A Handbook of Everyday Life
New Age Tantrums
By Xavier William
A new age study on how economic tides, parental conditioning and group-think warp or distort our thoughts, words and actions as well as mold our world of ethics, religions, beliefs, sex and relationships etc, and on how these distortions can be set straight by the arts of self-talk and clear-think
1 Extraordinary Insights Into The Ordinary Facets Of Life
New Age Tantrums
By, Xavier William
Copyright: A Win-Win Outlook Xavier William L-30195/2008 (India)
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
2 Contents Page
The Preface 5
The Introduction 7
PART – I OUR OPERATING SYSTEMS
Chapter One: Skeletons Under The Boards: Fear, Economics, Ethics And Morals 14 “Life is a top which whipping Sorrow driveth.” Fulke Greville
Chapter Two: The Violent Ape – Aggression and Assertiveness 35 “ Opinions founded on prejudices are always sustained with the greatest of violence.” Francis Jeffrey
Chapter Three: Pavlov’s Dogs - Parental and Social Conditioning 69 “There is none so blind as he who refuses to see and there is none so deaf as he who refuses to hear” Proverb
PART –II OUR SOFTWARES AND VIRUSES
Introduction to Part - II
Chapter Four: Clear Thinking and Self-Talk, Logic and Fuzzy Logic 91 "Cogito. Ergo sum (I think. So I am)" Rene Descartes.
Chapter Five: The Political Animal 122 "A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman thinks of the next generation”. James Freeman Clarke, Sermon
Chapter Six: Cooperation and Globalization 145 'No man is an Island' John Donne
Chapter Seven: Arithmetic and our Environment 154 "So bleak is the picture... that the bulldozer and not the atomic bomb may turn out to be the most destructive invention of the 20th century." Philip Shabecoff, New York Times Magazine, 4 June 1978
Chapter Eight: Of Quacks and Cures 160 3 ‘Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, which we ascribe to heaven.’ William Shakespeare
Chapter Nine: Faiths and Beliefs 174 “ To become a popular religion, it is only necessary for a superstition to enslave a philosophy. Many people believe that they are attracted by God or by Nature, when they are only repelled by man.” William Ralph Inge
Chapter Ten: Superstitions and Superfads 287 “Ignorance is the soil in which belief in miracles grows and superstition is the religion of feeble minds.” Edmund Burke
The Conclusion: Economics, Ethics and New Age Blues 321 “There has never been an age that did not applaud the past and lament the present." Llillian Eichler Watson
Bibliography 337
4 The Preface
t was from Sam Pitroda, the famous Indian technocrat, that I first heard the term 'mental infrastructure'. When we talk of infrastructure, pictures of roads, railways, communications lines and so on and so forth Icome to our minds. But such materialistic infrastructures play only the second fiddle to mental infrastructure. It is the quality of human mental infrastructure that determines the prospects of a society or nation. It is this quality of human resources and mental infrastructure that makes Japan one of the richest nations on earth despite its remote position and scarce natural resources. Both nature and nurture play significant roles in how each individual and society react to changing situations. Traits both good and bad are distributed equally throughout the world. Wise men and fools, geniuses and mediocres, saints and criminals are evenly dispersed over the human societies of the world irrespective of the ethnic group they belong to. Thus there are many men and woman born in the world with the innate genius of an Einstein or an Edison. However, like the seeds that fell on hard rocks these geniuses born under hostile circumstances do not receive the nurture needed to develop into Nobel Laureates and great inventors. Though all qualities good and bad are intrinsic in man and evenly distributed in nature, it is the society that nurtures these qualities. In a benign society the positive qualities are nurtured to bloom while in a corrupt society, criminals and sycophants rule the day. All human beings, irrespective of ethnic factors crave peace and prosperity. However, violence plays spoilsport and plunge humanity into needless bloodshed and traumas. ‘New Age Tantrums’ explores the causes of violence in human society and proposes or promotes the art of clear thinking as a means of defusing these explosive situations. Violence is natural to man and is complementary to fear, the most innate character of all life forms. All men are created equal as regards our innate fears – especially our xenophobia - and our natural propensity to violence. On the other hand, people differ in the ways they react to different situations, and this in turn depends on the way they are brought up or nurtured. This nurture is called conditioning. Parents as well as parental figures like teachers, priests, peers and the media play prominent parts in such conditioning. But it is the society that plays the most significant part in nurturing the positive and/or negative mental infrastructures, which will determine whether that society or ethnic group is benign or malignant. This is best illustrated by the history of the people around the Mediterranean Sea. From ancient times, the people around the Mediterranean had close commercial and cultural interactions with each other. Countries of Asia and Africa, countries like Turkey and Egypt stood shoulder to shoulder with Rome and Greece, which stood in the forefront of European civilization. These civilizations around the Mediterranean considered the people of Northern Europe as barbarians. Christianity further strengthened the commercial and cultural bonds between the countries around the Mediterranean. Islam came and drove a wedge into the people around the Mediterranean, and made the people north of the Mediterranean the avowed enemies of the people south of the sea. However, both sides lay steeped in their own versions of religious fundamentalism and superstitions. But for the differences in creeds, the people on the two sides stood neck and neck as regards science, technology, culture and other characteristics
5 of a society. The priests and mullahs reigned supreme. Inquisitions and fatwas were a way of life. This era is called the dark ages by historians. It was on this scene of darkness and strife that Renaissance burst forth with a new and scientific way of looking at things. Perhaps the people of Europe had got weary and fed up with the chronic internecine wars in the name of religious dogmas. Renaissance had its inception in Italy and spread rapidly to the other countries of Europe in spite of the resistance put up by the religious establishment. However, the Southern side of the Mediterranean – the Islamic side - missed the Renaissance-bus and stuck to its old ways of strife and superstitions. Perhaps it was the Christian side that was more querulous and incendiary in the name of God than the Islamic side, and that may have been why Europe got fed up with religions and religious conflicts before its Afro-Asian counterparts did. As such, religions and their dogmatic wars deserve a backhanded compliment for urging Europe from the darkness of the Middle Ages into light of Renaissance and the enlightenment before the rest of the world. As a result of the change in outlook or mental infrastructure brought on by Renaissance and the enlightenment, Europe advanced rapidly and was soon in a position to enjoy a much higher standard of life compared to the countries on the Islamic side of the Mediterranean. What is more, thanks to this scientific outlook, Europe was able to increase its military might and to conquer their erstwhile equals with ease. It was Renaissance and its scientific outlook that gave the West the edge over the ancient civilizations like Greece, Egypt, India and China, which had missed the renaissance bus. It is its superior social nurture and mental infrastructure that enabled the West to attain its present-day high living standards. The craving for peace and prosperity is universal. However, violence vitiates progress. Apart from our innate fears, xenophobia and our propensity to violence, it is our differences in nurture or conditioning that leads to violence between different ethnic groups. There are differences in perceptions between different societies in matters of religion, politics, sex and relationships, environmental issues and other aspects of life ‘New Age Tantrums’ demonstrates how we can apply the art of clear thinking to bridge over these apparent differences in perceptions, and how we can cooperate and build win-win situations in spite of these differences in perceptions, difference which may seem unbridgeable at first sight. For clear thinking, we have to steer away form dogmatic conditioning, which warps and occludes our thinking process. Differences in dogmas and doctrines can only be resolved by violence. On the other hand, clear thinking requires courage, the courage to veer clear off the beaten tracks of thoughts, words and deeds. In short, this book is about thinking the unthinkable, questioning the unquestionable, speaking the unspeakable and doing the forbidden.
6 The Introduction
highly acclaimed and award winning teacher was asked about the secret of his success. He did not take long to come out with his formula for his successful teaching career, "First I tell my students Awhat I am going to teach them. Then I teach them. Finally, I tell them what I have taught them." I do not see why a book should be any different. In this introduction, I am going to tell you in brief what I have in store for you in this work, and to share with you ideas and concepts which have taken me over seven years to compile from decades of thought and contemplation. This book highlights the significance played by material resources and economic factors in all life forms whether plant, animal or human. All life forms are programmed to attain higher and higher economic efficiencies - to attain maximum or optimum outputs from minimum resource-inputs. Evolution itself can be interpreted in terms of making better or more efficient use of available resources, or in terms of exploiting resources that were not hitherto useful. This process of attaining higher efficiencies is slow and driven by evolution in all life forms except man. In the human species this drive for higher economic efficiencies is driven by volition and intelligence. As a result, man has managed to attain higher and higher economic efficiencies by developing technologies at a very fast pace compared to other life forms which depend on evolution. It was the book ‘The Third Wave’ by Alvin Toffler that brought home to me the importance of economic factors in all aspects of human life. It helped me see that economic issues have the most profound impact on all aspects of our life. Naturally, Toffler's works have had a momentous influence on this book too. According to Alvin Toffler, man's economic development came in quantum leaps, which he called Waves. He notes that man first broke away from his natural state of hunting, foraging and scavenging and took to organized agriculture and pasturing. Toffler called this ‘The First Wave’. This agrarian and pastoral way of life then gave way to the industrial revolution, which Toffler termed 'The Second Wave' of human economical development. Much of the human world is now living in these two waves. However the vanguard of humanity, the urban population, has moved on to 'The Third Wave' of economic development, which is driven by the computer, information and blue-tooth technologies, mobile phones, robots and so on and so forth – all of incorporating the ubiquitous chip. Though Alvin Toffler used the terms ‘The First Wave’, ‘The Second Wave’ and ‘The Third Wave’ to denote these different stages of human economical development, we shall substitute these terms with ‘The Agrarian Wave’, ‘The Industrial Wave’ and ‘The Digital wave’ respectively for simplicity's sake throughout this book, as these terms are quite self- explanatory. The term ‘Original State’ has been used to refer to the primordial, natural or original state of man. Each state and economic wave narrated above, had its own version of ethics and morals, concepts, religions, medicines, sex and relationships and other political and social institutions, all of which were in tune with the economic compulsions of the times and the economic waves. Thus, slave labor and the serf and caste systems were institutionalized in the Agrarian Wave in tune with its economic needs. Accordingly, the religious institutions of the times including Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam endorsed such practices as slavery, feudalism and the caste system. On the other hand, universal education and democracy are essential to an Industrial Wave economy, which depends on skilled, educated labor – men and women 7 who are able to read and write and make decisions on their own. Likewise, large monolithic, empire-nations and colonies were essential to meet the labor and raw material requirements of the Leviathan Industrial Wave institutions, whereas national boarders break down before the onslaught of the Digital wave of chips and the information technology, and its globalized economy and wealth creation. It may also be noted that the transition from one wave to the next is rather sluggish development. In the process, traditions and taboos of the preceding wave are retained in a developing wave, and die out only in time, though such retained traditions and taboos may not have any economic relevance in the new economic wave. Thus the Agrarian Wave is characterized by marriage and joint families. These institutions are retained in the Industrial Wave in the modified form of nuclear families. However, marriage and families are not in tune with The Industrial Wave or The Digital Wave, which are characterized by equal rights for both men and women. This equality of the sexes in turn came about, because in these later economic waves, women became educated and began to fend for themselves on an equal footing with men. As marriage is an Agrarian Wave institution based on the subjugation of women, marriages are out of tune with the Industrial Wave and Digital Wave ideals of sexual equality. As a result, a high percentage of the marriages in the Industrial and Digital Wave societies end up in divorces and family discords unlike in the Agrarian Wave when women had few rights. The Industrial Wave is yet to develop an institution that can effectively replace the Agrarian Wave institutions of marriages and joint families. Thus, marriage offers one of the best examples of how social institutions of one economic wave are carried on to the next wave though the institution may prove redundant in the new wave. The Agrarian Wave was driven by animal and human muscle power. In contrast, the Industrial Wave is driven by the gargantuan machines that guzzle up enormous quantities of fossil fuel. The Digital wave in its turn is driven by the ubiquitous chip as pointed out above. Alvin Toffler's triad of futuristic works – ‘Future Shock’, ‘The Third Wave’ and ‘Power Shift’- also make me wonder what the Fourth Wave will be driven by. I have no pretenses whatsoever to being a futurist. However, I am certain that cooperation between the different ethnic and political groups, which are presently at loggerheads with each other, is going to play a prominent and pivotal role in the next quantum leap in economic development. Signs of such cross-boarder cooperation are already evident in such movements and organizations like the EEC, ASEAN, SARC, OPEC and the Pan American and Pan African movements for economic, cultural and military cooperation. Attempts at such cross-boarder and international cooperation are vitiated in our present-day scenarios of cross-boarder terrorism, and internal and international wars. The mindless violence we witness today is caused by various factors. This book is a study on the cause of such violence and on how the art of clear thinking can pave the way to building win-win strategies and cooperation between conflicting fractions. This book is divided into two parts. The first part deals with what is called the basic mental infrastructure of human beings; it consists of three chapters. The first chapter involves our innate fears and phobias, the most vital, mental platform or infrastructure for all life forms. Without fear no life can survive even for a minute. The second chapter deals with our natural propensity to violence and this too forms an unchanging and primordial element of the mental infrastructure for all life forms. A third component of our mental infrastructure is our nurture or our upbringing. We are conditioned or programmed from birth by our parents and our society to react in predetermined ways to evolving situations. The third chapter deals with this aspect of parental and social programming or conditioning. This factor of our mental infrastrucre varies from one age to another and from one society to another. It is this nurture or conditioning by parents, parental figures and by the society at large that distinguishes one ethnic group from another. They are these three ingredients of our mental infrastructure – fear, violence and conditioning – and especially their irrational aspects that lie behind the conflicts we face in the world today. Only societies that nurture scientific thinking and toleration of diverse philosophies can cooperate and prosper. On the other hand, a society that nurtures violence, superstitions and bigotry is doomed to internecine conflicts and abject poverty. Clear thinking and a win-win attitude to the resolution of conflicting demands alone can lead to peace and prosperity, which are the most universal of human aspirations. This book is all about the application of the art of clear thinking which alone can counter the irrational and dangerous elements of our mental infrastructure, with special emphasis on parental conditioning. Though it was for his work on the digestive glands that won him the 1904 Nobel Prize in medicine, the Russian scientist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849–1936), is best remembered for his experiments on reflex 8 behavior. He fed dogs daily after ringing a bell. In time, the dogs associated the ring of the bell with the feeding, and it was observed that their mouths watered at the sound of the bell even when there was no food. The dogs had been conditioned to a tenet that the ring of the bell means food. The ring of the bell is the trigger and the watering mouth is the reaction. The trigger and the reaction have no logical relationships and yet they were closely associated for the dogs. Thanks to our long gestation periods, humans are the most conditioned of animals. We tend to think and act in preprogrammed ways to trigger words, trigger situations and rituals, though the trigger and the reaction may have no apparent or logical relationships whatsoever. Our parents, peers, the media and our society at large resort to such conditioning. This is called ethnic conditioning or programming. Much of these social conditionings like technology, ethics and morals are beneficial; others such as dressing or cooking are irrelevant. Still other beliefs and practices, to which we are conditioned, are downright harmful and lead to bloody conflicts, especially when people of differing and incompatible ethnic programming have to live, work and interact in close proximity. Monotheism and polytheism are of this category and monotheists and iconoclasts have often resorted to violence and desecration of temples and places of worship and have defiled icons, which were held sacred by polytheists. A young woman was preparing a ham for dinner. Seeing her first cut off the end of the ham before placing it in the pan, her friend asked her, "Why do you do that?" She replied, "That’s how my mother always did it" The mother was also asked the same question and she replied, "That’s always been the way my mother did it- she always cut of the end of the ham." Later on, when the grandmother was asked the same question, she replied, "Well, otherwise the ham would not fit into my baking pan." This piece of humor from Reader's Digest amuses us and we think how silly the mother and her daughter are. Here is an identical case, which is not so amusing. The Aghoris are a peaceful and highly spiritual Aghoris & tribe from Benares, India. They wait in the shadows on the shores of the Ganges where Cannibalism Hindus come to cremate their dead. Once the mourners are gone, the Aghoris move in and consume morsels of the barbecued human flesh with utmost reverence and solemnity. The Aghoris are doing much the same thing as the silly women who cut off the end of the ham did; both are aping their parents irrationally. The case of the women is amusing because it is odd and singular. On the other hand, the Aghoris and their ritualistic cannibalism do not amuse us; because it is an ethnic phenomenon- the whole society is aping their parents who in turn aped their ancestors. They consume human flesh, because they believe as their ancestors believed that ingestion of human flesh liberates them from the endless cycle of births and rebirths and helps them attain nirvana. The Aghori custom also sickens us. However on second thought, we are often no better than the women or the Aghoris. All conditioning by repetition leads to rhythmic thinking. They are such conditionings that distinguish one society from another and one ethnic group from another in the way they react to different Rhythmic situations in life. Many dangerous conditionings are characterized by dogmas, doctrines, thinking tenets, prejudices, intolerance and irrational traditions and taboos. We have all observed dirt roads in the countryside. Often deep ruts are formed on these roads by heavy vehicle traffic. Once a rut is in place, all the traffic uses it, as it is easier than beating a new path. Deep ruts have been furrowed out in our brains too by repetitious conditioning, and our thinking machinery has a tendency to take the rut. It is easier to think and rationalize along prescribed lines than to beat our own path, which may often mean rubbing the establishment the wrong way and antagonizing peers. Bigoted and dogmatic ethnic conditioning is very much in evidence in our world of ethics, politics, religions, beliefs, superstitions, alternate medicines, economics, environment protection, sex and relationships etc. Such irrational acceptance of ethnically programmed dogmas and precepts as eternal and immutable truths is the cause of much of the conflicts and bloodshed we see in the world today. Ethnic incompatibility becomes a handy tool in the hands of politicians and others of that ilk who are ever on the lookout for opportunities to promote themselves at the expense of peace and prosperity. Ordinary people often play into the hands of such charlatans due to ignorance, fear or a social phenomenon called groupthink. New Age Tantrums exposes such dangerous ethnic conditionings for what they are. This work is a New Age exposition on how our innate fears and our natural propensity to violence coupled with economic forces and ethnic programming – in short nature and nurture - shape our society. The book expounds how we can see through harmful ethnic conditioning by tuning into our self-talk and by
9 clear-think. It also shows how we can build win-win relationships between people from seemingly incompatible ethnic backgrounds. Everyone believed the earth was flat and that it was the center of the universe and that the Sun went around the Earth. Galileo, one of the first to propose otherwise, was imprisoned for bringing out the truth, by the very people who boast that they alone are the upholders of infallible truth. Darwin was scoffed at for his theory of evolution, and even now, the self-appointed guardians of divine truth are at a loss as to explain their mumbo-jumbo of creation myths vis-à-vis evolution. We do not have to swallow any idea, concept or doctrine just because it has been around for thousands of years or because all the people you know, trust and revere, believe in it. Slavery and other forms of gross injustice were around for thousands of years. Nonetheless, it does not mean that these inhuman practices are fair or acceptable under present conditions. As mentioned above, the different ethnic groups of our world are conditioned to different dogmas, doctrines, traditions and taboos, which are often in conflict with each other. Thus, monotheism is in conflict with polytheism; capitalism is apparently incompatible with communism; theories of evolution challenge creation myths; globalization and protectionism are in conflict with each other and so on and so forth. In fact, all such differences can be explained in terms of different ethnic conditioning or programming or in terms of our innate fears and suspicions, and especially in terms of our all-pervasive xenophobia. Conditioning and our phobias obscure clear thinking and give rise to rhythmic thinking and emotional outbursts. This work is aimed at inducing people to get off the ruts and furrows of conditioned thinking. Be it in religion, politics, history, economics, prophets or godmen there is nothing and nobody, so holy or sacrosanct, that they cannot be questioned or rationally examined. But to accomplish this feat we have to be well versed in the art of clear thinking. If the first part of the book is on our mental infrastructure and the various causes of the violent conflicts in our world, the second part of this book is on a constructive mental superstructure based on clear thinking, which can mitigate the violence that ravage the world today. This book emphasizes and asserts that apart from our innate xenophobia, much of the violence in our world is caused by obscure and conditioned reasoning. It is clear thinking alone that can defuse the volatile and explosive situations that arise from obscurantism. The latter part of this book is on the application of the art of clear thinking to the different aspects of life such as ethnic factors, politics, economics, alternate medicines, environmental issues, sex and relationships, religions and superstitions, ethics, morals, traditions and taboos, and so forth. The so-called ethnic differences are more apparent than real, and can be bridged with clear and original thinking. By thus deconditioning ourselves from the harmful and bigot prejudices we have been brought up in, we can build an atmosphere conducive to cooperation, peace and prosperity for all mankind. There has been an attempt in science by the likes of Stephen Hawkins to unify the fundamental forces of gravity, magnetism and electricity into a grand unification theory. In the same vein, Grand this work is an attempt to formulate a unification theory of the different aspects of daily life Unification vis-à-vis our drive for economic efficiency in what is called ‘The Law of Optimum Theory Efficiencies,’ which will be dealt with in detail in the first chapter of this book. Such a unification theory of life does not come easy. Life is just too complex for that. Unlike theories and concepts like The Theory of Relativity, which are hard to digest for the ordinary man, there are other theories, which seem we had known all along, but were not aware of until someone unearthed them from our subconscious mind. Thus humanity had known all along in its subconscious, as expressed in the numerous fables and myths, that humans and animals had a close kinship. Nonetheless, it took Darwin and his Theory of Evolution to unearth this subconscious knowledge and to expose it to our conscious mind, which had all along been conditioned to the concept that we are special creatures made in God’s own image. ‘The Law of Optimum Efficiencies’ is one such concept that has been brought out from the realm of the subconscious into the annals of organized knowledge by this work. It is not management book or one on superficial self- improvement. The book induces you into uncharted and forbidden territories of politics, economics, religions, sex and relationships, alternate medicines, environmental issues and other aspects of everyday life.
10 The first chapter of the second part of this book takes you through the different facets of logic such as perception, concept formation, thinking, associating and so on - subjects, which are vital if we are to liberate ourselves from the ruts of destructive and dangerous ethnic conditioning and programming. Subsequent chapters demonstrate the application of the art of clear-thinking to the different aspects of life. These chapters are meant to demonstrate how the principles of clear and unconditioned thinking can be applied to these facets of life. As I am not a specialist or an expert in these aspects of life such as economics and politics, I may not have considered important bits of relevant information and knowledge in these treatises and so the conclusions drawn by me in these chapters may not often be the absolute and immutable truth. Flexibility and readiness to change opinions, and to accept change in step with available knowledge are absolutely imperative to the art of clear thinking. There is no such thing as the absolute truth especially in matters concerning politics, religion, ethics, morals and so on. We are accustomed to think that the courts dispense the absolute in justice. However, it is Courts Of in recognition of the fact there is no such thing as the absolute truth or justice that different Appeal levels of appeals are provided for in the judicial system. Just because the judgment delivered by a court has been reversed by a court of appeal, it does not mean that the lower court is wrong. It may mean that the judge of the lower court has a different way of looking at things or fresh knowledge has been made available to the higher court, knowledge, which was not available to the lower court at the time of judgment. What is more, judges on the same bench often differ with each other and deliver conflicting verdicts. Clear thinking thus does not have to lead you to consensus and to the absolute truth except when arithmetic and mathematics are involved. Cooperation between people is possible only if we recognize this factor of divergence of opinions, and we are ready to accept divergent views on everything under the sun. Dogmas and doctrines, whether political, religious, social or economic, do not provide for such accommodation for divergent views and opinions. Differences of opinions in the face of dogmas and doctrines can only be resolved by violence. The dogmas and doctrines espoused by the stronger party then carry the day only to be toppled by a stronger power and its dogmas and doctrines. Might alone is right when it comes to dogmas and doctrines, and bloodshed become inevitable in resolving differences between irrational and incompatible dogmas and doctrines. Unlike most other ethnic differences that are very much localized, religion is an ethnic factor that permeates over other ethnic factors, and is universal in that many religions like Christianity and Islam are spread all over the globe. What is more, other ethnic factors like color, race or language are based on natural and geographic causes. Religion on the other hand, is based totally on indoctrination and conditioning. You are born into a religion and adopt the beliefs, dogmas, doctrines and tenets of your religion only because of your parents. Religions also provide the most fertile ground for charlatans and unscrupulous politicians for their despicable designs. In addition, religions are infested with priests and mullahs who command respect only because of the robes they don. Though most of them are barely literate or have only a lopsided education in their particular theologies, they boast infallibility in all matters in this world and in the next, and have not been averse to pronouncing fatwas and death penalties on those who dare cross them. Religions are also infected with irrational dogmas and doctrines, which in turn lead to heresies and schisms. The validity of these irrational dogmas, doctrines and the subsequent heresies can only be resolved on the battlefield. The winner's dogmas are then accepted as the infallible truth and the loser's dogmas are rejected as heresies. For these reasons, religions provide the best arena for exposing ethnic and dogmatic obscurantism, and for espousing and promoting the art of clear thinking. Religions therefore get the pride of place in this work on clear and unconditioned thinking. The only 'religion' that can cater to our present day needs is the art of clear and unconditioned thinking. Even lateral thinking can serve us much better in solving modern problems than any thousand-year old religion or superstition. The last chapter concludes with a plea to let the dead past bury its dead. Life, both past and present is beset with problems. Problems such as draught, disease and wars were common to the communities of the Original State as well as to the joint families of the Agrarian Wave. The society as a whole had much the same problems and had to evolve appropriate solutions together. As a result, there was much in common between the members of a community as regards the nature of the problems, and much camaraderie in finding solutions to them. On the other hand, with the job specializations and the nuclear families of the Industrial Wave, everyone has his own unique set of problems to which he has to develop his own unique solutions. Even close friends and family members are not often in a position to give us succor in our time of 11 need. Everyone is left to his own devices and even small problems loom large to nightmarish proportions in the utter loneliness of the modern age. Such present day problems arise from present day realities, and solutions to these problems lie in the present and not in the past. Resorting to religions, philosophies and practices of the past to resolve present day hiccups is like trying to mend a computer or a mobile phone with a chisel and hammer. Ancient medicines cannot cure modern diseases. The aim of this work is to promote cooperation and win-win strategies between different ethnic groups with divergent, and apparently incompatible ethnic differences. This is possible if we question and rectify age-old dogmas and doctrines with clear-thinking tools. The motto of this work is “Dare think the unthinkable! Dare question the unquestionable! Nothing and nobody is so holy or sacrosanct that they cannot be questioned in the light of clear thinking and logic.”
12 PART – I
OUR OPERATING SYSTEMS
13 Chapter One
Skeletons Under The Boards: Fear, Economics, Ethics And Morals
“Life is a top which whipping Sorrow driveth.” Fulke Greville
Fear is the key to life. Carl Jung the famous psychologist once dreamt that he was on the top floor of a house, which was well furnished with beautiful curtains and fine paintings on the walls. He found the room very much to his taste. He then decided to have a look at the floors below. He went down to find the floors below were not as appealing as the top floor. The furnishings were medieval and it was not as airy or bright as the floor above. A slab in the floor with a ring on it caught his attention. He pulled at the ring and lifted the slab only to reveal a narrow flight of stairs which led him deeper into the basement of the house. There in a cave Jung found scattered about in the dust the fragments of a primitive culture – skulls, bones, earth-ware and some ancient implements.
ARCHTYPES: Being a disciple of Freud he applied some of the Freudian principles to interpret the dream and proposed that the top floor of the house represented his conscious personality, the floor below his unconscious or subconscious personality and the cave down in the basement represented the primitive man or animal in himself, which Jung termed as the collective unconscious or the archetypes. According to him, the ancient remnants in the cave belonged to our human ancestors, who helped shape our common psychic heritage. Jung’s hypothesis about the collective consciousness and the resulting ‘archetypes’ was as revolutionary in psychology as the Quantum Theory in Physics or the evolution theory in biology. Archetypes are ‘identical psychic structures common to all.’ The hypothesis says that essentially we are the same in our fundamental psychic reaction to external stimuli. Thus in identical conditions we react in much the same way and this gives rise to parallel thoughts, images, mythologems (recurring themes of myths), feelings, and ideas in people, irrespective of their class, creed, race, geographical location, or historical epoch. This individual response results from identical collective unconscious. The final authority for making the final decision is invested in an entity, which Jung termed the Self. Until Jung proposed his theories of the archetype psychologists maintained that children became attached to their mothers because mothers fed children. However, Jung maintained that children actively participated in the formation of all their relationships with the world, because of the inbuilt collective unconscious. Thus, it has been found that adult faces, pictures of faces and even crude cartoon renderings of faces hold a newborn’s attention in preference to sights of other objects, implying that the newborn is ready to interact with faces. Likewise, reactions as regards parents, wife, children, birth, and death are inborn in us as strong concepts, as psychic aptitudes. In short, our actions are the result of the interaction between our individual experiences and the collective primordial experiences.
14 Jung’s hypothesis on the archetypes may seem at variance with Freud’s view that personal experience is of crucial significance for the development of each individual. On the contrary, the two theories complement each other in that the role of personal experience is to ‘develop what is already there’ in the common unconscious and in the archetypes as well as in the Self. Our psyches are not simply a product of experience, any more than our bodies are merely the product of what we eat. In the final analysis, both the collective unconscious and the personal experiences and their myriad permutations and combinations determine the final decision of the Self to act in a unique manner in every situation. A newborn mammal reaching for the mother’s teats is the result of the collective unconscious. No experience is involved in this innate action. In contrast, our reaction of fight, flight or submit to a threatening situation is a combination-reaction of the collective unconscious as well as the individual experience. Some of this collective unconscious we have described, is older than humanity itself and dates back to the first life forms on earth, while others like the fear of snakes is of later vintage and dates back to the time when many animals like the dinosaurs, and crocodiles ruled the earth, though man had not yet put in his appearance. Still later parts of the collective psyche have elements of the apes and humanoids and man himself – elements, which are in step with man’s evolution. One of the most ancient and primordial collective unconscious is fear, which is older than man, and as old as life itself. Without fear of death and pain, no living being can survive. Fear of death and pain is the prime mover in our life and it is fear that drives our emotions, technologies, relationships, politics and other facets of life.
Fear: The scientific journal ‘Cell’ in its issue dated November 18, 2005 reported that scientists at the Rutgers University discovered the gene, stathmin that causes fear in mice. Gleb Shumyatsky who headed the team of scientists, says, “We have now found that stathmin plays a critical role in both learned and innate fear. Knockout mice, which lack the gene, show a decreased memory for fear and fail to recognize danger in innately aversive environments.” As a result, such mice readily venture out into the open, unlike normal mice, which keep to the walls and corners of rooms. In the wake of this report, there was much speculation in the media about eliminating the fear factor from life. The discovery may prove quite useful in treating excessive fears and phobias. Total elimination of fear however, will have disastrous consequences, for fear is the most basic and fundamental psychological platform for survival. Without fear, we would not run away from dangers and we would self-destruct ourselves to extinction in no time. Without fear, no specie can last even a single day. You may find it hard to remember the names and details of someone or something you came across yesterday. On the other hand, you will remember all your life and in minute detail, an incident that instilled fear in you. In like manner, though we forget our dreams as soon as we wake up; a nightmare is not that easily forgotten. We have likened our minds to a computer. All computers have a ROM or Read Only Memory that is inscribed into the chip and forms the platform from which all computer activities are launched. Similarly fear forms one of the most basic of platforms from which all our mental activities are launched. All living beings are born with fear. I suspect even plants have fear inbuilt into them though one wonders how plants exhibit their fears. There also seems to be a balancing act between this innate fear and knowledge in life. As soon as an infant is able to recognize people, it recoils from everyone except its mother. Slowly and steadily, it admits more and more people and moving things into its safety zone and the process goes on throughout life. The necessity to trust may often get the better of our fears. However, the primordial fear never disappears until death and it is this fear, which is the most predominant driving force of life. We fear what are unknown far more than what are known. The infant fears everything because it knows nothing and understands nothing. The more we understand of the world around us, the less we fear it. Our ancestors did not know why eclipses occurred, and every eclipse struck terror into their hearts as they interpreted eclipses as evidence of divine wrath. Invariably, eclipses were accompanied by sacrifices and ceremonies to appease the omnipotent gods. We now understand how eclipses come about and know that it is in tune with the laws of nature. Eclipses therefore, do not hold any terror for us and they have become events to celebrate science and its accomplishments. We have many futuristic novels and movies about sophisticated machines enslaving humans. It is all pure fictional gibberish. The most sophisticated of machines do not stand a chance before the humblest of worms, as long as we do not put fear into machines. For machines, life and death make no difference. They 15 would as readily walk headlong into rushing traffic as into a bed of flowers. They do not care whether they are kings or slaves, young or old, healthy or sick. They have no problems nor do they need any solutions. Life on the other hand, is an obsession with death and problems. Even if we have a slight headache or a common cold, all our being focuses on that malaise even though the rest of our body is in the prime of health. A tad of food lodged between our teeth, and we feel the irritation until it comes off. We keep shifting positions on the softest of beds and the poshest of sofas for that elusive comfort. However well filled our plate, our eyes invariably wander to our neighbor’s plate and the other side of the fence always looks greener. We have a saying in Malayalam, “The hungry one seeks a plate to eat from, the filled one seeks a mat to sleep on.” Only a dead animal or a machine is free of problems and wants. Our greed and the resulting incessant search are not limited to materials of consumption alone. A few decades ago a 32MB computing power was perceived as quite adequate. Overnight computing capacities have gone into the gigabytes and the speed of computing has also gone up considerably. Are we satisfied? No! We are forever trying to get more and more from less and less. As for our problems, they can be categorized broadly into two – positive and negative. Positive problems are those problems which when solved leave us presumably in better positions than before. Thus having a job, buying a home or motorcar, getting married, having children, examinations, Causes Of tests and so on are problems to be solved with the hope of a better tomorrow. In contrast, Our Fears negative problems are problems that leave us in a position worse than or on par with the position before the problems arose. Violence, diseases, litigations etc are problems, which set back progress and require inputs of further energy and resources only to restore status quo ante. I posed a question on yahoo answers; "We have many causes of fear, worry and anxiety in daily life which raises our adrenaline levels and lead to hypertension. What are the causes of such fears, worries and anxieties that drive us?" Some of the answers I received are listed below- People are pressured to perform well at work or during sex, or talking with friends well, or dating, or simply driving your car without getting a ticket. Worries are more a part of world. The underlying cause is ALWAYS the unknown, the uncertainty of what is going to evolve. Stress, family, life, work, money, economy, war, terrorism, politics and so on. Not trusting, whether it be yourself or faith or fate. I prefer faith in God, as He has never let me down. There are many sources of worry and anxiety such as health, work problems, financial problems and family. Even silly things like being advised of a content violation for no good reason can cause stress. Mainly keeping pace with time. Breathing and being alive? No, just stress. Some people see the small things and make it so big. And, it ruins lives. Look back at some thing that you worried about. Now you know it was for nothing. Money problems, health problems, survival stress, acceptance stress, traffic, love life... Stock market, oil … computer viruses, power, traffic, car repair The list went on and on. The best answer I received as to the main causes of fear was " Everything you can imagine, and some things you can't." (Probably even making this choice of one from many answers puts some stress on my psyche). They are problems and making decisions that lead to worry and anxieties. The list of answers also shows items like computer viruses, stock and oil markets and other modern factors that contribute to worry, hypertension and anxiety, factors our parents had never had to content with. Marching with the tempo of the clock and keeping up with the Joneses also take their toll on modern man. It seems, we even revel in fear and adventure. Stories and movies of blood curdling terrors and adventures hold us in their spell as much as the romantic ones. End of world predictions, which are common to most cultures and religions form one such form of terror that fascinate us and terrorize us almost in chorus. Christianity seems to have evolved an obsession with the end of days. Though the Gospels claim divine origins and the infalibillity therefrom, there are many irreconsilbale variations of the same incident, End Of such as the accounts of the resurrection, in all four Gospels. Nonetheless, all four gospels are Days agreed on one message of Jesus, that the world would end within the lifetimes of some of his listeners. This impending doom – advent or rapture as it is called –hold the key to Jesus' life and teachings.
