems. History also suggests that man atleast is not smart enough to learn lessons from it.
.....
There was a time when i bought books that would be considered controversial , and usually i agreed with the views that the book promoted before i bought the book. Then i thought, what's the point , i already agree with the book. (e.g. Buying a Michael Moore book). Then i bought books which endorsed a point of view that I didnt agree with. but now I've decided , I shall not sacrifice any of my money on royalties to people who clearly dont deserve it (Ann Coulter , Im talking about you!). I almost bought Robert Spencer's book Why Christianity is a Religion of Peace and Islam isn't, till I saw Ann Coulter singing it's praises. The book was kept back in it's shelf.
Oh and does it matter if the religion is peaceful but the people who practise it aren't?

Thinking Americans

Reporter to Adlai Stevenson "Mr Stevenson , you have the vote of every thinking American"
Stevenson "Thats fine, but unfortunately I need a majority to win"
Its a pity the Americans voted Eisenhower instead , I think Stevenson would have been a better choice.

Critics and their choices

Funnily enough, i havent begun to write but I already dislike critics. Not because they are rude or cynical or seem to enjoy trading insults, but because even the material they praise has a sameness to it.
The times has a list of top 10 graphic novels and a self proclaimed Graphic Literature Library: 25 books from 25 years for smart, sophisticated readers.
And im struck by the lack of graphic novels as most graphic novels readers are aware of. I embarked on a course to read some of these from my friendly neighborhood library. And there were some truly amazing gems (Persepolis which made laugh and feel sad at the same time). But it looks like the critics here too want graphic novels to be exactly the same as the movies and books they rate highly.
Look through the top 10 list , There's Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns and Bone, stories that are imaginative and comic-booky. But the other choices?
I expected lots from Blankets love and religion collide (a topic i am intimately familiar with) but it was vaguely unsatisfying, perhaps because it is semi autobiographical, it didnt have a satisfying conclusion or indeed explanation.
The boulevard of broken dreams was a ho hum so so book. And no i didnt find the explores the nature of reality, the mystery of inspiration, the exploitation of pop culture and the redemptive power of art.
Onward to David Boring , its tempting to quip Boring!. Note the "truly novelistic approach to graphical storytelling" umm why not write a novel? But anyway the story wasnt that great , nor was the art and this cant be a top 10 can it?
Jimmy Corrigan , i was excited to get the book, because the last time I had someone(Rudyard Kipling) describe a book as the perfect short story it turned out to be Lord Emsworth and the girlfriend. And boy was that a perfect short story. But Jimmy Corrigan? Hard to read, difficult to comprehend, generally depressing and eminently forgettable.
Moving onto the 25 list , I wonder if the Golems mighty swing would make it to the list if it didnt have a jewish team playing. Its a good book but not a top 25 book. Louis Riel was ok , not knowing much of canadian history i guess i dont identify much with this story. Maus is a good book , but except for the bit where spiegelman shows 10 pages he wrote when he contemplated suicide, the rest of the book was , I felt vastly overrated. But anything related to the holocaust automatically gets praise. Just ask Steven Spielberg. Though Maus was definitely very good just not as good as all the critics say it is.
And then i lost interest in reading more of the critics choice.
Theres a common thread in most of their choices. 'Realistic fiction' , preferably depressing and dark, and mostly similar to work that is available in books or movies.
And I find that i dislike it. I think how many times humor comics or perhaps even books and movies have made it to say an award in their respective fields? Its so much easier to write dark , 'realistic' stories. (I always quote realistic because is there any writing that states the truth and nothing but the truth so help me god?)
Lets not go into why are Sandman, Lucifer, Swamp Thing, Fables, Y, V for vendetta absent from the list (I count collected paperback as graphic novels)
Lets not even go into why are pure superhero action books missing from the set A year one or whatever happened to the man of tomorrow
But no mention of Asterix and Calvin and Hobbes? Why are they not funny enough or is fun not meant to be an attribute of a book? In all my life i havent met anyone who has read Asterix and who didnt have fond memories of them(some preferred tintin but thats a different article). Indeed most would read them again. Oh and Calvin and Hobbes. But humor , making someone laugh, is not a good enough motive by itself. And so youll never see any of the books that make you smile ever on these top lists.
But then perhaps i should stop reading the lists compiled by others and go read Vol I - The complete Calvin and Hobbes
Its a magical world...

