Why “probably”?

The LA Times carried an interview with “The God Delusion” author Richard Dawkins who supports an atheism campaign in Britain. The campaign, and the response it has received make a very funny story-

Earlier this month, 800 buses rolled out of depots across Britain plastered with advertisements cheerfully informing people that “there’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

Sponsored by the British Humanist Assn., the ad campaign is the brainchild of a comedian who had seen Christian messages on buses, looked up the websites of the organizations behind them and found warnings that, as a nonbeliever, she was destined to go to hell.

The new ads have attracted little controversy in Britain, a secular country that finds religious fervor a tad awkward. Perhaps the biggest kerfuffle has been over the word “probably” in the slogan, which the British advertising authority said should be thrown in to keep the ad from being potentially misleading, on the grounds that no one can say with 100% certainty that God does not exist.

On seeing these advertisements, some Christian organization has complained to the British Advertising Standards Agency “saying [the advertisements] break rules on substantiation and truthfulness.”-

[S]tephen Green, national director of Christian Voice, said: “There is plenty of evidence for God, from people’s personal experience, to the complexity, interdependence, beauty and design of the natural world.

“But there is scant evidence on the other side, so I think the advertisers are really going to struggle to show their claim is not an exaggeration or inaccurate, as the ASA code puts it.”

If only he could prove that non believers do go to hell when they die.

—

Dawkins is right when he says this-

I don’t think that total atheism is a totally rational position. Anyone that definitely says there is no God — you can’t rationally say that any more than you can say there are definitely no unicorns, there are no dragons, there are no fairies. . . . You can’t disprove the existence of Santa Claus.

To the extent that I’m an “a-fairyist” or an “a-unicornist,” I am an atheist.

This shouldn’t stop atheists from declaring “there is no God” however. Religious people don’t worship “probably” Gods, do they? They believe God exists. Similarly, since atheists don’t find the need to believe that God is necessary to explain the universe, they shouldn’t be in “doubt” about his non-existence. The existence or non-existence of God cannot be proved by science – the “natural world” is no proof of God nor is its “intelligent design”. So you end up with two “theories” – God is behind everything, and there is no God. Within these two theories, you are free to believe whatever it is you want to believe (including fighting over whose God is the “real” God – the Christian God, the Muslim God, the many Hindu Gods and so on).

Christians are not the only ones who get all hot and bothered about attacks on their faith. Islamic fundamentalists have presented a beautiful example of murderous intolerance over the last 1500 years. And the Hindus are not too far behind, though I tend to call the Hinduism espoused by prudish outfits like the RSS and VHP Victorian Hinduism. I once had a reasonably interesting debate on philosophy and theology – reason and faith – over Rama and his magic arrow; the Supreme Court of India will decide whether Lord Rama existed – a day for the history books. The donkey is an interesting animal. Nietzsche uses it in “Thus Spake Zarathustra” to highlight the stupidity of the “higher men.” And I used it in my arguments against a “standard” God-

Okay, keep “reason” aside. Now what? We start believing in God? Why should people only believe in the Hindu concept of God or one of the Judaic ones? What if I say that the world was created by an omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient eighteen-headed donkey and that every time it brays, there is rainfall in the Amazon rain forest and that everyone should believe in it since the theory can neither be proven nor dis-proven?

—

Dawkins, when he’s asked if he sees “any redeeming values in religion or a belief in God,” says-

You can find individuals who are religious who are also good people, and even people who do good things motivated by religion. I suspect you’ll find a lot of missionaries all over Africa and New Guinea and places who are doing good in one form or another. But I don’t think there’s any general reason, any logical pathway, that goes from being religious to being good. . . .

It’s quite interesting to reflect on the logical pathway that would lead you to be bad. I don’t know if you would accept this, but the 19 perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks genuinely thought they were being good. They believed they were doing the will of Allah. . . . There is a logical pathway from religion to doing atrocious things. I don’t think there’s a logical path that leads you from atheism to that kind of thing.

Of course there are atheists who do terrible things. But I don’t think you can derive it [from atheism itself].

He’s right here too. The communists of USSR were atheists, and they were mass murderers. They established an atheist state by force, oppressing the Russian Orthodox Church in the process. But the roots of their murderous spree does not lie in atheism, unlike the jihadists, or their Christian and Hindu counterparts whose wars have their roots in religion.

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Strong atheism is an interesting website that has articles on philosophy and theology including issues like morality and nihilism.