16 According to Moses' laws, every Jew was expected to marry as soon as he came of age and to comply with God's commandment in the Garden of Eden 'to increase and multiply'. In contrast Jesus and some of his followers like Paul did not marry even though they lived long past marriageable years. This can be interpreted in the context of the impending rapture. What was the point in marrying and reproducing if you and your children were to die in the immediate future? Jesus' Utopian teachings like "Show the right cheek when struck on the left" and "Sell all you have and give it to the poor …" make perfect sense and practicality in the light of early Christian conviction in the impending end of days. Ever since there have been a spate of prophesies of doom down the ages in Christianity. For Christian sects like The Adventists, The Millerianists and The Pentecostal Congregations, the impending rapture and the final judgment form pivotal dogmas. These Christian versions of doomsday have spawned concepts such as the Second Coming, Armageddon, the Apocalypse, ...etc Prophesies of doom, especially their Christian versions, have recurred almost every decade for the last two thousand years. They often cited exact dates of the end of days. But all these days and dates have passed us by without any untoward incidents. Nonetheless, these failures have not prevented more prophesies of doom, nor restrained their gullible following from falling for these prophesies. Personal death and extinction are the most catastrophic event for man or animal. Nontheless, for some obscure reasons, the extinction of the species, even hundreds of thousands of years in the future, also seem to affect us. Such fear may have its positive side in cases such as in the environmental protection movements, which are driven by fear of future extinction. Nonetheless, even these remote possibilities of death and destruction prey on our minds constantly, day in and day out, both at the conscious and subconscious levels and add to our fears and the resulting feelings of insecurity. We even seem to even revel in the queasy feelings as mentioned, which arise from such stories of doom. The Christian concept of the advent cited above and its corresponding versions in other religions are in tune with the Agrarian Wave and its religions. Scenarios of doom vary with every age and its technologies. Tusnamis and earth quakes were not a regular occurrence to the various civilsations that gave rise to the 'End-of-days' scenarios mentioned above above. In the absence of any mass media, the Patriarchs who concocted these doom scripts, remained blissfully ignorant of such natural catastrophes as Tsunamis which scourged other parts of the world. Modern media on the other hand, beam into our living rooms the gory details of the dozens of natural and man-made disaters that befall humanity round the globe everyday. As the world has surged ahead with more and more discoveries and technologies, the reactionaries and the well-groomed prophets of doom have stepped up their ante with their corresponding doomsday scripts and scriptures. Some of the state-of-the-art scenarios of Apocalypse today are nanotechnology and nanobots veering off in unexpected directions, genetic manipulation giving rise to Frankensteins, clones and cloning going haywire, artificial intelligence subduing human intelligence and enslaving us, nuclear reactor meltdown and holocausts, biological and chemical weapons falling into criminal hands, black holes, abrupt climate changes, gamma ray bursts, solar flares, aliens, entropy, collision with extra terrestrial bodies, doomsday AIDS pandemic, doomsday flu pandemic, doomsday earthquake, mad cow pandemic, doomsday volcano, doomsday SARS pandemic, doomsday Tsunami, doomsday smallpox pandemic … the list keeps growing by the year. Instead of leaving the end to time, some cults such as Chizuo Matsumoto's Aum Supreme Truth had a specific agenda of intentionally advancing the Armageddon. Consequently, they masterminded the 1995 Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway. Doomsday weapons have been at the forefront of the most popular non-Biblical end of the world scenarios for over fifty years. In the 1960s and 70s, the cold war and the nuclear arms-race stepped up the Doomsday ante. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, fears of a global nuclear war have faded, but Weapons have not been totally erased. Moreover, doomsday weapons remain very much with us and there is growing concern that the proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons with doomsday potential may fall into the wrong hands. At this point of time terrorist strikes pose one of the most traumatic senarios of 'the clear and present danger' Climate changes are another cause for grave concern in the modern world. Soft Another potent phenomenon under present day conditions is the reduction in Extinction populations in some of the advanced countries like Iceland and Germany. According to one estimate if world populations were to dwindle at the rate of Germany today, humanity will be extinct by 2400-3000 CE. This possibility has been termed soft extinction. 17 Ninety-nine percent and more of the species that ever lived on earth have become extinct, and from the look of things, we may not be an exception. Even if we do not become extinct, it is certain that we will evolve into a new species, distinct from our present state of evolution. Though this is no cause of immediate concern, the prospect catches our fancies, and the resulting feeling of insecurity tickles our survival instincts. These bleak scenarios of impending doom prey on our minds like the undercurrents of the oceans pounding its shores. Just being able to do something about it may be enough to assuage some of the fears in us. The 2004 Asian Tsunami is one of the biggest natural disasters in known history. In its wake there has been clamor for setting up Tsunami-proof sea-walls, structures and homes, especially at locations which bore the brunt of the Tsunami. Chances of such catstrophic Tsunamis striking at the same place with the same intensity is very remote in time, and there is little likelihood of a recurrence of Tsunamic disasters in the same place for another two or three thousand years. However the above-said preventive measures probably help alleviate the mental truma that stalks humanity in the guise of possible future Tsunamis. The average man in a modern society learns in time to ignore such remote but fatal disasters that seem to stalk us. However, it cannot be denied that they have an overall ominous atmosphere which adds to the trauma of our times. Fear –both real and imagined of the present and future - leads to a feeling of insecurity and paranoia deep, deep within us. It is this feeling of insecurity and paranoia that form our life's most potent force.
TRAUMA OF MAKING CHOICES: Irrespective of the many mythical 'end of world' themes we mentioned above, most cultures and myths also depict the beginning as a paradise where there is plenty, and where men and women live in love and harmony. This universal theme may be symbolic of our idyllic experiences as infants and children, when we did not have a care in the world, and our parents took care of everything. It maybe because of these idyllic experiences of our childhood and its mental associations with the surroundings that we grow up in, that we are nostalgic and emotional about our homeland. A man who was born and brought up in a tropical environment is nostalgic about rains and greenery Infant whereas an Arab who grows up in a desert environment finds nostalgia in the barren contours Paradise of a sand dune. I think that a man born and brought up in a prison may be nostalgic about vertical bars when he grows up, because such bars represent a ‘paradise’ of idyllic childhood to him. Paradise however, cannot last forever in this world of death, decay and resurrection. As we grow up, we are weaned away from our parents and the safety-net they provided. We are forced to take the load off our parents and to bear responsibility for our actions. Inch by inch as we grow up, worry and anxiety pervade our psyche. We let go of our mothers' skirts only to find that we have nothing else to hold on to except our own wits and gumption. Whereas we did not have any choices to Weaning make in our infancy and childhood, decision-making becomes a matter of life and death. A Traumas plethora of choices is thrown up, and choosing just one course of action from many proves traumatic. As we grow up, most of us overcome to some extend this fear and trauma caused by our weaning and the necessity to make decisions. In time, we learn to put on a brave front through life, though every evolving situation and every meeting, especially those with strangers, are fraught with worry and anxiety. The steadily increasing mental load of weighing risks against rewards in every developing situation, and in making more and more decisions, wear us down. Taking a decision whether right or wrong eases the pressures of decision taking. It may be for this reason that it is said that making a wrong Trauma Of decision is better than making no decisions. Once we have decided on a course of action, Decision - whether right or wrong, it takes a load off our minds. However, each decision made means Making more choices and decisions further down the road. Probably our freedom of choices may be the biggest cause of our feeling of insecurity. A generation or two ago, choices were limited and decisions were often forced on us. In those 'good old days', we lived in societies, which were engaged in much the same economic activities centered mainly around hunting, scavenging, gathering, pasturing and agriculture. These economic activities depended on the vagaries of nature. Floods, droughts, pests, diseases and other natural ordeals, as well as wars and other manmade ones were common to the whole society and called for common solutions. The elders, with their experience-based knowledge were better equipped to resolve these problems. They made the decisions and the others fell in line. The success or failure of the decisions and of the actions arising from these decisions affected all the members of the society. With the Industrial and Digital Waves, economic activities are no 18 more dependent on nature, and problems vary from man to man. Decision-making is now a personal affair right from school days, and loads of different kinds and intensities weigh on every shoulder small and big. In the Original State and the Agrarian Wave societies, most men set out together into the forests or the fields with much the same aim in mind, and women set out together on their chores of gathering roots and fruits. In contrast, an Industrial Wave man sets out to his factory or office all alone in a crowded bus or train with his own unique problems and solutions. He is alone in a world of his own, which is totally distinct from his siblings’ or his neighbors’ or of the man sitting next to him in the bus or train. Like the parts on the conveyor belt of a factory assembly line, each man or woman in a bus or train is just an element in a huge assembly line, which we call the city. Each of us – each man, woman or child - is left to his or her own devices to deal with these problems as he, she or it deems fit. This loneliness of our age is perhaps the most significant cause for the mental traumas of our age. What is more, in the Original State as well as in the Agrarian Wave people were mostly engaged in holistic meaningful activities. Thus every farmer was involved with the whole range of activities ranging from plowing the field to the reaping in the harvest. The family doctor treated every kind of disease and got a psychological reward as well from his permanent clients. There was little or no specialization or super- specialization as we have today. Such holistic or all-inclusive activities though wasteful from the economic point of view, offered existential satisfaction and a personal touch to everything. Specialization changed all that. Every man got stuck into his own niche of economic activity, which often consisted of boring and repetitive tasks, which had no holistic or existential meaning. As mentioned above in the city every man is just an element in a huge conveyor belt and of little or no consequence in the large scheme of things. The ‘mental or psychological satisfaction’ factor became alien to most economic activities. Every man and woman became a dispensable and isolated cog in the wheel rather than the link-in-a-chain that he was in the Original State and Agrarian Wave.
FEARS AND PHOBIAS: Nervousness, worries, anxieties and phobias are forms of increasing intensity of the stress brought on us by our necessity to make decisions regarding the ever-changing situations we come across in daily life. They come in various forms and under many guises: angst, apprehension concern, distress, foreboding, tension, unease, misgivings, fretfulness, traumas and nervousness to name just a few. Whatever we call them, they batter us day in and day out through our life. The nitty-gritty of everyday life is demanding. Causes of these fears and worry need not even be real or immediate. Imagined scenarios and extrapolations add to worry and lead to catastrophic results such as suicides. It has been established that in industrial societies the largest number of cardiac arrests takes place on Monday mornings. They are the stresses built up over the weekend getaways, which are to blame for this Monday-morning syndrome. If that were not enough, there is a daily recurrence in some people of what is termed 'morning surge' in blood pressure brought on by the apprehensions about the outcome of the day ahead. The worry about our looks and appearances is a cause of constant stress and one of our most persistent actions is the never-ending 'preening or grooming' on our hair, dress, face and other visible aspects that make our personality. Because of our concern with our looks and appearances, the cosmetic industry is one of the largest today and undoubtedly the most lucrative. The xenophobic stresses brought on by lack of personal space or 'safety zones', especially when you are packed together with strangers in a train, lift or theatre is an additional cause for constant stress in modern city life. There are some social situations, which give rise to worry, anxiety and even panic when we dread the possibility of being humiliated, ridiculed or embarrassed before social gatherings. A very common sort of apprehension bordering on a phobia is about your partner spoiling a perfect social gathering by shooting his or her mouth off or parading his or her ignorance in public or throwing tantrums before your colleagues and friends. An alcoholic husband is a nightmare for a devout wife in most social situations. Guilt complexes arising from religious indoctrinations form another cause of common stress among the faithful. Masturbation can lead to gross mental breakdowns if the victim believes firmly in the Church's teachings on sexual codes. Fear of failure is an ever-present syndrome that hunts us down day and night. This can lead to panicky situations that nearly immobilize us just when we need to be at our best, as in a competitive examination or test.
19 Happy events can give rise to as much stress as catastrophic ones. Important events in life such as birth in the family, marriage, passing important exams, getting a good job and acquiring a new home puts as much stress on us as death in the family, separation and losing one's job. The only difference may be that when the events are happy the stress dissolves easily compared to the stress caused by the traumatic events in life. Some of such mental stresses and strains have existential significance. The mind of a child is like a loose string of a harp or guitar; it cannot produce much music of any value. It is only when we stretch the string that any meaningful music can be played on the instrument. Like the guitar strings, our minds too need to be taut to perform. The trick lies in stretching the 'string' without breaking it. Worry – Health, Problems and causes of worries and anxieties can be categorized as relating Wealth & mainly to health, wealth and relationships. As discussed above, we need a certain Relationships amount of tension in our life if we are not to die of sheer boredom. However, everyone has his or her own capacity to take on the pressure, and some give way to the pressure sooner than others. This leads to anxieties in its mild forms, to extreme cases of phobias and mental breakdowns. It seems that our capacity to withstand pressure is to some extent hereditary. A phobia is the persistent, abnormal and irrational fear to a particular object, objects or situations. Phobias are extreme forms of worries that often lead to panic in those prone to the specific phobias. Listed in the box below are five hundred odd forms of panic phobias. Though quite comprehensive, they Phobia are by no means exhaustive. Generally, phobias are not very important in life except for a few who break down under them. Therefore, the long list of phobias and their causes might seem a bit out of place here. Nonetheless, the causes cited in the list of phobias are also applicable to milder forms of phobias such as worries and apprehensions. As such, the list gives us a clue to the many real-time causes of worry in our daily lives. Thus, Islamophobia was a term coined in 1988. After the 9/11 attacks and its aftermath, Islamophobia has become almost universal among the non-Muslims of the West as well as in nations like India, Philippines and Indonesia where a minority of Muslims has adopted terrorism and other unsavory practices. As a result even diehard atheists rationalists and humanists feel uneasy when dealing with Muslims especially those Muslims who are overtly dressed and groomed to look like Muslims.
accidents - dystychiphobia meat - carnophobia ageing - gerascophobia medicine (taking) - pharmacophobia air (fresh) memories - mnemophobia air sickness - aeronausiphobia men - androphobia alcohol - methyphobia meningitis - meningitophobia alcohol (drinking) - dipsophobia menstruation - menophobia alone (being) or oneself or loneliness – mercuruial medicines - autophobia hydrargyophobia amnesia - amnesiophobia metal - metallophobia amphibians such a frogs, toads, newts, meteors - meteorophobia salamanders, etc - batrachophobia mice - musophobia angry (becoming) - angrophobia microbes - microbiophobia animal skin or fur - doraphobia mind - psychophobia animals - zoophobia mirrors - catoptrophobia animals (wild) - agrizoophobia missiles - ballistrophobia (see also ants - Pmyrmecophobia bullets) arithmetic and maths – arithmophobia mites and ticks - acarophobia asymmetrical things - asymmetriphobia mole rat (great) - zemmiphobia ataxia - ataxiophobia money (touching) - chrematophobia atomic energy - nucleomitophobia monsters (or giving birth to monster) - atomic explosions - atomosophobia teratophobia attack - scelerophobia moon - selenophobia auroral lights - auroraphobia mother-in-law - pentheraphobia automobiles - motorphobia moths - mottephobia 20 bacteria - bacillophobia motion or movement - kinesophobia bald (becoming) - phalacrophobia motor vehicles - motophobia baldness - peladophobia mushroom (aversion to) – music – bathing - bathophobia (see also depth) musicophobia mycophobia, beards - pogonophobia Muslims- Islamophobia bearing a deformed child or deformed Myths, stories and lying - people - teratophobia mythophobia beaten (being) - rhabdophobia name (a particular name or word) - bed (going to) - clinophobia onomatophobia bees - apiphobia narrowness - anginaphobia beggars - hobophobia needles - enetophobia being evaluated negatively in social needles and pins - belonephobia situations - social phobia new things or ideas - cenophobia or bicycles - melanophobia centophobia birds - ornithophobia night - noctiphobia black (color) - scotomaphobia noise - acoustiphobia blindness in visual field - cyclophobia nosebleeds - epistaxiophobia blood - hemaphobia novelty, newness - cainophobia blushing - erythrophobia nuclear weapons - nucleomituphobia body odor - bromhidrosiphobia numbers - arithmophobia bogies or the bogeyman - bogyphobia number 13 - triskaidekaphobia Bolsheviks - Bolshephobia objects (large) - megalophobia books - bibliophobia objects (pointed) - aichmophobia bound (being) or tied up - merinthophobia objects (sacred) - hierophobia bowel movements (painful) - objects (small) - tapinophobia defecaloesiophobia objects (at the right side of the body) - brain disease - meningitophobia dextrophobia bridges (crossing) - gephyrophobia odour (one that has vile) - buildings (high) - batophobia autodysomophobia bullets - ballistophobia (see also missiles) old (growing) - gerascophobia bulls - taurophobia old (people) - gerontophobia burglars - scelerophibia open spaces, crowded public places buried alive (being) - taphephobia like markets, leaving a safe place - cancer - carcinomophobia agoraphobia cats - ailurophobia opinions (others') - allodoxaphobia cemeteries - coimetrophobia opposite sex - sexophobia certain places - topophobia (see also otters - lutraphobia performing) outer space - spacephobia challenges to official doctrine or of radical overworking - ponophobia deviation - heresyphobia or hereiophobia pain - algophobia changes - metathesiophobia paper - papyrophobia changes (making) - tropophobia parasites - parasitophobia chemicals or working with chemicals - parents-in-law - soceraphobia chemophobia, peanut butter sticking to the roof of the draughts - aerophobia (see also flying) mouth - arachibutyrophobia chicken - alektorophobia pellagra - pellagrophobia childbirth or pregnancy - tocophobia people - anthropophobia (see also chins - geniophobia society) choking or of being smothered - performing (stagefright) - topophobia pnigophobia (see also places (certain)) cholera - cholerophobia persons with amputations - clocks - chronometrophobia apotemnophobia clothes - vestiophobia philosophy, philosophers - 21 clouds - nephophobia philosophobia clowns - coulrophobia phobias - phobophobia church - ecclesiophobia physical injury - traumatophobia (see coitus - coitophobia also war) cold - cheimaphobia pins, needles - belonephobia colors - chromophobia places (certain) - topophobia (see also comets - cometophobia performing) complex scientific or (Greek) terms - places (steep) - cremnophobia Hellenologophobia plants - botanophobia computers - computerphobia pleasure - hedonophobia constipation - coprostasophobia poetry - metrophobia contagious (being) - tapinophobia pointed objects - aichmophobia cooking - mageirocophobia poison or of being accidently poisoned cosmic - kosmikophobia - toxiphobia crossing streets - agiophobia poisons - iophobia (see also rust) crowded rooms - koinoniphobia poliomyelitis (contracting) - crowds – demophobia poliosophobia crucifixes or crosses - staurophobia politicians or abnormal dislike - crystals or glass - crystallophobia politicophobia dampness, liquids or moisture - pope - papaphobia hygrophobia poverty - peniaphobia dancing - chorophobia precipices - cremnophobia darkness - nyctophobia progress - prosophobia dawn - eosophobia property - orthophobia daylight - phengophobia pseudo-rabies - kynophobia (see also death or corpses - necrophobia rabies) decaying matter - septophobia punishment - poinephobia defecation (painful) - defecalgesiophobia purple - porphyrophobia deformity - dysmorphophobia rabies - hydrophobia (see also pseudo- demons or goblins - bogyphobia rabies) dentists - dentophobia radiation dependence on others - soteriophobia X-rays - radiophobia depth - bathophobia (see also bathing) railways - siderodromophobia devils and evil spirits - demonophobia rain - ombrophobia diabetes – diabetophobia red - erythrophobia (see also blushing) dining, dinner conversation – relatives - syngenesophobia deipnophobia religious ceremonies - teletophobia dirt or germs - mysophobia reptiles or creepy, crawly things - dirt (on oneself) - automysophobia herpetophobia disease - bisiogibua responsibility - hypengyophobia disease (hereditary) - patriophobia ridicule - katagelophobia disease or illness - pathophobia riding in vehicles - amaxophobia disease (particular) - monopathophobia right-hand side of the body (objects on) disease (rectal or rectum) - proctophobia or - dextrophobia rectophobia rivers or running water - potamophobia disease (skin) - dermatosiophobia robbers - harpaxophobia dizziness or whirlpools - dinophobia rooms (empty) - kenophobia doctors - iatrophobia rooms (crowded) - koinoniphobia dogs - cynophobia ruin or ruins - atephobia dolls and children - pedophobia Russia, Russian - Russophobia double vision - diplopiaphobia rust - iophobia (see also poisons) draughts or fresh air or air swallowing - sacred objects or priests - hierophobia aerophobia saints - hagiophobia 22 draughts and winds - anemophobia Satan - Satanophobia dreams - oneirophobia scabies - scabiophobia dreams (wet) - oneirogmophobia school (of going to) - drink (usually alcohol) - potophobia didaskaleinophobia drugs - pharmacophobia scientific terms (complex) or Greek drugs (new) - neopharmaphobia terms - Hellenologophobia dryness - xerophobia scratched (being) - amychophobia dust - amathophobia sea – thalassophobia, Dutch - dutchphobia sermons - homilophobia duty or responsibility (neglect of) - shadows - sciophobia paralipophobia shellfish - ostraconophobia electricity - electrophobia shock - hormephobia emetics or vomiting - emetophobia sin - hamartophobia empty rooms/spaces or voids - kenophobia single (staying) - anuptaphobia enclosed spaces - clithrophobia sitting down - thaasophobia England or English - Anglophobia sitting still - cathisophobia everything - panophobia skin lesions - dermatophobia evil spirits and devils - demonophobia skin disease - dermatosiophobia excrement - coprophobia Slavs, Slavic - Slavophobia eyes - ommatophobia sleep - somniphobia eyes (opening one's) - optophobia slime - blennophobia fabrics (particular) - textophobia small objects - tapinophobia failure or defeat - kakorrhaphiophobia smells - olfactophobia fat (becoming) - obesophobia snakes - ophidiophobia fatigue - kopophobia snow - chionophobia fear - phobophobia society or people in general - feathers (tickled by) – pteronophobia anthropophobia fecal matter - scatophobia solitude - autophobia feces - coprophobia sourness - acerophobia fever - pyrexiphobia space (outer) - spacephobia figure 8 - octophobia spaces (enclosed) - clithrophobia filth - rhypophobia spaces (open) - agoraphobia fire - pyrophobia speaking - laliohobia or lalophobia firearms - hoplophobia speaking aloud - phonophobia fish - chthyphobia spectres - spectrophobia flashes of light - selaphobia speed - tachophobia flavours - geumophobia spiders - arachnophobia floods - antlophobia stage fright - topophobia (see also flowers - anthophobia places (certain)) flutes - aulophobia stairs, climbing or of falling down flying - aerophobia (see also air (fresh) stairs - climacophobia draughts) standing - stasiphobia fog - homichlophobia standing and walking - stasibasiphobia food or eating - cibophobia stars - siderophobia foreigners or strangers - xenophobia staying single - anuptaphobia forests - hylophobia stealing - cleptophobia forgotten (being) stepfather - vitricophobia forgetting - athazagoraphobia (see also stepmother - novercaphobia ignored) stooping - kyphophobia France, French - Francophobia stories, myths and lying - mythophobia freedom - eleutherophobia streets (crossing) - agiophobia fresh air, draughts - aerophobia (see also strings - cnidophobia flying) stuttering - psellismophobia 23 Friday the 13th - paraskavedekatriaphobia sunlight - heliophobia Frost, ice, extreme cold - cryophobia surgery - tomophobia Fur, animal skin - doraphobia swallowing or of eating or of being gaiety - cherohobia eaten - phagophobia garlic - alliumphobia symbols - symbolophobia germs - spermatophobia or spermophobia symmetry - symmetrophobia Germany, Germans - Germanophobia syphilis - syphiliphobia ghosts - phasmophobia taking tests - testophobia glass - hyelophobia or hyalophobia talking - laliophobia goblins, demons - bogyphobia tapeworms - taeniophobia God or religion - theophobia taste - geumaphobia or geumophobia gold - aurophobia technology - technophobia good news (hearing) - euphobia teeth and dental surgery - odontophobia gravity - barophobia teleology - teleophobia Greek (or complex scientific) terms - telephones - telephonophobia Hellenologophobia termites, insects that eat wood - hair - chaetophobia isopterophobia hair disease - trichinophobia tests (taking) - testophobia halloween - samhainophobia tetanus (lockjaw) - tetanophobia heart attack - angionophobia theatres - theatrophobia heart disease - cardiophobia theology - theologicophobia heat - thermophobia thieves - kleptophobia heaven - uranophobia thinking - phronemophobia heights - acrophobia thunder and lightning - keraunophobia hell - hadephobia ticks, mites - acarophobia high buildings - batophobia time - chronophobia high places (looking up at) - anablephobia toads and frogs - batrachophobia high places (open) - aeroacrophobia tombstones - placophobia home, house or being in a house - touching, being touched - aphephobia domatophobia touching money - chrematophobia home (returning to) – nostophobia. trains, railroads or train travel - homophobia siderodromophobia horses - hippophobia travel - hodophobia hospitals - nosocomephobia trembling - tremophobia hurricanes & tornadoes - lilapsophobia trees - dendrophobia hypnotized - hypnophobia trichinosis - trichinohobia ice, frost - cryophobia tuberculosis - phthisiophobia ideas - ideophobia tyrants - tyrannophobia ignored (being) - athazagoraphobia ugliness - cacophobia illness, disease - pathophobia undressing (in front of someone) - immobility (of a joint) - ankylophobia dishabillophobia imperfection - atelophobia untidiness - ataxiophobia infection - molysomophobia urine or urinating - urophobia infinity - apeirophobia vaccination and vaccines - injections - trypanophobia vaccinophobia injury (physical) - traumatophobia (see vegetables - lachanophobia also war) vehicles, riding in - amaxophobia insanity - lyssophobia (see also madness) venereal disease - cypridophobia insects - entomophobia ventriloquist's dummies insect stings - cnidophobia animatronic creatures itching or of the insects that cause itching - wax statues : anything that falsely acarophobia represents a sentient being - Japan, Japanese - Japanophobia automatonophobia 24 jealousy - zelophobia vertigo or feeling dizzy when looking Jews, Judaism - Judaeophobia down - illyngophobia jumping (from both high and low places) - vision (double) - diplophobia jcatapedaphobia vomiting and emetics - emetophobia justice - dikephobia walking - basiphobia knees - genuphobia walking and standing - stasibasiphobia kidney desease - albuminurophobia walloons - walloonphobia knowledge - epistemophobia war - traumatophobia (see also injury lakes - limnophobia (physical)) ablutophobia large objects - megalophobia washing oneself - ablutophobia laughter - gelophobia wasps - spheksophobia lawsuits - liticaphobia wasting sickness - tabophobia learning - sophophobia water - hydrophobia lefthanded, things to the left - waves (sea) of wavelike motion - sinistrophobia cymophobia left hand side of the body (objects on) - weakness or fainting - asthenophobia levophobia weight (gaining) - obesophobia or leprosy - leprophobia pocrescophobia lice - pediculophobia wealth - plutophobia light - photophobia white (colour) - leukophobia light (flashes of) - selaphobia wine - oenophobia lightning - astraphobia witches and witchcraft - wiccaphobia lights (glaring) - photaugiophobia women - gynaephobia lights (northern) - auroraphobia women (beautiful) - venustaphobia locked in (being), confined spaces - woods - hylephobia (see also claustrophobia materialism) long waits - macrophobia wooden objects - xylophobia looked at (being) - scopophobia work or functioning/surgeon's fear of love (falling or being in) - philophobia operating - ergasiophobia love play - malaxophobia worms - scoleciphobia (sarmassophobia) worms (being infested with) - lying, myths and stories - mythophobia helminthophobia machinery - mechanophobia wrinkles (getting) - rhytiphobia madness - maniaphobia writing - graphophobia magic - rhabdophobia writing (in public) - scriptophobia making changes or moving - trophophobia wrongdoing – peccatiphobia. many things - polyphobia marriage – gamophobia materialism - hylephobia (see also woods)
Panic is a form of anxiety that is very intense in its outcome. The reaction to panic is the flight or fight response. In social situations, the victim is often left helpless with shortness of breath, Panic palpitations of the heart, chest pain, choking, trembling and faintness. Alcohol and drugs can exacerbate panic disorders. Women are about twice as susceptible to panic and anxiety disorders as men, especially between late adolescence and mid-adult life. Genetic factors play an important part in susceptibility to panic disorders. Panic disorders can disrupt school and social life. In extreme cases, the patients may even avoid school and social situations. Anxiety and panic may express themselves in physical ways. Panic situations may lead to stuttering, abdominal pains, high blood pressure, twitches, allergies, ulcers, nervous stomachs, tension headaches, trembling, sweating, blushing, stuttering, fainting, losing bladder or bowel control and so on. A mind that goes blank when most needed is also a sure signs of anxiety and panic..
25 As stated above, worry is the most widespread form of fear. Though seemingly in a much worry diluted form, the attrition and abrasion caused by the cumulative effects of worry are far more catastrophic than the effects of its more formidable forms of anxiety, phobias and panic. As if this were not enough some people are so habituated to worry that a life without worry takes even a greater toll on them than a life of worry. As a result, people, especially men, succumb to boredom after retirement and make an early trip to the hereafter for lack of anything to worry about. Under duress, some withdraw while others talk endlessly to cover up their anxieties; some chain smoke while others overeat and still others take to the bottle. Some go on shopping sprees buying up wardrobes, shoes and jewelry to last them a dozen lifetimes, while others overwork and become workaholics. Some grow violent while others take to prayer and meditation, some try to dominate while others procrastinate. Some withdraw into a shell while others gamble away a fortune and still others amass fortunes by hook or by crook.