Presidential elections

The BBC covers the current US presidential candidates (current) opinions. And i want to see how i matched up. So here we go

a. The war : No one wins in a war, and it looks like only Obama realises this. Note John Edwards and Hillary Clinton say something to the effect that if I knew then what i know now I wouldve opposed the war. And so even though the entire world except Tony Blair knew this war was being fought on false pretenses these two claim ignorance! That should probably disqualify them from the election. More important is that they supported the war with incomplete and now incorrect evidence. The republicans candidates come of as fundamentalists with their we wouldn't have handled the war this way, yah right. I would never support or indeed vote for people who openly support war as a means of resolving a problem. People who dont give a damn for lives (both their countrymen in the army and those from the opposing side) shouldnt be allowed anywhere near a government. For those who see a broader context in the war i remember star trek's the original "the greatest good of the greatest number" to which the next generation responds with "how many lives does it take before it becomes wrong"
b. The economy : While i can claim almost total ignorance here, Mr Obama and Ms Clinton seems to recognise that education is important. The rest are all about tax cuts or spending cuts. its hard to think of any problem that cant be solved with an educated(as opposed to literate) population
c. National Security : Ms clinton military response suggestion is laughable. Attacks are not always by something that you can have a military response for. Almost everyone here supported the Patriot act, though Mr obama has criticised and reauthorised it thereby earning more negative points. Im surprised that no candidate has stated stop interfering in other countries affairs, we are not a global pandu. Stop patronising extremist states which sooner or later turn on you. That would reduce the need for extreme national security.
d. Illegal immigration : Im not sure why americans even debate this topic. "illegal" immigrants have to be sent back , at most you could say that we wont hold this against you if you apply legally. The broader issue is stupid and complicated immigrant laws. Note that my views that there should be no rules as to who can work where, as this earth is not (to put it in my native slang) "your father in law's or what" , would ensure that my votes tally would remain 0.
e. Health care : for the amount of taxes we pay , health care should be free for everyone. Its not practical till you consider how much money the US of A spends on arms and arms research and how many times over the armaments they currently have could destroy the earth.
f. Social issues : Abortion is one issue im totally conflicted with , the right of a woman to choose conflicting with the embryo/child not being given a choice. I'd rather they werent any (Except where the mother's life is in danger which is pretty clear cut) and that people were educated enough so there arent any , but i also think id not want a child to be born whose mother wanted to abort it but didnt do so because the government made it illegal. I dont think there is a right answer here so id have to settle for the parents can choose.
Was also one of the people who believed civil union is fine for same sex and marriage is between a man and woman till i read a republican (rudy) say the same and realised uncomfortably that i have also been told(indirectly) that marriage between two non catholics is a contract whereas between two catholics its a union of the souls, a union blessed by god, a sacrament (i quote out of memory). And i realised i am no different than the above person , i only draw the lines at different places and have subsequently changed my views to a marriage is whatever the people who are getting married want it to be.
I think my views are somewhat better off than the current presidential candidates, too bad US laws wont let me run. And when i read through the opinions of the current lot i think GW Bush wasnt so much worse after all. And that india is not the only place where you settle for the least worst of the lot.

Piracy

Dan Slott (comics writer) started a debate when he demanded that his fans buy the comic he writes rather than download it illegally. The series he writes seem to be well liked by those who read it , but sales are poor which might cause cancellation hence the challenge.
Scott Adams has also written about the topic of copyright abuse.
So herein my history.
I was first introduced to comics scanned and downloaded by folks when my friend from the states wrote half a dozen of CD's of comics we read. DC's aren't easily available in India and the prices are exorbitant(comparatively) and we didn't think much of it. It was a way to read books that weren't otherwise available and expensive to boot.
But after awhile i remembered the software piracy promise i had made myself( once i can afford it i wasn't going to pirate software) and then i thought was it really different?. And i haven't read any more pirated comics anymore(well except two below, pirated tech books is a different matter).
Lucifer(by Mike Carey) was one comic(a paradox) , for which i started buying single issues instead if the trade paperbacks because i sympathised with the low sales and i didn't want to see this series cancelled(it didn't , dont you love happy endings), and this was my contribution.
But when issues 74, and 75 were out and i desperately wanted to read the series end and the monthlies were available in UK but with no means to get them to India, i went and downloaded these issues. I suppose it was alright because i had bought those two issues already and they were in London. Oh yes i did download Nirvana and read, but it was the book was out of print and there was no way to get it. Back issues cost 75$ which was really ridiculous. Since then nirvana has been collected in the last trade , but to buy it i would have to buy the issues i already have , and so i haven't. Which is my entire comics book piracy history.
Having a collection of 2000+ comics, i don't think I've hurt the industry much :)
But the issues being debated are moral, ethical ones.
Analogies are being thrown about.
I remember seeing a software book license. it said that you could distribute the copy to someone else , free of charge , so long as you delete it from your machine (similar to if you lend a book, you cant read it yourself)
Overall though i think allowing people to scan books and distribute them to other people to read is good, especially for books from vertigo which have a low readership. and are actually very good reads. Because a lot of people (me for instance) , really detest reading from the computer screen. So if we like a book , we more often than not buy it. And we follow it , instead of waiting for the download to be available. We buy it as gifts for others, and we explore other books on the same theme, books by the same author, books about the same character.
That doesn't make it right however. Whether or not you disagree with copyright law, you have to follow it. Though i wish people would show some sense before passing absurd(e.g. American patent) laws.

