an old blog

Is there A God?

Hope and faith – not to forget love and compassion are the strong hold of all religion. An omnipotent Being who will enfold the wayward ones in His/ Her arms, all sins forgiven and no questions asked.

But is there is in reality such a thing as faith, as hope – a truth that goes beyond human existence? Are not humans simply aspiring for more through their quest for such things? Are we really all that unique from all the other animals on the planet to believe that we are chosen ones to lead a better life?

Consider probability. Different permutations and combinations of the millions of opportunity that exist, it is only natural that we are here the way we are. And miracles??? Out of the million ways it could have happened, the dice just fell that way.

This also seems to explain why there is so much death and misery in the world. Prayers for instance. If I do not go hungry today is that because I pray better? What about the one that has been starving for the past 3 days? Did he not pray hard enough? Probability gives you a better answer than all the texts in the world. It could have been you but the dice just fell some other way.

Foot note: I wrote this blog way back in 2006, but never got to sharing it. Just some thoughts I had.

Wrong questions???

What really puts me off nowadays are the late night news channel programs that analyse the latest developments of the day. You have prominent (and not so prominent) members of political parties, NGOs etc and a few representative citizens dissect the topic that has grabbed the attention of the Editor of the news channel.

While open forums for discussion are critical for democratic nations like ours, the objective that these discussions ought to achieve is identifying an alternate way to deal with the issue debated. However, when they start serving other masters (like, TRP ratings) the very purpose of strengthening the polity is lost.

A rather annoying example happened the other day, when reviewing the sad state of affairs in the Parliament after the Budget was announced. Members of the opposition and the leading party each defended their stance. However, while a lot was debated, little was clarified.

The opposition talked about 'saving' the 'common man', decreasing his 'burden', meeting his 'expectations' and 'rampant' corruption in the leading party, the member defending his government's stance merely did some mud slinging by asking the opposition what they had done during their time in power.....

To add a little fuel to the fire, the anchor asked the opposition member, whether they were right in walking out with - an ex-ally of the ruling party or bitter enemy of both, i forget which - an embarrassing question for both members.. This led to another revert on the sufferings of the common man.

Such a sham. The critical questions - why is the fuel price rising, who are the losers if you increase/ dont increase the prices, is there an alternate to this - were completely ignored. Not a mention about how the current price rise will affect India's economic future. Instead what was achieved is a little by the way of cheap entertainment - mediocre celebrities taking pot shots at each other.

Why the channel aired this useless diatribe is above my intelligence to understand. A word of caution to the news channels "you can fool some of the people all the time, all the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time".