FEAR, ECONOMICS AND ETHICS: We have now established that fear in its diverse forms is the most important psychological platform that determines our outlooks and actions. We shall now see how fear and anxiety in its various forms affect the different aspects of our life. It is not the fear of God, but the fear of death and the zest for life that is the beginning of prudence and wisdom. It is our primordial fear that drives all our philosophy and ethics, science and technology and all that matters to us. Ethics, morals and values are often used as synonyms. Nonetheless, there might be differences between them. To start with, we might define ethics as codes of behavior that promote optimum universal prosperity and for this peace in the society is an absolute necessity. That is why we often speak of peace and prosperity in the same breath. We have discussed how pain and discomfort as well as worries, anxieties, phobias and their numerous forms of fear stalk us day in and day out. We feel fragile under the onslaught of fear in its various guises. The feeling that our days are counted is ever present at the back of our minds. Breathes there a man who has never thought of his own death even for a single day of his life? We have seen that many go on eating-orgies or shopping-sprees in the face of the stresses in life. Though our own reactions may not be as conspicuous as eating-orgies and shopping-sprees, Fear & we do adopt more accepted forms of consumption to alleviate our stress and the ever- Consumption present feeling of insecurity. To overcome the fear of death and its harbingers – pain, diseases, worries, anguish etc.- all of us try to live life to its fullest, by consuming more and more in less and less of time – we call them quality times. So the flipside of the feeling of fear and insecurity is the search for security and comforts. It is this search that shapes our lives. Our fear and insecurity are limitless in scope and so is our search for security and comforts. LOEE This primal urge to consumerism induces us to produce more and more from resources, which are limited and from resources, which are hitherto untapped. This implies attaining optimum economic efficiencies. All our activities, technologies, associations and institutions are directed at attaining greater and greater economic efficiencies. This may be called ‘The Law of Optimum Efficiencies’. (LOEE) In the introductory chapter we saw that like the theory of evolution, ‘The Law of Optimum Efficiencies’ too has been ferreted out from our subconscious by this book. There are many classic theories such as The Law Elasticity Of Supply And Demand, or The Law Of Diminishing Returns in Economics, which have similarly been ferreted out from our subconscious by the renowned doyens of classic Economics. However in our social, economic and political facets of life, ‘The Law of Optimum Efficiencies’ is of a far more fundamental and momentous nature than most other classical theories in Economics. There have been attempts by the likes of Stephen Hawkins to formulate a Grand Unification theory in Physics involving gravity, electricity, magnetism and other phenomena. In the same vein, ‘The Law of Optimum Efficiencies’ introduces a revolutionary unification theory relating philosophy, ethics, economics, and other branches of the social sciences. Our institutions - social, political or religious - as well as our technologies and management techniques are all geared to maximizing or optimizing economic efficiencies. An intelligent man is a man who is capable of deploying resources – whether human or non-human- most efficiently 26 Charles Darwin's theory of evolution has now been widely accepted even by staunch religious dogmatists. According to Darwin, it is the survival-of-the-fittest characteristic of all life forms, which holds the key to the evolution of all the variations of life on earth. We often assume that the strongest are the fittest. It is seldom so. It is the ability to exploit available resources that counts as a measure of fitness. In other words, evolution is the search for higher and higher economic efficiencies - getting more and more outputs from less inputs or finding uses for hitherto untapped resources. It is in this drive for higher efficiencies that evolutionary niches are formed, niches in which the particular life form efficiently exploits LOEE & resources that are of little or no use to other competing life forms. Biological evolution may Evolution thus be interpreted in terms of ‘The Law of Optimum Efficiencies’ as a propensity in life-forms aimed at more efficient use of available resources. In spite of his many inherent weaknesses, man has been spectacularly successful compared to other animals mainly because of his ability to exploit resources efficiently, and especially in finding uses for resources like petroleum and minerals, which are of no direct, use to man. As in biological evolution, it is the pursuit of higher economic efficiencies that drives the evolutionary forces in these disciplines too. Darwin named his work The Origin of Species. In its wake came the book The Origin of Family, State and Private Property in which Friedrich Engels described how socio- political institutions such as families and states evolve in response to the prevailing economic compulsions. According to him, marriage and joint families as well as kingdoms and empires evolved in step with economic realities of the Agrarian Age. Slavery as well as its other forms, like the serf and caste systems, also evolved in response to agrarian economic pressures. Came the industrial revolution - a quantum leap in economic efficiency over the agrarian economy - and literacy became a powerful and indispensable tool for organizing and synchronizing the large industrial workforces of the times. Literacy in its turn broke the shackles of slavery and the feudal system and led to democracy and its tenets of freedom, equality and fraternity. Not only we mortals, but also the immortal gods too seem to have danced to economic tunes. Thus, the gods including the Lord god of Israel sanctioned slavery and the divine rights of kings in tune with the economic compulsions of the times. The gods approved of polygyny - the practice of one man having many LOEE & wives - in the Middle East and elsewhere, and polyandry – the practice of one woman having The Gods many husbands - in places like India and Tibet. The immortal gods sanctioned these and other practices, customs, traditions and taboos for the economic welfare of their devotees. This leads us to conclude that religions, superstitions, and their beliefs and concepts too are aimed at maximizing economic efficiencies. If we were to have no fears or economic wants, there would be no politics, religions, beliefs or superstitions. All economic activities give outputs, which are relatively proportional to their inputs. Religious and superstitious pursuits on the other hand, are 'economic' activities, which are deemed to give disproportionately large returns on nominal inputs - offerings in prescribed manner and form. No wonder, religions and superstitions form the biggest business on earth, considering the fiscal turnover on cults, places of worship, pilgrimages, books, music, idols and icons, charms, alternate medicines and other related articles, practices and activities. Categories Our causes of fear and worry can be categorized, as discussed above, into three as of Basic related to health, wealth and relationships. Our needs also fall into these same three broad Needs categories of health, wealth and relationships. These can be further categorized into the following :- Food: The term food can mean satiation of hunger as a basic physical need to cuisine to tingle the palette. Safety, housing and Clothing: This can mean protection from weather, animals or other men at the basic level to fashions and mansions, which have complex social connotations. Health and fitness: This denotes alleviation of pain and disease to maintaining and enhancing health, beauty and well being. Entertainment: This again spans a whole range of personal and social emotions and can range from sports and music to hobbies and boxing. Pride and prestige: Child is the father of man. We live our whole life to satiate the child in us. In addition, as a social being, this Child in us longs for recognition and applause and abhors censure however
27 constructive. The child is also obsessed with one-upmanship, flashing his “toys” around, 'toys' such as costly cars, beautiful wives, dresses, watches, ornaments ... etc. Sex forms a very important basic need though it has more of a biological dimension than of an economic one. Basic Needs Wealth or money is the universal and symbolic form of most if not all of our needs & and their satiation. These goods and services of elementary consumption and others like Technologies them are universal and permanent in nature. Even animals have their own versions of these basic needs. All other goods and services we see in the world today have any relevance only in that they help to augment the efficiency of production or generation of these basic amenities. Accordingly, the sole aim of tractors is to enhance food production. In like manner, machinery, transport, computers and equipments, banking, accounting, education, knowledge, religion and so on – indeed, over 90% of goods and services available today - are not of direct relevance to us except in enhancing and optimizing the efficiency of production of the primary goods and services of direct consumption. These consumables of secondary nature, which enhance the productivity of consumables of primary nature, may be called technology and developments. Technologies vary with place and time. As our technology develops so does specialization, which in its turn advances technology. As discussed, animals have basically the same consumption pattern as humans - food, health, sex, prestige etc. It is mainly in technology that we differ from the animals. Except for rudimentary technology, as in chimpanzees using twigs to extract termites from an anthill, animal efficiencies have stagnated for millions of years. Humans on the other hand evolved technologies, which enhanced both efficiency and cerebral capabilities. Animal technology and specialization are evolution- driven and instinctive whereas our technology and specialization are planned, and calculated. It may also be noted that in some cases technology becomes an item of direct consumption. Thus, the motorcar is a technological innovation. It also adds to prestige and in addition its speed adds thrill or entertainment, especially to the male of our species. Services rendered by doctors, lawyers and priests cater directly to enhancing wealth, health and prestige, and that is why these professions are far more respected than professions like engineering, which only contribute indirectly to above items of direct consumption. These professions –doctors, lawyers and priests - are also universal in time and place. Artists and singers and other professionals related with entertainment also have primary, universal appeal in all societies whether primitive or modern as they cater directly to our basic instincts. Religion as discussed makes claims of infinite efficiency - infinite and eternal positive outputs for nominal inputs, in prescribed manner and form. Chant a mantra, make an offering, sacrifice a sheep or man, LOEE & placate a priest, shaman or saint and you get health, wealth and prestige in this life and eternal Religion bliss in the hereafter. If you do not fall in line with what these divine representatives tell you, then untold miseries await you in this world and eternal damnation in the next. Unlike the doctors, the lawyers or the other professionals who enhance efficiency only in their own specialized fields, a shaman and his more refined forms of priests and bishops are deemed to contribute to maximum outputs in all fields of direct consumption in this world and in the next. Consequently, the shaman’s and the priest's are the most respected of professions. Taking over by force such as in war or robbery what another has produced is also deemed to be a form of getting maximum outputs from minimum inputs. In the modern world, maximizing efficiencies is brought about by O&M (organization and LOEE & management). Management involves deployment of limited resources for maximum O&M efficiency. Ideas and technology play a major part in management of resources - especially of non-human resources. Organization involves the deployment of human resources for maximum output. Animals and primitive humans organize themselves into permanent or semi-permanent societies for the task of defending and attacking. Animal and primitive sub-societies are often sex-based also. Carnivores organize mainly for attacking whereas herbivorous mainly for defending, with mixed functions as we move up or down the food chain. Man, especially modern man, on the other hand, organizes himself into temporary or transient groups for different tasks. A man may belong to a society of soldiers in war, to a group of families or friends for quality times, to a political party for various reasons, a religion for matters of 28 dogmas and so on and so forth. Two of the most permanent organizations as far as humans are concerned at this point of time, are the organization into religions and the organization into nations. Such organizations, whether transient or more permanent, constitute a necessary evil, as by organizing into such societies every individual has to make sacrifices for the common good. There seems to be an optimum organizational size for different tasks. In addition, this optimum size varies often from place to place and from time to time. In the Original State, the optimum size of a group depended on the resources available in an area. A study of African Wild dogs in the Okavango showed that if the numbers in a pack were too few, the pack found it difficult to run down the prey. If the pack was too large, the area in which they roamed could not support them effectively. It was found that the optimum number of dogs in the pack that could be supported by the resources in that particular area under study was about 14-20. Similarly in the human hunting- gathering societies too, the optimum number in a group was about 10 to 25, depending upon the yield of the area in which they could roam and feed. In a fertile area less time was allotted to travel and in a not-so-fertile area it was a balancing act between travel and hunger satiation. Malthusian forces operated and populations tended to outpace means of sustenance. The Agrarian Wave was a quantum jump in efficiency over the Original State of man. Though it might seem that plucking the fruits off a tree and eating them are easier than planting a tree and nurturing it, in real-time it is quite the opposite. Under natural conditions, the yield of any plant or tree is limited and animals - including man - in their natural stage spend all of their productive hours searching for food. Man in the Original State had little time left for the finer things of life. There was also much competition from other wandering groups and violence was as common as in the animal world. And, violence is negative efficiency, as resources in all forms have to be expended to return to status-quo-ante. In the Agrarian Wave, man found that by diverting time and energy spent on gathering forest produce to tending his cattle or agriculture, he could access more food and other essentials with less resources inputs. As a result, the pastoral and agricultural ways of life - the Agrarian Wave - were accepted as more desirable than the Original State because of their higher efficiencies. By the switch over from Original State to the Agrarian Wave, the first commodity saved was time. The Agrarian Wave made better use of time and other resources than the Original State. The Industrial Wave made even better use of time and resources. The invention of the electric light converted night into day and for the first time in history, 24/7 economic activities became possible. In the introduction we saw that it was in the use of external energy - animal energy and fuel energy - that one wave differed from the preceding economic wave. Better utilization of time, as aforesaid, was another important factor that distinguished one economic wave from another. In the Original State and the Agrarian Wave, time utilization depended on accidents and the vagaries of nature. In the Original State man rested once he was filled. In the Agrarian Wave too, time became expendable once the harvest was in. On the other hand, with the Industrial and Digital waves time became a precious commodity and so the maxim "Time is money". With the Agrarian Wave economy, came morals and ethics to suit the new way of life. In the Original State every man and woman had to fend for himself or herself, though community-life enhanced their ability to help themselves. Every man was equal in enjoying the fruits of his labor of gathering and scavenging. In the Agrarian Wave, gathering and scavenging activities of the Original State were replaced by production. Land and labor became important factors in production. Ownership of land and labor took on new dimensions from the social, economic and ethical points of view. Along with ownership of land, animals and slaves came ethics and morals to justify and institutionalize their ownership. Along with ownership of land came joint families, which replaced the communes of the natural stage. Permanent families meant marriage, and the subjugation of woman. In the Agrarian Wave, optimum organization was at the village level with the joint family as the basic unit. Each village consisted of tens or hundreds of such basic joint families. On the other hand, for pastoral economies the number in a unit remained much the same as in the hunting society, though there was a quantum increase in efficiency of production. In the natural stage, a man’s labor was integral with his body. In the Agrarian Wave labor became a commodity, a factor of production, for sale or for institutionalized exploitation in slavery and in the feudal
29 caste system. The common man’s labor was exploited along with animal labor to enrich the bourgeoisie and the slave owner. Ethics, morals and values changed with the compulsions of the economic waves. In the Original State, ownership of land or slaves had no ethical or moral dimensions. There were codes of conduct against unnecessary violence against members of one's own group. Killing members of other groups and cannibalizing them were not considered unethical. In the agrarian economy, slavery, the caste system and the subjugations of women enhanced or were deemed to enhance efficiencies, and so were considered ethical. Codes against violence remained much the same as in the Original State – "He who is not with me is against me". LOEE & In the Industrial Wave, there was a drastic change. Adam Smith, the father of modern Labor economics, argued that slavery was a most inefficient form of production. A man working of his own free will in the Industrial Wave had much higher yields than forced labor. Workers were given more and more rights and sops, leading to equality and democracy. A literate workforce, which was able to coordinate with other departments and make decisions on its own, was essential to a gargantuan industry spread all over the country and the world. Literacy and the power of making decisions at the level of the common man sounded the death knell for slavery, feudalism and the subjugation of women. Consequently such unsavory practices of the Agrarian wave are considered unethical in the Industrial Wave, as such practices often prove counterproductive in an industrial environment. Parochialism and localization were considered productive in the Agrarian Wave seller's market whereas consumer satisfaction and globalization have become the watchwords in a modern day buyer's market. Philosophers and saints have traditionally looked down with disdain and contempt on economic and commercial exploitation of resources. The simple fact of life is that no Utopian or idealistic setup can last long without producing a surplus. Even a beggar or a hermit has to earn more than he spends in cash or kind. All institutions, holy or profane, have to be economically viable to survive. Religions, in spite of their claims to divine origin, in spite of their proclaimed belief in divine providence, have to be economically viable to start with. That is why all religions without exception have their cash boxes displayed prominently. All the political, religious, social or commercial institutions we have in the world are ultimately organized for optimizing economic efficiencies in accordance with the ‘The Law of Optimum Efficiencies’. Laws, rules, codes and idealistic concepts are all formulated with the single aim of attaining optimum outputs from minimum inputs. On searching the internet with the search term 'ethics economics' I came across many sites, all of them describing how ethics should be applied to economics. I feel this is like putting the cart LOEE & before the horse. To me it seems that it is economics or long term and optimum efficiencies Ethics that determine ethics. The most basic ethic codes are against violence and theft in that order. Codes against violence are applicable to all societies both animal and human. A violent society cannot last. One of the main causes of violence in all societies is sex. That may have been why humans set up sex-related codes of conduct so that there would be peace in society, as peace is the most basic infrastructure for economic progress. Codes against theft and dishonesty are applicable only to societies where we have institutionalized private property. In a society where there is no private property, codes against theft make no sense. We have instituted or formulated codes of ethics against theft and dishonesty so that we may get maximum economic efficiency in a capitalist set up based on private property and laissez-faire. The drive for economic efficiency is far more momentous than has been realized. It is the biggest of life’s driving forces. Ethics, love, religions, superstitions, laws and regulations and all other social factors and institutions are mere spokes in the wheels in our drive for higher economic efficiencies. We have discussed how the process of biological evolution is driven by economic factors - the capacity to exploit available resources more efficiently. One might think that our sense of beauty has nothing LOEE & whatsoever to do with economic factors. One important characteristic of our sense of beauty is Aesthetics symmetry. A symmetrically constituted man or woman is attractive, because his or her movements are far more efficient than a lopsided cripple’s. It is also found that women often favor brawny men, especially at the time of their estrus. This is in accordance with the original scheme of things when brawn was far more important than brains in the economic sense. Consequently a brawny man meant more muscle power under a single brain, which is more efficient than mere skin and bones under a single brain. It may be due to the higher efficiencies arising from more muscle power under a single brain 30 that parents want their children to grow tall and brawny. Now, things are turning around, and a cripple like Stephen Hawkins is as eligible as Rocky Maivia or any wrestling superstar, as far as many women are concerned. In like manner, a fair complexion was considered an important factor of beauty in the Agrarian Wave. This was because only the economically well-off could afford to stay indoors from the sun. The others, the riff-raff of society, had to work in the scorching sun and got tanned. With the Industrial Wave, things changed. The common proletarians spend most of their times indoors in factories and offices and so remain pale. The affluent on the other hand, can now go on long holidays to exotic tropical paradises and the resulting perfect tan became a symbol of economic success. As a result, a perfect tan has become chic, beautiful. A smooth skin is another characteristic of beauty. Again, like a fair complexion, a smooth skin too denotes better access to nutritious food or more efficient digestion of available food. In addition, like symmetry, a smooth skin is aerodynamically more efficient. The inexorable and relentless power of economic forces has been underestimated and governments LOEE & have tried time and again to stem this economic power of nature by laws and The State regulations. Adam Smith illustrated how the government of his times tried to curtail the import of cheap gold from the Americas by imposing heavy duties on gold imports and how this led to the growth of smuggling and how the government was forced to retract its levies. The powerful United States also had to give way before the tremendous forces of economics when it had to backpedal on its liquor prohibition policies, as this policy against the more fundamental laws of LOEE & economics led to the growth of the Mafia. Enormous economic pressures had been built up by prohibition the irrational prohibition enactments, and under the circumstances an Al Capone was as inevitable as summer rains or winter snows. If the government had persisted with its prohibition policies, other Al Capones would have sprouted all over to rake in the economic rewards. India too has tried its hand at prohibition all along its near-sixty years of independence. In spite of all its efforts, successive governments have failed miserably. Such enactments against the laws of nature – economic laws are indeed natural laws - have invariably led to the growth of organized crime and unmitigated corruption. Abkharis, as the liquor barons are known in India, have taken advantage of the artificial economic pressures created by the irrational laws and exorbitant taxes, and built up financial empires overnight, though most of them are from the slums. They also wallow in crime and corruption and even control the strings of governance, thanks to their huge financial clout. Yet, the governments concerned do not seem to have learnt their lessons or more likely they are turning a Nelson’s eye to the issue so that those in the government too get a cut in the windfall. The laws against drugs are another instance of irrational, mulish legislations. Except for some governments in Scandinavia, governments all over the globe have banned drugs. This has only led to the growth of crime and corruption syndicates. In the instance of gold as illustrated by Adam Smith, it needs a huge industrial set up to mine and process gold ores on a viable scale. Liquor and drugs on the other hand, need no such elaborate industrial establishments, and can be produced and marketed at the rudimentary level as a cottage industry. As a result, it is far more difficult to enforce prohibition of alcohol and drugs than it is to control the gold markets. It would be far more rational to treat alcohols and drugs as any commodity and to allow its free trade. Without high taxes or artificial scarcity, there would be no incentives for crime and corruption. Personally speaking, I am also of the opinion that such enactments against use of drugs and alcohol go against the basic tenets of democracy too. Democracy assumes that all men are equal and that even the most retarded moron knows what is best for himself. As such, no moralist or government official has the right to enforce its own moral codes on another one as long as law and order are not jeopardized, or as long as the health of others is not compromised as in passive smoking. Instead of enforcing such codes, the public should be alerted to the harmful effects of alcohol and drugs and the decision should be left to the voter- citizen. Such impositions of arbitrary codes are akin to Talibanization in some Islamic countries where some organized goons enforce their own interpretations of Islamic codes on others, codes such as ban on pictures, music, female education and so on and so forth. No high-browed moralist has any right to usurp that democratic privilege of the majority, as if these moralists are more equal than the others who love their swig or their puff after a hard day's work. After all, only a teeny-weenie fraction of those who drink or smoke turn 31 addicts and to ban alcohol or drugs on the basis of this minor misuse is like burning down the barn to kill the mouse. God imposed an irrational law on Adam and Eve - not to eat of the tree of knowledge. This only led to curiosity and the final defiance of the law. If God had not set the capricious law, the fruit would not have received a second glance from the first man and woman. In like manner, prohibition enactments add a tinge of glamour and adventure to breaking the laws, and this is one of the causes for their increasing misuse. If the alcohol-and-drugs issues were not blown out of all proportions, their consumption would have been brought down to natural levels. It may also be pertinent to note here that over eating kills thousands of times as many people every day as alcoholism or drug abuse. Sexual relationships are another field where stringent regulations and restrictions lead only to driving the urges underground. Thus in a society where women cover the body to the angle, the glimpse of a knee is enough to turn a man on. On the other hand, in societies where women expose themselves fully, a shapely thigh receives hardly a passing glance. Pointless and irrational restrictions only lead to their inevitable breakdown. Getting back to prohibition of alcohol and drugs, the case of smoking is a case in context. In spite of its high taxation, the cigarette industry flourished for many decades. A cigar or a cigarette dangling from the mouth imparted a he-man look – Freud said that it is a kind of exhibitionism. Now with a better informed public, the industry is on the decline and it is a question of time before the cigarette market becomes unfeasible. In like manner, moral laws such as those against sex, alcohol or drugs can only be implemented by enlightenment.
ECONOMICS, MORALS AND VALUES: ‘The Law of Optimum Efficiencies’ applies to the realm of ethics, morals and values and we often make a virtue out of economic necessity. In the Original State and the Agrarian Wave, age was respected and obeyed unquestioningly, because the Patriarchs and Matriarchs in a society had much knowledge and experience of considerable economic value. Similarly, asceticism was considered a virtue in the Agrarian Wave for the simple reason that asceticism was far more practical than ambition in that age of low productivity - a case of sour-grapes- syndrome. In like manner fecundity was considered desirable in women in the good old days, as LOEE & each child meant a farmhand who would give his best to the family. For this reason, children Virtue born out of Mutah or the contract system of Muslim marriage went with the father. In modern times, children often mean liabilities, as much money has to be spent on them under various heads such as healthcare and education, until they come of age. That is one of the reasons why we have gone in for birth control now as less number of children means more money available per head of the family. In the agrarian society of scarcity in which I grew up, a virtuous woman considered the food left over by her husband as hallowed and wholesome elixir. The economic dimension to this 'virtuous' practice became clear to me only later on. In the joint families of the day, there was not enough food to go around. Every woman in her 'virtue' would pile her husband's plate to overflowing, thus making sure that there would be some food left over on her husband's plate. The food thus left over by her husband would not be touched by the other men in the family, and was anathema to the other women. So, by piling her husband's plate to overflowing the 'virtuous' woman was cornering for herself a square meal. Now that there is plenty of food to go around, few women even touch the food left over by their husbands. Let us now turn to morals. Unlike ethics, which may have economic relevance in terms of optimizing efficiencies, morals may not have economic relevance. Promiscuity may not have economic relevance in a society. Nevertheless, in a society where monogamy is idealized, promiscuity is immoral. As late as in the beginning of the last century, it was normal for male Brahmins in Kerala, to go to the homes of the lower castes and spend the night there with any woman of his desires. Indeed, the nocturnal visit was even considered an honor and a tribute by the noble man to the lower castes. On the other hand, in the present era of economic surplus it would be an unthinkable act of immorality. It was also normal for Hindu women to go topless and the first women to cover their breasts were often beaten up. A hundred years ago, women who covered their breasts were banned from entering temples, and kings and courts often upheld such traditions. In the modern era, a woman going topless in Indian cities
32 would be incarcerated for indecent exposure. Men on the other hand, are forbidden to enter temples with shirts on as an extension of ancient practices. Values also thus change with time and place. Among some of the African societies a man's prestige is measured by the number of wives he takes in. Accordingly, older wives encourage their husbands to take on more wives as it increases their husbands' prestige, which in turn increases the wives' standing. It is normal for a woman there to boast of the number of wives her husband has. In modern societies on the other hand, a man taking on more than a wife would be put behind bars for polygamy. What is ethics? According to me, it is a code of behavior that is directed at minimizing conflicts and maximizing or optimizing cooperation and efficiency. There are two types of ethical codes – the zero code LOEE & and the positive code. Ethics In the wake of the religious conflicts in Europe, tolerance was advocated as ethical idealism. Tolerance is as sterile as a eunuch. Though tolerance does not promote conflicts, neither does it promote cooperation, which is necessary for optimizing efficiency. Tolerance is thus a zero- code of ethics. The Ten Commandments, all starting with ‘thou shalt not …’ also belong to the sphere of zero-ethics. Long before Christian era, the Chinese philosophers had advocated the omnibus code "Thou shalt not do unto others as thou would not like to be done unto thee." Like the Ten Commandments, this too is the minimum social requirement for a conflict-free society and can be categorized under zero-ethics. Then came Jesus and his version of positive ethics. He exhorted us "Do unto others as you would like to be done unto you." Like his others exhortations such as turning the other cheek or like selling all you have and giving it to the poor, this exhortation too belong to the realm of unfeasible Utopianism. One way of portraying ethics would be in the light of kinship. Kinship is a phenomenon that has been widely observed in all life forms. Recent studies provide evidence that even certain plants can recognize and respond to kinship ties. Using sea rocket plants for her experiments, Susan Dudley at McMaster University in Canada compared the growth patterns of unrelated plants sharing the same pot to plants from the same clone in the same pot. She found that unrelated plants competed for soil nutrients by aggressive root growth. This did not occur with sibling plants. Among insects strong kinship ties are best illustrated in cases where worker insects, which are mostly sterile, often work hard and even lay down their lives for the colony or community even though they do not stand to gain anything from the sacrifices. It seems that evolution works not only through the survival of the fittest individual, but also at the kinship level through the survival of the next of kin. It was in consideration of the strength of kinship ties that J.B.S. Haldane made his famous declaration, "I would lay down my life for two brothers or for four nephews or for eight cousins" The bestseller ‘The Selfish Gene’ by Richard Dawkins applies statistical probability theory and calculations to the strength of kinship bonds and concurs with J.B.S. Haldane’ expression, me=2brothers=8cousins. It seems that next to promoting ourselves and our own genes, we try to promote the genes closest to us – the genes of our siblings and those of our next of kin in proportion to the degree of kinship. However in the present context kinship itself becomes debatable in human beings. In the past the above equation me=2brothers=8cousins by Richard Dawkins also implied that you worked more with, spent more time with and interacted more with your own brothers far more often than with your cousins and distant kin in inverse proportion to the degree of kinship. But this is no more the case. From school age itself we spend and interact more often and more intensely with strangers than with our next of kin. This makes it imperative that we define kinship in the present context of globalism where we interact more with total strangers than with the next of kin. Kinship is an I-scratch-your-back-you-scratch-my-back relationship of rights and responsibilities, by which everyone in the group stands to gain in an implicit quid-pro-quo pact. In primitive jungle societies, the people that came into the implied pact were very much limited in numbers, as each group was reasonably self-sufficient.. With the Pastoral and Agrarian waves, whole tribes were involved in the implicit pact though to different degrees according to the blood relationship as expressed in Haldane’s and Dawkin’s expressions stated above. Those outside the kinship group were totally outside the implied pact also, and so could be dealt with in any way one pleased without any qualms or regrets. Thus, Moses was by all accounts a man who believed in the rule of law and implemented it in his group. But the same codes of kinship did not apply to others, and he orders genocide of the Medianites in chapter 31 of the Book of Numbers. Here again the Israelites were a self-sufficient group who could very well manage on their own without any help from the Medianites or other such neighboring tribes. In fact the Biblical ethics as depicted in the Old Testament is 33 merely an advanced form of primitive kinship ethics as practiced by the rocket plants and the bees. Mohammad also practiced kinship ethics in his group of Muslims, whereas plunder, slavery and other inhuman practices were a matter of course as far as Non-Muslims were concerned. We have now evolved a long way from the rocket plants in biological terms, and from Moses and Mohammad in social terms. What is more, with specialization we are growing less and less self-sufficient by the day and have to integrate more and more of such specialized groups and individuals into our own group in accordance with ‘The Law of Optimum Efficiencies.’ Such integration cannot be limited either geographically or ethnically. The process has to go on forever until the whole of humanity evolves into one self-sufficient group. Thus, with the integration of more and more societies and states into one globalized community, we also have to extend ethics and kinship ethos to the whole of humanity. Thus ethics in modern times imply that the limited scope of quid-pro-quos in the kinship relationships of yester ages be extended in an unlimited way to the whole of humanity. Recently I came across stories of many Siamese twins, and according to me positive ethics in concrete terms is like the code of behavior between two such twins. This too belongs to the realm of impractical idealism as most such twins often think alike and have the same needs at the same time. Subsequently, I chanced on the movie Stuck With You, which portrays Siamese, twins who are as different from each other as day and night. One is an extrovert and wants to get into movies. The other is an introvert and plans to settle down in the countryside. One of their three lungs is shared between the two of them. When the extrovert gets drunk and is driven home by the introvert, the police book the introvert for drunken driving. Probably the message this incident puts forward is that the environmental pollution and such wanton acts by one affect all. Getting back to ethics, ethics is like the arrangement between these dissimilar Siamese twins. For better or for worse we are ‘stuck together’ in this life. If one of the Siamese twins were to kill the other, he will be stuck with a rotten, stinking corpse. In like manner we damage ourselves too when we exterminate each other in reckless carnage. No one ever wins a war. Only one of the warring parties loses less than the other and declares himself the winner, though like fighting cocks, both end up spent to the point of death. The actions of our contemporaries and neighbors affect us as much more than the actions of our parents or children and as such, we have to be more ethically oriented towards our contemporaries than to our ancestors or to our descendants. The present conflicts in the world could easily be solved if the George Bushes and Bin Ladens of this world could imagine themselves to be stuck together as Siamese twins. All win-lose situations have to be backed up by brute force and will disappear with the force that props them up. On the other hand, win-win situations come through mutual Adult transactional exchanges, and last without any force to back them up. Ethics is, therefore, the code of conduct that fosters or promotes win-win situations for all. (See Chapter Three for Transactional exchanges) In short, we can say ethics have economic relevance whereas morals and values have social relevance and all three phenomena change with the economic demands of the time and place. Religions may boast they have god's sanction. But according to the ‘The Law of Optimum Efficiencies’ the god of all gods comes from the mint. Money is the viswaroop or the universal form of all things good and bad, holy and mundane.
"Fear is the main source of superstition and one of the main sources of cruelty" - Bertrand Russell
34 Chapter Two
The Violent Ape –Aggression and Assertiveness
“ Opinions founded on prejudices are always sustained with the greatest of violence.” Francis Jeffrey
In the chapter on fear, we have seen about Jung’s archetypes or our collective unconscious or our mental faculties that have been handed down to us over the generations of animal and human evolution. Along with fear, violence forms the most fundamental aspect of life. We have seen that fear is the key to life. In the same way, fear also holds the key to violence and is complementary to it. Without fear, there is seldom any violence, except in predatory animals, which depend on killing for their very existence. However, according to many researchers, predation is not aggression or violence. Cats do not hiss or arch their backs when in pursuit of prey, and the active areas in their hypothalamuses during predation are more similar to those that reflect hunger than those that reflect aggression.
Definition: "Violence’ is an act arising from fear, anger, frustration, greed and/or other causes that leads to injury or damages in real or mental terms to persons and their reputations, animals or property." Feelings of fear, anger and frustration give rise to violent acts and these acts in turn fuel the fears, anger and frustration into a vicious cycle of spiraling fear, anger and violence. An all-inclusive definition of violence is hard to formulate. The United Nation’s ‘World Report on Violence’ defines violence as "… the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation." Aggression is a form of behavior that is closely related to violence and almost Aggressio synonymous with it. In this chapter, we shall indeed treat the words ‘violence’ and n ‘aggression’ as synonyms. Aggression is a complex phenomenon that is composed of a number of specific types of behavior. Moyer presented the following classifications of violence and aggression. 1. Predatory aggression: attack on prey by a predator. 2. Inter-sex aggression: competition between individuals of the same sex and species over access to resources such as mates, dominance, status, etc. Though it was presumed that males alone resorted to such sex-based aggression it has been found that females are not far behind, lionesses have been found to maul lioness-intruders and kill them off. 3. Fear-induced aggression: aggression associated with attempts to counter a threat. 4. Irritable aggression: aggression induced by frustration and directed against an available target. 5. Territorial aggression: aggression for capturing alien territories and resources. 6. Maternal aggression: a female's aggression to protect her offspring from a threat. Paternal aggression is also in evidence. 7. Instrumental aggression: aggression directed towards obtaining some goal, considered to be a learned response to a situation. The above classifications may not be exhaustive. Nonetheless they may be narrowed down to two categories: 1. Hostile, affective, or retaliatory aggression and 2. Instrumental, predatory, or goal-oriented aggression. Researches show that this is a decisive or critical difference, both psychologically and physiologically. People with tendencies toward affective or retaliatory aggression have lower IQs than those
35 with tendencies toward predatory or goal-oriented aggression. Frequently these higher-IQ predatory minorities exploit the low-IQ emotive majority to fulfill their nefarious designs. Hostile & Luckily for mankind, persons of the predatory type are not wholly evil. Great men Retaliatory like Buddha and Jesus and others who have had great and profound influences on human Aggression thinking and development too are probably of the predatory kind in that they were very much goal oriented. What made them different from the violence-oriented predatory kind is that they saw far ahead the consequences of their actions than the others of the predatory kind. Beneath Gandhi’s nonviolence lay the well-laid plans of a military general, and his movement was a military maneuver for all purposes sans the violence. It has been said that the ordinary politician thinks of the next elections whereas a statesman thinks of the next generation. Though the vast majority of the instrumental, predatory, or goal-oriented type of men can be classified as politicians, it cannot be denied that the few statesmen among them more than offset the malevolent effects of the politicians in the long run. This is so because of the inevitability of ‘The Law of Optimum Efficiencies’. Like robbers, the politicians aim at short-term efficiency augmentation whereas the great men work towards long-term, sustainable augmentation of efficiencies. The more overt forms of violence such as murder and burglary are recognized as crimes and punishable by law. On the other hand, there are far more numerous but covert forms of violence such as in domestic matters, which fall outside the scope of criminal law. Men often resort to physical Verbal violence, which can be prosecuted in court. In contrast, women often resort to verbal assaults, Violence which often take place only at the personal level, but can be extremely damaging in mental terms and difficult to prosecute. Physical violence leads to irreparable damages to life and property. Damage to property is considered minor relative to violence against persons. Cruelty to animals has acquired pre- eminence in recent times. Invariably there is verbal or mental violence before physical violence. However in this treatise we shall be alluding to physical violence unless otherwise specified. Violence can be divided into two forms, 'random violence', which includes unpremeditated or small- scale violence, and 'coordinated violence,' which includes actions carried out by authorized or unauthorized violent groups such as in war, ethnic flare-ups, revolutions, and terrorism. There are different categories of violence. Reactive or defensive aggressiveness takes place in the face of external threats. This is called fighting. Reactive aggression is universal in all animals and men. Unlike most animals, men can to some extend peer into the future and such defensive forms of aggression often takes place against perceived future threats too according to the norm "Attack is the best of defense." When such perceived threats are imaginary we call it 'paranoia and/or xenophobia', the persistent feeling that everyone and everything is out to get you. When a man with considerable power and resources is involved, such paranoid xenophobia can often lead to massacres and holocausts. Man also conceptualizes much more than animals and symbols mean a lot to him. Flags, standards, religious and political signs such as the swastika, the cross or the crescent, language etc mean a lot to us. Attacks against such symbols are often construed as direct attack on the man, his group or his vital interests and the reactive aggressiveness comes into play and results in deadly consequences. Such reactive violence in the face of attacks against symbols may seem irrational. Nevertheless, they are quite common as these symbols are necessary to man in maintaining his psychic equilibrium. Parental conditioning plays a significant part in such reactive responses to threats whether real or imagined. Aggression within a species is termed conspecific aggression. Conspecific aggression arises from the fact that members of the same species are competing for the same resources and mates while non-conspecific animals occupy different niches and do not compete for the same resources. One of the most common purposes of conspecific aggressive behavior among social animals is the establishment of a dominance hierarchy. When social animals like monkeys are first Conspecific grouped together, the first thing they do is scuffle with each other to claim a high Aggression ranking in the hierarchy. This aggression ceases after the hierarchy is established, which takes about twenty-four hours. Such cessation of hostilities and establishment of hierarchies help the members of the group to cooperate to mutual benefit. One wonders how violence came into the scheme of evolution. Evolution is the survival of the fittest, and the fittest is presumed to be the organism that can wreak the greatest violence on other organisms and win them over or destroy them. The power to destroy other organisms seems to 36 hold the key to evolution. Nevertheless, from the cycle of life we know that life-forms merely circulate biomass or nutrients - carbohydrates, minerals, water and gases and so forth. Dead biomass fertilizes vegetation, which are called primary life forms. Plants and vegetation are consumed by herbivores and omnivores who in turn are ingested by the carnivores, which come at the top of the chain. This biomass then returns to the earth and the atmosphere as in death or other processes such as during breathing, defecation and sweating; then the merry-go-round starts all over again through another route. This entire thing about evolution and survival, all this jostling and elbowing would seem to be much ado about nothing and exercises in futility by life forms, which finally end up as lifeless biomass. Then it starts all over again in another endless cycle of meaningless life and traumatic death. Life and death seem to be a game of hide-and-seek or a fancy dress competition that biomass engages in to no purpose - now the same biomass disguises itself in one form of life and then in another and wreaks violence on each other in the process. The question arises as to why nature resorts to violence in the cause of this aimless circulation of biomass, as the violent organism itself is as much a part of the biomass as the object of its violence. Why violence when life is a mere cirulation or distribution of biomass.The man you kill today may have atoms and molecules which were part of you yesterday irrespective of the ethnic group he may belong to. The carbon dioxide he breathed out yesterday may have been photosynthesised by an apple tree in your yard and this in turn might have been ingested by you. In this light, violence and evolution itself is senseless and Evolution puposeless as all life-forms are but different manifestations of biomass. So whether rational & Violence or not, violence and evolution seem to be a way of life at the most fundamental level though without any apparent purpose whatsover.
Nature or nurture: We are concerned here with large-scale violence and especially ethnic violence which is caused by fear and conditioning. Much of the large-scale violence is caused by mobs and nations. But then mobs and nations are mere concepts. The reality of mobs and nations are the elements, the persons that make up the mob or the nation. Consequently we shall be studying violence at the elemental or personal level here though group violence too has been given due considerations. Jane Goodall, the British ethologist, known for her exceptionally detailed and long-term research on the chimpanzees of Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania, reported that the group of chimpanzees she was studying split up violently and the bigger group ganged up on members of the smaller break-away group whenever possible and soon exterminated the splinter group. Goodall could not decipher the issue or issues that led to the split up and the subsequent extermination. One of the main causes however of this intriguing massacre, is the violence built into their genes. Siblings growing up in the same family under the same conditions exhibit different patterns of behavior. This would not have been so if nurture or upbringing were the more critical factor in determining adult behavior. The affirmative conclusion to the issue of whether violence is natural to man is ancient and dates back to ancient Greece. The pre-eminence of nature in contributing to violent behavior is most apparent in the gender difference. There is no place in the world and there has been no age in history when males accounted for less than 80% of the incidents of physical violence among our species. This is one of the most prominent differentiations between the sexes among animals and humans. This difference has been detected across many different age groups and cultures as far as man is concerned. Males are quicker to aggression and more likely than females to express their aggression physically. However, some researchers suggest that females are as aggressive as their male counterparts though they tend to show their aggression in less overt, less physical ways. For example, females may display more verbal assaults such as verbal insults and resort to relational aggression, such as in social and sexual rejection. People in their late teens and their twenties are more likely to resort to violence than older or younger men and women. It has been observed that the frequency of physical aggression in humans peaks at around 2-3 years of age. It then declines gradually. This too suggests that physically aggressive tendencies are more due to nature than to nurture. Indeed, nurture seems to curb natural aggression and to promote self- regulation. Talking of our natural propensity to violence, in their research in mid-1960s a team of British researchers found that many of the male inmates in a Scottish hospital treating dangerous, violent, or 37 criminal behavior had an extra Y chromosome alongside the normal XY chromosome. The criminal tendencies of the group under study were attributed to this XYY factor. A serial Chicago killer, Richard Speck even planned to appeal his case on the grounds that he was XYY and therefore not responsible for his criminal acts. However, tests showed that Speck did not have the aberration in his chromosomes. After further research, this theory of XYY-chromosome factor as contributing to violence was abandoned. It has been found that females are more prone to violence as well as to destructive behaviors like suicides during certain times in their periods when a surge of hormones is in evidence. Some decades back, a woman in England pleaded not guilty on the grounds that at the time she committed a crime she was in her periods when women are especially prone to crime. The importance of genetic factors as well as body conditions as causal or contributing or correlating factors of violence cannot be denied. However, scanning people for aggressive genes and taking actions thereon raise other issues. A prediction that a child is likely to grow into a violent adult may even persuade the child to adopt an aggressive attitude into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Whatever groups we belong to or identify with, all of us have an element of violence built into our genes by nature as illustrated above. Aggression is directed to the outside world and is often triggered by outside stimuli, but has a very distinct internal character. Scientific investigations are under way to unearth the relationships between various parts of the brain and aggression. All emotions originate in the brain. According to Konrad Lorenz, aggressiveness is spontaneously produced within the nervous system especially in the males. Two cerebral areas that directly regulate aggression and violence have been detected. The amygdala is one such area and its stimulation prompts increased aggressive tendencies, while lesions of this area greatly reduce one's competitive drive and aggression. The second area that controls aggressive behavior is the hypothalamus which when electrically prodded shows aggressive inclinations. Various neurotransmitters and hormones also have been shown to correlate with aggressive behavior. The most often mentioned of these is the hormone testosterone. Testosterone has been shown to correlate with aggressive behavior in mice and in some humans, though the studies have not been irrefutable. Nonetheless, testosterone and adrenaline seem to provide a deadly concoction that promotes senseless violence. Apart from testosterone, transmitters in the brain like serotonin, and blood abnormalities appear to be some of the natural causes of violence. Biological factors like head injuries, poor nutrition, or environmental events, such as exposure to lead paint may also contribute to violence. Neuroscientists have Testosterone isolated and begun to study the roles of several neurotransmitters in people prone to & Serotonin impulsive violence. They found that both excesses and insufficiencies of serotonin and dopamine were often related to impulsive violent behavior. Research on a colony of vervet monkeys proved that their social structure could be manipulated by controlling serotonin levels in the individuals. High levels of serotonin raised the status of male monkeys in the hierarchy of the colony, and high status goes with dominant behavior. Nevertheless, no clear pattern connecting biological factors and violence has been identified. The mapping of the human genome too is providing data on the different areas in the brain that account for different behaviors and predispositions. Aggressiveness does not need a specific cause or stimulus. In his book On Aggression, Lorenz points out that we do not have aggression because we have different political parties, but we have different political parties because we carry aggression within ourselves. Therefore, in a way of speaking it is not religion or politics or dogmas and doctrines that pave way for violence; people it seems are violent by nature, and religion and other ethnic factors give them the pretext for venting their violent instincts on their fellow men. It may also be noted here that in a playpen, if a child goes for a doll or toy that has hitherto been discarded, every child in the group covets it and if the children are male there is often a scuffle and matters may even spin out of control until elders step in and restore order. We are no different. We often covet things, just because our neighbor has them. Keeping up with the Joneses and collecting useless trinkets at great expenses and trouble are indicators of our inherent greed and covetousness, and this too in turn gives rise to violence. Under these circumstances, the call for social justice, especially in affluent societies, is a chimera for covering up our natural greed and jealousy. Though nature plays the most significant role in adult behavior, the role of nurture cannot be underestimated. A stone-age man who can shape tools and implements of stone would have made an 38 excellent sculptor in a modern society. The genetic factor or factors that go into the making of a good sculptor are inborn in him. Talking of sculptors, Italy has contributed the best sculptors to the modern world. It would be naïve to say that Italians are better sculptors than other ethnic groups. Italy’s dominance in sculpturing is in part due to the excellent quality of marble available there. Italian marble is soft and pliable and gives smooth, even facades under the chisel and hammer. On the other hand, the sculptors of South India have access only to the locally available granite. This hard granite chips away under the chisel and smooth and flawless contours are impossible to come by. It is for this reason that the granite sculptures of India cannot project such subtle expressions as the Pieta does. Obviously, nature, nurture and the available resources go into the making of a good sculptor. Similar factors also determine whether one develops into a violent or an amicable man. The interrelationships between nature, nurture and the environment in shaping character are most intricate indeed. This reminds me of a humor column from Readers Digest. It read “For good health and longevity eat modestly, exercise regularly, avoid smoking and so on. But most important of all, for good health and longevity, choose healthy parents.” It is well recognized that genetic factors play significant roles in health and longevity. I do not see why it should be any different in other spheres including our proclivity to violence. No amount of nurturing can significantly improve the IQ of a person nor can any man be trained to become a world-class singer. Nurture can only improve upon or degenerate what nature has provided. On deeper analysis all behavior - even learned behavior - is in some sense biological. However, without nurture inherent qualities are like the seeds that fell among the thorns or on hard rock. There was a presumption during the enlightenment that man is not inherently violent and that violence is often a learned behavior. Freud too seemed to have subscribed to this view. The proponents of Violence this theory that man is not naturally violent, point out that animals do not take to wanton Inherent? destruction and that they are not aggressive on their own kind. However, these conjectures are against observations, and it has been observed that carnivores often kill even when they are full, and that even herbivores like deer, buffaloes and elephants grow aggressive in the rutting season and such aggression often ends up in the death of one of the combatants, unless it flees the scene. It may also be noted, that siblings growing up in the same family under the same conditions may exhibit different patterns of behavior in adult life. This too points to the conclusion that apart from nurture, nature too plays a significant part in character development. As for aggression on one's own kind, the observations by Jane Goodall as described above of chimpanzees splitting up and then one group exterminating the other, points to the natural propensity to aggression in all animals. Man differs from animals only in the intensity and scale of his violence and aggression, a scale that no animal can ever match. A child that is physically abused is likely to grow into a violent adult. A traumatic childhood of Violence rejection and abuse can lead to a 'You’re-not-OK-I’m-not-OK' transactional syndrome, and & Family this is a sure recipe for violence in later life. Nonetheless, many such children manage to overcome their trauma and grow into normal adults especially when other factors such as employment and family-support become favorable. Failure of a child in school is another of the most enduring correlates of later violence. Take note that the word ‘correlates’ is used here instead of the word ‘causes’ to drive home the point that the cause- effect relationship between performance at school and violence in later life has not been clearly established. The same goes for other factors discussed here as leading to violence. Four out of five violent offenders in prison never finished high school. Failure in school and violence may be correlated not only with each other but also with poor upbringing. Poor upbringing may also be due to poverty and the parents being forced to spend their time, energy and scarce resources looking for a job and keeping it. All these factors may further be complicated by the way the child sees it. As already cited, two children from the same family may take things differently, and one of the children may grow up to be perfectly normal while another may become a delinquent. The issue of the direct causes and correlating causes of violence is indeed very complex. Many aggressive children go on to become law-abiding adults, whereas if a child continues to be aggressive beyond 8-10 years of age he is more than likely to remain aggressive well into his thirties. The stability of the family environment matters. If a foster child is displaced many times that child is likely to grow into a criminal. In like manner, lack of parental supervision has been consistently correlated to delinquency, including violent delinquency. Children growing up in very disadvantaged and violent 39 neighborhoods, children who look like they have everything going against them, may grow up into responsible citizens if parental supervision, especially maternal supervision, is efficient and misbehavior is nipped in the bud. Complacency in parental supervision will lead to dire consequences later on in life. Poverty has been blamed for much of the violence in the world. Controlling poverty may be relatively uncomplicated, but controlling a family's attitude toward its own poverty may be complex and attitudes have a huge impact on how well family members cope with life and its many Violence & issues. The way the family teaches one to deal with poverty matters much more than poverty Poverty itself. Here again there may be variations. Two boys from the same family may react to poverty in different ways in spite of their common family background. We have seen that physically aggressive behavior peaks at 2-3 years of age, and then gets regulated by social compulsions. However, a small subset of children fails to acquire the necessary self-regulatory abilities, and tends to show uncharacteristic levels of physical aggression. These children show a very high probability of developing into violent adults. It may be opportune here to distinguish between aggression and assertiveness. Children preparing to enter kindergarten need to develop the socially important skills of being assertive. Assertiveness Examples of assertiveness include asking others for information, initiating conversation, or being able to respond to peer-pressure. If the child fails in its attempts to assert itself, it often resorts to aggressive behavior, such as hitting or biting, as a form of communication. In time, this can lead to aggression and violence especially in males. Culture plays a significant role in aggression. Empirical cross-cultural research has found differences in the level of aggression between ethnic groups. In one study, American men resorted to physical aggression more readily than the Japanese or the Spanish. Japanese men preferred direct verbal assaults Aggression when compared to their American and Spanish counterparts. Within the American & Culture environment itself, southerners were more aroused and responded more aggressively than northerners when upset. There is also a higher homicide rate among young white southern men than among white northern men in the United States. Also Southerners tend to subscribe to a culture of honor and vendettas and to adopt physical violence in response to slights and insults. Social inequality and the frustration springing therefrom also have been blamed for aggression and violence. This theory attributes violence to social causes alone and implies that if people are not frustrated, Violence & they will not become aggressive. This in effect means that man is not naturally aggressive. Inequality This may be partly true in the case of personal and domestic violence. Indeed the French, Russian and Chinese revolutions, three of the most violent upheavals in human history, were largely due to gross systemic inequality and the hopelessness and frustrations arising therefrom. However, all violence cannot be attributed to frustration alone. It was found that the Blacks in the South of the United States, though far more frustrated than the Whites, were far less violent. Nonetheless, poverty and frustration do contribute to crime. Invariably there is some degree of injustice under all political dispensations. Some such variations are normal. Other forms of systemic injustice, such as during the apartheid in South Africa or Structural as under the caste system in India, are quite glaring. On the other hand, injustice within Violence democratic systems such as in India arising from regional hegemony or corruption is not so much in evidence. Everything seems to be placid on the surface while seething underneath. Galtung coined the term structural violence to refer to such situations as during apartheid or in a corrupt regime, which although not violent on the face of it, contain a level of systematic oppression or injustice. The more such structural violence in a society, the higher will be the chances of vicious backlashes. There is no point in preaching ethics and morals to a starving man. Violence comes naturally to a man that lives a hand to mouth existence especially when his neighbor wallows in wealth and ostentatious extravagance. However, where there is abject poverty or famine, there is little violence as noticed by the Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, who narrates how the starving people of Bengal seldom resorted to violence and watched idly as trucks loaded with food grains rolled by during the great Bengal famine. The theory that deprivation is the cause of violence also does not explain why there is violence in reasonably affluent societies. Violence is thus seen to be a very complex issue and there may be diverse causes that give rise to social violence.