Languages

These days im loath to learn a new language. Oh not french or german or even kannada , a programming language. While wondering whether i should pick up a scripting language (python , ruby or groovy .. perls out ) i noted the distinct lack of enthusiasm in myself. It was not always this way.
My first brush with a programming language was BASIC. This was in stanislaus , all i remember was not understanding algorithms or loops too well and getting by with my ever reliable memory to write out programs ad verbatim. The next time was PASCAL in engineering. It was fun. I did well , my programs were copied. Second semester it was the turn of C. Initially we all complained. Why in the world does C have to be so terse?. But within a month I loved it. No going back to pascal ever. And there began an affair with curly brackets. We discovered the world of graphics programming. We (irwin and i) won a programming contest. Us electronic engineers. Twice. And we should have won another (Quine mcluskey). and we didnt care. we had fun programming. Winning the contest wasnt important though the first one did give us lots of satisfaction. Then C++ even though it was out of syllabus. From trying to figure out what method should go into which class to a secret revealed by one computer science student. Everything is an class. The zen of OOP. Then out of college and into work. Time to use what we have learnt for four years . Time to program in Visual Basic!. Wow look i have a functional form in 2 minutes. Look intellisense . Look i drag and drop that table and the code is generated. To time to work on a project, lets put those VB skills to use in ASP!. Explain to me again, this Javascript thats client side, this vbscript thats server side ? To i dont care what you do , it should look good on screen. Time to polish up those CSS , HTML, DHTML skills. To sending messages over MSMQ using VC++ , to ATL and Raw COM and Office VBA. Whats that you know encryption? Your just the person we need for our java project. But i dont know java, thats ok everythings a class. To JSP and EJB and JDBC and JMS and an occassional servlet. To hearing oh XML is like HTML only better. To learning XSLT and XSD in spare time.
And then 7 years of work does take its toll
Ruby, Rails , Python , Groovy , Perl, C# etc etc. BAH! I have an application to deliver

Beliefs

I gave a online test about beliefs for fun , here are the results
Your Results:
1. Secular Humanism (100%)
2. Unitarian Universalism (91%)
3. Liberal Quakers (85%)
4. Neo-Pagan (77%)
5. Non-theist (74%)
6. Mainline - Liberal Christian Protestants (68%)
7. New Age (68%)
8. Theravada Buddhism (65%)
9. Orthodox Quaker (57%)
10. Taoism (53%)
11. Mahayana Buddhism (52%)
12.Bahai (43%)
13. Reform Judaism (43%)
14. Sikhism (43%)
15. Jainism (41%)
16. New Thought (40%)
17. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist)
18. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (35%)
19. Scientology (34%)
20. Seventh Day Adventist (30%)
21. Hinduism (28%)
22. Mainline - Conservative Christian Protestant (28%)
23. Eastern Orthodox (26%)
24. Islam (26%)
25. Orthodox Judaism (26%)
26. Roman Catholic (26%)
27. Jehovah's Witness (21%)
And though after looking up wikipedia, i am i agreement with secular humanists, it still has a problem. Which is that the beliefs are fixed. Which is a problem inherent in all religions. The beliefs were decided centuries ago and can't be changed even when the practices they encourage are outdated or no longer apply or are just plain wrong. Religion and change dont mix. And though my views may be a 100% match today for some set of beliefs, they may not do so tomorrow. And that is how it should be.

Superman Returns

Watched the first half of Superman Returns and am left with one question. What the hell?
Lois Lane does not marry anyone other than Clark Kent. What was the writer thinking? Poor Richard (her current husband) is destined to die in some other part (if he doesnt already do so by the end of this movie. The worst part is there's no way out other than richards death. Superman cant be a housebreaker. Its unfortunate that so many movie writers try to add soap opera storylines to super heroes. Clark kent loves Lois lane and they were always meant to be married. And so heres till the next round of superman movies wipes out this current history