Self-righteous lunacy

While Lal Krishna Advani is the master of the foot-in-the-mouth maneuver, the BJP has done one up on him – it has managed to perform the anatomically impossible task of shoving its head up its own arse. And I am not talking about its position on the nuclear deal. BJP president Rajnath Singh has blamed the violence against Christians in Orissa and Karnataka on “Hindu anger”-

“Hindu anger and resentment against large-scale forcible conversions is the root cause of anti-Christian riots in both the states,” he said. He was convinced it could end only if strong measures were put in place to “stop forcible, or by allurement, conversions of Hindus by Christian missionaries”.

He said every conversion should be verified to ensure that missionaries have not forced a person or offered any sort of allurement to convert a Hindu to Christianity.

“The government should look into finding a way to verify this. Whenever a Hindu converts to Christianity, there should be verification by district authorities to the state that the conversion is not by force or after extension of any allurement such as promise of money or food.

“There should be a verification document with the person who has been converted. If such a system is put in place, there will be no opportunity for this sort of violence.”

Should the police also start a daily door to door verification campaign to see if women have not been raped or beaten, property has not been stolen etc instead of letting the affected people come and register a complaint? This is fascism, pure and simple, and Singh is treading on dangerous territory here. If attacks on Christians are justified on the basis of “Hindu anger”, is Islamic terrorism justifiable on the basis of “Muslim anger”, Naxalism on the basis of “class conflict”? Such stupid statements were to be expected from the BJP though.

The Congress-led UPA on the other hand is trying to see what political benefits it can gain from incidents of murder, rape and church burning. Should the Bajrang Dal be banned or not? In pondering this question, it has let murderous goons and arsonists run amok and failed to protect the citizens. The flareup in Assam and the attitude of Assam’s Nero only goes to show that when it comes to protecting the life and property of citizens, both political formations follow similar lines of thought.

In another development, megalomaniac Ramadoss is now planning to start a campaign against alcohol, and he is waving the Indian Constitution to make his point-

“The Constitution mandates all states to exercise prohibition but except J&K and Gujarat none of the states follow it. Prohibition is a state subject, I would urge all state governments to enforce to (sic) total prohibition.”

“Don’t encourage these despots”, Sauvik Chakraverti writes. He blames India’s reich wing press for having encouraged Anbumani Ramadoss by endorsing his perverse smoking ban. Regarding the Hindutva wackos, he says -”The country will become a Living Hell is (sic) these rascals who exploit faith are not put down by the mainstream press.” Read his whole post.

Further, the VHP and some organization that calls itself the “Global Human Rights Council” (the VHP and a human rights organization? Partners?) have together filed a complaint against Harbhajan Singh and Mona Singh for having danced in a reality show dressed up as Ravana and Sita. And the crazy part is a magistrate has admitted the criminal complaint.

The 5000 year old “rich Hindu civilization” is hurt when someone spoofs mythological characters; the Indian government cannot tolerate videos that show a performer dressed up as Gandhi doing a pole dance; and by failing to protect freedom of expression, the Indian constitution allows the Indian State to unleash a reign of terror on the flimsiest of reasons.

If India has to survive, it needs to be saved from two of its biggest enemies – its people, and its constitution.

Carvaka – An atheistic Indian philosophy

The first time I read about Carvaka, also known as Lokayata, was in a comment by Radical Hypocrite on one of the posts of his now unavailable blog. The Carvaka school of thought (its origins can be traced back to 6th century BC) is a materialistic and atheistic (Atheism in Hinduism) one that dismisses all ideas of God and afterlife. It seems to be the first philosophy to emerge out of India that actively preaches that happiness is the goal of one’s life. Not only that, it considers perception to be the only true source of knowledge (Carvaka – First chapter of Sarva-Darsana-Samgraha) -

The proper aim of a Charvakan or Charvaka, according to these sources, was to live a prosperous, happy, and productive life in this world.

– Wikipedia entry for Carvaka

Unfortunately none of the original texts related to this philosophy seem to have survived and Sarva-Darsana-Samgraha (available via the Internet Archive), a book written in the 14th century by Madhavacharya, one of the sankaracharyas of the Sringeri Math seems to be a major source of information. It seems Amartya Sen’s The Argumentative Indian (haven’t read it) has mentioned the philosophy as an example of the Indian atheistic tradition (his interview to California Magazine).