40 Frustration does not spring from deprivation alone. Frustration and aggression increase if a person feels that he or she is being blocked from achieving a goal. One study found that the closeness to the goal makes a difference. Accordingly, the second person in a queue is more aggressive than the fifteenth when someone cut into the queue. Unexpected frustration may be another factor. In a study in this direction, a group of students were asked to collect donations over the phone. Some of them were told that the people they would call would be generous and the collection would be very successful. The other group was given no such expectations. The group with the high expectations was more upset and became more aggressive when no one acquiesced to their solicitations. Extrapolating this to real life, unrealistic expectations raised by ruthless politicians is the cause of much political conflict we come across in the democratic world today. There is a relationship between drugs and violence. About a third and more of all violent crimes are under the influence of alcohol and other drugs. The earlier an adolescent takes to alcohol or drugs, the more likely it is that he will grow up into violent adult. Alcohol and drugs impair judgment, and Drugs & disrupt the way information is processed. An inebriated man is more than likely to view an Violence accidental event as a premeditated event, which is intended to harm him or to ridicule him. Consequently, he may resort to violence in a state of intoxicated suspicions. Hot weather has been diagnosed as a contributory factor to violent behavior. One study completed in the midst of the civil rights movement found that mobs were more likely to riot on hotter days than on cooler ones. Students were found to be more aggressive and irritable after taking a test in a hot classroom. Drivers Violence & in cars with air conditioning are less likely to honk their horns than drivers sweating it out Weather behind the wheels. It may not be entirely coincidental that the words temperatures and tempers sound identical in many languages though temperature refers to heat while tempers allude to feelings of anger. Language usages like ‘hot headed’ or 'hot tempered' meaning quick tempered also point to the correlation between anger and high temperatures. There is some evidence to suggest that the presence of violent objects such as a gun can trigger aggression. In a study done by Leonard Berkowitz and Anthony Le Page in 1967, college students were made angry and then left in the presence of guns or badminton rackets. They were then led to believe they were delivering electric shocks to another student, as in the Milgram experiment. Those who had been in the presence of the gun administered more intense shocks. Violence has also been spawned by blood feuds and vendettas. The killings and violence in the name of feuds and vendettas often carry on for generations even after the incident that gave rise to the feud is long forgotten. Blood feuds and vendettas are practiced mostly in places where there is no institutionalized justice as well as in places where such judicial systems if any are not expeditious or fair in carrying out justice. Such feuds are obviously the most primitive forms of justice. Sadism and Masochism are psychic phenomena that seem to have no existential or evolutionary relevance. A sadist finds lustful pleasure in inflicting pain on others while a masochist finds lustful pleasure Sadism & in pain being inflicted on himself. Both nature and nurture play significant roles in Masochism determining whether a man or woman develops into a sadist or a masochist. Ultimately, they are these sadists who exploit inflammable situations and resort to football-hooliganisms, witch-hunts and pogroms. It has been confirmed that such sadists form only a fraction of marauding mobs. However, the mobs are often judged by the actions of this sadist minority even though the majority in the mob may just be going along with the mob until the mob-energy is dissipated. Sadism may also spring from a desire for absolute and complete control over another human being, an animal, or even things. This desire for such absolute control may also have sexual dimensions particularly if the subject is masochistically inclined and enjoys being beaten, humiliated, or otherwise hurt. The master beating his chained dog and a guard venting his fury on a hapless prisoner are forms of such sadistic violence or aggression. Such forms of sadistic violence ends, albeit temporarily, once the lust is satiated. Lustful violence may also take the form of stifling another's will or freedom. Such sadism may often be motivated by good intentions or even love. Another of such sadistic expressions takes the form of rape, robbery and wanton destruction. This is often a mass reaction and has been observed in soldiers from ancient times. Such rapine and destruction are not the expression of sexual desire. It is more often a demonstration of the absolute power the victor has over the vanquished. Rape under such circumstances is also a challenge or insult to the virility of the enemy. 41 From a teleological viewpoint (that natural processes are shaped by a purpose), libido has a purpose, which is the propagation of the species. However the relevance of violent behavior, especially of sadism and masochism, in the existential and evolutionary schemes is not evident, especially when such violent or destructive behavior is spontaneous and without any apparent cause or purpose such as in arson and gang rape. In a research on football hooligans, it was found that the people who were directly responsible for the violence and destruction formed only a minority. They did not have any strong team affiliations. Most of them were sadistic wife-beaters and child abusers. Football affiliations provided them a pretext for venting their sadistic inclinations against something or someone. Escobius the Columbian goalkeeper was shot dead for inadvertently putting a goal into his own net. The killer was not particularly patriotic or football-savvy. Why do these hooligans develop into what they are – wife beaters and child abusers? The answer to this is very complex and has been much disputed. Personal violence does not have one root cause. Rather, it has many snarled up roots. Early PET-scan studies in the 1980s on the brain revealed that criminals who had been victims of child abuse had areas of inactivity relative to the brains of control subjects. This may have been the result of being battered on the head while they were babies. In 1997, a psychologist at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston conjured up red-and-blue reconstructions of the brains of violent offenders and used them to support his view that their violent tantrums were the result of an impairment of the frontal and parietal lobes of their brains.
Violence In The Media: Reports of violence and crime in one part of the world can induce violence and crime in other parts of the world. A year or two ago there were isolated reports from the north of Kerala of farmers committing suicides in the face of financial crises arising from crop failures. Each such report was followed by a spate of suicides by impoverished farmers elsewhere. As of now such suicides by ruined farmers take place regularly in the state. Reports of suicides by penniless farmers have also induced insolvent businessmen and others to take the easy way out. Similarly, the reports of mass murders by Cho Seung-hui at Virginia Tech University in April 2007 spawned similar gun attacks all over. An engineer at NASA shot his colleague dead at Johnson Space center in Houston, before putting the pistol to his own head just 3-4 days after the Virginia Tech incident. On the same day as the Houston shooting, a student in the Deccan University at Hyderabad shot and wounded his senior in college. Religious and political violence also follow a similar pattern and exhibit a correlation between reports of violence and further violence. News of religious and ethnic violence in one part of a state or country can spark off riots in other parts. This may then escalate into large-scale violence unless it is nipped in the bud. In such cases the reports in the media may not have been the direct causes of the violent incidents. But it cannot be denied that such reports act as a trigger that expedites the violent acts, which had already been under contemplation. This also raises the question whether the media should put a lid on reports of violence or at least play them down so that such reports do not trigger off more violence. We have seen that though per capita crime rate has decreased with increasing wealth and better crime control, frequent media reports of crimes even in far away lands give an illusion of higher crime rate today. These reports also pave the way for a more acute feeling of insecurity, which in turn leads to more violence. Thus modern media does contribute to a vicious cycle of mounting sense of insecurity and mindless violence and crime as in the case of farmers' suicides described above. Modern technologies add new dimensions to crime. Internet crimes are a case in point. Better weapons and more efficient organization and management make modern crimes stand out compared to the crimes of yester years. Suggestibility is another cause of violence or aggression. If a man is not capable of critical judgment and is worked up by incendiary proclamations made by others, especially by his Patriarchal Suggestibility figures such as priests and cult leaders, he will react to the alleged threats in the same way & Violence he reacts to a real threat. In the hands of such Patriarchal figures that incite the susceptible, modern media become a potential weapon that can cause widespread damage and holocausts. Violence in the entertainment media has also been blamed for real-time violence at all levels of societies. Although exposure to violence in the media is associated with the risk for violent behavior, none of 42 the studies on the subject provides evidence for a definitive causal mechanism. Instead, violence in the media may be one of many correlating factors, or it may play a foster-part since violence in the media such as wresting programs tend to be selected by people who have a penchant for violence. It may also be noted that novels and movies depict the conflict between good and evil where it is the villain, depicting evil, that first resorts to acts of decadence and violence. The hero depicting benevolence only responds with more violence and wins out in the end. In this context of the battle between good and evil, violence is only the means to an end and may have relevance in corrupt societies where there is systemic failure in carrying out prompt justice as in India. In the past, almost 80% of crimes and murders used to involve people who knew each other. This might have been due to the fact that in the past people lived in villages and it was next to impossible for a stranger to enter a village, commit a crime and get away undetected. That figure for crime involving people who know each other has now fallen to less than fifty percent. However, violence and death involving total strangers are on the rise. Serial rapes and murders may be a trait of the Industrial and Electronic Waves where total strangers live side by side, and it is possible for a criminal to dissolve into a crowd with ease. Though our parents extol nonviolence, they often resort to violence themselves. "Spare the rod and spoil the child" is a Patriarchal maxim that is one of the most basic causes of much of the violence we see in the world. It leads to the universal, subconscious concept that all issues in the world can be resolved by violence and by violence alone. Most if not all of the thriller-novels and movies depict the struggle between the good and the bad. Invariably, the final solution and the victory of the good come about by violence or implied violence. In such thrillers, the hero finishes off the villain in the final showdown, or the police come on the scene. Without the implied violence of the police force, no justice can be effectively dispensed. To recap, like in many aspects of behavior, nature, nurture and the environment play vital parts in violent and aggressive behavior. The observation that some groups like the Pindaris of India are more prone to aggression and violence points to the relevance of nurture in aggressive behavior. The fact that some individuals within the same society are more aggressive and violent than others, point to the possibility of natural genetic causes in aggressive behavior. The effect of alcohol and other drugs on violent behavior as cited above also points to the fact that like all patterns of behavior, aggressive behavior too is not a matter of free will alone. In the final analysis, violence can be defined in behavioral terms as well as in motivational terms— that is, in terms of violent action rooted in hate and destructiveness. One cannot deny that there exists a mood of violence, which if anything, seems to be increasing. Efficient travel, communication and technology assist criminals in ways that were not possible in the past. It must also be admitted that the crime rate today is greater than one would expect from a relatively affluent and literate population and especially in democracies where efforts are on to iron out inequalities and its social frustrations. As cited above, rising expectations and a lackadaisical approach to law-enforcement may be the main causes of violence in affluent democracies. In addition, as in other cases, statistics regarding the occurrence of violence can be off the mark. The main reason for this might be that statistical methods have increased in quality and scope over the years and incidents that did not come to the notice of statisticians in the past are now being accounted for. Thirty or forty years ago when universal mass-communications were in their primitive states, incidents of violence and crime at distant locations were seldom reported, and this gave the sense that crime rates were low. With modern media, such incidents of crime and violence, even in the remotest corners of the earth, are reported almost immediately and this gives an illusion of high incidence of violence and crime, though such incidents per unit of population may be much less now than in the past. To me violence seems to be arising from our feeling of basic insecurity and as such is the flip side of fear as stated above – part of the fight-flight-or-submit response. It has been observed that many, especially women, resort to overeating and shopping frenzies in times of stress. Violence may be another form of behavior that arises from fear, stress and frustration. The causal and correlating factors that lead to violence whether natural or nurtured are indeed most complex. As cited above, we don't have aggression because we have different political parties or religions; we have different political parties or religions because we carry aggression within ourselves. The energies of violence thus generated within us by nature or nurture, grow and accumulate and can be dissipated by rechanneling them into constructive activities like sports and games if these buildups are not to explode into bedlam. Aggressiveness in this view does not need a special stimulus or provocation. It arises by itself and 43 seeks and finds those stimuli and triggers, which give it a chance to express itself. As narrated above, propensity towards violent behavior may be hard-wired into our brains. Neuroscientists have mapped brain anomalies in laboratory animals and human murderers that seem to correlate with aggressive behavior. However, as in the case of nurture described above, conclusive evidence has been lacking here too to confirm this theory of the influence of genetic factors on crime and violence. In accordance with this theory, various accused in crimes have pleaded not guilty on the grounds that they are not responsible for actions arising from genetic tendencies. Freud postulated that we have both constructive and destructive traits - death and life instincts as he Death And called them, and that the destructive tendencies are constantly battling the constructive Life Instincts ones. Furthermore, according to Freud, these destructive tendencies when directed towards oneself, lead to illness or death. Whatever the causes, aggression and violence may be channeled into relatively nondestructive activities like sports, and eventually it might be set off by empathy and understanding. This again calls for clear thinking. Violence becomes spontaneous mostly when dogmas and doctrines are involved. Where and when clear thinking is applied, conflicting interests can be ironed out to everyone's satisfaction, and we call this a win-win situation. Now we come to the question whether punishments are meant be punitive or deterrent. Here too fuzzy logic applies and judicial punishment has both punitive and deterrent functions. Letting an accused criminal go free on the grounds that he or she is mentally impaired or naturally prone to criminal behavior, or Do Punishments has a surge of hormones, may encourage him or her as well as others to commit more Deter Violence? crimes. On the other hand, punishing a mentally impaired man may not be entirely fair. There is no absolute justice or even remote justice in this world and luck plays perhaps the most significant part in such matters. Some are born with silver or gold spoons in their mouths; they are healthy, handsome, and intelligent, and have everything going for them. In contrast, there are others with everything - disease, penury, criminal background, ugliness and so on- plotting against them. No amount of human efforts can restore justice in the macrocosmic sense. However, we also have to dispense optimum justice as best as we think fit, and it seems fair that penalties have both punitive and deterrent purposes. In this context, it has been argued that violence cannot be controlled by imposing stronger legal penalties alone, but rather by creating a more just society in which people connect and interact with each other as humans and are able to control their own lives. It may be partially true as defining 'social justice' is an uphill task.
Domestic Violence: We have considered above the many tangled roots of violence at the personal or elemental level where nature, nurture and environment play significant roles. Now let us consider violence at the next higher level – the domestic one - where our violent instincts are nurtured. Domestic violence is the violence caused by physical, sexual, economic, or psychological factors and directed towards one’s spouse, partner, or others in the household. Experts who work with victims of domestic violence have noted that physical abuse is almost invariably preceded by psychological abuse. Domestic violence may be one area where frustration and poverty may be the main culprits. Though the term 'domestic violence' is often used specifically to refer to assaults on women by their male partners, in the broadest sense, it refers to any abuse or violence that takes place among people living in the same household. Those who resort to domestic violence use their power abusively to control a situation. There are a number of other factors that contribute to the choice of violence in a relationship. Domestic violence can occur in both homosexual and heterosexual relationships and has profound consequences on the lives of children, individuals, families and communities. Such consequences may be physical, sexual, emotional and/or psychological. Domestic violence takes many different forms and includes behaviors such as threats, name-calling, preventing contact with family or friends, withholding money, actual or threatened physical harm and sexual assault. Stalking is also be a form of domestic violence. Statistics indicate that domestic violence ranks as the leading cause of injury to women from age fifteen to forty-four, and that one-third of the American women murdered in any year are killed by current or former sexual partners. In countries like India and Pakistan where women have few rights if any, domestic violence takes on ominous proportions in both numbers and scope. Cases of bride-burning and female feticide are also common in the sub-continent.
44 Parental alienation is another form of covert violence where children are used as a weapon by one parent to alienate the other parent. This covert form of domestic violence is used in high-conflict marriages. It is often devastating to the alienated parent and traumatic to the children caught in the middle. Personal frustration springing from domestic problems often spill over into social violence. Drunken brawls between two individuals can develop into mob violence or to an ethnic face-off and conflagration. I have heard it said that the Boston Massacre was sparked off by an incident in which British soldiers arrested a man involved in a brawl outside a tavern. This brawl in turn had its origin in domestic frustrations. Today’s domestic violence has its roots in the irrelevance of marriage in the Industrial and Digital Waves. In the early waves marriages had very little to do with love between man and woman. Instead, Marriage & marriages were social or political alliances, which cemented together relationships between Violence families and societies rather than between individuals. With the modern waves and nuclear families, the stress has shifted to love between man and woman. But the older concept of marriage persists though it is outmoded in the modern milieu. If the husband and wife love each other, they can live together in harmony without chaining them together in the sacrament or ceremony of marriage. On the other hand, where man and woman are economically independent as in the modern waves, caging them together in marriage against their will by matrimony is meaningless and can only lead to violence as when two aggressive bulls are penned in together. Marriage has no relevance in modern times whether the couple involved love or hate each other. Research suggests that people who resort to violence in the domestic environment have difficulty in their ability to assert themselves, to express themselves, their feelings, and their needs within a relationship. Women have better verbal skills than men, and a man stands little chance against a woman in a slanging match. Violence is an area where men have the upper hand and so men resort to violence against the verbal assaults by women. Many men use violence as a way to lessen their own stress and seek a 'trigger event' and take it out on their wives and children to retaliate the stress and anger built up at the office against the boss or a colleague.
Political Aspect: We have considered violence at the personal level as well as the domestic level. We shall now look into the role of violence at the higher levels. In contrast with violence or aggression, power is founded on authorized forms of violence, which the state uses to control criminal and illegal activities within its territory. War is state-sponsored physical violence, often on neighboring state or states. States also perpetrate psychological violence on enemies in the form of propaganda as in the cold war. With the Industrial Revolution and the development of lethal weapons, modern warfare has steadily grown to potentially cataclysmic dimensions and poses grave threats to individuals, cultures, societies, and the environment. However, the threat posed by modern weapons has decreased considerably in real terms, due in part to the involvement of populations pressuring their governments to enact more humane fighting- strategies and in part due to fear of mutual annihilation. Sectarian violence or sectarian strife is violence inspired by sectarianism between different sects of one particular mode of thought, not necessarily religious. Thus, conflicts between the nationalists and communists in China in the early 19th century are largely construed by Chinese nationals of the time as Sectarian sectarian. Such sectarian violence often on a brutal scale has been caused by economic factors Violence as between capitalism and communism, on political factors such as between autocracies and democracies, on religious factors such as between Catholics and Protestants and between Shiites and Sunnis and so on and so forth. Generally, religious violence covers all phenomena where religion, in any of its forms, is either the subject or object of individual or collective violent behavior. It involves both violence by religious actors Religious such as religiously motivated individuals or institutions, against objects of any kind, be they of Violence the same religion or not, including secular targets. The other case is of violence by actors of any kind - religious or not - against objects that are explicitly religious such as religious institutions. The persecution of people on the basis of their religious beliefs also comes under religious violence. Religious violence, like all violence, is inherently a cultural process where ethnic conditioning plays a key role. It may be worth noting that religious violence often tends to place great emphasis on the symbols, and attacks on symbols often take precedence over attacks on persons or institutions.
45 Individual religious violence deals primarily with actions perpetrated by individuals acting on their own. Examples include self-mutilating behavior such as fasting, stigmatizing, self-flagellation, wearing thigh straps with nails and so on. When such self-mutilations are different from accepted social norms, they are treated as deviant behavior. When they conform to established norms, they are generally characterized not as religious violence but as religious observations. Collective religious violence is what comes to our minds when we speak of religious violence. The term "collective" refers, in effect, to any violent activity that is perpetrated within the context of a society, is legitimated by at least a subset of society or religion, and always has political dimensions to it. Note that the term 'collective' does not mean that a single individual cannot undertake collective religious violence - a single suicide bomber's attack is as collective as the German Holocaust. Human and animal sacrifices also fall under the category of collective religious violence. It is worth noting that even though in many instances religion is used to justify violent behavior, the immediate motivations of the individuals involved may not be religious as such, and the overall goals of such behavior may be political, cultural, personal or even economical. An example of this is the organized violence, which was unleashed by the Ku Klux Klan against the Blacks. The KKK made a strong point of being a Christian organization, and often used this to justify its active stance against desegregation and racial integration. Some contrast religious violence with sectarian violence, conflict between different sects of a single religion. However, the difference between a sect and an independent religion is usually not well defined. The society we live in depends much on violence, though this violence comes in the respectable uniforms of the police and the army. The belief that violence can solve all problems is perhaps the most universal and common facet of all cultures and societies. We have discussed above how the tenet "Spare the rod and spoil the child" affect children. Children, who witness violent behavior at home, believe that violence is acceptable. Children get a direct message from a parent, "When someone hurts you or wrongs you, hit back." In addition, choosing to use violence and getting your way without any negative consequences such as imprisonment or relationship loss makes it that much easier the next time round to perpetrate even grater violence. Violence at the social level takes many forms such as riots and arson and at still higher systemic levels as military action, guerilla warfare and terrorism. Terrorism has taken on ominous dimensions in recent times and is likely to grow into the most dominant form of social violence in the coming years. As such, a study of terrorism might be most appropriate here.
Terrorism: Terrorism is the systematic use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population with the purpose of bringing about a particular political objective. Terrorist activity used to be confined to the assassination of statesmen and rulers, as well as bomb attacks on public buildings. The main objectives tended to be self-advertisement, or announcing your presence and demonstrating your ruthlessness to your opponents. A further objective of terrorism is to provoke so inhuman a retaliation from government that it loses popular support, and eventually awaken sympathy for the terrorist-cause. History has shown that this last aim is not always successful. When the Armenians provoked Turkey with acts of terrorism, Turkey reacted so aggressively that the Armenians came close to extinction. Terrorism has been practiced by political, religious and state institutions such as armies and the police. Due to disagreements over the definition of terrorism, it is not easy to specify whether an act is an act of terrorism or not. The word ‘terrorism’ was first used in 1795 during the French Revolution, when Robespierre and his party the Jacobins unleashed a reign of terror on their political opponents. Terrorism came even more central-stage during the 1870s in Russia, in the hands of the revolutionaries where it was construed as the only option for a force, which is weak both in strength and resources to take on an established force with almost limitless resources at its command. Soon, these terror-tactics spread to the Macedonians and Armenians of the Ottoman Empire, the Irish and the Indians in the British Empire, and anarchists of all descriptions in Asia, Africa, the Americas and Europe. The degree to which terrorism relies on fear distinguishes terrorism from both conventional and guerrilla warfare wherein innocent bystanders and non- combatants are seldom targeted. Terrorism as we know it today is generally thought to have been spawned by the Israeli nationalists in their struggle for independence from Britain and for the establishment of a motherland for Zionist Terrorism the Jews. Perhaps the first and the most heinous of these terror attacks was the one on 22 46 July 1946 by the right-wing Zionist underground movement, the Irgun, on The King David Hotel, in which 91 people were killed and 46 were injured, with some of the deaths and injuries occurring in the road outside the hotel and in adjacent buildings. Before that Jews and Palestinians had engaged in fatal attacks on each other in which only the combatant populations were targeted. In contrast, the bomb that went off in King David Hotel killed or maimed non-combatant groups in a typical instance of terrorism. After the defeat of the Arabs in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, the Israelis occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This triggered the birth and rise of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The PLO took a PLO leaf from the Israeli terror tactics, and embarked on a series of skyjackings like the Entebbe Terrorism incident. Amongst their most notorious attacks was the massacre of seventeen Israeli athletes during the Munich Olympics in 1972. Suicide bombings seem to be the latest weapon in the arsenal of terrorists worldwide, and was first resorted to in modern times by the Sri Lankan separatist group, the LTTE. One of their most notorious actions took place at Sriperumbudur near Madras in 1991, when a woman LTTE-cadre blew Suicide herself up and killed the prominent Indian politician Rajeev Gandhi in the process. The Bombing repercussions of this seemingly trivial attack were most momentous in the subcontinent. Other groups like the Al Qaeda and Hamās have also adopted the tactic of suicide bombings. A UN panel defined terrorism as any act: "… intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act." Terrorism is effective only where the mass Terrorism - media are efficient and gives ample coverage to the terrorists and their causes. Mass media Definition are products of the Industrial age and so is terrorism. What is more, in order to attract and maintain the publicity necessary to generate widespread fear, terrorists must engage in increasingly dramatic, violent, and high-profile attacks such as the 11/9 attack on the World Trade centre. Terrorism is resorted to for the following reasons:- Secession of a territory to form a new sovereign state Dominance of territory or resources by various ethnic groups Imposition of a particular form of government, such as democracy or theocracy Economic deprivation of a population Opposition to a domestic government or occupying army The terms "terrorism" and "terrorist" carry strong negative connotations. Terrorists therefore often euphemize themselves as separatists, freedom fighters, liberators, revolutionaries, vigilantes, militants, paramilitaries, guerrillas, rebels, jihadis, mujahideen, fedayeen, crusader or any similar-meaning words in other languages. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. The distinction between terrorism and other forms of political violence became blurred as many guerrilla groups and legitimate governments often employed terrorist tactics which obscured issues of jurisdiction and legality. We have seen above the case of structural violence wherein systemic forms of injustice have a heyday such as corruption and regional and casteist hegemony in India. Terrorism has been adopted by groups like the Naxals to counter such structural violence. Establishment terrorism, often called state or state-sponsored terrorism, is employed by governments or more often by factions within governments against its own citizens or against foreign governments or groups. The violent police states of Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union and Saddām Hussein in State Iraq are examples of countries in which one organ of the government - often either the Terrorism executive branch or the intelligence establishment - engaged in widespread terror against not only the population but also against other organs of the government, including the military. Kangaroo courts, sophisticated torture, terror bombing, kidnapping, and extrajudicial execution and so forth are said to be common practices of state terror, which are often used to terrorize domestic and foreign populations by sovereign or proxy regimes. As for external promotion of state terrorism, the Soviet Union and its allies allegedly engaged in widespread support of international terrorism during the Cold War. The United States in its turn supported rebel terrorist groups such as the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) in Africa. The common denominator of all forms of establishment terrorism, unlike that of non-state terrorism, is that
47 of secrecy. Whereas the typical terrorists use terrorism to gain publicity for their cause, states invariably disown their active complicity in such acts for obvious reasons. Terrorism is a political tactic used by activists when they believe they have no alternatives means that can bring about the kind of change they desire. The change is often so badly desired that failure is construed as a worse outcome than the deaths of civilians. This is often where the interrelationship between terrorism and religion occurs. When a political struggle is integrated into the framework of a religious or 'cosmic' struggle, such as over the control of an ancestral homeland or holy site like Israel and Jerusalem, political failure becomes equated with spiritual failure. For the highly committed and the highly motivated, this is worse than their own death or the deaths of innocent civilians. Some organizations like the Hamās and Al-Qaeda thus use terrorism based on fundamentalist religious ideologies to further their political agenda. That political hypocrisy and philosophical expediency are involved in the direct or indirect usage of terrorism is most evident even among the respected nations of the world. This is best illustrated when a Hypocrisy in group that uses terrorist methods is an ally of a State against a mutual enemy, but later Terrorism falls out with the State and starts to use the same techniques against its former ally. During World War II, the Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese Army was allied with the British. Later on, during the Malayan Emergency, members of its successor, the Malayan Races Liberation Army, were branded terrorists by the British. In the same vein, the Viet Minh were initially deployed by the British and Americans to fight the Japanese. Thereafter, the Viet Minh turned against the French rule in Vietnam and conducted raids on French plantations, and planted bombs in public cafes, and resorted to indiscriminate gunfire on crowds. Such incidents vindicate the adage that those who sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind. More recently, President Reagan and others in the American administration frequently called the Afghan Mujahideen ‘freedom fighters’ during their struggle against the Soviet Union. Twenty years later when a new generation of Afghan Mujahideen is fighting their erstwhile allies, they are labeled as ‘terrorists’ by President Bush. In the same vein, some leaders of groups, which been called terrorist by the Western governments or media have later on, as leaders of the liberated nations, been called statesmen by the same governments. Nobel laureates, Menachem Begin and Nelson Mandela come to mind in context. Terrorism adds a new and senseless dimension to crime and violence. Often terrorism has no concrete aims. Al Qaeda knows that Israel will not self destruct nor can terrorism destroy it. Neither can the terrorists bring India to its knees nor make India give up Kashmir. Terrorists harm the Palestinians and the Kashmiris, whom they profess to protect, far more than they hurt Israel or India or the US. Often innocent bystanders whose cause the terrorists claim to espouse are often caught in the crossfire. Such senseless terrorism and violence seldom achieve their ends and it would seem that for the terrorists, terror itself become the end instead of the means to an end. Thus The Al Qaeda, which professes to protect Islamic interests vis-à-vis the West, has killed far more many Muslims than Westerners. What is more in the face of their enemies closing ranks and making terror attacks on enemy soil next to impossible, the terrorists often turn on soft targets in their own domains as events that now unfold in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan demonstrate. Terrorism is extremely difficult to control, given that it nearly always has the advantage of the 'surprise' element. Terrorist attacks, by their very nature, can rarely be anticipated or foreseen. Furthermore, most prominent terrorist groups are well-funded from both within and without. Such funding provides weapons and security. In addition, since there are so many terrorist groups, each with its own agenda, attempts to curb terrorism through international agreements are considerably difficult to effect. For democracies that are tolerant of protests and take pride in a constitutional approach to dealing with protests and demonstrations, terrorism creates a dilemma and a state of impotency. The state under these circumstances has to deal with terrorism with the its hands tied by its constitutional and democratic commitments while the terrorists have no such constraints and are free to carry on their wanton acts of sadism. Senseless terrorism and violence seldom achieve their ends. Though terrorists often start out with the best of intentions, often terror itself becomes the sadistic end instead of the means to an end. Even where terror and violence do succeed, their aims are seldom achieved, and terrorists go on playing their sadistic games and turn on each other after their common adversary is vanquished. This has been the experience during the French revolution when freedom from the old regime was followed by a reign of inhuman terror wherein leaders like Robespierre who promoted the terror fell to the guillotine. This has been the experience 48 in Russia too where after the October revolution, Stalin unleashed a reign of terror and former communists were the first to be annihilated by Stalin. History has not been any different in China after the communist revolution and during the ‘Great Leap Forward’. Terrorists who take up the sword often die by the very swords that fought on their side. They sow the wind only to reap the whirlwind. Gandhi put it in the right perspective when he noted “Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary.” History teaches us that violence begets violence. After the success of their violent missions, the various incendiary terrorist leaders and their groups always turn on each other and the situation often amounts to a from-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire scenario for the hapless public. The French, the Russian and the Chinese Revolutions as cited above illustrate the point. Though all these revolutions had justifiable causes – abject poverty, inequality and frustration – they ended in internecine feuds and bloodshed. It took further violence to stabilize the society and to restore some semblance of order. The American war of independence was a notable exception. This was probably because the colonial army under George Washington was effectively controlled by a civil establishment.
