Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Top things you dont want to hear while in a dentist's chair

Top things you dont want to hear while in a dentist's chair

  • OOOH that cavity is bigger than it looks
  • It looks like I'll have to drill another surface because the decay has spread
  • We'll see if you have two or three cavities (Hint : choose the greater number always)
  • Here you can hold the mirror and I'll show you the decay
  • See you next week

(all from the current visit instead of all of mine, otherwise I could have had an encyclopedia instead of a top 5 list)

Monday, April 21, 2008

Doing the right thing

I like testing out my morality / ethics against current issues (especially because one of the arguments for religion is that we get our morality from it - though someone like me would rephrase it as 'inspite of' instead of from).
So take the case of the Texas polygamist sect where supposedly children (especially female) are taught from their birth to obey without questioning, are told polygamy is right, and are told that their chief function in life is to breed. They are provided no alternatives, they are kept cut off from the rest of the world and indeed probably aren't aware that there are other ways to live one's life. When they are old enough they are married off, in some cases to an old @#%#$%$ with a handful of wives.
Claiming that some of the girls were underage when they were married and indeed pregnant , the Texas state has taken the children into custody. Their parents argue that they treat the children well, that they should be allowed to live their lives as per their beliefs and that the girls are given the choice and can reject any prospective partner.
It is however no choice at all as the children have been bought up to believe that they will go to hell for disobeying their parents, that there is nothing wrong in being the n'th wife of someone and breeding as much as you can. They aren't shown alternate views and they aren't allowed to see the world to find out for themselves. As every religion knows , the best way to get children to follow your footsteps is to teach it to them from a very young age where belief in the parents authority is absolute and the difficult questions are less. Once the religion becomes a habit , the child doesn't question it as is evident from the grown women of the sect vehemently defending their way of life even when the people most disadvantaged are themselves. Its similar to the Indian women being in the forefront of those against the girl child. Once you have been brainwashed , the beliefs come naturally and it is what you will practise on your own children
It is also probably true that separating the older children from their parents may have serious psychological repercussions on the children.
On the face of it this is a simple moral decision, the parents should be in jail and the children taken care. But this causes a problem, 'When is it OK for the state to interfere with how a parent brings up a child'. When a child is subjected to physical abuse? Certainly. Easy enough to prove and easy enough to convict. But psychological damage? Who knows? If we say in this case that the teachings are too extreme for children to be subjected to it where do we draw the line?
People like Richard Dawkin and Christopher Hitchens already believe that teaching a child about religion constitutes some sort of abuse . They are referring to stating that a child will burn in hell if he sin's but the view is still extreme enough and is not right other. Parents do have the right to teach their children their views. Is it then only question of how extreme the views are? Is the polygamist sect any different say from a Muslim parent teaching his child that if they leave Islam they should be put to death?
I think the problem is not in the views themselves but in the fact that the children are kept from discovering other ways of thinking. The parents are welcome to believe what they want and they can tell their children what they believe but they should not be able to prevent their children from seeing the world, seeing what else is there, from reading. The girls should be able to interact with other girls and women who can tell them that if polygamy is fine , why not polyandry? That women do achieve a lot in this world and their sole purpose in life is not breeding.
The exclusion of other views and other people is evident even in the not so extreme religions. Marriage is preferably within your own religion. Schools are created for followers of a religion only. Public places of prayer to hang out with 'like minded' people. Youth groups for .. you guessed it 'like minded' people.
The more I think of it , the more I'm convinced , our tendencies to hang out with people who believe the same things we do, or are from the same country as we are from, or speak the same language, or have the same skin color is one of the biggest ill's that our society faces and it this that we must prevent.
And we come down to what is the right thing to do in this case? Any child who has been made to marry at a young age , the husband and parent's should be put in jail. The parent's are free to teach their children anything , but they should not be able to raise them in seclusion. The children should have access to all the information that a normal child has and is appropriate for his age. Any parent preventing or actively hindering his child from doing so should be reprimanded / punished.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

The Best of Science

I came across http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7432173082287948210&q=zaytuna
and since I have read Sam Harris "Letters..." and will probably read The God delusion sometime, I can't help but comment on it.
Note Yusuf Hamza is articulate and seems reasonably intelligent, but his argument that the anti - religion/God books compare the Best of Science with the worst of Religion is a childish argument.
Science is a tool neither good nor bad , it depends on the who uses it. However the principles on which science is based, are sound. The principles of scientific curiosity, verification by experimentation, continuous evaluation of results by peers, having to give up beliefs which are proven wrong (e.g. the sun revolves round the earth), continuous improvement, no 100% absolute certainty - 'you might be wrong tomorrow attitudes', are all good and can be followed even in other aspects of life.
Religion too can be used for good or bad depending on who uses it. But the principles on which religion is based? well some are definitely bad. i.e. belief without evidence (or at least insufficient evidence - Carl Sagan's said extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence), the absolute certainty in the rightness of itself, the attitude of we the followers are superior/better/more favored than those who don't follow, are all principles which are bad and which would cause trouble if followed in any other aspect of life. We don't have an Indian science and an American Science and we certainly don't believe that those who understand e=mc^2 are superior to those who don't.
So the Best of Religion is certainly way inferior to the Best of Science. And the worst of science? quite simply it's the worst of humanity. But the worst of religion is not restricted to the worst of humanity as it does quite well(!) by itself.
Yusuf says the wars of the 20Th century were caused by fascism, nationalism and communism (unlike the wars of yesteryear's). Leaving aside the numerous conflicts in which religion has played a part, I'm not sure what he intends to prove by this. Certainly I find it hard to differentiate between a rabid nationalist and a religious fundamentalist (We are superior, We can go to war and kill people who are not like us, Even though our birth (and hence in most cases our nationality and religion) is a random chance event we believe we are better than the others and this was our destiny, The other's are always spoiling our way of life , we need some way to stop them, Every one of 'us' is better than one of 'them', We need to stick together with other's like us - Each of this statement can be made by the nationalist of the fundamentalist.). Religion , like nationalism or regionalism, or race, or gender is just one more way humans use to separate 'us' and 'them'. We can look around and see how useful these classifications are for humanity as a whole

Speaking of religions that should be banned , the fundamentalist break away Mormon sect certainly should. The only thing is that, nothing is going to bring back the lost innocence of the children, though I hope I'm wrong.
The discussion though did bring up a point in favor of polygamy. Most rational people are against polygamy. However we (yes I consider myself rational) would also be against any form of legislative action against say single people who sleep around with multiple partner's though we may frown at it. So here's the problem with having the above two attitudes. What we are essentially saying is that its OK for someone to sleep around with multiple partners, its OK for them to have kids, its OK for them to dump their partners and kids (OK in the sense that we wouldn't say put them in prison!) but as soon as that someone decides to marry his/her partners and give some sort of legal protection to them , we say put him/her in prison! Clearly we are hypocrites.
I'm just wondering which is the lesser of the two evils . I'd probably choose giving legal protection should be given to anyone with or without marriage.
Speaking of which I wonder if any religion other than Hinduism has a No Comments against polyandry(my only evidence for this is the Mahabharata - a tale in which we firmly believe you can find all the sin's humans can commit)? Certainly the Abrahamanic religions with their skewed definitions of Adultery wouldn't approve !