Doctors and the Red Swastika

While I have a soft corner for Hinduism and Hindu mythology, having been brought up in that background, that does not extend to condoning mindless violence or subterfuge in the name of religion. So when I read that about 10,000 doctors have begun using the Red Swastika as an emblem replacing the Red Cross, that too in the state of Gujarat, I thought here they go again.

So I visited wikipedia to get a sense of what the controversy is all about (Red Cross (symbol), Red Cross). To my surprise, I found out that there are restrictions in place on the use of the red cross and the various symbols related to the Red Cross movement. Specifically, the use of the symbol by doctors, hospitals, medical stores etc is not allowed. In fact, it is a crime in India to use them in such a context (an excellent article on the history behind and misuse of the symbols, by Prof. M Lala Singh).

So, what do these people use then? For doctors, the IMA has its own emblem (The New Emblem for Doctors). The Caduceus, the Rod of Asclepius and their variants) are commonly used by many medical associations, doctors and hospitals worldwide. But no one seems to have picked up a symbol with a religious connotation, however positive that might be, to represent themselves, except of course, Arogya Bharti.

Note: The official website of the Indian Medical Association (
http://www.imanational.com
) seems to be unreachable.

Edit:
April 04, 2008 – Added, updated and corrected post tags.

Dharm

Dharm, a film by director Bhavna Talwar, is a very interesting piece of cinema. While it tackles the age old problem of religious conflict just like many other films have done before, Dharm does it in a different manner. And that is why it needs to be seen.

Pt. Chaturvedi is an orthodox Hindu Brahmin living in Benares with his wife and daughter. Even in this day and age, he follows the various principles of Hindu Dharma to the letter. His religion is everything to him. Chaturvedi is also the head priest of the local temple which runs on the patronage of Vishnu Singh, (probably) of the erstwhile ruling family of Benares. Other characters include a foreign journalist, Paul, who is conducting research for a book on Hindu Dharma and who follows Chaturvedi around as he goes about his daily routine; Dayashankar Pandey, another priest, who is envious of the position and respect enjoyed by Chaturvedi; and Surya Pratap Singh, the hot headed son of Vishnu Singh.

One day, Chaturvedi finds that his wife and daughter are coddling a baby boy which his daughter has brought home from some lady. Chaturvedi tries to locate the mother of the child but is unable to do so. After being convinced by his family that the baby is the son of a Brahmin and that he should adopt it, he accedes to their request and names it Kartikeya. As the child grows, so does Chaturvedi’s affection for it. Needless to say, his wife and daughter are completely under its spell. While life goes on, one day, Paul elopes with the daughter of Vishnu Singh and Chaturvedi consoles Vishnu Singh.

Just when things were getting back to normal, Dayashankar Pandey brings two ladies to Chaturvedi’s house and says that one of them is Kartikeya’s mother. The shocking part is that the ladies are burkha-clad and therefore Muslim. And Kartikeya’s original name is Mustafa. Chaturvedi hands over the boy to them and then begins a process of internal and external cleansing to restore purity. He even undergoes severe penance for the same.

As this is happening, riots break out in Benares, and Mustafa and his mother come calling seeking protection. Chaturvedi remains mute spectator as his wife sends them back. But Chaturvedi finds that he is not able to let go of his attachment to Kartikeya. He begins doubting his religion, and therefore goes back to the root of his beliefs. There he finds what he wants. He then regains his earlier zest for his work and religion and goes in search of Mustafa. Just then, a riotous mob led by Surya Pratap, who is now a member of a local Hindu fanatic group, moves towards that area killing people and burning whole localities. The mob and Mustafa come face to face and Chaturvedi intervenes. It is here that he explains that equality, brotherhood, non-discrimination and humanity are what dharma is all about; violence in the name of protecting religion is not dharma. And his picks up Mustafa aka Kartikeya and leaves the area.

Pankaj Kapur has done excellent work as Pt. Chaturvedi. K.K.Raina (Rang De Basanti, Byomkesh Bakshi, Ek Ruka Hua Faisla), Supriya Pathak and others provide good support. I liked the movie a lot. And as a bonus, it has good music by Sonu Nigam.

An interesting bit of trivia. In Dharm, Pankaj Kapur has a couple of scenes wherein he advices people on how one should control their tongue. He has a similar line in Vishal Bhardwaj’s Maqbool – Paan khao. Zabaan kaboo mein rehti hai – he says. And if one remembers, he has also acted in the Indian remake of Mind Your Language – Zabhan Sambhal Ke. Very interesting.