Threshold of Violence: All animals including man have developed a good sense of gauging when they are outnumbered or outgunned. In accordance with the appraisal of the situation animals including man resort to the 'fight, flight or submit' response in the face of external aggression. We saw above in this very chapter that the Blacks in the Southern States of the United States of America did not resort to violence though they were more deprived and frustrated than the Whites. The Whites may have resorted to violence though they were less frustrated, because they were in a better position to carry out their agenda of violence than the more frustrated Blacks. The Whites were politically, economically and in every other way better disposed to violence. It may even have been this threat of a backlash from the Whites that kept the violence of the Blacks on leash. There always has to be a threshold level of political and economical strength for promoting or nurturing violence. Hindus have been the overwhelming majority in India. But the Muslims, through conquests from the North West, had more political clout and so the majority, the Hindus had to kowtow to the better-armed Muslim minority in India for centuries. In like manner, modern Christian sects have been able to make inroads into the ranks of the other sects and to convert Catholics, Protestants and other conventionally predominant sects to the ways of the Pentecost, the Jehovah's Witnesses and The Seventh Day Adventists. However, these modern sects are spread too thin and wide, and do not have the threshold strength to assert themselves politically like the other Christian sects of older vintage. As a result, these modern sects play a subdued role in political terms like the early Christians did. Early Christians asserted themselves and took to violence against Jesus' own teachings, as soon as the Christians had crossed over the threshold strength to do so around the third century. Like the early Christians, the Pentecosts and the Witnesses too will assert themselves and turn violent tormentors and inquisitors should they ever acquire the critical political strength, favor or patronage. Mohammad's case was no different. In the beginning of his mission, he was the most cordial of men. He was tolerant of idolatry as well as of other religions. The Meccans used to worship Lat, Uzza, and Manat, as the daughters of Allah. In Sura 53 (An-Najm-The Star):19-20 Mohammad made conciliatory overtures to these idol worshippers who formed the brute majority in Mecca and referred to their goddesses as goddesses of the most high. It is said that Mohammad even prostrated himself before the idols of the Daughters of Allah in his effort to appease the Meccans. This was during Muhammad's fledgling years in Mecca before his flight to Medina. Later on when Mohammad had the political strength to do so, he decried these verses as the Satanic verses, implying that it was under Satan's influence that he called these goddesses as goddesses of the most high. He also broke the idols before which he had prostrated himself. Obviously, violence in addition to being natural is a matter of expediency. Though our natural propensity to violence cannot be denied, lack of clear thinking as well as ethnic conditioning contribute in a big way in fuelling and fanning up these natural aggressive energies, and this in turn sets back economic progress. Dogmas and doctrines, which always arise from lopsided logic, aggravate the situation. Not only political parties but also religions and other movements, which are based on irrational dogmas and doctrines, provide the kind of ambience that our natural aggressive natures seek. We have seen that according to ‘The Law of Optimum Efficiencies’, life is the quest for higher and higher economic efficiencies. Taking from others by force things that they have produced by their own 49 efforts, or wealth that are entitled to them is one of the most obvious forms of enhancing efficiency. This is especially so if one of the parties is too weak to resist the aggressor. In time, the aggression becomes institutionalized and the aggressor lords it over. All colonizations and conquests are thus aimed at increasing economic efficiency by taking over wealth that is legitimately someone else's. Violence is the last word in all situations and even justice has to play the second fiddle to violence, for justice can be dispensed only with legitimate violence or threat of violence by the police and the army as illustrated above. The Pareto Principle, named after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto,states that for many phenomena, 80% of consequences stem from 20% of the causes. Accordingly in marketing 20% or less of customers account for 80% more of the sales, and as such, marketing efforts should be more concentrated Pareto on these less than 20% of the customers. In a company with many products, less than 20% of Principle the products often account for more than 80% of the turnover and profits. In personnel management, Pareto’s principle takes the rule of the vital few and useful many according to which less than 20% of the workers in a concern account for more than 80% of the productivity. Though the figures 80 and 20 might vary from one situation to another, the same grossly unequal distribution pattern can be seen in the distribution of wealth, power, intelligence, criminal tendencies and so on. Thus, probably less than 20% of the population of any country either possesses or controls more than 80% of the national wealth. The same goes for power. Equality and fraternity are Utopian ideals to strive for with the full knowledge that they cannot be attained. Robert Michel’s Iron Law Of Oligarchy confirms this. Michel taught that, no matter how egalitarian, idealistic or even radical the original ideology and goals of a party or religion, a group of leaders will Iron Law Of inevitably emerge at the center. These leaders though limited in numbers but working full Oligarchy time will direct power efficiently, get things done through an administrative staff, and evolve some kind of rigorous order and ideology to ensure the survival of the organization, when faced by internal division or external opposition or both. However Utopian or idealistic the professed aim of any organization at its inception, ultimately this ambitious and aggressive minority grabs all the power and the material benefits that go with it, at the expense of the majority. There have been many arguments for and against these empirical rules - the 80-20 rule and the ‘Iron Law Of Oligarchy’. Nonetheless, these laws certainly seem to make sense when applied to everyday life. Violence is the handiest of tools in the hands of this minority of oligarchs in their quest for power and its trinkets. It is this aggressive and ambitious minority that uses the violence of the mobs and lustful violence of the wife beaters and the child abusers to serve its ends. Violence springs from the mind for two reasons: 1. The Michel’s factor – of the oligarchs and the power-mongers wanting to appropriate more than their fair share of the power and assets. We have seen that a small minority always do that however sacrosanct the movement they are involved with. It is violence and violence alone that enable them to gain their ends. 2. Fear – We fear novelty and change. We are comfortable with our traditions and taboos, doctrines and dogmas and our ways of life. When ideas or environments change, corresponding changes in ways of life become imperative and inevitable. New environments make us feel insecure. Some of us resort to overeating and over-shopping in the face of such insecurity. Others resort to violence especially when the authorities take a lackadaisical approach to violence and crime. We have seen that classifications of violence may be narrowed down to two categories: 1. Hostile, affective, or retaliatory aggression and 2. Instrumental, predatory, or goal-oriented aggression. We also saw that people with tendencies toward affective or retaliatory aggression have lower IQs than those with tendencies toward predatory or goal-oriented aggression. In the context of the Michelle’s factor and the fear factors described in the above paragraph, we can say that the higher-IQ predatory minorities are led by the Michel’s factor whereas the low-IQ emotive majority is led by fear. Whatever the mindset that leads to violence, dogmas and doctrines provide the fig-leaf for the oligarchs, the power-brokers and the war-mongers. Dogmas and doctrines whether political, religious or ideological are irrational to start with and have to be enforced with violence rather than with consensus. There may be Utopian ideals, which are often accepted readily. Christianity and communism are such ideologies. Eventually, the feasibility of such ideologies is called into question and then Michel’s law takes over. In the face of rising skepticism, the oligarchs formulate one dogma after another to stabilize the crumbling establishment and then enforce it with violence. Christianity was thus a Utopian idea based on unconditional forgiveness and sharing of wealth. As a result, it attracted many men of good will in its early 50 stages. The fact that Jesus proclaimed in no uncertain terms that the world was going to end soon also added to the surge of followers to early Christianity. They were willing to forgive their enemies and share their wealth for quick returns in the impending rapture. However, the rapture or the second coming of Christ did not take place as predicted; instead Michel’s Law prevailed. The movement that had advocated love and forgiveness, mutated into the Holy Roman Empire, one of the most oppressive and aggressive establishments of the times. The movement that had promoted asceticism and poverty became one of the most profligate empires on earth. Jesus had advocated his disciples to shake off even the dust from their sandals when they moved from one city to another. Instead Christian hierarchy wallowed in riches and found every trick under the sun to generate more and more revenues. The Pope, 'The Servant Of The Servants Of God' became its undisputed emperor. This Michelian transmutation however demanded that many irrational and ridiculous doctrines and dogmas be formulated. To the oligarchs who presumed that it was Christianity that held the empire together, repudiation of Christian ideologies and doctrines meant the disintegration of the empire. Therefore, these Christian ideologies and dogmas had to be enforced by the violence of the Inquisitions wherein anyone including Galileo, who dared even cast doubts on the Church's teachings, was put to much hardships, torture and death. There were also rulers like Charlemagne who believed that homogeny of religious beliefs was necessary for the cohesiveness of the empire. Accordingly Charlemagne massacred tens of thousands of pagan Saxons to convert the rest to Christianity. Fascists believed in violence as the remedy for all social ills. Primo de Rivera, one of the first to Fascism advocate Fascist ideals, maintained that “ … no other argument is admissible than that of fists and pistols when justice or the Fatherland is attacked.” Even before he came to power, Mussolini sent his Blackshirts to assault socialist organizers throughout Italy. Later on he imprisoned many of them. Hitler's storm troopers were no different, and Nazi concentration camps at first interned more Marxists than Jews. Dissident conservatives too had to undergo Nazi violence. To his critics Hitler retorted, “People accuse us of being barbarians; we are barbarians, and we are proud of it!” In Romania, Codeine’s 'death teams' engaged in brutal strikebreaking. In France, Drieu La Rochelle glorified military and political violence as healthy antidotes to decadence. Beginning in 1931 Japanese fascists assassinated a number of important political figures, though in 1936, after a government crackdown, they renounced such tactics. In the United States in the 1920s and '30s, the Ku Klux Klan and other groups sought to intimidate African Americans with cross burnings, beatings, and lynchings. The oligarchs – the 20% - always find an excuse to justify their inhuman acts to satiate their predatory instincts. If they do not have an excuse, they invent one - a dogma or a doctrine that sanctifies them and their actions. We have seen above that people with predatory instincts are highly intelligent and people with reactive instincts have lower IQs. Consequently, this low IQ majority becomes a pliable but lethal weapon in the hands of the predatory oligarchs. Such oligarchs who have scant respect for human rights can often be countered only with violence and the party who can inflict the greater damage wins the day.
Ethnicity: In this section, we are concerned more with organized violence, which is carried out at the social, national and international level. Such violence takes place for reasons, which are often described as ethnic. Color, race, nationality, language, ideologies, caste and religions are the main ethnic factors. Most ethnic violence also has economic dimensions to it as illustrated above. Often an act, which is adjudged as a heinous crime when committed by a single man is often sublimated when committed by a group such as a nation or a religion, and an act that is criminal at the personal level becomes glorified, patriotic and even sacred at the group level as in the Crusades and the Jihads. Such organized subtle crimes, which even put on an aura of sanctity or patriotism is far more dangerous than personal or domestic violence. 'Them This is where the 'Them and Us' code comes in. This is where ethnicity comes in. and Us' Whatever 'We' do is right whereas the same act becomes criminal when 'They' do it. Whether natural or induced, the oligarchs and the power-brokers and the war-mongers find in this ‘Them and Us’ attitude the most potent of weapons. Thekkady is a wildlife reserve over a hundred kilometers from where I live. On one of my trips to Thekkady, I came upon a lone male monkey, which I was told had been abandoned there by its owner. Probably this man had kept the monkey as a pet and then came environmental laws that forbid keeping 51 monkeys and other wild animals as pets. Fearing legal action the owner had abandoned the monkey in the reserve. There were many troupes of monkeys in the adjacent trees. Whenever the lone monkey went anywhere near a troupe, the troupe-members would bare their teeth in aggressive behavior and then chase the loner away. The females of the troupes were not so aggressive. Many monkeys in the troupes were hardly past their infancies. These young monkeys showed little or no aggressive behavior and the lone monkey had, it seemed, succeeded to befriend some of these infants. This incident brought home to me the ‘Them and Us’ psyche that pervades our mind especially after we grow up. It also brought home to me how adults are more conditioned in such prejudiced behavior compared to the young who are not so conditioned. In this instance, the lone monkey had been a male. On the other hand, if it were a female it would in all probability have been accepted readily into the group . We humans were little different a millennium or two ago. Thus Moses admonishes the Israeli soldiers for not massacring the Midianites male children and married women who posed a latent threat to the Israelis (The Book of Numbers, Chapter 31). Loyalty and partiality are important and extremely complex ingredients of the Them-and-Us phenomenon. A Gerard from the Philippines may favour the English soccer team because there is another Gerard in the English team. Bertrand Russel cites the example that when two men from the same village meet in the town, they cosy up as friends. When two men from the same county meet in London they become chums based on their 'common county' factor. When two Englishmen meet in Europe they form a friendship based on their common nationality. When two Europeans meet one another on another continent they become friends because of their common race though their nations back home may be avowed enemies. A white cop in the United States was battering a black prisoner when he saw a cross hanging from the black man’s neck. The battering stopped and the cop adopted a more humane attitude to his prisoner. The cross had done the trick and it transformed the black man from the Them-kind to the Us-kind. These natural ethnic factors may help not only in forming relationships, but also in ganging up on others outside the fraternity. The partisan stands taken by the common man is demonstrated in any issue over which there is a difference of opinion involving passions. The Mullaperiyar dam issue between the states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu illustrates the point well. The issues involveed are complex and even I cannot help being partisan on the issue and my judgments on the issue are likely to lean to my state’s -Kerla's- point of view. The issue also brings to light the intransigent opportunism of the oligarchial political parties. There are political parties like the CPM and the Congress which have political bases in both the states. These parties on the Tamil Nadu side were eager to whip up emotions supporting Tamil Nadu’s stand on the issue whereas the same parties on the Kerala side lost no opportunity to promote the Kerala stand. Socioecological observers maintain that hunter-gatherer evolution has simply produced a mind biased against considering the common good of more than a hundred people. Of these, a dozen or so formed our immediate family and included cousins and extended family members whom we could depend on in times of danger in a quid-pro-quo arrangement. Studies have shown that fights within this group are very much limited in scope, and do not get out of hand. When it does seem to get out of hand, others of the group step in and peace is restored. There are also laws and regulations to prescribe how we should treat our own kind. As for the others, it is a free for all and anything goes. The others, the strangers, were always looked on with suspicion unless they were females, or were too few compared to one's own group or kin. Suspicion was expedient and a policy of 'He who is not with me is against me' was the best bet. Blood was thicker than water as in the case of the troupe of monkeys who would not let the lone macaque into their group. Let us now consider the 'Them and Us' phenomenon or the psychology that lies at the root of the ethnic violence which we witness today, and which in the final analysis is most counter productive vis-à-vis our quest for optimum economic efficiency. The word 'ethnic' is derived from the Greek word 'Ethnos' for a people or nation. The word was used in the Christian Bible to signify heathens, an all-encompassing term that signified non-Christians and non- Ethnicity - Jews. This meaning passed through Latin into-English and ethnics alluded to heathens and Definition pagans. That usage died out in the eighteenth century, but the root word was adopted in the nineteenth century, to indicate a new kind of people who were different from Europeans - the numerous races and tribes of the European colonies. The terms ethnography and ethnology were coined to refer to these new fields, from which emerged concepts like ethnocentrism. The word ‘Ethnic’, as a stand-in for the word 'tribal,' emerged in time.
52 'Ethnic group' is a more recent usage, when in the 1940s, American scholars began to use it as a way of talking about non-white people, including Americans who saw themselves as Jewish, as well as Italians, the Irish and others who were counted as nonwhites for quite some years in America. Today, the concept is something of a mess as exact definitions and allusions go on changing. Scholars use the term 'ethnic group' to describe people who share traits that are inherited, not chosen. That inheritance may be genetic such as race or color, but may include language, culture, caste, religion, other social class or a combination of these. Many of these definitions stress that people in an ethnic group will see themselves as descendants of the same ancestors - a kind of giant joint family. Often this factor of common ancestry or race may be more of mere belief. Thus as mentioned above, Italians and Irish were considered as non-whites in America for quite some years whereas at present they are counted among the whites. Ethnicity also includes marriage restrictions in which members marry within the ethnic group and not outside. It is often assumed that everyone in an ethnic group has the same experience of life and so reacts in identical ways to a given situation. Indeed, it was so in the Original State and the Agrarian Wave. With the Industrial Wave, people from the same ethnic group may have vastly varying life-experiences and so may react to a given situation in different ways. However, the original notion of shared experiences of an ethnic group often leads to the often illogical and ambiguous lumping of people. For example, all African Americans are often treated as an ethnic group, irrespective of their economical and educational status. Unlike other divergences, ethnicity is often deemed to be pervasive in people's lives. Thus a Hindu woman and a Muslim woman have more in common with each other than with their respective husbands. In addition, as women, the two may have more shared female experiences, which are of a more fundamental biological nature than their social, economical and political experiences. Consequently, the two women may react in identical ways to a given situation, ways different from the males in their own ethnic groups. However, sex is not an ethnic factor whereas religion is. Therefore, the two women belong to different ethnic groups in spite of their shared experiences as women. Against all logic, many people act as if ethnicity is always relevant in all situations, as if people of an ethnic group react in identical ways to a given situation. Analysis shows that in the modern milieu, professions, economic status, education and so on play more strategic roles in reacting to a situation than common blood lineage. As mentioned, ethnic differences may have had natural causes such as shared experiences in the Original State and Agrarian Wave. They often reacted in identical fashions to identical circumstances. What is more, in times of troubles, one could depend on siblings and next of kin to come to one's aid irrespective of the ethics and morals involved. In the face of external attacks, one's own ethnic group was the only solace. With the arrival of Christianity came an ethnic factor that created affinities across hitherto natural ethnic factors. A Christian from Greece had more ethnic affinity towards another Christian from Palestine than with his own pagan brother. Ideological ethnicity had come to stay. Islam did even better and drove a wedge into Christendom and separated Christian Europe and Islamic Afro-Asia into avowed foes. Erstwhile allies like Egypt and Rome became professed enemies. In the Crusades, people fought each other over trivial ideological differences, which could seldom be resolved logically. The Crusaders not only fought Muslims, but also ransacked Christian Constantinople because they subscribed to another version of Christianity. Communism is another ideological ethnic factor that cut across other natural ethnic lines and again, like Christianity and Islam, set brother against brother and nation against nation over issues of unverifiable political dogmas and doctrines. As illustrated, there are two types of ethnic differences: one based on natural factors such as race, color, language etc., and artificial ones like those based on religion, ideological affiliations etc. In the Original State and Agrarian Wave, natural ethnic differences were important and the Jews treated the Ammonites and Medianites worse than animals because of their natural ethnic differences based on ancestry. However, with the Industrial and Digital waves, social factors also become prominent and we see capitalists arrayed against communists, feminists against male chauvinists, environmentalists against industrialists and so on and so forth. Why do we have to see ourselves as belonging to one ethnic group and others to a different ethnic group, irrespective of the individuals or constituents that make up the different ethnic groups? Why do Chinese breed German Shepherds for butchering them while the Swiss abhor the very idea? Why do Muslims venerate the one God while some Christians venerate a Trinity? Why do the Hindus as a group venerate a number of gods and even things such as the Sivalinga the ultimate phallic symbol? And why do 53 the people of these different religions try to convert others to their own point of view by hook or by crook? Or why do Hindus burn down a mosque in Bombay because some Muslims had burnt down a temple in Calcutta, a temple that the Hindus in Bombay were not even aware of? Why does the Al Qaeda bomb a hotel in Bali to retaliate against America's invasion of Iraq? Or why do they set off suicide bombs in Baghdad in which most of those who die are Muslims whose cause the bombers espouse? Except for the natural differences such as race and color, conditioning is the main cause of such differences, which lead to hatred and violence. It might be most opportune to consider here the dynamics of such Them-and-Us attitudes to which we are conditioned. Some of the aspects that contribute to this distinction between ‘Them and Us’ are the unchanging ethnic factors such as color and race as mentioned above. Nationality and religion are semi-permanent factors in determining ethnicity in that both nationality and religion are amenable to change. Language is an ethnic factor that undergoes change steadily and over a period of time and is transfigured almost completely with time. This is especially so in the case of languages which do not have a written version. Even in the case of a developed language like English there is considerable transformation over time. As a result, Shakespeare would have gaped at a present-day e-mail message or an online chat, totally at a loss as to what they convey though they are in English. Our categorization of people as 'Them-and-Us’ is also based on traits, which supposedly come in groups. Thus a person with homosexual tendencies may also have normal sexual tendencies too. What is more a homosexual may also be a perfectly reliable and honest family man. However, once he is dubbed as a homosexual, his good qualities take the backseat and he becomes a pariah, inapt for public trust. It has to be admitted that hunches about ‘Them and Us’ and segregations based thereon are quite useful in everyday life in making quick decisions. We have to conceptualize and categorize Hunches In everything and everybody if we are to process data about them and to arrive at decisions. Personal However, whenever we can afford the luxury of time as in a court, everyone is entitled to the Judgments benefit of a doubt irrespective of his or her ethnicity. Nonetheless it cannot be denied that more often than not, we have to play by hunches and probabilities. The Pindaris were a marauding tribe in India who resorted to murderous highway robberies until they were put down by the British. There are many such nomadic tribes in India who specialize in burglary and theft. This is not to say that all the members of any such tribe are burglars and thieves. There may very well be honest men among these tribes. But to trust all Pindaris or even to give them the benefit of a doubt would be at our peril. Similarly an overwhelming majority of suicide attacks today are by Muslims. So it pays to put more effort into checking Muslims at airports than into checking other groups. Here again Muslims from some parts of the globe are likely to be more involved in mindless terrorism than other Muslims. But this does not in way mean that all Muslims or even the majority of Muslims are terrorists, only a miniscule minority is. On the other hand, most terrorists on the international arena are Muslims. Consequently it is only natural that when there is talk of terrorists we are likely to think mostly about Muslims. However the thought that all Muslims are terrorists, may lead to unnecessary persecution of Muslims. We have to admit that when we throw out rotten apples, inevitably some good ones also go with the rotten ones. Ethnicity and the Them-and-Us code are thus rules of the thumb that enable us to make quick decisions regarding strangers. This leads to unfair situations frequently. Such wrong decisions are inevitable, because right decisions would be cumbersome to arrive at as they involve due consideration of innumerable factors. Those who are not with us, they sure are against us, because it is the safest policy. If you put everyone on the opposite side, you do not have to watch your back. It is as simple as that. That is what xenophobia is about. But such policies do not come easy in a globalized economy where people from different and often incompatible ethnic backgrounds have to live and work together as well as deal with each other for mutual benefits. Incompatible dogmas will only up the ante and make cooperation impossible. Clear thinking on the other hand, can smoothen out the interface between divergent ethnic views and promote peace and prosperity. A corollary to the above observation that we have to conceptualize and categorize everything is that we are born into some categories - family, race, language, nation, country etc. There are other categories we choose and still others we are forced into whether we like them or not. Some like soldiers and students form kinds because they live and work together.
54 Many of the ethnic prejudices and bigotry are based on the notion that ethnic and personality traits are permanent. This is seldom so. Religion provides an excellent example. It was presumed by Christians that all pagans were doomed to hell and so did not deserve the benefit of common courtesy or doubt. Islam was no different and treated infidels with scorn and contempt. Religious ethnicity is based merely on dogmas and doctrines. The significant difference between Islam and Christianity is that the former believes that Muhammad is the last prophet and that Jesus was just another prophet, whereas the latter believes that Jesus was an incarnation of God and that Muhammad was an imposter. These differences are mere unsubstantiated dogmas and verification of these precepts was done by violence – the dogmas and doctrines sponsored by the mightier armies won the day. It did not matter to the dogmatists that such verification by violence often caused unnecessary trauma and distress to hundreds of thousands of ordinary souls. Such verification by violence could last only as long as there was no one to challenge the power wielding the sword or gun. Once a power arose to overcome the ensconced authority the dogmas and doctrines sponsored by the new power becomes the 'absolute truths.' Thus thanks to the sponsorship by Constantine and other Roman emperors, people round the Mediterranean believed that Jesus was the son of God – not that even this dogma was accepted without violent impositions; there were heresies like Arianism and Nestorianism questioning Jesus' divinity - and these heresies shook early Christianity, and whichever premise the respective emperors espoused became recognized, and whichever the rulers discarded became heresies with dire consequences for the 'heretics' involved. It was on this scene that Islam burst in with its own dogmas and doctrines as concised above. Wherever Islam had the hegemony, people who had hitherto believed that Jesus was God incarnate and that Mary was the mother of God began to believe that Jesus was just another prophet and Mary became just another mother. Had the Crusades succeeded many diehard Jihadis and their progeny would have returned to Christianity. The Filioque Clause is an interesting case study on how dogmas are formulated and sustained. The The Filioque original Nicene Creed had been formulated under the supervision of Emperor Constantine Clause in 325 CE. This Creed had stated about the Holy Ghost, "We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father" This somehow had been interpreted by the Church as the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father through the Son. Then about the eleventh century, the Western Church introduced the filioque clause into this creed. Filioque is Latin for 'from the son' and subsequently the Nicene Creed was amended in the West to read "We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son" Thus the original Nicene Creed had stated that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father through the Son whereas the new version stated that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father and the Son. No one knows for sure how the Filioque Clause ‘from the Son’ was added to the Creed, which had previously been accepted by both East and West. This appendage, with disastrous consequences, was probably made in Spain sometime in the sixth or the seventh century. From Spain it spread to the neighboring Gaul (France), Germany, Italy and England. At first, the Popes were opposed to it. Pope Leo III even ordered the original creed to be inscribed in silver and hung in Saint Peter’s. Then came Charlemagne (742-814). In May 799, Pope Leo III had been waylaid in Rome by personal enemies. He took refuge at the court of Charlemagne, who had him conducted back to safety. As a quid pro quo the Pope crowned Charlemagne emperor of the Holy Roman Empire on Christmas day 800, though there was nothing holy about the whole imbroglio nor about Charlemagne himself, who had not hesitated in imprisoning or killing his own close relatives for gaining and retaining power. For some obscure reasons Emperor Charlemagne plumbed for the filioque clause and the Western Church had to go along, whereas the East stuck to the original creed. At the instance of Charlemagne, the Pope made a U-turn, removed the inscription without the filioque clause and had another inscription made and hung Saint Peter's, but this time with the filioque clause included. There were also other differences between the East and West in political, theological and liturgical terms. But the filioque clause became a focal point of this political and ideological struggle for supremacy between the Eastern and Western Churches, which ended up in the Great East-West Schism ca 1054 when the Pope and the Patriarch of Constantinople excommunicated each other. The Great Schism formalized the rift between the two arms of Christianity and which had for centuries been on the most cordial of terms. Thanks to the filioque clause and other dogmatic and political differences the East and West became avowed enemies and the final straw came when the Fourth Crusade attacked and ransacked Constantinople in 1203. (Not until Dec. 7, 1965, were the mutual excommunications of 1054 abolished, by Pope Paul VI and the ecumenical patriarch Athenagoras.) The news of ransacking and rapine 55 of Constantinople was gleefully received by Pope Innocent III who had inadvertently flagged off the Crusade; he declared "We believe that the Greeks have been punished through the Crusades by the just judgment of God: these Greeks who have striven to rend the Seamless Robe of Jesus Christ... Those who would not join Noah in his ark perished justly in the deluge; and these have justly suffered famine and hunger who would not receive as their shepherd the blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles." The upshot of it all was that the Eastern Church was so weakened by the Fourth Crusade that they could not stand upto the onslaught of Turks and fell to the Muslims in 1453. Subsequently the Turkish Ottoman Empire rose and grew so powerful that they were in a position to attack Europe. It was by sheer luck that their onslaught was stopped at Austria. Otherwise, even the Western Church would have capitulated to the Muslims along with the filioque clause. The whole ruckus between the East and West over the filioque clause may be likened to the Lilliputian war over which end of the egg should be broken. The issue cannot be verified objectively in any way and is merely a matter of belief backed by imperial power. What is more whether one believes that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son or from the Father and the Son or not, it does not in anyway stand in the way of peaceful cooperation with others who hold divergent views on the dogma. It is the rigidity of dogmas and doctrines and their claim to being permanent and immutable truths that makes them dangerous. This claim to infallibility has often been proved ridiculous by the actions of the proponents of these dogmas. Thus as we have seen above, the 'filioque' clause, which forms and important dogma of Catholicism was first rejected by the Pope himself. But when the political pressures became too strong for the Pope to resist, he turned tail and declared that the obscure Filioque clause was the absolute and irrevocable truth. This turn-tail incident did not prevent a subsequent Pope from declaring all Popes infallible though the Pope could not have been infallible both in rejecting and accepting the Filioque clause. Ideological factors of ethnicity are indeed capricious. Infallibility of the Pope is another dogma that does not stand up to the verification in any way. Papal infallibility was promulgated by Pope Pius IX in 1864 only and it said that the Pope was infallible in all doctrinal matters declared ex-Cathedra. The question arises as to whether the Pope was infallible before the declaration by Pope Pius IX. If the Pope were indeed infallible before and/or after what was the necessity of holding so many ecumenical councils to sort out doctrinal matters? It was at the Council of Nice that the doctrine of Jesus' divine nature and associated doctrines were formulated. If the Pope were infallible from the beginning of Christianity, then what was the relevance of the Council of Nice? It is in the same fashion as the dogmas illustrated above that some of the concepts regarding permanent ethnic differences are formulated. Some of these concepts of ethnic differences are based on mere nebulous ideas. Aryan was a term derived from Sanskrit word ‘ārya’ meaning ‘noble’, and it referred to a people who, settled in Iran and Northern India in prehistoric times. The Indo-European races and languages are attributed to these Aryans. In the nineteenth century the term was used as a synonym for “Indo- European” and also, more restrictively, to refer to the Indo-Iranian languages. It was all to do with scholars of sociology, anthropology and linguistics, chief among them being Max Muller. Noble During the nineteenth century, following in the footsteps of this concept of the 'noble Aryan Aryan', there arose a notion - propagated most assiduously by the Comte de Gobineau (1853–55) and later by his disciple Houston Stewart Chamberlain - of an ‘Aryan race.’ According to this incongruous view of the ‘noble Aryan’, the Aryans were responsible for all the progress made by mankind. The Aryans were also presumed to be morally superior to 'Semites' 'yellows,' and 'blacks' To cap it off, the Nordic, or Germanic, peoples came to be regarded as the purest of 'Aryans.' This is a notion that had been repudiated by the same anthropologists like Max Muller who had coined the term ‘Aryan’. The repudiation however did not affect the proponents of the racial supremacy theory, and it was seized upon by Adolph Hitler and the Nazis. They made this theory the cornerstone of the German government policy of exterminating Jews, Roma or Gypsies, and other 'non-Aryans' The upshot of this inane concept or idea was the great holocaust, the systematic state-sponsored extermination of six million Jews, and 400,000 Roma or Gypsies and millions of others. The Germans called this 'the final solution.' This in turn drove hundreds of thousands of Jews to Palestine and as a result the world is saddled with the Israeli-Palestinian struggle, which lies at the root of the terrorist conflagrations we witness today.
56 The noble Aryan was just an obscure, innocuous idea to start with. Nonetheless, it became a dogma in the hands of the third Reich from (1933 to 1945). The usage of the term 'Reich' itself had racist connotations and indicated Germany under Hitler as the presumed successor of the glorious medieval and early modern periods of German supremacy. It may be noted here that the term ‘noble Aryan’ itself is essentially meaningless as both the words – noble and Aryan - mean the same thing and so the term is as incongruous as ‘noble noble-man’ or ‘canine dog’ or ‘feline cat’. A meaningless slogan thus led to catastrophic quakes in human history, and the Tsunamis rising from these quakes are devastating us today even a century and half after the crazy concept of the ‘noble Aryan’ was promulgated by Comte de Gobineau. The Nazis were a violent group by nature – a group that believed that all problems, whether real or imaginary had only violent solutions. The dogma of Aryan supremacy provided them the excuse to carry out their agenda of terror and annihilation. If they had taken a rational approach to the issue, they would have Ma He's found that the Mongolian race, especially the Chinese, too had as glorious a past as any Expedition European nation or race. Most of the European achievements came about by their naval expeditions to the East and West under Columbus, Vasco Da Gama and other seafarers. But long before them the Chinese, under the eunuch Admiral Ma He (1371- 1435), had made seven naval expeditions to India, Iran and even as far as the West Coast of Africa. Ma He's ships as well as his fleets dwarfed the later European navies in both size and technologies, not to speak of the armaments and artillery. Thus Ma He set out on his first expedition to the “Western Oceans,” in 1405 with 62 ships and 27,800 men. In comparison Christopher Columbus (1451- 1506) made just four expeditions and his first expedition in 1492 had just three ships - Niña , Pinta , and Santa María- with less than 800 men. Ma He had carried out his magnificent maritime exploits under the patronage of the Yung-lo emperor. His successor the Hung-hsi emperor however, had no naval ambitions. He suspended naval expeditions abroad and disbanded his troops. China cut off all contacts with the outside world and withdrew into the Great Wall. If Ma He had been allowed to carry on his expeditions and if the Chinese with their monolithic power had chosen to colonize the world, they would have succeeded more spectacularly than the small European nations who were often at each other's throats. Race and color and to some extent language are natural ethnic factors. However, even these cannot be accepted as permanent as shown by the fact that Italians and others from Europe were not counted as whites in various American censuses until recent times. Religion is an ethnic factor, which is more man-made than natural, though birth plays an important part in that we are often forced into the religion of our parents. In ancient times religion was a personal thing and everyone had his own unique version of religion. However with the rise Judaism, Christianity, Islam and other dogmatic religions, uniformity of beliefs was insisted on and religion became an important ethnic factor. However, on closer examination we can see much heterogeneity within the superficial homogeneity of religions. Thus professed Christians are homogeneous in their belief in Jesus as the incarnation of God though this divinity-factor was not insisted on in the early days pf Christianity. When it comes to the sects of Christianity, – there are over 30000 sects in Christianity - there are variations among them on many fronts. Even within the same Christian sect there are individual variations. Thus there are many Catholics who believe in prayer meetings for the sick while others are deadset against such miracle cures. There are also those who favor particular saints as more potent than others and so on and so forth. On closer analysis, when it comes to religious beliefs, every man is a religion unto himself as unique as the fingerprints on his hands. Religion is obviously a very nebulous concept for ethnic variation in comparison with color, race or language. Yet religion has evolved into an important ethnic factor from the political point view and this has in turn lead to much strife and bloodshed. A clue to this may lie in the statement by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who claim to represent Hindu interests in the Indian polity. According to one of their most popular slogans “Hinduism is a way of life” The slogan caught the fancy of even many educated Indians. Maybe this slogan gives a clue to the evolution of religion as an ethnic factor. It says that the way of life of Hindus distinguish them from Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains, Parsys and other religious groups. If this slogan can be taken at face value, it is these variations in the ways of lives that distinguish one religion from another and lead to the so-called distinct ethnicities based on religion.
57 Applying the methodologies of clear thinking to this slogan and its concept that different religions endorse different ways of lives, we see that things could not be farther from the truth. There are far more significant factors that determine ‘ways of life’ than religion. We have seen above that women have common problems as distinct from men irrespective of their ethnic status. As a result, the way of life of a Hindu woman is far more identical to that of a Muslim or Sikh woman than to the way of life of her own husband. Children have the same problems everywhere and so do the aged, and so age contributes in a major way to ‘way of life’ in comparison with religion. In most tribal societies age is an important basis for group formation, and in some tribal societies there are “age-sets”- compulsory groupings of individuals of roughly similar age- who advance through life together. Education and income are other factors that determine ‘ways of life.’ Thus an educated Muslim is far more likely to think and act like another educated Hindu or Christian than like an illiterate man from his own religious group. The same goes for income too in determining ‘ways of life’ of a man or woman. However these factors- sex, age, literacy, income etc – do not seem to contribute to ethnicity whereas the nebulous factors of religious dogmas do. Religions and castes have formed the backbone of Indian politics for sometime now. It all started in earnest when the V.P.Singh government implemented the Mandal recommendations regarding caste-based reservations in education, jobs and so on. All these sops were also applicable to Muslims and to some sects of Christians, Sikhs and other religions. Consequently, India became polarized along the lines of those who benefited from such sops and those who did not. What is more, as these sops were along caste or religious lines, caste and religion assumed ominous proportions in Indian polity. Obviously, they are economic factors in reality rather than religious or caste-factors that segregate society ostensibly on the lines of religious and caste-based ethnicities. We shall consider such a case of economic forces working behind the perpetuation of ostensible ethnic differences. At the time of independence, India lived in abject poverty and even the rich in India were in direr straits than the poor of the affluent West. The lower castes of India who lived off agricultural labor lived in unimaginably deprivation; disease, hunger and starvation were their constant companions. Indiscriminate There were also many tribes, which lived in the forests of India who lived off forest Reservations produce and hunting, and their economic situation was even more dismal than that of the In India poor castes of India. In order to uplift these populations, the new government drew up a schedule, which listed the poor and indigent castes and tribes of India. As a result, these castes and tribes of India came to be known as the scheduled castes and schedules tribes (SC and ST). The government then formulated various reservation enactments, which entitled the SC/ST population to free education and hostel facilities at all levels with generous stipends. These reservation classes also did not have to compete with the higher and better-placed populations, be it in admission to schools or colleges or in getting jobs. A certain percentage of the seats in educational institutions as well as in government jobs were reserved or earmarked for the SC/ST only, and these seats were off limits to the other sections of the population. In addition, the SC/ST employees were given special privileges when it came to promotions and as a result they often got better postings than their seniors from other ethnic groups when it came to jobs in government departments and public enterprises Initially, only a small percentage of the SC/ST populations took advantage of these reservation sops. The others were too indigent to forego even the trivial income their children brought home. The lucky few who took advantage of the concessions initially, rose rapidly in economic stature and took in as marriage partners others who were as well off as they were, while their unlucky cousins and relations languished on the brink. With the double income thus generated, the economic status of those who first benefited from the reservations had climbed to astronomical levels in comparison with even the privileged classes. This also led to the economic stratification of the SC/ST population, which had hitherto been homogeneously indigent. However, those who had attained high economic standards as narrated above, continued enjoying reservation status and the concessions that go along with the status. As a result, just like their parents, the children from these affluent SC/ST sections did not face competition from the higher castes either in education, jobs or in promotions. In addition, they could afford much better education and coaching in schools and colleges in comparison with their more unfortunate cousins whose parents had not exploited the reservation policies to their advantage. As a result, these affluent SC/ST children got an easy walkover on their poor cousins in competitive entrance exams for admissions to prestigious educational institutions as well as to the plum 58 government positions. Counter to the aims of the reservation policies, these privileged few among the SC/ST families corned all the reservation goodies at the expense of the deserving poor of their own community. At present, these indiscriminate reservation policies are in the process of creating a super-caste among the SC/ST who will not have to compete with the higher classes and will have a walkover on the deserving populations from their own castes and tribes. There were also other castes and communities in India, who though not as indigent as the SC/ST, nevertheless needed a hand up. These were classified as the Backward Castes and Communities (BCC). Children from BCC families also enjoyed preferential treatment in quotas set aside for them in educational institutions and government jobs. Like business, politics is the science of the possible and more and more castes, tribes and communities of the Indian population clamored for inclusion in the SC/ST or BCC schedules and listings. In a democratic system, the politicians had to oblige and more and more privileges were baled out in the name of reservation. This angered the higher castes and in the end, the government had to apply a 'creamy status' principle to the BCC while the SC/ST went on enjoying their indiscriminate concessions. According to the creamy layer principle, children from the affluent BCC families were not entitled to reservations. However, under pressure from the privileged, the cut off mark or income for determining the creamy layer was so high that the underprivileged among the BCC had to compete on an uneven keel with their affluent cousins. Again as in the case of SC/ST, the better education and the plum jobs went to the affluent, while the deserving majority looked on helplessly. In spite of the loud and often violent declarations to the contrary, economics and economic status are what count. When it comes to making social alliances such as in marriage the rich among the reservation castes and classes ignore their more indigent brethren and many of them, especially males, have married from or into higher caste families, in step with their affluent status. However when it comes to rationalizing reservation policies, these privileged classes kick up a ruckus about it, and because of their economic and social clout, the voices of these rich and organized minority are much louder and more strident than those of the unfortunate and indigent majority. In the final analysis, indiscriminate reservation goes against the very purpose for which reservation policies were framed - to help the grossly underprivileged population of India to compete on an equal footing with the affluent sections of the society. Instead, indiscriminate reservation only helps the privileged few from the reservation classes to corner all the reservation benefits to themselves at the expense of the poor from their own class for whom the reservation enactments are really intended. What is more, ethnic based sops and concessions perpetuate the ethnic-based fissures in the Indian polity. As long as such sops and concessions are handed out purely along religious or caste-based lines, India can never be integrated into a secular society. Instead it will stay stratified along ethnic lines of religions and castes along which the sops are handed out. Sops based on ethnicity never works. Every state of the Indian union complains that it has been discriminated against. This makes one wonder where all the allocations go. In the same vein, religion or caste based sops are doomed to failure. A precise assessment of benefits and sops cannot be made and invariably such sops lead to complaints of discrimination. Benefits and sops should always be based on income. Otherwise such sops will invariably be pocketed by the undeserving in the ethnic groups as explained in the case of the SC and ST concessions in India. It may also be noted that sops have been applied in other ways too. Thus Mahatma Gandhi and the other politicians who have figured in Indian politics have tried to placate the different ethnic groups on other fronts as well. Gandhi’s famous prayer-song ‘Raghupathi Raghava Rajaram’ thus includes Allah also as the Supreme Being alongside Hindu ‘Easwar’. But it did not placate anybody. In fact such concessions only make the groups clamor for more. An attempt was made in the sixties to placate the Muslims by declaring more Muslim occasions as national holidays. As a result, Miladi Sheriff, the birthday of Muhammad, is a national holiday in India. On the other hand, Miladi Sheriff is not a holiday even in the Arabian Gulf. An absurd situation has thus risen as Hindus, Christians and others in India celebrate Miladi Sheriff while orthodox Muslims the world over are not even aware that it is Prophet’s birthday. Has this placated the Muslims of India? No! It has only made them cry louder about discrimination of Muslims in India and clamor for more sops.
