Defiling the sacred

We hold values of love, honesty and universal justice in high esteem. Honesty seems better than dishonesty. Love and compassion seem better than indifference or hate. Being just seems better than forgoing justice in the name of practicality.

These attributes matter to me. I am pretty confident that they matter to an overwhelmingly large majority of the human population. What bothers me is the alleged universality of such attributes. These attributes might appear universal to us because all humans, and perhaps most animals share the same cognitive machinery.

Why are these attributes significant? Why do they matter? What if their significance lies just in the way our brains are wired? What happens, as we gain the ability to alter our genetics and construct new life forms, we create a world where the things that we consider so sacred to life can be defiled with just a switch of a button, with the re-assignment of a variable and the rewiring of a bunch of neurons?

Will we want to create such a world? Will we want to live in such a world?

Update: I am usually optimistic and hopeful about the future -- it has its due share of challenges but it also offers exciting opportunities. I am feeling particularly disharmonious and agitated today, and your overall mood affects the thoughts that come to mind. I do consider the points I raised to be valid so I will leave the post as is but just note that I am rather hopeful that we will figure things out along the way.

Silent night

Just found this little gem on Butter's blog.



The song truly is a spiritual experience. It almost made me lose sense of time, freeing my soul and making me feel calm, peaceful and warm inside. My eyes were mostly closed the first time I heard it. I didn't know what it was about -- it didn't matter. I read the lyrics at the bottom of the screen the second time around, and the wordings and imagery, though beautiful, made me a little uncomfortable. Perhaps we need another set of metaphors and images, not associated with any of the major religions when talking about spiritual experiences.

I have always found the three part Christian conception of God to be utterly confusing. For the first time however, I realized how the father son relationship can evoke feelings of love and compassion in a way that a single God perhaps cannot. Our most potent experiences of love and warmth are associated with the relations we build and nourish with other humans and it is not surprising to see humans externalizing those relations when constructing notions of a loving God. This provides an emotional explanation of why most Christians stick with their beliefs even when it apparently makes no logical sense.

The power to create

Freaky, funny and provocative at the same time.

Evolution and intelligent design in Pakistani schools

I came across this article talking about Pakistani schools integrating a strong religious component into their curriculum.

What prompted me to write this post was a mention of how to deal with evolution in the curriculum. From the article:

To their dismay, the book begins with a description of the evolution of man. ‘We need to give them the facts,’ says one teacher. ‘They need to know that Darwinism is just an opinion.’ Some teachers recommend books and videos by Harun Yahya, a controversial Islamic creationist, as a classroom alternative. ‘Our students should first learn the truth as stated in the Quran, and then learn about these other versions.’

I feel for the poor students whose minds will be filled with this pseudo-scientific nonsense as part of their curriculum. The evolution/intelligent design debate has been a very controversial one in America but America at least has a well established and respected body of scientists which can intervene and talk some sense into people. That is hardly the case for Pakistan. We certainly don't need an army of educated people who get their scientific 'facts' from the likes of Harun Yahya and the Quran. In the longer run, the Quran might very well shoot itself in the foot because of its claim of being the final and immutable word of God, or perhaps we might see an imaginative acceptance of evolution similar to Catholicism.

The human loss

Reading the story of the sad demise of Captain Omerzeb over at Pak Tea House made me somber. His tragic demise on the birthday of his fiance made my heart heavy. The bonds of love that bind us together can so tear our existence apart when they are snatched away like that.

While we glorify and praise all those who die fighting for Pakistan, it is very easy to de-humanize all those who we perceive to be the 'other' in such a situation. While I am not a bit sympathetic to the cause of the Taliban, that shouldn't make us forget that they are human too. Their deaths send very similar waves of agony rippling through and tearing apart their families. Then there are all the civilian casualties in this unfortunate war on terror. So many lives have been so adversely affected because of it; so many ties of love have been so ruthlessly broken apart.

While religion is only one of the sources that has fueled human conflict through the ages, it has been one of the sources nonetheless. It almost makes me very angry at all those supposed prophets of God whose teachings formed the basis of all this hatred, deceived so many and provided fodder for conflict for so many years to follow after them. How irresponsible of them.

All this makes one pine for a time when we will learn to resolve our differences through dialogue and discussion instead of mindless use of force and violence. It makes one pine for a time when human life wouldn't be so cheap and readily expendable.

Letting go of God

Came across this talk by Julia Sweeney in which she candidly and rather hyper actively narrates her de-conversion story. Nothing particularly unique about what she has to say, but enjoyed it nonetheless.



You can find the latter parts of the talk on youtube.

Do Saudi textbooks teach hate?

This is somewhat related to my previous post. The Quran contains several verses inciting ill-will towards the non-believers. The Quran and Sunnah had to define the Islamic identity in contrast to all the other existing religions, so its not very surprising, though sad and unfortunate, that they contain such verses.

Embedded video from CNN Video

Update: Found a selection of excerpts from Saudi textbooks here (look at the end of the article). They seem dangerous at one level, yet so familiar at another level so as to almost seem innocent. Disturbing.