Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Absurdity of Buddhist philosophy

Greed, Buddhist Philosophy and science


Four noble truths of Buddhism emphasize that it is our greed, our expectation which is at the root of our suffering.

Question is-how solid is this foundation of Buddhism? Is it a rational, scientific foundation?

Now look what we are-what is our existence as human being!

I am a father, husband, son, Engineer, Indian, Bengali etc. etc. Meaning, I have to carry out certain biological and social functions to continue as father, husband etc. For carrying out these functions, for each and every step I am dependant on scientific invention of last centuries like phone, PC, internet, electricity, medicine etc. etc. Without these innovations, my existence reduces to a primitive man and some of existence like engineering dissolves into vacuum.

Which of the above innovation was not born out of greed of making money and forming capital? Edison created electricity to make more money-or else he would not have risked investing his resources to build electrical infrastructure. Internet came from APRANET, which again saw its sky rocketed growth thanks to the greed of each and every individual—be it business or pornography or dating. Hard to digest-but truth is--every video technology—be it VHS, VCR, DVD or streaming came to existence for the greed of porno Industry in USA which always wanted better video quality.

That’s why Capitalism is called –science of rational greed. The word rational is important. It means you are allowed to be greedy within the limit of law.

I give you an example. Let say, I meet a beautiful charming lady in a party or in a train. If I become so greedy that I attempt molesting her- I will be behind the bar next day. This is irrational greed. Now according to four noble truths of Buddism-- after seeing her, I shouldn’t desire to talk to her because that would raise some expectation in my heart—will that be good? Not at all—If I don’t get excited looking at beautiful girl, I would consider my biological existence depleted at that moment—because after all our biological existence is completely sexual. So as long as my excitement is within the rational limit, it serves no bad purpose and indeed greed keeps us into our existence.

We see so many scandals in share markets—because people crossed the limit of rationality in being greedy and they are in Jail. USA and advanced countries have tons of laws to rationalize this greed or else the civilization will collapse. All the corporate laws are essentially a kind of rational limit on corporate greed. But society will not innovate for material growth if there is no greed. Hence, rational greed is the solution and no greed according to Buddhism is counter productive to the social evolution.

It is completely absurd to talk about elimination of greed-our biological religion is to raise kids (see my blogs in http://biplabspiritualism.blogspot.com/ ) . In that process we try to ensure survival of our kids by giving them education and building wealth that he/she would inherit. That’s why a person is much less greedy when he/she does not have children. It is proven in social science that a society that forbids individual inheritance, is less wealthy and sterile in innovation. And that’s why Communism is not in existence any more. Our greed is linked with our biological existence for survival of our genetic code.

Anyhow, I found four noble truths are useful not as a religion but to rationalize our greed. I started a lot of reading on Buddhism after I broke with my first girlfriend. I was suffering and I thought Buddhism might alleviate my pain. Well, it helped but I also realized suffering in love is essential and without suffering nobody can realize true love either. Likewise without suffering from greed, nobody can realize their existence either. Hence four noble truths are useful but they are not good enough for human realization and in some sense not relevant at all to our main biological religion.

Saturday, September 8, 2007

Secularism is absolutely essential for a State

Few months back, I wrote an article on why I think concept of present secular state is flawed:

http://www.vinnomot.com/BiplabPal/Flawed%20secular%20state.htm

I will start from where I ended in this article:

Therefore, I am of the strong opinian that in order to set up a true secular state, one can not ignore the demand-supply aspect of religion in the emotional journey and realization of human being and the support system it forms around its followers. If science can not be a part of that realization and support system, it does not serve any significant purpose just by proving God does not exist or religion is vile. There will not be mass taker of rationalism except a few intellegent beings-not enough to form a political force. And unless we are a part of a strong political force, concept of secularism will be out from the self-organization of human society.

My point is simply this--our society, culture, laws --everything has been formed around God and religion. Or at least in the name of it. Now if I throw God out from the equation, how could we form a society and political system based on scientific social laws? Is that possible?

For example what would be law governing the divorce?

Actually it is much simpler than said for a scientific society. Social research on divorce proved that divorce has devastating effects on the kids:

"A startling thought is occurring to the folks who study the impact of divorce on children: A good divorce may be much worse than a bad marriage."

"American society may have erased the stigma that once accompanied divorce, but it can no longer ignore its massive effects. As social scientists track successive generations of American children whose parents have ended their marriages, the data are leading even some of the once-staunchest supporters of divorce to conclude that divorce is hurting American society and devastating the lives of children. Its effects are obvious in family life, educational attainment, job stability, income potential, physical and emotional health, drug use, and crime."

"But some long-term research suggests that children of broken marriages face a higher risk of divorce, difficulty forming relationships and serious psychological problems."
"Given the potential reverberating effects of divorce through a child's life, some divorce experts say that broken marriages have become a serious public policy question. "

"For parents, the question can be excruciating. ``Most adults want the freedom to end an unhappy marriage,'' said Andrew Cherlin, a professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University. ``But they don't want to harm the lives of their children. The question of long-term effects tells us whether the difficulty of divorce will last into the next generation.''
"Three-hundred-and-thirty undergraduates at a large southeastern university completed a confidential anonymous 26 item questionnaire designed to assess the effect of parental divorce/remarriage on the relationship with their respective parents and on their own romantic relationships. The data revealed several significant relationships-respondents whose parents were divorced and remarried reported being less happy and less close to both their mother and father than respondents whose parents were still married. In addition, offspring whose parents were divorced were more likely to avoid short-term relationships. Implications and limitations of the data are suggested."
"The present study updates the P. R. Amato and B. Keith (1991) meta-analysis of children and divorce with a new analysis of 67 studies published in the 1990s. Compared with children with continuously married parents, children with divorced parents continued to score significantly lower on measures of academic achievement, conduct, psychological adjustment, self-concept, and social relations. After controlling for study characteristics, "
So when a scientific society will formulate laws on divorce-they don't need to seek for obscured religious texts of Koran or Manu--instead, they need to look after the results from social science as stated above--to protect women and kids-to minimize the impact of divorce on state productivity. State productivity must be measured in terms of education and well being of the kids.