59 It was the same in the Sha Bano case when the Supreme Court of India ruled that Muslim women are also entitled to alimony. There was an immediate political ruckus kicked up by the Islamic fundamentalists in India that such alimony went against the tenets of the Shariat. The incumbent government by Rajiv Gandhi gave in to the commotion and enacted laws in parliament to absolve Muslims from paying alimony. Thus India endorsed the Shariat tenets on non-payment of alimony even as Muslims in Islamic nations such as Egypt had to pay alimony. Did this placate the Muslims? No! They began clamoring for more such enactments. The incident also angered the majority Hindus and other sects. The Sha Bano case and the subsequent surrender by the central government to Islamic fundamentalists caused the biggest ever polarization in India along religious lines and led to the resurgence of the Hindu fundamentalist forces. This proves that many ethnic factors like language, religion and caste are merely superficial. They are the underlying economic currents that really matter. Ethnic struggles and conflicts would not last long unless such struggles and conflicts have economic incentives. Consequently ethnic conflicts can be solved only with economic tools. Irrational ethnic appeasement is often as dangerous as irrational ethnic discrimination as both irrational appeasement and irrational discrimination can only stock the fires of ethnic ill will. The trick lies in shifting the focus of confrontation from the ethnic factor to a more rational one such as economic status.
Nonviolence: Since the earliest recorded history, there has been violence and wars, which stem from our inherent propensity to aggression. However, it is also true that human beings exhibit generosity and altruism. So along with primordial fear and our natural propensity to violence, peace also can be seen as an extension of basic human nature or the Archetype or as a part of our psyche and its evolutionary past. Peace and justice are often viewed as Utopian ideals by many. However, if the only way to prevent injustice and create justice is by force as they assert, then justice requires violence, which precludes peace. But history proves otherwise. The clash of political interests has been identified as a justification for war. The desire for power and its frills put groups in opposition. Such political confrontations may escalate and subsequently one side, and then the other, resort to violent tactics. This effect is seen in all ethnic groups including religious ones even as they preach peace and the brotherhood of man. These groups see themselves as being oppressed. Violence and war are then perceived as justified in defense of a culture or religion. This is especially so when and where such violent tactics seem to deliver immediate dramatic effects. However, such spectacular outcomes are short-lived. As recounted above, those who take up the sword die by the sword, violence and terrorism picks up a tempo of their own and carry on even after the initial objectives are achieved. Even when interests are in conflict there are ways of resolving differences by nonviolent means. Nonviolence and nonviolent resistance are forms of personal, social and political action that seek to confront and reduce violence, repression and injustice. Nonviolence as a political philosophy and the movement has developed a massive range of actions, strategies and methodologies to resolve differences and conflicts of interests. The theory of nonviolent resistance was first put forward formally in this century by Henry David Thoreau in his essay Civil Disobedience in 1845. The individual, Thoreau claimed, is “a higher and independent power,” from which the state sources its own power. He considered the individual as the primary source of political power rather than the state, which is just an entity, conceived by the will of the people. There are numerous examples of progress and change, which were brought about through the practice of nonviolence and civil disobedience in the mid-twentieth century. The independence of India in 1947 was largely the result of Mohandas Gandhi's programs of Satyagraha (Sanskrit for ‘The search or the desire for truth’). Satyagraha followed the principle of nonviolent resistance to the British colonial establishment. This remains the most spectacular success of nonviolence in history. There were many such incidents of nonviolence down the annals of history, which were as momentous and as spectacular as India’s nonviolent struggle for independence. One of the earliest incidents of nonviolent resistance known to history is recorded by Flavius Josephus in ‘The Wars of the Jews and Antiquities of the Jews’. Josephus recounts how Nonviolence Pilate attempted to set up the Roman standards in Jerusalem, and how the Jews opposed it - History tooth and nail, because the standards with the images of the emperor and the eagle of Jupiter, were considered idolatrous by Orthodox Jews. Pilate surrounded the Jewish protesters with soldiers
60 and threatened to kill them. They replied that they were quite willing to die rather than see the laws of the Torah violated. Pilate it seems retracted his own orders in the face of this nonviolent protest. Before the American War for Independence started with the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the Revolution was mostly nonviolent. Though there were stray incidents of violence against persons, and against property as in the Boston Massacre and The Boston Tea Party respectively, for the most part, revolutionary activities during the first ten years from 1765 to early 1775 of the Revolution were nonviolent. This included tax resistance, boycotts of British imports, organization of committees of correspondence, petitions to the king and parliament and publication of pamphlets and newspapers. Even after the movement took up arms under George Washington, it was a civil body – the National Assembly - that had the final say in matters of objectives of the war. It was due to this civil control over the military establishment that the American War of Independence did not spin off into further violence like the French and Russian revolutions did even after the immediate objectives of the revolution were achieved. During the years 1936 to 1947, the British authorities severely restricted Jewish immigration to Palestine. Though Jewish resistance by a minority was violent, for the most part as recounted above under terrorism, it consisted of the smuggling refugees into the land after evading the British blockade. The most famous incident of such resistance was the voyage of the 'Exodus' in 1947. The nonviolent resistance of the Jewish refugees impressed world opinion so much that a majority in the United Nations voted to establish a Jewish State in Palestine. In 1948, this became a reality in the form of the State of Israel. The success of Martin Luther King, Jr., in eradicating color-based discrimination in the United States is another example of the effectiveness of nonviolence and civil disobedience in bringing about profound and lasting change in an establishment. Civil disobedience was later practiced in the United States and elsewhere by pacifists and by individuals devoted to such causes as woman suffrage and prohibition. In the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, the Czechoslovakian citizens responded to the attack on their sovereignty with passive resistance. Russian troops were frustrated as street signs were painted over, their water supplies were mysteriously shut off, and buildings were decorated with flowers, flags, and slogans like, "An elephant cannot swallow a hedgehog." During the Chinese Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, an unknown man putting himself in the way of tanks engaged in a government crackdown on protesters was projected widely in the visual media. Unconfirmed reports state that the man was later executed by the government. The visual media showed the man as standing in front of an approaching tank. The tank stopped and then tried to evade the man by swerving to the sides. But the man too moved sideways and finally the tank stopped completely. Though the world applauded the man obstructing the tank, the tank driver was given scarce a mention in the media. The tank driver could very well have run the man over and the incident would not have in all probability been even photographed, and the man obstructing the tank would have been just another of many Tiananmen casualties. Nonviolent struggles can succeed only when directed against a man or institution that appreciates human values. We have seen how Pilate gave way to the Jews though he could very well have implemented his orders above their dead bodies. One of the most notable successes of nonviolent protests, the United States Civil Rights Movement, was orchestrated against a comparatively liberal government, which actively supported, to some extent, the movement against it. In the same vein, nonviolence did prove successful in the liberation of India mainly because the British against whom it was directed could not ignore its own democratic ideals and the public opinion back home. Therefore, we owe the success of the nonviolence struggle for Indian independence as much to British ideals as to Gandhi’s intrepid leadership. Just imagine a nonviolent struggle directed against the likes of Saddam Hussein or Pol Pot! Gandhi would have been a pile of skull and bones even before he opened his mouth to preach nonviolence in Saddam’s Iraq or Pol Pot’s Cambodia. More than anyone else, Gandhi himself was aware of this, and that is the reason why Gandhi did not lose his respect for the West and its values even as he led the political struggle against Britain. As a result, India was able to achieve its goals in its struggles against the imperial British government without rancor on both sides, and relations between the British and independent India carried on cordially with mutual respect as if it had always been so. I have often wondered how much more effective would a nonviolent struggle have been in Kashmir and Palestine than the terrorist tactics employed there at present. India, which boasts of its nonviolent origins, would have had no answer to a nonviolent struggle in Kashmir, and so would Israel, with its strong 61 democratic traditions, against a nonviolent Palestinian struggle. However, nonviolence seems to be totally alien to the violent Middle Eastern cultures of Kashmir and Palestine. It is the intransigence and conditioning of the various parties involved as well as the exploitation of the situation by vested interests that perpetuate the violence in Kashmir, Palestine and elsewhere. As an alternative to both passive acquiescence and armed struggle, nonviolence provides other means of popular struggle such as civil disobedience, nonviolent resistance or the power of non-cooperation and intelligent persuasion. Though frequently used as a synonym for pacifism since the mid twentieth century, the term nonviolence or nonviolent resistance has come to embody a diversity of techniques for conducting socio-political struggles for change without the use of violence. As a technique for social struggle, nonviolence has been described as ‘the politics of ordinary people’, reflecting its historically mass-based use by populations throughout the world. If terrorism is the technique of struggle by the few, nonviolence is the technique by the masses. Though the Indian independence struggle and the American civil rights movements provide the most spectacular examples of a nonviolence-movement in recent times, most countries, cultures, and political traditions can lay claim to numerous examples of nonviolent struggles and histories. Many such examples have been recounted above. The central tenets of nonviolent philosophy exist in each of the major Abrahamic religious traditions - Islam, Judaism and Christianity - as well as in the major Dharmic religious traditions - Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. Nonviolent movements, leaders and advocates have at times referred to, drawn from and utilized many diverse religious sources for nonviolence within their respective struggles. Secular political movements also have utilized nonviolence, either as a tactical tool or as a strategic program on purely pragmatic and strategic grounds, relying on its political effectiveness rather than a claim to any religious, moral or ethical worthiness. Obviously, people adopt nonviolent methods of struggle from a wide range of perspectives and traditions. A landless peasant in Brazil may nonviolently occupy a parcel of land for purely practical motivations. If he does not do so, he and his family may starve. A Buddhist monk in Thailand may bind himself to a tree in a threatened forest, drawing on the teachings of Buddha to resist its destruction. A waterside worker in England may go on strike and relate to socialist and union political traditions. All the above examples portray various sections of the society using nonviolent methods from very different perspectives. Nonviolence has even obtained a level of institutional recognition and endorsement at the global level. On 10th of November 1998, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the first decade of the 21st century, the years 2001 to 2010, as the International Decade for the Promotion of a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World. Subsequently October 2, Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday, has been declared the day of nonviolence by the United Nations. How does nonviolence work? The nonviolent approach to social struggle represents a radical departure from conventional thinking about both power and conflict, and yet appeals to a number of widely shared values and common-sense notions. Whereas violence focuses on the differences between opposing parties, nonviolence appeals to the common heritage of compassion and empathy of opposing parties. Also central to any understanding of nonviolent strategic theory is the idea that the power of rulers depends upon the consent of the populace. A ruler is powerless without a bureaucracy, an army or a police force to carry out his or her wishes and without the compliance of key sections of the population. According to the principles of nonviolence, power depends largely on the co-operation of others. Nonviolence seeks to undermine the power of rulers through the deliberate withdrawal of this consent and co-operation. A third notion of primary significance is that just means are the most likely to lead to just ends. When Gandhi said that, "The means may be likened to the seed, the end to a tree," he expressed the philosophical kernel of what some refer to as pre-figurative politics. Proponents of nonviolence reason that the actions we take in the present inevitably reshape the social order in the future. They assert that it is fundamentally irrational to use violence to achieve a peaceful society. In support of this hypothesis, we have seen that even just causes achieved by violent means as in the French, Russian and Chinese revolutions, result in a society that swirls around in further violent tantrums and the masses find themselves thrown from the frying pan into the fire. The most compelling attitude of nonviolence is that just because one has differences of perceptions and conflicts of interests, he is not an enemy to be destroyed. Instead, he is another fellow being to be 62 brought around to your views. Tolerance is of the utmost importance if nonviolence is to succeed. Some proponents of nonviolence advocate respect or love for opponents. Respect or love for opponents also has a pragmatic justification, in that the technique of separating the deeds from the doers allows for the possibility of the doers changing their behavior, and perhaps their beliefs. As Martin Luther King said, "Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him." The notion of Satya, or truth, is central to the Gandhian conception of nonviolence. Gandhi saw truth as something that is multifaceted and unable to be grasped in its entirety by any one individual. He believed that we all carry pieces of the truth, and that we need the pieces from others’ perceptions of Satyagraha truths in order to conceive the greater truth even when they are in apparent opposition to you. This led him to a belief in the inherent worth of dialogue with opponents, and a sincere wish to understand their drives and motivations. On a practical level, willingness to listen to another's point of view is largely dependent on reciprocity. In order to be heard by one's opponents, one must also be prepared to listen to one’s opponents. This is especially so in ideological matters wherein opposing views need not necessarily be crucial. Thus polytheism and monotheism, though in conflict, are not crucial to everyday life. One can be a staunch monotheist and another a diehard polytheist and yet the two can cooperate on any task as such ideological differences like monotheism and polytheism does not have to stand in the way of any cooperation. In the same vein, Communists and Capitalists have the common aim of human welfare at heart and can easily fixate on their commonalities rather than on their differences. Alas it was not so and violence ensued the world over for resolving these ideological issues. Using violence to resolve ideological differences is idiotic. Violence can only prove who is stronger and nothing else. Thus violence gave the communists the upper hand in Russia and elsewhere for some time. But then economic forces proved stronger and Communism was cast into the dustbin of History. This demonstrates that even if violence does seem to work for a time, there are always stronger natural forces that will invariably get the upper hand. It can also be stated here that Communism and Capitalism need not be mutually exclusive. Thus modern management strategies in capitalist countries endorse the practice of giving away preferential shares to their employees in accordance with the communist tenets that the proletariat should be owners of the enterprise they work in. Most advocates of nonviolence draw their preference for nonviolence either from religious or ethical beliefs, or from political pragmatism. The first justification for nonviolence is sometimes referred to as principled or ethical nonviolence, while the second is known as pragmatic or strategic. However, it is not uncommon to find both of these dimensions present within the thinking of particular movements or individuals. In the west, nonviolence has been used extensively by the labor, peace, environment and women's movements. Less well known is the role that nonviolence has played and continues to play in undermining the power of repressive political regimes in the developing world and the former eastern bloc. Throughout history, nonviolent methods have been used by ordinary people to counter injustice or oppression or to bring about progressive change as narrated above. Nonviolence scholar Gene Sharp, in his book The Politics of Nonviolent Action, suggests that the conspicuous absence of nonviolence from mainstream history books may be due to the fact that elite interests lay more stress on the role of wealth or weaponry in social struggles and ignore the role of the collective power of a mobilized citizenry. This disregard for nonviolence may also be due to the fact that violence is more dramatic, while non-violence is too mundane and low-keyed to attract attention. Nonviolence is a set of assumptions about morality, power and conflict, which lead its proponents to reject the use of violence in efforts to attain social or political goals. Gene Sharp codifies the primary categories of nonviolent forms of action as: acts of protests and persuasion, acts of nonviolent non- cooperation and nonviolent intervention. Hunger strikes, pickets, vigils, prayer meetings, petitions, sit-ins, go-slows, blockades, draft refusals and so on and so forth. Nonviolent action can also appear in such varied forms as information warfare, protest art, lobbying, tax-resistance, boycotts or sanctions, legal or diplomatic measures, material sabotage, principled refusal of awards and honors, and so on. It is a hotly debated issue as to whether the destruction or damage to non-living objects or material sabotage is violent. In much nonviolence literature, including Sharp’s, various forms of sabotage and damage to property are included within the scope of nonviolent action, while others consider destruction or 63 destructive acts of any kind as a form of violence in that it might generate fear or hardship upon the owner or person dependent on that object. Other authors or activists argue that property destruction can be strategically ineffective, because such sabotages often provide a pretext for further state repression. Lakey, for instance, points out that the burning of cars during the Paris uprising of 1968, only served to undermine the popular support for the uprising and undermined its political potential. To be effective, nonviolent tactics must be carefully chosen, taking into account political and cultural circumstances that can form part of a larger plan or strategy. Walter Wink points to Jesus Christ as an early nonviolence strategist. Many of his teachings on nonviolence are revealed to be quite sophisticated when the cultural milieu of the times is understood. For example, among the people he was speaking to, if by collecting debts a person drove the debtor to nudity, the greater shame fell on the debt collector rather than on the naked man. So Jesus' suggests that if someone asks you for your coat you give him your clothes as well (Luke 6:29). This is according to Jesus, a way of bringing shame upon the debt-collector and of symbolically reversing the power equation. Gandhi exploited both the Indian spiritual milieu and Western ideals of freedom and democracy in his struggle for Indian independence. He resorted to prayer and fasting of Satyagraha on one hand and appealed to the democratic ideals of the Western public on the other. In addition to Gandhi and Martin Luther King, there are many other leaders and theorists of nonviolence who have thought deeply about the spiritual and practical aspects of nonviolence. These include Leo Tolstoy, Petra Kelly, Thich Nhat Hanh, Dorothy Day, Ammon Hennacy, Albert Einstein, John Howard Yoder, Stanley Hauerwas, David McReynolds, Johan Galtung, Ida Ford, Daniel Berrigan,Bacha Khan, and César Chávez. Many leftist and socialist movements tried to mount a 'peaceful revolution' by organizing enough strikers to completely paralyze the state. With the state and corporate apparatus thus crippled, the workers would be able to reorganize the society along radically different lines. Lech Wałęsa was successful in thus bringing about a peaceful revolution in Communist governed Poland. In contrast to violent and nonviolent struggles, pacifism is the opposition to the use of force to settle disagreements, specifically the taking up of arms in war. Pacifism is the opposition to war or violence as a means of settling disputes. It covers a spectrum of views ranging from the belief that international disputes can and should be resolved peacefully, to the absolute opposition to the use of violence, or even force, under any provocation. Pacifism may be based on principle or pragmatism. Principled or Deontological pacifism is based on the belief that war, use of deliberate lethal force, violence or any violent coercion is morally Pacifism wrong. Pragmatic or consequential pacifism does not hold such an absolute view, but avers that there are better ways of resolving disputes. Such pragmatics consider the benefits of a war to be outweighed by the costs. Dove or dovish are informal terms used, usually in politics, for people who prefer to avoid war or prefer war as the last resort. Some people termed dovish would not view their position as pacifist as they would consider war to be justifiable under some circumstances. The opposite of a dove is a hawk. Some persons, who consider themselves pacifists, while opposing war, are not opposed to all use of physical coercion, against people or of destruction of property. Antimilitarists, for example, are specifically opposed to the military institutions of modern nation-states rather than to violence in general. Advocacy of pacifism can be found far back in history and literature. Compassion for all life, human and nonhuman, is central to Jainism, founded by Mahavira in 599–527 BCE. According to Mahavira, all life and especially human life is a unique and rare opportunity to reach enlightenment. So to kill any person, no matter what crime he may have committed, is abhorrent. Jainism is a religion that requires monks and laity, from all its sects and traditions, to be strictly vegetarian. They sweep the floor before them as they walk so that insects are not inadvertently trod upon, and cover their mouth with cloth that insects are not inadvertently ingested. The high castes of India including the Brahmins were non-vegetarians consuming even beef in Vedic times. It was perhaps the influence of Jainism that converted high-caste Hindus to strict vegetarianism. Many have understood Jesus to be a pacifist, drawing on his Sermon on the Mount which exhorted his followers to do things such as "If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also." There are many however, who deny this and cites the example of an angry Jesus whipping out the traders from the temple. In the definitions of violence we included behavior that causes mental agony to others as violent. If
64 we consider Jesus' diatribes against the Pharisees and Sadducees, it seems he was not as nonviolent or pacific as projected. In the wake of World War I there was a great revulsion with war in much of the West, and pacifist doctrines gained many new adherents. However with the start of World War II, such pacifist sentiments declined. Bertrand Russell, a pacifist, argued that the necessity of defeating Hitler was a unique circumstance where war was the best of possible evils; he called his position relative pacifism. H. G. Wells, had claimed after the armistice ending World War I that the British had suffered more from the war than they would have from capitulation to Germany. However in 1941, he urged a large-scale British offensive on the continent of Europe to combat Hitler and Nazism. The political premises of Green parties list 'non-violence' and 'decentralization' of power, as two of their ten key values. However, in power, Greens like all politicians often compromise. For example German Greens in the cabinet of Social Democrat Gerhard Schroeder supported an intervention by German troops in Afghanistan in 2001, on condition that they host the peace conference in Berlin. During the 2002 election campaign, the Greens forced Schroeder to swear that no German troops would take part in the invasion on Iraq. This suggests that many who advocate 'non-violence' or ‘pacifism’, in effect support pragmatic rather than Utopian pacifism. Many outstanding pacifists of this sort have taken part in defensive military actions when their countries were attacked. While those who believe that war is normally preferable to peace are a rare breed, advocates of unconditional pacifism are also rare. Radical pacifism is controversial, and only a few religions such as Jainism and the peace churches of Christianity advocate it. Those who advocate a philosophy of total non-violence at all levels may offer pragmatic arguments for the benefits of non-violent resistance; however, a radical pacifistic position is in the final analysis a moral, spiritual or religious principle intended to be maintained at all cost, and therefore does not necessarily imply any optimistic expectation for the material benefits of this policy. Radical pacifists would believe that it is better to be killed while sticking firmly to their principles of nonviolence than to fight back and survive (principle over practicality). They would consider submitting to violence against them the only morally acceptable option, and consider their death noble martyrdom. More practical pacifists who felt they could not in good conscience fight in a war have served as ambulance drivers in wars. The ultimate pragmatic argument that may be offered by pacifists is that violent resistance to violence always fails to bring about peace, that war can only be expected to establish a realignment of forces under principles of violence. Besides, pacifists argue that war frequently fails to accomplish the political or economic ends to which it is supposedly directed, nor do the benefits usually outweigh the cost. What is more, rarely is war motivated by the high ideals that its supporters use to justify it. They cite the examples of the French Revolution and the Russian revolution where violence even though with justification ended up in more unjustifiable violence. Pacifism has both a passive component - refusing to fight - and an active component - working for peace. Some pacifists and multilateralists are in favor of establishing a world government as a means to prevent and control international aggression without the UN veto problem. This proposal does seem to have substance to it. However the nations of the world oppose this on account of the mutual suspicions handed down by our ancestry, and also on account of the fear that such a central force may compromise their sovereignty. Leon Trotsky, Frantz Fanon, Reinhold Niebuhr, Subhash Chandra Bose, Ward Churchill and Malcolm X were fervent critics of nonviolence, arguing that nonviolence and pacifism are an attempt to impose the morals of the bourgeoisie upon the proletariat, that violence is a necessary prelude to revolutionary change, and that the right to self-defense is fundamental. In the midst of violent repression of radical African Americans in the United States during the 1960s, Black Panther member George Jackson said of the nonviolent tactics of Martin Luther King, Jr. "The concept of nonviolence is a false ideal. It presupposes the existence of compassion and a sense of justice on the part of one's adversary. When this adversary has everything to lose and nothing to gain by exercising justice and compassion, his reaction can only be negative." Malcolm X also clashed with civil rights leaders over the issue of nonviolence, arguing that violence should not be ruled out as a last resort: "Concerning nonviolence, it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks." A new generation of historians of the civil rights 65 movement criticizes nonviolence as a failed strategy and argue that black armed self-defense and civil violence motivated civil rights reforms more than peaceful appeals to morality and reason. The ideology and political practice of pacifism has been criticized by the radical American activist Ward Churchill, in his essay, ‘Pacifism as Pathology’. Churchill argues that the social and political advancements cited by pacifists as examples of non-violent action at work have always been made possible by concurrent violent struggles. Principled pacifism or pacifism for pacifism’s sake also seems to contain an element of hypocrisy attached to it. Such highbrow pacifism would mean that even policing, which is based on authorized violence, is redundant. One of the possible reasons that such criticisms are leveled against nonviolence is that nonviolence tends to be a slow, gradual process for effecting political change, and thus the connection between action and effect is less dramatic than for violence. Another possible reason for suspecting the efficacy of nonviolence is that there are many different nonviolent strategies, and selecting strategies, which work in a particular situation can be tricky. However, the same is true for violent revolutions. In addition, nonviolence can succeed only against an adversary, which is fairly humane in his attitude to dissent. Gandhi’s and Martin Luther King’s struggles of nonviolence succeeded mainly because the establishments against which they were directed – the British and United States governments – were fairly tolerant and valued democratic principles highly as illustrated above. Advocates of nonviolence have argued that many critics of nonviolence focus their criticism on the moral justifications for nonviolence while neglecting to examine the practical and political advantages of nonviolence as a technique for social struggle. Some critics falsely tend to ignore the historical success of nonviolence against dictators and repressive governments. The specific criticism that nonviolence is a form of passivity can be countered by noting that successful nonviolent campaigns have often centered around actively depriving a ruling regime of financial income as in Gandhi's breaking of the salt tax, or the cooperation necessary to run industrial infrastructure as in Lech Walesa’s Poland. In this context, nonviolence can be viewed as a form of attack on the command structure of a government or regime, rather than upon its personnel. Gandhi made it clear that he did not assume any compassion or sense of justice on the part of his adversaries. His philosophy of nonviolence focused almost entirely on the changes that the oppressed should make in their behavior. According to him, whatever changes the oppressor makes are beyond the control of the oppressed. Therefore, the moral or immoral qualities of the oppressor are quite irrelevant. Gandhi also made it clear that the value of nonviolence is not primarily in its ability to achieve political change. Therefore, he argued that those who criticize it for its lack of practical efficacy are judging it by the wrong criteria. The controversial democratic peace theory states that liberal democracies have Democratic seldom if ever made war on one another. It has also been argued that relatively rapid Peace Theory growth in the number of democratic states will in the not so distant future end violence and warfare. In some cases, it is possible that committing an act of violence might actually prevent further acts of violence and reduce the 'net-sum' of violence. This argument against pacifism hinges on the idea that the ends justify the means. For example, military action to end a dictator's violent oppression may save millions of lives, even if many thousands die in the armed struggle. If the Nazis had not been challenged militarily, the argument goes, many more would have died under their oppressive rule. Central to this belief is the idea that there are evil people in the world and violent conflict is sometimes inevitable and even obligatory. Edmund Burke captured this sentiment in his famous quote "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing about it." Pacifists retort that the 'something' good men must do need not necessarily be violent. Before we conclude this chapter, it may be pertinent to note that a series of studies have confirmed that like us, apes other humanoids possess a sense of compassion, benevolence and care for their fellow beings. The beginnings of morality are evident already in primate behavior. Thus chimpanzees, which cannot swim, have drowned in zoo moats trying to save others. Given the chance to get food by pulling a chain that would also deliver an electric shock to a companion, rhesus monkeys have starved themselves for several Nonviolence days. Biologists argue that these and other social behaviors are the precursors of human & Ethics In Humanoids 66 morality. If ethics and morality are matters of biological evolution, then there is as much biological necessity involved in ethics and morals as well as in violence and nonviolence. The brain has a genetically shaped mechanism for acquiring moral rules - a universal moral grammar similar to the neural equipment for learning languages. Basic emotions such as love and hate are controlled in a particular part of the brain. This part, called the limbic system is present in all mammals. Of these emotions, sentiments such as compassion, shame and guilt, are apparently common only to a smaller group of species, and are regulated in the part called the pre-frontal cortex. It seems that among the primates, the pre-frontal cortex is much bigger in humans than in the great apes or monkeys. But the very fact that it is present in primates would mean that the stirrings of ethics and morality go back to several millions of years in our evolutionary history, starting with the monkeys or perhaps with species that evolved even earlier. Ethics and morality have obviously grown out of primate social necessity. The so-called alpha male in a chimpanzee group or a gorilla band might exert command not only through physical size and brute force, but also by using fair play and principles of justice. The only difference may be that we humans enforce ethical and moral codes much more rigorously with rewards, punishments and reputation building. It may also be noted that there is wide variation in behavior between individuals of the same species. Jane Goodal has described how one of the female chimpanzees she studied was the epitome of motherhood while another was a callous and uncaring mother. Such compassion among animals is not only towards their own kind but also towards other species. Though cats and dogs are mortal enemies by nature, there are female dogs that take good care of kittens and female cats that take care of pups. Man is no different. Characteristics such as a propensity to love or hatred, to morality or immorality, to violence and nonviolence and so on vary greatly from man to man and woman to woman. What is more, these same individual inclinations vary from time to time in the same man or woman. A man who is quite placid by nature may take everyone by surprise by flying into a fit of rage at the slightest of provocations. In conclusion, we can say that both violent and nonviolent tactics are natural to man and have been effective though outcomes from violence have been more dramatic. The critical factor that might decide the success or failure of a struggle depends on many variables. Thus Kerala State in India was the first in the world to have a democratically elected communist government in 1957, and was able to bring about revolutionary land reforms in Kerala, which in turn prompted other states of the Indian democracy to follow suit. Naxalites and Maoists who plumbed for armed revolutions in the subcontinent have not been anywhere as nearly effective in bringing about social change as democracy was in Kerala. On the other hand, in states that were tardy in effecting land reforms, violent Maoist struggles are the order of the day. It is one such armed struggle that put paid to the change of government in Nepal, though peaceful protests also played their part there. As Kennedy put it, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” There are daily and even hourly reports of crimes and mindless violence. This gives us the impression that violence is the natural approach of human beings to resolution of conflicts. Novels and movies confirm this impression. Indeed, we do have our streak of inherent violence as reported. However, in coming to the conclusion that violence is inherent in man we fail to realize that for every incidence of violence there are millions of incidents of peace and cooperation. These are not reported because nonviolence is the more natural way of human beings than violence. Violent activities are reported more often because they are far more atypical than nonviolent activities and so more spectacular. We can term nonviolence as our constructive nature and violence as our destructive nature. The very fact that in spite of our seemingly violent history we have made considerable constructive progress on all fronts points to the irrefutable truth that by nature we are more constructive and nonviolent rather than destructive and violent. As illustrated, violence is dramatic and so is reported in the media and taken note of by historians. Long stretches of constructive cooperation between bouts of violence are less dramatic and get barely mentioned in the media and the history books though they have a far more vital impact on human progress. Nonviolence is as common as dogs biting men, whereas violence is as newsworthy as a man biting a dog. According to Wikipedia the online encyclopedia, in 1989 thirteen nations comprising over 1,695,000,000 people experienced nonviolent revolutions that succeeded beyond anyone's wildest expectations. If we add all the countries touched by major nonviolent actions in this century and the last as in India, the Philippines, South Africa the figure reaches 3,337,400,000, a staggering 65% of humanity! All this is in the face of the assertion, endlessly repeated, that nonviolence does not work in the real world. After all 67 it seems that empathy, nonviolence and mutual cooperation are far more characteristic of our human nature than hatred, violence and destruction.
“ An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth will soon make the world blind and toothless” Mahatma Gandhi
68
Chapter Three
Pavlov’s Dogs - Parental and Social Conditioning
“There is none so blind as he who refuses to see and there is none so deaf as he who refuses to hear” Proverb
ric Berne, the father of Transactional Analysis (TA), an important discipline in modern psychology, was counseling a lawyer. At one point of treatment the lawyer said, “Right now I feel like a child." EHis words and posture resembled those of a child. As a result, the treatment began to center on the question: “Who is talking now, the lawyer or the little boy?” Six months later Berne found a third character lurking in the lawyer who was much like the lawyer’s own father, a parental person who was sometimes patronizing, but more often critical.
PARENT, ADULT & CHILD: Eric Berne had stumbled upon the three distinct components of every personality. He called them the Parent, Adult and Child. We too shall use these same terms beginning with capital letters for the psychic components of our personality, and those in small letters for the real parent, adult and child. The Parent is made up of the mental recordings we put together when we were infants and little children, messages from our real parents and parental figures. We accepted these messages without any question, as we were not in a position to analyze or edit these messages or to censor the powerful people we depended on for our very existence. We trusted them completely, implicitly. Whatever they did and said were OK. The child imbibed their messages, their gestures, their tastes and their accents. Later on teachers, priests, politicians, the media, colleagues and other surrogate parents took on Parental roles, instilling into us all kinds of knowledge and information - most of them quite useful, much that is irrelevant and some that are absolutely dangerous. Runaway bestsellers like ‘Games People Play’ by Eric Berne, and ‘I’m OK-You’re OK’ and ‘Staying OK’ both by Amy and Dr. Thomas Harris provide excellent readings in this context of our transactional components called Parent, Adult and Child. Technology, manners, ethics, morals and other legacies, which help us get on with our lives, are thus transmitted from one generation to the next, along with routine habits of dressing, cooking, singing etc. Prejudices, superstitions, and customs like vendetta and infanticide, which are downright harmful, are also thus handed down by the Parent. All these Parental transactions need constant updating. What your real parents think and do today may not be the same as the Parent in you thinks and does. Your real parents and the Parent in you seldom conform to each other strictly or even remotely. Whether we love or hate our parents we cannot ignore them to the end of our days, and they speak to us as our conscience. These Parental messages were etched or engraved into the fresh and clean slate of our infantile minds with a sharp ‘stylus’ and are indelible and we take them to our graves. Parental messages of
69 later vintage, received from teachers, colleagues, books, the media and other Parent figures, may not be etched or engraved as indelibly and are often easily overwritten or forgotten. The Parent in you is unique and contributes significantly to the fact that in life no two personalities are completely identical. Although you had the same father as your brother or sister, the two of you have imbibed different aspects of the same parent. From our distinctive Parent come vast data, which influence our decision making process throughout our lives. The Parent in its turn has two components. The first component is drawn directly from our real parents and their contemporaries. This component transmits mainly technology, skills, practical Parent & knowledge and activities related to our daily economic chores, activities intended to get the Patriarch maximum or optimum efficiencies. Such knowledge changes with time and from generation to generation. The Parent also passes on, almost unedited, much information from their own parents and their own societies. We may call this component of the Parent, The Patriarch. The Patriarch represents traditions, values, patterns of behavior, tastes in music and food, dogmas, taboos and knowledge peculiar to each society, which we call culture or heritage. The Patriarchal component takes generations and centuries for the most minute of changes. At about ten months of age or earlier, we begin to move around and to explore our environment and to make our own evaluations of the world around us. This process goes on through our school, our workplace and the whole of our lives. We form our subjective opinions of the world around us as distinct from those imbibed from our Parents. This component of personality, built up from our own view of the world and everything in it is called the Adult. It is rational, objective and knowledgeable about what is best under any situation. It has no pride or prejudice. It has neither slogans nor rhetoric. It just wants to get on with life and knows that creating win-win situations is the only way to get on with our contemporaries. Our Adult knows that the cooperation and goodwill of others will stand us in good stead. The first component of the Parent, discussed above, the component that transmits economic knowledge, technology and skills, is our parents' Adult. This component may be called the Adult-Parent or the AP component. This AP component often rationalizes along the same lines as our own Adult. Since the AP and the Adult are often in agreement, we will use the term Adult for both the Adult and the AP. The Child is the fundamental and existential you. The Child is the essence of our personality and is only aware of its wants and needs. It, especially the male, may even have a streak of violence in it. The Child is also a fine connoisseur of arts, music, games, food and all that is good in this world. It is also a crass criminal. But the Child is unsure, timid and insecure. So it has to seek counsel from the Patriarch or the Adult, and the manifest personality of a man depends on which of his personality components he listens to most of the time, especially when the Patriarch and the Adult have opposing views. A person who is conformist and dogmatically pro-establishment has a dominant Patriarch. One who is rational in his actions has dominant Adult and AP components, and a man who is irrational and irresponsible has a dominant Child. All our thinking consists of processing data available. Such data can be divided into the vertical and the horizontal. Vertical data consists of information transferred from one generation to the next. Horizontal data on the other hand is information garnered from contemporary sources such as libraries, the media, and peers and so on and so forth. In the past most of the data available was vertical as in most animal societies. With the explosion of communications, information technology and the Internet, horizontal data has acquired significance by its sheer volume and content. However the vertical data – the Parental and Patriarchal transactions – play significant parts in that all horizontal data is filtered through the vertical data in a sort of censorship. The vertical transactions are like the operating system of computers in that these transactions have profound effects on all future horizontal transactions of the individual. This is called conditioning of which we shall see later in more detail.
THE THIRD WAVE: In the introductory chapter to this book I have explained how the bestseller, ‘The Third Wave’ by Alvin Toffler has exerted considerable influence on this work. According to Toffler, man’s economic development came in three waves which he called the First Second and Third Waves to refer respectively to the agrarian, industrial and digital ways of life – each wave surpassing the previous wave by quantum leaps in economic productivity and efficiency. We also saw how all our social institutions such as 70 family, state and private property, and our relationships with each other as well as our sense of ethics and morals changed in tune with our economic activities. These waves brought about momentous changes that swayed humanity like reeds in a storm. Chairman Mao might have termed these waves as 'The Great Leaps Forward'. In the original nomadic state, which we will term Original State, man lived almost like any other animal- hunting, gathering, scavenging, scrounging and surviving on the brink. He moved around in small groups, bands or communities - most of them matriarchal. He had only his own energy of metabolism to drive his hunting-gathering activities and to get on with his instincts of procreation. Later on he developed the most rudimentary of tools to magnify his own puny muscle power. Then man settled down to a pastoral-agricultural way of life. He tamed animals, and their energy augmented his own energy to plough the land and to transport him and his produces. Man settled down in villages and towns. Marriage was instituted and families as we know them today came into existence. Kingdoms and empires rose up and so did the great religions of the world. This age was also characterized by such social evils as slavery, the feudal and caste systems, and the establishment of nobility and the priesthood. Man’s lot improved with the Agrarian Wave, and yet it depended much on the vagaries of nature. Life was marginal survival and a notch better than in the Original State. The Industrial Wave in contrast was driven by the huge machines, which in turn were fuelled by fossil fuels like coal and petroleum. Metabolic energies- human and animal- played insignificant parts in the Industrial Wave. One of the intrinsic differences between the undeveloped Agrarian Wave economies and the developed Industrial Wave economies lies in the use of energy. Primitive economies depend mainly on limited metabolic energies of man and animal, while developed economies have huge machines and associated technologies that convert almost unlimited amounts of fossil fuel into useful energy. With the use of these fuel guzzling vehicles and machinery, each man in the developed economies is able to produce many times as much as a man using his own and/or animal muscle power. A man in a developed economy is thus able to enjoy or consume the fruits of his high-efficiency, technology-oriented, fossil-fuel-driven 'labor'. With the Industrial Wave, farms gave way to factories, and villages gave way to towns. Mass production was in. Even agriculture adopted Industrial Wave technologies. For the first time, man was independent of the vagaries of nature and in a position to pursue his own destiny - whatever that term may mean. There was surplus all around and the ordinary Industrial Wave man was much better off in his concrete apartment than “Solomon in all his glory." In the beginning of the Industrial Wave, the economy was in the seller’s market and production-based. But competition hotted up with the Industrial Wave surplus, the economy became market-oriented and moved into the buyer’s market. This hectic economic activity in turn gave rise to democracy and the nation states. Joint families broke down into nuclear ones and divorces came at the drop of a hat. The Industrial Wave was also characterized by communism, democracy, women’s rights, socialism, state welfare, etc. Finally came the Digital wave of information technology, driven by the ubiquitous chip. Whereas in the previous waves animal power and fossil power were used to overcome man’s physical limitations, in the Digital wave it is man's cerebral functions, which are magnified in accuracy and speed by the minute chip. Data storage, recall and processing as well as decision-making methods and communication, gained dizzying speeds and greater accuracy. Decisions that would have taken months or years in the earlier waves could now be taken by the click of a 'mouse' and with much greater accuracy and reliability. Communication barriers broke down one by one, and it is now often far quicker to speak on the mobile to a man thousands of miles away than to speak to your own wife, moving around in the backyard or the kitchen. We are yet to comprehend all the implications that this Digital wave has in store for us, and for our economic, social and political institutions. These three waves had profound changes on humanity, both as individuals and as social beings.
LAMINAR AND TURBULENT FLOWS: If we take a bowl of still water and drop inks of different colors into it at different points with a dropper, the colors will flow down without much mingling. We may call this linear flow. Now if we churn another bowl of clear water at a very low speed and drop inks of different colors at different depths, the colors flow along with the water as tinted ribbons without much mixing. This is
71 called laminar flow, in fluid mechanics. As we churn the water more and more vigorously, there comes a point when the different colors mix almost instantaneously on dropping them. This is called turbulent flow. Humanity is like that water in the bowl. In the Original State men lived in isolated hunting- gathering communities with little or no interaction with other men. A man’s range of operations extended to a radius of about 50 Km, depending on the resources of the land that supported him. He met a maximum of about hundred total strangers in all his lifetime. Ideas and technologies took ages to diffuse from one community to another and were limited by man’s own speed of running and by his frequency of meeting others. Linear flow conditions prevailed. Suspicion and distrust of strangers was a universal trait. The shaman reigned supreme. Prostitution is said to be the oldest profession in the world. Prostitution became a profession only when marriage became an institution. Apart from the natural division of labor along sex lines, the profession Oldest of the Shaman or the witch doctor is the first form of functional specialization. The shaman Profession combined the function of the priest and the doctor. Often he also functioned as the judge. Specialists like farmers, blacksmiths and carpenters came later, much later. In time, the profession of the witch doctor or shaman was bifurcated to those of the priest and the doctor. The function of the judge was also bifurcated to that of the judge and the lawyer. In the Agrarian Wave, man moved into permanent or semi-permanent villages. Though still much isolated from each other, communities began to have greater and greater interaction. Laminar-flow conditions were in. There were much more intermingling and exchange of ideas than in the Original State. The speed of the horse or the sailing ship became the limiting factor for the maximum possible speed of such diffusion and dissemination of technology and ideas. The great religions of the world and schools of philosophy spread across the Agrarian Wave world slowly but steadily. Yet, primitive suspicion and distrust lingered. He-who-is-not-with-me was against me. Villages were homogeneous in character. Few men traveled more than 100 km from home. Man lived in ignorance and superstition. Dogmas, gods, priests and nobles had the last say in all matters. Since there was homogeneity and since laminar flow conditions prevailed, there were few conflicts over ideas and dogmas, except at border areas where conflicting ideas and other factors led to ethnic flare-ups. The Industrial Wave brought turbulent flow conditions into prominence. The industrial revolution had its origin in Italy and spread to the countries of Western Europe. With their better technologies and organizing power, the Industrial Wave forces were able to subdue the Agrarian Wave and Original State civilizations and to colonize them. The train, the ship and the telegraph were the three main implements that churned up humanity into turbulent speeds. Ideas, sane and insane, serious and ridiculous, sacred and profane flew thick and fast. Homogeneity gave way to heterogeneity. Dogmas and prejudices gave way to science and tolerance. Or did they? We do not know much about the political structure in the Original State. Members of a nomadic band depend on each other for survival and equality came naturally. Original State is perhaps the most democratic of setups in human history and women often had more rights than men, especially in the matriarchal system, which is the natural system among the social animals. In the Agrarian Wave, accumulation of wealth became a prime activity. As a result, inequality was most conspicuous in the Agrarian Wave. Humanity was stratified as never before or after. At one end of the spectrum there was the emperor with absolute power of life and death over his subjects and at the other end there was the slave with no rights whatsoever, and women were little better off than slaves or chattels. Dynasties lasted for centuries together and so did most institutions of the Agrarian Wave. With the Industrial Wave and under turbulent flow conditions, transience set in. In his bestseller Future Shock, Alvin Toffler describes the trauma that we endure today due to the rapidity of changes that has taken over modern life. In the past waves, things remained the same for centuries and the same remedies were resorted to for the same problems. These remedies were prescribed by the elders in the society with the full authority of their lessons of experience. With the bubbles of transience and change, past experiences were of little or no use in resolving new problems. Things were no more in black and white; colors and hues of all kinds crept into the mosaic of modern life, leaving us bewildered and perplexed. In these bubbles of change democracy became a religion. The rich grew richer and the poor also grew richer. Business tycoons became the new monarchs of the Industrial Wave. Multinational industrial concerns ruled the roost. Later, with the Digital wave, transience became even more pronounced. If Agrarian Wave institutions lasted for 72 centuries and Industrial Wave institutions lasted for only a few decades, Digital wave institutions can hardly be expected to last for more than a decade or two. Bill Gates of Microsoft says he will consider himself incredibly lucky if he can maintain Microsoft’s present top ranking in software for another twenty-five years. Mind-boggling transience is the most permanent feature of the present age. After the World War II, most of the erstwhile colonies became independent and groped their way to a better future. The discovery of petroleum in the Arab peninsula put enormous resources into the hands of an Agrarian Wave civilization, which was not competent enough to cope with and to manage these enormous resources and money. For the first time people of different beliefs, perceptions and inclinations, which were often incompatible with each other, came into close proximity, thanks to the prevailing turbulent flow conditions of supersonic travel and instantaneous communications. Sparks were bound to fly. Energy is required for blending things. Maybe it goes for populations too. But this energy has to be dissipated and may be, the present conflicts, we see in the world today, are forms of dissipation of social energy involved in merging disparate populations.
THE 3-IN-1 PHENOMENON: We started out this chapter with the three transactional components of our personality – Parent, Adult and Child. Let us now consider these transactional components in the light of the three economic waves described above. In the Original State, age was respected. All knowledge was transferred orally from generation to generation and knowledge was reckoned to be proportional to age and experience. The elders knew what food to eat in a particular season and where and when to find them. They knew about the water holes and the herbal cures and how to get at them and to process them. They knew about the ways of the forests and of exploiting natural resources. They also had more contacts with adjoining bands of people and knew how best to deal with them. In animal societies too things are much the same. The matriarch in a herd of elephants is most respected for her knowledge of economic relevance. She knows better than anyone in the herd, where and when to find food and water in the various seasons of the year, how to guard against attacks from other animals, and how to give effective leadership of economic relevance. However, elders whether human or animal were cared for only as long as they did not become long-term economic liabilities. When they were too old to travel with the community they were left to their own devices. Among some of the Amerindians, it was the practice to leave the old and infirm by the wayside with supplies and provisions, which would sometimes last but often did not, till the tribe returned the same way again in its wanderings. Old men and women were also often put out to sea in canoes filled with provisions and an aura of heroism, elegance or sanctity was attached to the practice. However, the stark reality was the economic 'impotence' as it were, of the tribe. When an elephant or an ape is too old to keep up with the herd, it goes away of its own or is left behind to fend for itself. Life and economic-feasibility factors always have predominance over respect, love and other so called noble sentiments. We preach state welfare, care for the aged, the sick and the weaker sections of the society and other noble ideals only because we can afford them with our present-day high- efficiency economy. Our forefathers a thousand or even a hundred years ago could not afford such idealistic luxuries as care for the aged. Compared to the Original State, economic factors had even more relevance in the Agrarian Wave with regard to interpersonal relationships. Agriculture and pasturing require far more complex knowledge and technology than hunting and gathering. You had to know when to plant what and in what way, how to water the crops, what seed to select and what to reject and a thousand chores associated with the Agrarian Wave. For an illiterate people, word of mouth was the only way economically useful knowledge could be disseminated. Again, as in the Original State, age and experience were of great advantage to the community at large. Elders and their knowledge and wisdom were respected and the patriarchs and matriarchs were obeyed without question for their economic worth. In primitive and Agrarian Wave societies, one’s reasoning faculties were formed mostly from the real parents and Parental figures. Moreover, in such societies, the Patriarch and the Adult were almost inextricably entwined. It was a matter of survival to respect and obey the elders implicitly and unconditionally. An inquiring mind meant trouble, and dissent was discouraged, as it meant avoidable and futile delays. Unquestioned acquiescence and conformity were virtues. You had to trust your elders in everything they told you. Along with all the useful information thus handed down came legends, myths, superstitions, taboos, prejudices, traditions and a host of other ethnic factors and trappings. No one was in a 73 position to question the Patriarch or to validate Patriarchal assertions. However, it did not matter much, since laminar conditions prevailed and the community as a whole had much the same knowledge and beliefs. A strong Patriarchal component paid handsome economic dividends. In the laminar homogeneous societies there were no conflicts over dogmas or superstitions. The priests had the last word in all matters. As Robert Green Ingersoll says on his website, in those 'hallowed' days the priests knew everything. They knew all about God, salvation and damnation. We have a saying in Malayalam "In the land of the blind the cross-eyed one is king." In the vast oceans of illiteracy, the priests knew at least how to read the sacred texts. Whatever the priests and the powers that be, told the masses was the absolute and eternal truth. All else was anathema, heresy, or apostasy. Therefore, God commanded Adam and Eve not to eat the fruits of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The reward for blind belief and unquestioning acquiescence was eternal bliss, whereas eternal fire and damnation awaited dissent and an inquiring mind. In the Agrarian Wave, the elders had total control over the main factors of production - land and cattle. This contributed to their authority in no mean measure, and the youngsters and especially the women had to kow-tow to the elders. It was this patriarchal control of the factors of production and economic knowledge that held the joint families together. With the Industrial Wave, land and cattle were not of as much consequence as a factor of production as they used to be in the Agrarian Age, whereas labor-based value addition came to the forefront as a factor production. Labor is an intrinsic and inseparable part of the individual, and consequently personal human rights evolved into a significant factor in Industrial societies. As a result, the individual grew independent of the family and the patriarch. This also led to the disintegration of the joint families. The nuclear families stepped into the vacuum left by the joint families as a poor substitute. What is more, in the Industrial Wave, things turned on their heads. Age and experience were no more advantageous from the economic point of view. On the other hand, age and its inflexibility proved obvious liabilities. New discoveries were made by the day and the hour, and the younger generation was in a better position to absorb these changes than the older generation. In addition, schools, libraries and teachers took over the role of parents and parental figures as the source of all forms of knowledge. Elders had little to contribute to the new wave economy. They became liabilities in the nuclear families and were relegated to homes and institutions, built for them. This process has become even more pronounced in the Digital wave or the computer-driven modern age, when the real parents often have to consult their better- informed sons and daughters on many matters of economic relevance, such as the best ways of making investments. Like any boy of nine, my nephew Allen stayed glued to the cartoon channels as soon as he got back from school. At times his mother commandeered the remote control to watch her favorite program - one of those soap serials. One day and for many days thereafter she could not get her channel and she thought it was some technical snag and left it at that. Later on it was found that Allen had ‘child-locked’ his mother out of her channel. At such times, and they are common, it becomes difficult to make out who is the child and who is the parent. Children absorb modern technologies much faster than adults. Contrary to conditions in the Original State and the Agrarian Wave, age, experience and their inflexibility are liabilities in the technology- driven Industrial and Digital waves. It is a matter of time when forty will be too old for technical matters and those over forty will be relegated to personnel management and public relations.
PATRIARCHAL CONFUSION: With the Industrial Wave and the 'industrialization' of education, schools and colleges became accessible to more and more of the population and this formal education played a large part in shaping our rational faculties. Consequently, the Patriarch and the Adult grew increasingly distinct, sometimes in agreement and sometimes at odds with each other. The Patriarch seeks total acquiescence whereas the Adult is always skeptical. The modern Child is often confused at the internal dissidence between his Patriarch and Adult, which has come in the wake of formal schooling. Society is no longer as homogeneous as it used to be in the Original State or the Agrarian Wave. People of wide ranging ethnic diversity or of incompatible Parental components, live side by side and the natural confusion and insecurity of the Child have become even more pronounced. This is even more so where or when people with Agrarian Wave parents of disparate and incompatible ideas and dogmas and with centuries-old mutual suspicions and prejudices, find themselves living or working in close proximity. Many of the Third World cities are facing this scenario now. Besides, close proximity does not have to be physical any more in this age of mobile phones and the Internet. How do we sort things out? 74 Let us analyze the situation objectively - like an Adult. The Child - everyone’s - is uniformly childish and is interested only in its own needs, fears and security. Seldom can it make any decision on its own. Instead, it has to consult the Adult or Parent. The Child is virtually harmless except in the case of born criminals. Let us now consider the Adult. The Adult is almost clinically objective. All of us have much the same basic interests and wants, irrespective of our different ethnic backgrounds. In the inside of our insides we know what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is bad. Therefore, our Adults are seldom in disagreement or in conflict with each other. Even when there is conflict, the Adult is willing to negotiate, to settle the differences and to reach win-win situations. A mature Adult cannot lead us to a dangerous situation of conflict and confrontation. The Adult would rather have consensus and cooperation. Let us now examine the last component, the Parent, the inflexible component that demands unquestioning acquiescence, in the context of the Industrial and Digital waves. It is in our Parent, especially in its Patriarchal component, that we differ most from each other. This is especially so when our real parents and the Patriarch inside happen to be from the laminar Agrarian Wave. These, our Parental or Patriarchal components, may come from very different and often mutually incompatible ethnic backgrounds. If we obey unquestioningly the Patriarch inside us, it can only lead to conflicts, and if we disobey our internal Patriarch we feel guilty. We have seen how the Patriarch was not only harmless but also quite useful in the laminar societies of the Agrarian Wave and how blind obedience paid rich dividends. However, under our present day turbulent-flow social conditions, whatever the Patriarch tells us should be taken with a pinch of salt. We have to first make sure whether the Parental counsel would solve problems or only aggravate them and create new problems all around - a lose-lose situation - as it is in many parts of the world today. Cries of they-and-us, patriotism, crusades and jihads are Patriarchal slogans and rhetoric that can only lead to conflicts. Whatever counsel the Patriarch might give, the final decision should be taken by the Adult in you. In that alone do we have salvation in this fast-changing, turbulent world of confusion and change. The Patriarch and his traditions die hard. With a little Adult flexibility and rationality the Patriarch can be laid to rest without rancor, without guilt feeling. The Patriarch is always cocksure of his assertions, however ridiculous they may sound to an outsider. On the other hand, incessant doubts nag the Adult. Nevertheless doubt and confusion are the beginnings of wisdom. Only a man who thinks things out can be confused. According to Nobel Laureate Richard P. Feynman, it is the admission of ignorance, uncertainty and the possibility of our being in the wrong that can lead to win-win situations. Patriarchal dogmas and doctrines whether political, religious or economic, do not make such admissions of the possibility of being fallible and so cannot build win-win relationships. Dogmatic issues can be resolved only on the battlefield. Unlike the Adult, the Patriarch is never in doubt or confusion and has ‘surefire solutions’ to all problems. Whether they solve the problem or aggravate the situation is another matter. Though the Patriarch and the Adult have become distinct in the modern age of formal schooling and mass media, the real parents still retain considerable influence over the child’s pre-school days when the child is most impressionable. Many of the scripts written into the child’s clean slate of mind remain with him throughout his life, however hard he may try to erase or to modify them. This confounds things especially when the parents involved are from the emerging and illiterate 'Agrarian Wave' economies of the world. As the child begins to move around, he is likely to be controlled by commands such as “Don’t touch that knife!,” “Don’t go near that wire!” and “Don’t put it into your mouth!” The child does not understand the rationale behind such commands. Some of the messages thus encrypted are often confusing: “Come quickly! Don’t run or you will fall!” Nevertheless, he dares not or do not question such Parental commands, as his reasoning faculties are not developed enough. Besides, he has no reason to Confusion question his parents who provide him with the ultimate in safety and nourishment. But the child never forgets. Later on come even more confusing signals from his parents. They declare that money is a bad thing and commercialism and profiteering are abominable. Nevertheless, the child hears his parents talk incessantly of making money and more money. He also understands that success is what his parents want from him, and that success in the normal sense means money.
75 The growing child often hears his parents preaching about love and brotherhood and then sees them quarrel and fight with their own siblings, even over trivial things. He also hears speeches on how all are children of God and yet finds discrimination on every possible ground. The child is confused with these contradictions between the explicit and implicit parental messages; and a child never forgets. This patriarchal confusion is best illustrated by the conflicting sayings and proverbs – Patriarchal guidelines - listed hereunder:- A hollow pot makes the most noise. / The squeaky wheel gets the grease. A rolling stone gathers no moss. / A setting hen never lays. A silent man is a wise one. / A man without words is a man without thoughts. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. / Out of sight, out of mind. Actions speak louder than words. / The pen is mightier than the sword. Bear ye one another's burdens. (Gal. 6:2) / For every man shall bear his own burden. (Gal. 6:5) Better to ask the way than to go astray. / Ask no questions and hear no lies. Beware of Greeks bearing gifts. / Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Clothes make the man. / Don't judge a book by its cover. / All that glitters is not gold. Cross your bridges when you come to them. / Forewarned is forearmed. / Look before you leap. Everything comes to him who waits. / He who hesitates is lost Faint hearts never won fair lady. / The meek shall inherit the Earth. Great minds run in the same channel. / Fools think alike. Haste makes waste / A stitch in time save nine / Time and tide wait for no man / Strike while the iron is hot. Look before you leap. / Everything comes to him who waits./ He who hesitates is lost. Many hands make light work. / Two heads are better than one. / Too many cooks spoil the broth. Never do evil that good may come of it. / The end justifies the means. Never too old to learn. / You can't teach an old dog new tricks. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. / Luck favors the brave / Better safe than sorry / Look before you leap. One man's meat is another man's poison. / Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Opposites attract. / Birds of a feather flock together. Save for a rainy day. / Tomorrow will take care of itself. Seek and ye shall find. / Curiosity killed the cat. The best things in life are free. / You get what you pay for. / There is nothing like a free meal. The bigger, the better. / The best things come in small packages. The more, the merrier. / Two's company; three's a crowd. There is nothing permanent except change. / There is nothing new under the sun. To thine own self be true. / The nail that stands out gets hammered down. Variety is the spice of life. / Don't change horses in the middle of a stream. What will be, will be. / Life is what you make of it. With age comes wisdom. / Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings come all wise sayings. Well begun is half done / All is well that ends well
It is confusion and chaos all around. In addition to this confusion, guilt complexes also come into the picture. Our parents were liberal with their censures and frugal with their praises, just as their own parents were, just as we are. During infancy and childhood and even up to adolescence we are told “No! Don’t do that” hundreds of thousands of times - in his book ‘What to say when you talk to himself’, Shad Helmsmaster has estimated the frequencies of the Nos and Don’ts at 148000 times. To me 148000 times is a gross underestimation. In advanced and educated societies, the estimate may be a good approximation. But in more primitive Agrarian Wave societies, the No! thunders far more often and would probably be ten times or more as often as in the advanced society of Helmsmaster. In contrast, words of approval and praise are seldom spoken, if they are spoken at all, and then almost inaudibly for fear that praises would ‘go to the head’ of the child. Again, there is a difference between advanced and primitive societies, but in the opposite direction. Educated societies are far more liberal – 'less frugal' might be the right term - with praise than Agrarian Wave societies. 76 The relentless and inconsistent commands, the confusing signals and the confounding messages from the Patriarch give rise to a primordial guilt complex. This leads to the “You’re-OK, I’m-not-OK” syndrome, especially vis-à-vis the Parent. The concept of original sin must have arisen from the guilt complexes originating from the harangues we received in our infancy and childhood. Neither baptism nor any other initiation ceremony can really mitigate these guilt complexes born of the contrary and confusing messages, and the thundering ‘No’ s we faced in our infancy and childhood. However as Thomas S. Szasz put it “A child becomes an adult when he realizes that he has a right not only to be right but also to be wrong.” As long as we fear the Parent irrationally we are nothing more than children. In addition to the confusion and the guilt complexes, a third factor we learn early on is the relevance of violence. Our parents extol nonviolence but often resort to violence themselves. 'Spare the rod and spoil the child' is a Patriarchal maxim that is the basic cause of all the violence we see in the world. It leads to the universal, subconscious concept that all issues in the world can be resolved by violence and by violence alone. As a result, the society we live in depends much on violence, though this violence comes in the respectable uniforms of the police and the army. The belief that violence can solve all problems is perhaps the most universal and common facet of all cultures and societies. (This aspect has been discussed also in the foregoing chapter on violence) Thus along with the useful knowledge and technology as well as arts, culture, cuisine and other cultural traits peculiar to a society, the Patriarch also transmits confusing signals, guilt complexes, a belief in violence as well as traditions, taboos, prejudices and other factors that make up every day life. However educated a man is, the Parental indoctrinations thus instilled into him in his preschool days form the natural, innate and subconscious psychic platform or operating system for all his future thoughts and actions. They are these conditioned thoughts and actions that first come spontaneously to him in any situation. These impulsive reactions can often be disastrous to the individual concerned as well as to the society at large. Therefore, before making any significant decision, it is imperative that we tune in to our subconscious spontaneous thoughts, become aware of them and modify or Adultify them if needed, so that our decisions are optimal in any situation.
PARENT AND SURROGATE PARENTS: In the Original State and the Agrarian Wave, many of the problems, such as droughts and pests, wars and pestilence were common to the society at large, and common solutions could often be found to common problems. At worst, the whole community suffered and there was camaraderie in the suffering. The industrial age turned things upside down as unitary or nuclear families evolved in response to the economic needs of the times. It meant everyone had to fend for himself without the support of the joint families of the agrarian age. The state has come in to fill this vacuum to some extent. Where the state is not in a position to help us out, the individual is left to his own devices. The Child's feeling of insecurity becomes much more pronounced in the resulting loneliness of the modern age. Movies like ‘Spartacus’ and ‘The Gladiator’ depict slaves as being incarcerated in well-fortified dungeons. It is far more expensive to build such dungeons to hold prisoners than to build luxurious mansions. Ordinary slaves were not worth the expense involved in building such secure prisons. What is more, slaves were kept for working on the farms where it was impossible to confine them. This means that if they really wanted to, the salves could run away easily. Nonetheless, few ran away for the simple reason that it was not worth the trouble. For one thing, in those days of scarcity the slaves were not that worse off than their masters who were often marginal farmers. What is more, the general notion that slaves were not taken care of goes against simple logic. We take good care our cattle, because only well-fed cattle give good yields. In like manner, the slaves were also well taken care of for getting maximum returns. Another reason why the slaves did not run away was fear of alienation. A run-away slave was left to his own devices and totally cut off from familiar surroundings, relatives and people at the master’s farm. Such an eventuality of total alienation was far more forbidding than the life of a slave, however precarious it was. Modern man also lives the life of a run-away slave, totally cut off from the familiar settings of his secure childhood and entirely on his own in a world teeming with people as lonely and forlorn as he is. A most significant factor that contributes to modern day blues and the feeling of anxiety is the lack of personal zones. Psychologists have dealt on this factor at length. In the primitive and agrarian societies, man had lots of space to move in. Few strangers came your way and anyone who came upon you suddenly startled you. Strangers came through introductions by people known to you or the approach by strangers was 77 so slow and casual that it gave you time to organize yourselves for the tryst. What is more, whatever strangers came your way often looked, sounded, smelled and acted much like your own folks. On the other hand, in the modern waves totally strange looking strangers – people of different colors and bizarre customs - drop in on you from the blue in an aerodrome or from a crowded railway coach, shuffling and jostling you in the process. Suspicion is more natural than trust to all animals including man, and all this jostling and bustling and the lack of a personal zone does get on your nerves. So do the high decibel screeching sounds and other factors that man is ill equipped to handle. This alienation in a modern crowded city does indeed precipitate your woes of loneliness and insecurity. Furthermore, in the past we lived in small societies, which were often insulated from each other due to the prevailing primitive conditions of communication and transport. Quakes have been rocking the Rockies and typhoons have been hitting Bangladesh regularly for hundreds of thousands of years. Most of the world lived in blissful ignorance of such far-away disasters. Diseases and plagues of every kind decimated populations everywhere. But the people unaffected by it, remained unaware of them. There were wars and crimes as much or more per head in the good old days. But those untouched by them seldom came to know of them. Mass media and communications have changed all that. Even a rumble, accident or skirmish, thousands of miles away, is immediately broadcast right into our living rooms. There is better disaster management now, there are fewer diseases now, the law and order situation is better than ever before. Nonetheless, from the hour-by-hour reports it would seem that there are more crimes, diseases and disasters now than in the past. These regular reports of doom and gloom exacerbate and accentuate our feeling of insecurity and vulnerability. It is this utter loneliness, the feeling of vulnerability and despondency arising therefrom that modern writers like Kafka, Camus and others pictured in their celebrated works. In this insecurity and utter loneliness of the modern age, there is no better way to protection and peace than becoming our parents, who are the ultimate in security and safety as far as our Parent & Child is concerned. To ape is a term we use to ridicule the apes and highlight their supposed Security nature of irrational imitation. In real terms, no ape can come anywhere near man, when it comes to aping the parent and Parent figures. Our extraordinarily long gestation period has much to do with it. In addition, today’s media project many ‘heroes’ everyday in different fields, as worth emulating, as worth aping. By identifying with our parents and Parent figures and aping them, we assume, we are on the right track and free ourselves from fear of any admonition from our Parent. Our parents used to take us to church or temple, holding us by our hand, and telling us about the wonderful powers of God. When we reenact the same scene with our children, we identify ourselves with our parents and are at peace with our Parent component. Aping the gestures and gait of our parents are ways of identifying ourselves with our parents and of feeling more secure. It is not only the Parent or the Patriarch that conditions us. Colleagues and contemporaries as well as unusual incidents and situations condition us as demonstrated in the following experiment by British scientists. They confined eight monkeys in a room with a ladder in the middle of the room leading up to a bunch of bananas dangling from the ceiling. Every time one of the monkeys clambered up the ladder for the bananas, the others were sprayed with freezing cold water, which made them miserable. In time whenever a monkey clambered up the ladder the others pulled it down with shrieks and bites until no monkey even ventured anywhere near the ladder. One of the monkeys was then replaced by another monkey and this monkey immediately went for the ladder to the bananas. But the other monkeys ganged up on him and in time the new monkey also dared not go anywhere near the ladder. Then another monkey was replaced with a new monkey and this new monkey too encountered the same treatment and in time left the bananas alone. In time, all the monkeys were replaced by new monkeys. However, the group set upon each new comer every time it went for the bananas even though the water spraying had been discontinued. We are no different from these monkeys. We often adopt new traditions and practices in response to the extraordinary demands made upon us at a particular point in time and place. However we not only carry on with the traditions and practices even when the original situation that gave rise to the traditions is no more relevant, but also we enforce these practices and traditions on others including our posterity. What is even more astonishing is that each succeeding generation often accepts the custom or tradition thus handed down to it without questioning its relevance. Logical decisions and practices thus become dogmatic traditions and are handed down from generation to generation like a virus or like an inherited disease. Dogmas and doctrines in politics, 78 economics, religions, sex and relationships and other facets of life are thus transmitted irrationally down the generations to haunt and pester humanity.