This is what I call a secular state--a state which relies on scientific research to guide its society and does not depend on any idealism like Hinduism, communism, Islam etc. These are anti-thesis of human civilization.







Religion against social and biological model of human being

Ok. Now it is high time to explain how religions are failing to meet minimum social demands.

Just a couple of examples from different religions.

You must have noticed number of criminals among the Muslims far surpassed their percentage in Europe and India. Most of the Muslim criminals including famous actor Salman Khan thinks he is answerable only to Allah. Even a former atheist-- famous Bengali singer Suman Chottopadhyay ( now Suman Kabir) after adopting his new faith declared that he is only answerable to Allah when he was battered and convicted with the crime of beating his German wife in Calcutta. Most of the Islamic terrorists also think they are only answerable to Allah and they have no obligation to mortal society. Does not matter that his friends and relatives will die in a blast in Mumbai or London-the very city which has provided him a living. So what? Who cares for a living on the earth when Allah has promised a thousand time better living in heaven with virgins for his loyal soldiers. When I read Koran --Allah sounds more like a Dawood Ibrahim kind of Gangstar who promises a lot for his followers and death for the opponents.

Being socially responsible is essential for self organization of human beings. You must return whatever service you are getting from the society. You have been a responsible citizen because your parents, school teachers, professors, friends and writers have contributed in shaping 'you' immensely. And you return it being a responsible parent and social human being. Cycle of life goes on. No society can be built on the principles that its citizens are only responsible to God and not to the society.

In Hinduism, castism is perhaps the best example of how religion can render a very weak cohesion among its citizens. Let's say, I am a Bramhin and I am enjoying food from a farmer who is a Biashya and manual service from a servant who is invariably a Sudra. Both of them belong to lowest rank and file of the society according to Hinduism. Now, scientifically this means a gross disregard for functions of the society which are thousand time more essential than religious practice which is the occupation of the Brahmins. As a result, for a long time India has the weakest military power. Any Tom, Dick and Harry invaded India and subjugated its fertile land for centuries. Social crimes committed by Hindu religion stand largest and ugliest in the human history.

Now I will expose how religion has no relationship with human being as a biological existence. We all know that we live for raising our kids-biologically parenting is our supreme religion because that's how we ensure that human genes survive and make itself better through natural selection.

Look at religious practice in Islam: Hajj ( pilgrimage), 5 times prayers ( Namaz), Ramdan or fasting--how any of these stupid activity can help in parenting?

Also look at Hinduism-- Idol worshiping, concept of Maya & reality in Adaityabad, Kirtan etc.--How any of these meaningless activity and philosophy can help in raising a good kid?

Story remains same and sordid for Buddhism and Christianity.

What helps to raise the kids:

1) A society with excess of food production
2) A society with superior military/political justice system to give political stability
3) A society with good education systems
4) Honest social administration-kids will be honest only if they grow up in a honest society.

Human beings do not need a God or Allah--they need (1)-(4).

Muslims and Hindus migrated to USA and Europe, a land of Christianity because these countries have much better provision for (1)-(4). Had religion been a primary thing in their life, they would not have migrated to Christian land where he/she will be a minority. However most of the religious Hindus and Muslims in USA fail to understand this basic reality and they continue to practice their religion more enthusiastically in foreign land without realizing it brings nothing to parenting or well beings of kids for which they have migrated.

Unfortunately in the process of social evolution political systems that promised (1)-(4) in the name of God or Allah have been more successful irrespective of whether they have actually delivered it. These political systems enforced the fear of God/Allah in the minds of kids using state machinery.

Once the fear of God/Allah is installed in a kid's mind,99.9% times, he/she has to live with this fear throughout his/her life. Most of the Bengali intellectuals are born out of leftist families because in a God fearing society of Bengalis, leftists are exception and their children do not have to bear the burden of God-which is counter productive to the development of human intellect and rationality.

Monday, September 3, 2007

The essence of being born into this world

Every one of us is looking for happiness.

To some, freedom equals to happiness. Others may think dollar equals happy mode. To a woman of 30+, a successful date may mean happiness. However, for a moment, nobody understands that we are actually chasing following set of questions and not happiness.

-who am I?

-why am I born into this world?

-what is objective of this mortal life?

Well, religion has attempted to answer these questions as 'advertisement from God" and not scrutinizing social and biological science. If you ask above questions to any religious master of Abrahamic faith, you will be returned with following.

-You are the son of God

-You have been born into the world to serve the purpose of God

-Your aim in life is to attain and please God's will-..

These are not actually the answers-it is simply a bunch of bullshits to avoid a deep quest to understand our nature-human nature.

Just think, if instead of religious answers, I put forward our biological and social understanding:

-I am just a biological being like billion other biological beings in this planet or possibly in the universe

-I am born into the world to continue and improve the genetic code from my ancestors. Thus, I am a part of positive evolution of mankind.

-My mortal objective is to raise kids-work for the society so that they can live a secured and healthy life.

Irrespective of religions, every human being actually follows these biological definition as they have been programmed. But the world civilization has been hijacked by the bullshits of religious preaching and stupid lies of revelation from God or Allah. And our civilization is at danger-from the Islamists, from Zionists, from the Hinduists and from the Christian fundamentalists. In next blog we will analyze these questions further to understand our basic nature and reality around us.