PROPAGANDA We have seen the ways we are conditioned by our parents, peers and society. In the Original State and the Agrarian Wave, these forms of conditioning played the most important part. But with the rise of literacy and communication technology, mass media play as important a part in conditioning us as parental and peer conditioning. Political parties and religious movements use the media, especially television to beam their messages into our living rooms. As a result, propaganda and advertising have developed into an art and discipline of their own. We will discuss here some of the methods that propagandists and advertisers use in the art of persuasion. The same tricks of persuasion that are employed by mass media and advertising are also employed by the preachers and speakers from podiums and pulpits in order to bring us around to their ways of thinking. Though propaganda is an indispensable part of modern life, it is the handiest tool in the hands of charlatans and oligarchs in their effort to corner power and prestige at all costs. Let us look at how propaganda and its multifaceted components work on the human mind and condition us. The word propaganda is derived from the title and work of the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide (Congregation for Propagation of the Faith), an organization of Roman Catholic cardinals founded in 1622 to carry on missionary work. In modern parlance propaganda is the dissemination of information and misinformation - facts, arguments, rumors, half-truths, or lies- with the sole aim of controlling public opinion to desired ends. Propaganda uses symbols (words, gestures, banners, monuments, music, clothing, insignia, hairstyles, designs on coins and postage stamps, and so forth). The propagandist invariably has a specified goal or set of goals and he deliberately selects facts, arguments, and displays of symbols and presents them in ways he thinks will have the most impact. For maximum impact, the propagandist may omit pertinent facts or distort them, and he may try to divert the attention of the reactors (the people whom he is trying to sway) from everything but his own propaganda. Religions as well as political 'religions' like Nazism, Capitalism and Communism made extensive use of propaganda to condition and to program the millions to their respective agendas so that the 'faithful' would follow the leaders like dumb-driven cattle. In contrast to the propagandist the educator tries to present various aspects of an issue and analyses the pros and cons of the actions involved. Education aims to induce the reactor to collect and evaluate data Propagandist for himself, and assists him in learning the techniques for doing so. A propagandist may Vs Educator often boast that he is an educator, and that he is disseminating the absolute truth, and that it would be to the advantage of the reactor to submit wholly to him without questioning or even doubting the propagandist's authority. In addition, a reactor who is already conditioned to dogmas and doctrines may consider propaganda as education. This is the case with 'true believers' and 'submitters.' 'Education' for one person may thus be 'propaganda' for another and vice versa. Related to propaganda is the concept of 'propaganda of the deed.' This involves taking nonsymbolic action (such as economic or coercive action), not for its direct effects but for its possible propagandistic Propaganda effects. Atomic tests are thus staged to extrapolate national prestige or the public hangings Of The Deed and lynchings are orchestrated for their deterrent effect on others, or giving foreign 'economic aid' primarily to influence the recipient's opinions or actions and without much intention of building up the recipient's economy. Religions and cults now resort to the promotion of education, charitable works and healthcare to prop up their images. It has not always been so. In the past religions promoted education only in so far as it would help in propagation of religion, and few religions took up free charitable works or healthcare on any scale. Christianity is widely applauded in India for opening up educational and charitable institutions as well as healthcare centers in India. In the process, we forget that Christianity has been in India for almost two thousand years, long before it laid its roots in much of Europe, from where the missionaries came.. Yet these ancient Christians of India were no better off than their non-Christian neighbors when it came to education or health. Obviously it was not Christianity that fostered education or healthcare. Christianity began to foster education, charitable works and healthcare only after the Reformation when the various sects of Christianity began to vie with one another for a foothold on the evolving colonies, and they found promotion of education, 79 charitable works and healthcare as one of the best ways to get the goodwill of the colonized populations. Promotion of education also helped the missionaries get into the good books of the colonizers, as education meant more hands to help the colonizers in the administration of the huge territories they lorded over. Seeing the success that Christianity gained by the promotion of education and healthcare, other religions and sects have followed suit, and promotion of education, charitable works and healthcare are the most formidable weapons in their propaganda arsenal. Advertising, promotions and public relations are forms of propaganda with commercial implications though politicians also use it in times of elections. The terms 'publicity' and 'publicist' often imply merely making a subject known to a public, without educational, propagandistic, or commercial intent. Signs and symbols are simply stimuli or 'information bits' capable of stimulating, in some way, the human mind. These include sounds, such as words, music, or a 21-gun-salvo, gestures (a Signs & military salute, a thumbed nose), postures (a weary slump, folded arms, a sit-down, an Symbols aristocratic bearing), structures (a monument, a building), items of clothing (a uniform, a civilian suit), visual signs (a poster, a flag, a picket sign, a badge, a printed page, a commemorative postage stamp, a swastika scrawled on a wall), and so on. A symbol is a sign having a particular meaning for a given reactor. Two or more reactors may of course attach quite different meanings to the same symbol. Thus, to Nazis the swastika was a symbol of racial superiority and the crushing military might of the Third Reich; to some Asiatic and North American peoples it is a symbol of universal peace and happiness. Some Christians who find a cross reassuring may find a hammer and sickle displeasing, and may derive no religious satisfaction at all from a Muslim crescent, a Hindu cow, or a Buddhist lotus. Rhetoric forms an important ingredient of all propaganda and communication. Rhetoric, in its broadest sense, is the theory and practice of communication, whether spoken or written. In modern times it is Rhetoric an essential component of all such disciplines like self-improvement, management, marketing and salesmanship, public relations, advertisements and promotions, negotiations and so on and so forth. Rhetoric involves the different modes of managing or organizing all prose composition or speech and is designed to influence the judgment or feelings of people. It is concerned with the fundamental components of speech and communication such as invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. Rhetoric adds flavor to the art of persuasion. William Shakespeare was the doyen in the art of rhetoric. One of the best example of his mastery is Mark Antony’s speech at the funeral of Julius Caesar who has been brutally murdered by Brutus and company. The funeral scene opens with an eloquent speech by Brutus, who was highly respected by the people of Rome. Brutus demonstrates that Caesar was over-ambitious and that is what led to the murder. Thereupon Mark Antony replies with a virtuoso address full of fire and rhetoric that turns the crowd against Brutus. The true power of rhetoric is well demonstrated in this speech by Mark Antony. Schopenhauer declared “I realized that regardless of the persons or topics of discussion, the same tricks and dodges recurred again and again and could easily be recognized” We shall now consider some of the tricks of the trade used by politicians, religious leaders, commercial establishments as well as by power- mongers and charlatans in propagating their messages, views, dogmas and doctrines and thus indoctrinating and persuading the public to their ways of thinking and actions. These were classified by Aristotle as follows. 1. Secundum quid or the fallacy of uniqueness or accident or the trick of using a general statement and applying it to a unique case where it may not hold true. Thus the syllogism that all men have eyesight; Tom is a man; so Tom has eyesight is generally true. However, Tom may be blind and the syllogism does not hold good in the case of Tom. 2. The converse fallacy of uniqueness or accident argues improperly from a special case to a general rule. This trick is far often used than the preceding one. Thus, from the fact that a man who is a regular church-goer grew rich in life, it is touted as the generalization that all church-goers will grow rich. 3. Then there are the fallacies of relevance where the propagandist veers off from the issue at hand and tries to establish his propositions by doubtful means. These methods adopted by propagandists are further classified as:-
80 a. Argument ad hominem (speaking 'against the man' rather than on the issue). Character assassination is perhaps the most important form of this propaganda. A man’s sexcapades or alcohol consumption is often projected as a sure sign of his decadence, which may not always be so. Then his alleged decadence is used to oppose his views on other matters such as his decision to bring a corrupt politician to justice. Another form of it occurred when the Arch Bishop of Canterbury scoffed at Darwin’s Theories of Evolution asking Darwin from which side - his (Darwin’s) father’s side or mother’s side - that Darwin descended from the apes. b. Argument ad populum (an appeal 'to the people'), which, instead of offering logical reasons, appeals to such popular attitudes as the dislike of injustice. Thus the defense lawyer may appeal to the sense of justice of the Jury instead of proving his client’s innocence. c. Argument ad misericordiam (an appeal 'to pity'). Instead of logical arguments an appeal is made to mercy, as when a trial lawyer, rather than arguing for his client's innocence, tries to move the jury to sympathy for the client. d. Argument ad verecundiam (an appeal 'to awe'). This consists of trying to secure acceptance of a commodity, service or philosophy on the ground that it is endorsed by the famous. Thus endorsements from models and film-stars are used in promoting toiletries. Mahatma Gandhi endorsed self-sufficient villages and communities and this endorsement is often cited to oppose globalization, though the Mahatma was in no way competent to comment on modern economic matters. Quoting scriptures, myths, prophets and prophesies, traditions and taboos, proverbs and saying and ancient practices as well as precedents as the vindication of all propositions and statements as well as dubious actions also belong to this category. The ultimate in this category are innumerable prophets, incarnations and shamans down the ages who have quoted God himself and other divine beings as the source of their revelations. e. Argument ad ignorantiam (an appeal .'to ignorance'), which argues that something is so since there is no proof to the contrary. Galileo was persecuted for his views on the spherical earth and our Heliocentric solar system, because these proposition went against everyday perceptions. f. Argument ad baculum (an appeal 'to force'), which rests on a threatened or implied use of force or of dire consequences to induce acceptance of its conclusion. Privatization of economies is opposed on the ground that it will impoverish all except a few who will corner all the wealth. Skeptics are threatened with hell-fire and damnation by the religious establishment. 4. The fallacy of circular argument, known as petitio principii ('begging the question'), occurs when the premises presume, openly or covertly, the very conclusion that is to be demonstrated. “Tom is a good man” “How do you know that?” “Because he goes to church regularly.” is an example of such justification of pregone conclusions. A special form of this fallacy, called a vicious circle, or circulus in probando ('arguing in a circles'), occurs in a course of reasoning typified by the
complex argument in which a premise P1 is used to prove P2; P2 is used to prove P3; and so on, until Pn − 1 is used to prove Pn ; then Pn is subsequently used prove P1, and the whole series P1, P2, . . . , Pn is taken as established. A series of such circular propositions go like this: P1:“He is the prophet of God"; “How do you know that?”; P2:“The book says so.”; “How do you know that what the book says is true?”; P3:“Because it was given by God.”; “How do you know that it was god-given?”; P4: “Because he (the prophet) says so.”; “How do you know that he speaks the truth?”; P5:“Because he is the prophet of God.” Thus in the end the premise P5 that he is the Prophet of God is the same as the premise P1 that we set out to prove and this premise is taken to prove the other arguments en-route in a never ending circle of absurd logic. 5. The fallacy of false cause (non causa pro causa) misattributes a cause-effect relationship to two events just because they happened in succession once or even a few times. Thus a mirror breaks and then a misfortune takes place leads to the false conclusion that the breaking of a mirror leads to a misfortune. The 2004 tsunami hit the coasts of South Asia on the 26th of December. Came December 2005 and people grew apprehensive about another tsunami as if tsunamis were a regular seasonal event like the Monsoons. Most miracles, faith healings and superstitions are of this type. The fact that after going on a pilgrimage a man is cured of a serious ailment is taken to conclude and to propagate that the pilgrimage caused the cure. In the process, series of incidents that go against this
81 conclusion are ignored even if such contradictions may be more frequent than the concurrence. Thus incidences of not being cured after a pilgrimage are ignored when coming to the above conclusion even though not being cured after pilgrimages are more common than being cured. Death and serious maiming from accidents on pilgrimages are also thus ignored by the faithful though they are often as frequent as the cures. 6. Fallacy of similarities. In Voodoo a doll is stuck with pins and it is assumed that the man who the doll represents will also be stabbed with invisible weapons that will do him in. A baby is held aloft or taken upstairs on birth to signify that he will ascend in life. Symbolic acts such as sprinkling of water on a man such as in baptism and other ceremonies to mean that he will be cleansed of all sins also belong to this category. There are many such fallacies of arguments and propositions, which are used as tricks of trade by propagandists and interested parties. Thus, as mentioned above, the appeal to universal values, such as the good and the beautiful, truth and justice, reason and experience, liberty and humanity, will leave no one indifferent. Sometimes such arguments by interested parties may prove counterproductive. Thus exercises in theology and apologetics intended to prove the various incidents in the scriptures have often led to more doubts and skepticism among the faithful, as faith is not a matter of logical argument. The spread of all complex ideologies and religions has been largely due to earnest conviction and the deliberate use of propaganda. This mixture can be detected in all myths and sacred books as well as in the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao. However rational and skeptic a man is, propaganda especially those containing Utopian ideals is likely to be taken earnestly. The effect of such propaganda on ordinary men may be astounding. Often the propagandist stands to gain personally by ignoring the welfare of a nation or the world and appealing to extremes of religious, racial, political, or economic fanaticism. Neither rational arguments nor catchy slogans can, by themselves, influence human behavior. The behavior of the reactor - the target of the propaganda - is also affected by at least four other considerations. The first is the reactor’s predispositions and conditionings - that is, his stored memories of, and his past associations with, related symbols and concepts. These often cause the reactor to ignore the current inflow of symbols, to perceive them very selectively, or to rationalize them away. The second is the set of economic inducements (prosperity, miraculous cures, and so forth), which the propagandist or others may promise in conjunction with the symbols. The third is the set of physical inducements (love, violence, protection from violence) used by the propagandist or others. The fourth is the array of social pressures that may either encourage or inhibit the reactor in thinking or doing what the propagandist advocates. Even one who is well led and is predisposed to do what the propagandist wants may be prevented from acting by counter-pressures within the surrounding social systems or groups of which he is a part. Furthermore, the reactor’s capacity to receive and process symbols is limited. To counter this, the skillful propagandist substitutes quality for quantity in his choice of symbols. A brief slogan or a picture or a catchy comment on some symbol that is emotion laden for the reactors may be worth ten thousand other words and cost much less to propagate. The psychological power of propaganda involves what Lasswell termed the triple-appeal principle. According to the principle a set of symbols is apt to be most persuasive if it appeals simultaneously to the Triple-Appeal three transactional components of personality discussed above- The Child, the Adult and Principle the Parent. Thus ideal propaganda should appeal to the pleasures of the Child’s senses as well as its basic needs discussed above. At the same time it should also appeal to the Adult’s rationale and prudence and extol the Parent’s moral angles involved in the situation. The Child lives on in every adult, eternally seeking a loving father and mother. Hence the appeals such as “the fatherland,” “the mother country,” “the Mother Church,” “the Holy Father,” “Mother Mary,” and the large number of statesmen who are known as the ‘fathers of their nations’ have profound effects on target reactors. A talented and well-symbolized leader or role model like Gandhi or Mao may achieve a parental or even godlike charisma and magnify the impact of propaganda. In most cases, reactors are found to pay the most attention to the publications, shows, leaders, and role models with whose views they already have an established rapport. People often listen to propaganda in order to reinforce their established beliefs and prejudices rather than to imbibe new ideas and philosophies. For this reason, a propagated message should not veer to views, which are diametrically opposite to the reactor’s established views. Changes in attitudes come slowly and in discrete measures. Even the most 82 skilled propagandist must usually content himself with a very modest goal: packaging a message in such a way that much of it is familiar and reassuring to the target audience and only a little is so novel as to threaten them psychologically. In normal times propaganda for drastic changes, however worthy, is likely to be looked upon with academic interest at best. Propaganda that aims to induce major changes takes great amounts of time, resources, patience, and staying power, and above all repetition. Repetition is the best argument in its own right. Nonetheless, in times of revolutionary crisis when old beliefs have been shattered and new ones have not been espoused, new ideas and precepts take root readily in the public mind. Propaganda also becomes effective when addressed to groups such as the family, the church, the trade union, the alumni group, clubs etc with which the reactor is comfortable. By addressing the key members of such groups, the propagandist can establish an efficient distribution channel Groups & that can easily percolate to the lowest levels. By concentrating thus on the few, the Propaganda propagandist increases his chances of reaching the many often far more effectively and at much lower cost than he could through mass meetings, paid broadcasts, handbills, or billboards. Politicians thus use or misuse religions and religious groups to garner votes. Ladies’ clubs are effective in introducing the latest cosmetic offerings and home appliances. The target audiences for the propagandist can be classified into three: those who are already sympathetic, those who are indifferent, and those who are hostile to the propaganda material. Propaganda is most effective and efficient with those who are already receptive or conditioned to it. Neutrals can be won over only by repetitious propaganda. Opponents on the other hand may need the carrot or the stick to make them fall in line. Much of the conversions to Christianity in modern times have been effected by offering food, clothes and other incentives to third world populations. In contrast, communist regimes that control all means of production can win over the public by offering economic incentives or threatening people's livelihood. If these co-pressures - the carrots or the sticks - are applied too strongly, they may backfire and prove counter-productive especially in democracies. We have now seen how our parents, peers, societies and the media condition us in an ongoing process that impacts us throughout our waking hours. Some imbibe such conditioning slowly after questioning every new proposition every inch of the way. Others swallow everything readily without any question especially when there is repetition involved. All of us age, but some never mature. They have to hold on to Mama's skirts or Papa's fingers throughout their lives, long after their real Papas and Mamas are dead and gone. This is especially so for women who are far more insecure by nature, than men. That is why women cling to superstitions, customs and taboos far more adamantly than men do; that is why women throng to churches and pilgrim spots far more in numbers than men do. Even at sixty, I often think of myself as I used to be, when I was a child. Maybe we have the same image about ourselves, as we did when we became aware of ourselves for the first time in a mirror. In spite of our pomp and ceremony, in spite of the airs we put on, we are little children inside, always looking for reassurance, always seeking approval and applause. We are never satiated with praise and flattery; on the other hand, we cannot take the slightest of criticisms, however well intentioned. It is our Child that shows off costly ‘toys’ like cars and palatial homes, beautiful wives, chic tastes in music and in cuisine and all the other symbols of status. The Adult stands no chance before the Child in the face of the pressures put on the Child by the Parent, unless we make a conscientious effort to boost the discerning powers of our Adult. This can be done by listening to the Adult’s sane and mature counsel, though this Adult counsel might often appear impractical, cowardly or disloyal to our Parent. To sum up, we have seen how each one of us has three components - Parent, Adult and Child; how humanity has gone through various economic waves or great leaps, and how our various institutions like family, state, religion and others evolved in accordance with the economic compulsions. We have also seen how the Parent and its Patriarchal components had high utility in the Original State and in the Agrarian Wave, and how they have become redundant and taxing in modern times. We have also appreciated the fact that in the nuclear families of the Industrial and Digital waves, it is necessary for us to make our decisions and solve our problems at the personal level rather than at the joint-family level, as was done in the Agrarian Wave. In this loneliness of the nuclear families even small problems take on ominous proportions and increase our basic sense of insecurity. 83 In the present-day confusion and dilemma, many Agrarian Wave institutions - social, political and religious ones - have stepped in, ostensibly to help us solve our Industrial and Digital wave blues. However, these Agrarian Wave institutions are totally incompetent to cope with our modern-day troubles and tribulations. Nonetheless, in our state of confusion, we often tend to revert to these Patriarchal institutions for succor like a sinking man clutching at straws. Religion is one such institution to which modern man clings in his mental confusion and chaos, so that he can feel secure by identifying with his Parent. There are other fields such as politics, ethics, economics, family and relationships, alternate medicines etc which have considerable Parental transactional contents, and which prove ineffective in solving modern problems, associated with modern economic and technological developments. Religious transactions and indoctrinations are the most difficult to shake off as they have been with us for almost two thousand years or more. What is more, religions have considerable superstitious fears of divine vendetta associated with them. In addition, religion has much stronger Parental ties than other fields of indoctrinations, and so it has considerable guilt complexes involved if we go against religious tenets. Political indoctrinations are also very difficult to shake off in this age when nationalism and patriotism are eulogized in the media. Alongside religious differences, political differences lead to much of the violence we see in this world. In the foregoing chapter on violence we have seen how the Fascists believed in violence as the best argument, how Primo de Rivera, one of the first to advocate Fascist ideals, maintained that “No other argument is admissible than that of fists and pistols when justice or the Fatherland is attacked.” Consequently Mussolini and Hitler introduced their cult of violence into European Mainland politics. They were even proud of their streak of violence and to his critics Hitler retorted, “People accuse us of being barbarians; we are barbarians, and we are proud of it!” Though not so obvious as Fascists or Hitler, much of the world believes that violence is the best argument. Politics and religions in isolation may not be anywhere as lethal as a combination of the two. Politicized religions and religionized politics provide the most fertile ground for violence and bloodshed. This is especially so in an Agrarian Wave society like India where loyalties to ancient Patriarchal tenets have considerable hold on people’s minds. The spheres of life mentioned above – ethics, economics, family and relationships, alternate medicines etc - also have considerable Patriarchal and doctrinal content. But these are comparatively harmless. Differences of opinions as to alternate medicines or environmental issues seldom escalate to the scale and intensity of conflicts and violence, which religious and political differences generate.
DOCTRINES, DOGMAS AND REASON: Why and how do ethnic differences, especially religious and political ones, lead to conflicts and violence? If we examine these ethnic factors we can see that they are replete with doctrines and dogmas. Doctrines and dogmas are propositions or statements, which are formulated for compliance without questioning. What is more, the one who issues the doctrines and dogmas assumes that he is more knowledgeable than others and so superior to them. This superiority is seldom accepted universally unless it can be enforced. Therefore dogmas and doctrines imply that the one who issues them has a huge superiority complex as well as the power to impose his thoughts and will on others. The Nicene Creed is a composition of many such religious doctrines, which have been formulated long ago for Christians to believe in. Divergence from these doctrines and dogmas were treated as heresies and met with heavy retribution including death. Doctrines of the integrity and indivisibility of nations were similar doctrines of a political nature and are imposed by sheer force. Communism and capitalism are economic doctrines, which have considerable dogmatic content, content that cannot be questioned. Since doctrines and dogmas, whether religious, political or economic are not amenable to discussion and debate, differences of opinion in these dogmatic matters can only be settled by violent conflicts. It is the might of the parties concerned that eventually resolve the authenticity of such issues. Thus the doctrine of the indivisibility of nations are often challenged by separatist and secessionist movements everywhere. Wherever and whenever the state is sufficiently strong militarily can it back up the doctrine. Wherever and whenever the separatists get the upper hand, the state is helpless in preventing a division of the state.
84 Let us now consider some religious dogmas, which were challenged by science and met with considerable resistance from the religious establishment. Galileo was one of the first in the West to propose that the earth revolves around the sun. This went against the teachings of the Church. The church which had considerable political clout in those days, imprisoned Galileo and the scientist was forced to retract his findings against his own convictions. The Church condescended to such a 'soft' treatment to Galileo only because its power had been diluted by the Renaissance. Bruno, Giordano (1548-1600) had proposed these same heliocentric theories of the solar system before Galileo. However he ended up in the clutches of the Church Inquisition, which had him burnt at the stakes for his refusal to retract on his convictions. These theories, which had landed Galileo in the dungeons and Bruno Giordano on the stakes, had been proposed by Aryabhatta in India a millennia before Galileo. However religion and politics were pretty well segregated in India at the time, and Aryabhatta's findings did not lead to the tragic outcomes they faced in Europe under the Pope. What is more, the Hindu religion is not replete with dogmas and doctrines as Christianity is, and this leaves enough room even for atheistic concepts within the framework of Hinduism. Luckily for science, it was able to prove that the earth was round and orbited the sun, and the church had no alternative but to back off in the face of overwhelming evidence, which supported these heliocentric views. Similarly, when the Theory of Evolution was first proposed by Charles Darwin, the Church opposed it vehemently and scoffed at it. Again the proof of evolution got too overwhelming, and the Church has been forced to toe the scientific line albeit reluctantly in the face of irrefutable evidence. Religions have learnt its lessons and do not take on science as often and as vehemently as they used to. However, there are many religious propositions such as prophecies, virgin births, incarnations, divine retributions etc, which cannot be proved either way. Religions have loosened their clutches with regard to scientific propositions and have instead strengthened their vice-like grip on these unverifiable propositions. Due to the irrational religious and superstitious fears instilled into us by our parents, we dare not take on the religions on these dogmatic grounds and accordingly toe their line tamely like a circus lion. It is an insult to human intelligence that even men of considerable learning fall in line without a whimper when it comes to religions and superstitions. It is the rigidity of dogmas and doctrines and their claim to being permanent and immutable truths that makes them dangerous. This claim to infallibility has often been proved ridiculous by the actions of the very proponents of these dogmas. Thus as we have seen, the 'filioque' clause, which forms an important dogma of Catholicism, was first rejected by the Pope himself. But when the political pressures became too strong for the Pope to resist, he turned tail and declared that the obscure ‘filioque’ clause was the absolute and irrevocable truth. This turn-tail incident did not prevent a subsequent Pope from declaring all Popes infallible, though the Pope could not have been infallible both in rejecting and then in subsequently accepting the ‘filioque’ clause. Reverting to ethnic differences, some of these ethnic differences are based on mere concepts. In the foregoing chapter on violence we have seen how the innocuous concept of the ‘Noble Aryan’ led to the holocaust of millions of Jews and Gypsies at the hands of the Nazis. In reaching the erroneous conclusion that all achievements in human history had their origin in the Aryan race, the Nazis had refused to consider the achievements of the Chinese, the Aztecs, the Mayans and other ancient races. Take science in contrast. There have been numerous conflicts and much bloodshed on account of religious and political dogmas. On the other hand there has been no violence in the case of science as science is ever ready to admit mistakes and to rectify them with the awareness that even the rectified precepts are prone to error. Science is based on doubt whereas religious and political dogmas are based on claims of infallible and immutable precepts or 'truths'. Thus, as against the conflicting dogmas and the their violent resolutions represented above, there have been as many and more precepts in science which have been challenged and modified without so much as a whimper. The fact is that truth or existence is multisided. Thus for long it was believed that light came as electromagnetic waves. But then subsequently it was found that light also often behaves as particles. Which is the truth would be question if the issue were concerned with religion or politics where precepts are supposed to be in black and white, and mutually exclusive. But science had no problem in accepting the fact that light behaves as particles in certain situations, as waves in others and as both particles and waves in still other situations. We want our religious and political creeds to hold good forever. Science on the other hand, must check, examine, and reexamine forever. Science is willing to change. Dogmas are not, until forced to change by irrefutable evidences that set aside the dogmas. In religion everything is certain and infallible. For five centuries science has been breaking this down. 85 Nonetheless, until they are forced to change, religious and political leaders force others to accept their precepts without questioning or verification. Scientists had established that all females were born with all the eggs they would need in a lifetime to produce the next generation and that these females including women made no more eggs in their lifetime. In 2004, researchers found that this may not be entirely true. In like manner, a marrow transplant was prescribed by doctors a decade or two ago to treat some forms of cancer. But later on they recognized that marrow transplants were of little or no use. In the field of nutrition, it was presumed that if you replace fat with carbohydrates it would keep you from heart attacks. Nutritionists are not so sure now. It is the recognition that we are fallible that has paved the way to the development of science. If like religious and political leaders, scientists were to insist that each and every discovery were as infallible as religious precepts, science would not have been the vibrant discipline it is today. Clear thinking is the adoption of scientific methods to everyday life where unlike in science, control of variables is neither possible nor feasible. It might be pertinent to consider here the meaning of some of words like knowledge, truth and belief, which we use frequently in debates and arguments. Knowledge is information, which is available to man. Knowledge is obtained mainly in three ways: 1. By acquaintance as in direct experience 2. By description or communication by others. A library contains lots of information. This information or part of it becomes knowledge to a man when he reads the books in the library. 3. By reasoning which comes in two forms - induction (from particulars to Knowledge, generals) and deduction (from generals to particulars). Here available knowledge is Truth & Belief processed to arrive at new knowledge. (See next chapter on clear thinking for deduction and induction) Next we come to the all important term ‘truth.’ Truth is a term that is much bandied about. Truth is what is. It may be impossible for us to know the absolute truth in its entirety, as truth is too multifaceted for us to comprehend. We can at best comprehend bits and pieces of truth. People thought that the world was flat and that the sun went around the earth. It was knowledge then. But the premise that the world is flat did not conform fully to later observations. We may say that the knowledge that the earth was flat as held by the ancients was not the truth. Truth is knowledge verified or substantiated by observations. Einstein’s theory of relativity and its implication that light can be bent by gravity remained mere knowledge or speculation until observations during an eclipse proved beyond doubt that light can be warped by Sun’s gravity. It became the truth then and only then as far as man is concerned. Belief is speculation that is not substantiated fully or cannot be substantiated. Thus the proposition “I believe it is raining” means that it may be raining though I am not sure of it. When it is substantiated by observations it becomes the truth that it is raining. Matters outside of experience cannot be substantiated in any way and so forever belong to the realm of belief rather than truth. All matters of religion and spirituality are thus beliefs rather than truths. Dogmas and doctrines are beliefs that are projected as truths though they cannot be substantiated in any way. Thus the dogma that nations are sovereign or integral or indivisible cannot be substantiated. In fact evidence to the contrary exists that nations have indeed disintegrated. We can say in conclusion that dogmas belong to the realm of beliefs whereas substantiated scientific principles belong to the ream of truth. Belief is thus a mental attitude of acceptance of a proposition without substantiation or proof. Clear thinking is absolutely necessary to distinguish mere beliefs and superstitions from truth. Where clear thinking is eschewed, violence steps in. America believed that slavery was natural and it took a bloody civil war to establish that all men are indeed created equal. Similarly, everyone from Arabia to America believed that women should have no say in political affairs. It took years of protests and demonstrations to establish the right of women in some parts of the world while in others women are treated even now as chattel. If we can make changes in these aspects of life, what is there to prevent us from making changes in other spheres of life and accepting them without rancor. It is not only in science that acceptance of fallibility paves the way to more humane way of life. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, though an archenemy of India, admired India's democracy. According to Bhutto, it was the shouting, the ruckus and the walkouts in the Indian parliament that contributed to India's stability. A Latin adage implies that there are as many opinions as there are heads, which means that everyone has his own perceptions and conclusions. What is more the same man may change his opinions in the light of 86 new perceptions and new interpretations based on new knowledge. In the days of my youth and the hot blood in my veins, I believed in Communism, and even in violent ways of bringing about equality and social justice. But in the maturity, experience and knowledge of my sixties I am not so sure. Plurality of perceptions and opinions are natural and may even have its own use in the light of evolution of a more efficient and prosperous way of life. Unless new and differing views and opinions are thrown up and promoted, the world will simply stagnate with old ideas and customs, ancient traditions and technologies. The key lies in accepting the truth that there is no absolute and immutable truth as regards our perceptions and opinions. Just think of a world where everyone thinks and acts and does things in identical ways. It would be a robotic and moribund world indeed. Admission of fallibility and readiness to change opinions in tune with new discoveries alone can pave the way to peace and prosperity. Most of today's ideas and theories are almost certain to be replaced tomorrow. There is the famous saying "I disagree with what you say. But I will defend with the last drop of my blood your right to say it." Only with freedom of expressions can change and progress be brought about. Consider a novel or a story. The author has complete control over the settings, the characters and the events in the novel. We can call the story or the novel a nanocosm where the author is in complete control. Stage plays and movies are other instances of nanocosms where the trinity of the script writer, the producer and the director have complete control over the events taking place on stage or screen. Cartoons, myths and special effect movies, depict events that often go against the natural physical laws, and heroes and villains carry out impossible feats. These mythical and cartoon characters fly through space defying gravity, bring the dead back to life, stop the sun in its tracks when it suits them and so on and so Nano, Micro & forth. Our infancy and childhood form another nanocosm where parental and ethnic Macro Cosms scripts have almost total control over us. Now take a human society. We may call this a microcosm. Here the events are subject to natural laws and yet there are hierarchies of power and other factors, which fall under human control. In the old days, human societies were virtually isolated and formed numerous microcosms insulated from each other. With the advance of technology and globalization, we form virtually a single microcosm of humanity. In this microcosm The President of the United States of America is considered as the most powerful and influential being at present. However, The President of the United States of America is a helpless pawn in the face of natural forces like Typhoon Katrina. We may term such immense natural forces before which the human microcosm is insignificant, as the macrocosm. Science studies the nature of this macrocosm and tries to bring more and more of the infinite number of elements of the macrocosm within the sphere of the microcosm so that these macrocosmic forces can be put to human use. In the process, science studies the macrocosm as cause-effect events and tries to find the exact interrelationships among the infinite number of events in the macrocosm. Our microcosm used to be insignificant before the macrocosmic forces. With our advances in technologies, the picture is beginning to change and the microcosm is beginning to have its impact on the macrocosm. The population explosion we see today is a definite pointer to the success of our microcosm in reducing death and decease. This population explosion in its turn has had cataclysmic effects on the environment in the form of devastation of forests for food, fodder and fuel and has further led to the extinction of many flora and fauna. Fluorocarbons emitted by us have been detrimental to the Ozonosphere. Greenhouse gases emitted by microcosmic industries and transport have led to macrocosmic effects on weather. The microcosmic pollutions, emissions and the exploitation of the earth’s resources resulting from the population explosion, our increasing mobility and the rising consumerism have played havoc with the macrocosmic environments of earth, water and air. As a result, the interface between the microcosm and the macrocosm is growing in scope and becoming more and more diffuse with passing time. With our birth, we enter the nanocosm of the maternal bosom from the macrocosm. We then grow up into the microcosm of a particular human society with its unique outlooks and traditions. In spite of the apparent variations in social factors this microcosm is homogeneous in that it always promotes optimum efficiency in accordance with ‘The Law of Optimum Efficiencies’. This is the single factor – optimum efficiency- that binds our various human microcosms together. Subsequently with death we pass on to the macrocosm – dust thou art to dust returnest. Then things start all over again – much the same matter taking on different life-forms and adopting different microcosms.
87 The truth - if there is such a thing as truth - comes in its multifaceted dimensions, and is in the domain of the macrocosm. Our authority however powerful is microcosmic at best and cannot challenge or alter the macrocosm. The presumption that the macrocosm is subject to human authority however great, is sheer idiocy and vanity. And if there is such a thing as a divine, infallible being, you can rest assured it will not dance to the tune of the self-proclaimed divine representatives. Unquestioned obeisance to unverifiable and conflicting dogmas and doctrines lead to violent conflicts, which are set backs to peace and progress. These political and religious dogmas and doctrines can be analyzed in the light of clear and unconditioned thinking, and their insignificance realized. We can thus steer clear of most if not all conflicts in our world today if we can see through the insignificance and triviality of these dogmatic differences. There is no such thing as the absolute in thinking. For centuries it was thought that mathematical methods were absolute. However theory of relativity and the concept of black holes changed all that. Newton’s Laws and other scientific phenomena that were held sacrosanct were proved inoperative at the speed of light and near black holes. Chaos theory postulated that there is no such thing as absolute objectivity and observations depended upon the observer. Hormones and body conditions also contribute to the thinking process. Thus men and women differ to a great extent when it comes to perceptions and thinking. Among individuals of the same sex, people of different ages have different perceptions of everyday life. Thus children of the same sex think alike to certain extend while youth and the aged have their own perceptions and opinions. If perceptions differ then the thoughts, conclusions and knowledge derived therefrom can also differ. In short there is no such thing as the absolute knowledge or truth. The secret to success in clear thinking lies in our willingness to accept changes, which in turn comes from the realization that there is nothing like the absolute truth when it comes to knowledge and to our perceptions of the world around us.
“In science the important thing is to modify and change one’s ideas as science advances” Claude Bernard
88 PART - II
OUR SOFTWARES AND VIRUSES
89 Introduction to Part - II
n the Preceding part of this book, we have seen how our inherent fears and our violent nature combined with our Parental and Patriarchal conditioning form the operating platform for our mental life. ISubsequently these three factors – fear, violence and conditioning – influence every action in our life. Parental and Patriarchal dogmas and doctrines often warp our thinking and lead to bigotry and violence as the multitudes of this world differ from us in their outlooks. As a matter of fact we differ in our opinions and outlooks in some way or other with even our closest of friends and associates. As the Latin saying goes “There are as many opinions as there are heads.” What is more the same head may change its opinions and views with the passage of time. It seems our violent and sadistic nature has more to do with our genes than with our divergence of views and opinions. In the second part of this book we will see how the Art of Clear Thinking can be mastered and applied to different facets of life. Thus by offsetting the detrimental effects of our inherent fears, violent nature and our social conditioning we can diffuse many an explosive situation and build win-win relationships even with people who seem incompatible with us or even diametrically opposite to us in their views, beliefs and creeds. If our innate fears and violence form the operating system of our cerebral system, our conditioning can be likened to the various softwares we download on our computers. Most of such software is useful. But hordes of viruses are also downloaded in the process. This second part is about understanding the viruses we download from our parents and societies, and about disinfecting our thinking machinery so that these viruses do not wreck our systems as well as the systems we connect with in this globalized world. In the good old days we lived in isolated societies and the demarcation between friends and foes were clear-cut. Our forefathers cooperated with their friends and avoided their enemies or finished them off if they got the opportunity to do so. In the modern age we often have to cooperate with our enemies as modern socio-economic systems do not distinguish between friends and foes. Thus a driver in a public bus may be your enemy. But there is little he can do to prevent you from transporting you to your destination and thus to cooperate with you in achieving your ends. Similarly, friends and foes alike cooperate with each other when they pay taxes and run the government from which both the friends and the foes benefit. Consequently this part of the book is also about cooperating with your enemies rather than about loving them as Jesus endorsed, or about hating them as Moses recommended. There is a dictum “The winner finds solutions to every problem; the loser finds a problem in every solution.” This part of the book is also about finding winning solutions to everyday problems.
90 Chapter Four
Clear Thinking and Self-Talk, Logic and Fuzzy Logic
"Cogito. Ergo sum (I think. So I am)" Rene Descartes.
Thoughts maketh the man! This book is all about seeing through irrational conditioning and about questioning all Patriarchal, media and social hype, which we often take for granted. Such an Adult attitude requires clear thinking. Before we go onto how we can sort out our present dilemmas and confusions, let us consider our problem solving machinery, the brain, and its modus operandi. The thinking process consists of four sub-processes - sensing or perceiving the world around us, registering them, forming patterns of these registrations as cause effect relationships and applying these patterns to new problems and evolving situations. What is more, we do not think in isolation. Our thoughts are influenced by the generations that have gone before us as well as by the thoughts communicated to us by peers and the media. Language and communication play important parts in influencing our thoughts and the actions these thoughts give rise to. We will consider some of theses aspects that influence our thoughts, actions and our life on earth.
Perception – Realities and Illusions: Our brain acts as the interface between us and the world around us as well as the world within us. There are three kinds of sense perceptions. The first kind of perceptions relates to intangible mental phenomena like thoughts, pains, aches, desires and so on. The second kind of perceptions relates to real things such as tables, mountains, persons, animals and so on. The third kind of perceptions alludes to illusionary objects like rainbows, lightning and shadows. Accordingly, the first kind of perception is termed mental, the second as physical and the third as illusionary. These three kinds of perceptions are mutually exclusive. Whereas mental perceptions as well as illusions are not tangible, physical perceptions are tangible and objective. As a result, their properties such as mass, dimensions, hardness etc can be measured and such measurements are independent of the one who takes such measurements. The same cannot be said of the other two kinds of perceptions. The external data, which we receive through the senses, are called sense stimuli. Our brain is a supercomputer before which manmade computers are mere toys or less. The sets of sense data we receive from the different objects in the environment are known as external perceptions. We are Plato’s Allegory very much limited in our perceptions and so we can know only a limited version of the & Veil Theory realty around us. This is well illustrated by Plato's famous allegory in Book VII of 'The Republic' wherein Plato compares our existence to prisoners tied up in a cave, so that they cannot turn around. Behind them there is a path along which people, animals, birds and vehicles of every kind move up an down and their shadows fall on the wall in front of the prisoners. It is from these shadows alone that the prisoners can assess what goes on outside the cave. With time, the people in the cave may increase their expertise and accuracy in interpreting the shadows on the wall before them. However, these interpretations can never match the reality of the world outside them in all its dimensions and ramifications. Likewise, we
91 are also very much constrained by the limitations of our senses of perception. The things we perceive are mere shadows of the real world in all its dimensions and ramifications, in all its power and glory. This is called the Veil Theory in epistemology. According to this theory, we can only perceive the veil of reality; total reality remains elusive. I would like to compare reality or truth to an onion with an infinite number of layers which can be peeled away. As we peel off each layer another layer of the onion is exposed. In the same way as we acquire more and more knowledge about anything we realize that more and more remains to be discovered about it. In addition to objective, subjective and illusionary perceptions narrated above, there are many levels of perceptions from the human and social point of views. We have seen that Plato's prisoners in the cave are able to improve their assessment of the world outside with time and experience. The same holds good for humanity as a whole. Humanity's assessment of our world increases in accuracy and content with each succeeding generation. This in turn implies that our assessment of the reality is much better than that of our ancestors thousands of years ago. In addition, with the development of science and technology with each passing generation, we are able to bring more and more of the macrocosm into our microcosm. Compared to us, animals may have other senses of perception - bats have radar systems; snakes perceive heat gradients through their forked tongues and so on. A dog, entering a room can Senses & make out, by their astonishing olfactory powers, who all have been in the room during the Perceptions previous day or two, the paths they had taken to the room, and even identify the people they had met on the way to the room. Some dogs can sense earthquakes and epileptic seizures in advance; other dogs can sense the arrival of guests, even when the guests are far away and out of sight. Sometime back, there was an interesting item in our newspapers about a little girl and her goat. The girl had left for her school, 6 km away, by the school bus, which wound through the roads and bylanes of the city, picking up other students en route. The girl had reached her class and got on with her studies. In the afternoon, to everyone’s surprise, the goat found its way into the classroom and settled down besides her. It is a mystery as to how the goat had done it, and which sense enabled it to find its way to the girl in the classroom. It also makes one wonder whether these other animals have perceptions and assessments of the reality. Dogs are said to be comparatively color-blind, and for them a whiff of air gives far more information than a thousand pictures. Like most four-legged animals, man too had a keen sense of smell, which was quite useful, as odor sticks on longer than vision or sound. However, when man began to stand and walk erect, he had to bend low every now and then to sniff the ground. This was most inconvenient and over the centuries of disuse, our olfactory senses became obsolete. Man developed his visual powers instead. Man can thus detect thousands of shades of color, which most animals cannot detect. According to ‘Encyclopedia Britannica’, the normal human eye can detect about 130 hues or shades of color in the visible spectrum, about 20 barely noticeable differences within a given color, and about 500 ranges of brightness. Gestalt is a phenomenon very much related to our perception. Gestalt means configuration, and Gestalt principles of perceptual organization has become an important part of psychology. The crux of Gestalt, Praganz, Gestalt principle is that most if not all stimulations are perceived in organized, & Closure configured or Gestalt patterns. These patterns are formed from elements. Thus, a series of dots or dashes are configured as a line. Here the dots are the elements and the line is the pattern. This notion has led to the guiding principle in Gestalt theory that the "The whole is more than the sum of its elements." There are many principles of such organizations or patterning, and the most general of these theories are referred to as Prägnanz. Simplicity, stability, regularity, symmetry, continuity, and unity are some of the common properties that guide us in Gestalt formations. The closure is an important feature of Prägnanz. Thus, a circular figure with small gaps in it will be construed as a complete or closed circle in spite of the gaps. If there are overlapping figures of rectangles, triangles and circles the pattern is essentially irregular. However, Prägnanz ensures that the rectangles, triangles and circles are seen as regular separate figures rather than as irregular figures with non-continuous borders. This tendency to form patterns is an essential part of our psyche as well as of our thinking process. Phi Phi movement is an interesting phenomenon connected with our tendency to form Movement continuities and patterns. When two adjacent lights are switched off and on alternately, we 92 perceive it as if one light were hopping back and forth, though there is no movement. This phi phenomenon is used in movies, marquees, light and laser displays etc. Our power of perception is also relative to some extend. Thus, when we come into a room from the bright sunlight it appears darker than it is. The opposite happens when we go out into the sun from a dark room. When we simultaneously dip our left hand in cold water and the right in hot water, and then dip both hands together in tepid water, the left hand feels warm and the right feels cold. In addition to such comparisons and contrasts, experience and training also play important parts in Gestalt formation. In the moonlight, bushes and shrubs may appear to be crouching men or animals waiting to spring on you or to be bundles of hay depending on one's experience. Similarly, the perspective stimuli of a table-top from the various angles are different. From the top, it is rectangular and from the sides it is a parallelogram. Yet we perceive the table in relation to our preconception of the table-top as a rectangle. The sense stimuli from the sound of a train differ as it approaches and then departs. Yet we perceive it as a train. This constancy of perception in spite of the differing stimuli is termed perceptual constancies. As stated above, practice and experience play an important part in perception and detection. Subjects who were asked to detect a particular letter from a large number of letters improved their performance manifold with practice, though the performance flattened off after a certain number of repetitions. This ability varied from person to person and often from time to time for the same person. Practice seems to improve performance in detecting distances and other factors such as colors and tastes. Tea-tasting is a high paying profession, which improves in performance with practice alone. Distance estimation in water from land is distorted due to refractive index. Fish appear to be higher in water than they really are. Nevertheless, allowance can be made for this distortion in distance with practice, and the fish in water can easily be speared or darted by an expert. Cultural differences also seem to play an important part in perception. There are people like the Zulu and the San of the Kalahari whose environment contains no rectangles or squares – their huts are mostly circular. As a result, they are not able to discern cubes and cuboids in 2-dimensional isometric drawings and representations. Labeling, assumptions and suggestions can also make a difference in perception. A rectangle was displayed against a dark background and it was suggested it was a visiting card. Subsequently it was suggested that it was an envelope. The subject was asked to estimate the distance from him to the rectangle in each instance. The distance thus estimated was longer for the suggestion of envelope than for the suggestion of card, though the actual distance under both conditions were the same. Obviously, we often see what we want to see rather than the objective reality. Perceptual assumptions once established are difficult to change by logic. Thus once the rectangle is assumed to be an envelope it is difficult to immediately perceive it as a card. A historical example of how labeling affects perception was the discovery of the New World. When Columbus arrived in the New World, he had a theory that he was in Asia and proceeded to perceive or label the New World and its contents as such. To start with, the natives were called Indians. Cinnamon was a valuable Asian spice, and the first New World shrub that smelled like cinnamon was declared to be cinnamon. When he encountered the aromatic gumbo-limbo tree of the West Indies, Columbus concluded it was an Asian species similar to the mastic tree of the Mediterranean. A New World nut was matched with Marco Polo's description of a coconut. Columbus's surgeon even declared, based on some Caribbean roots his men uncovered, that he had found Chinese rhubarb. A theory of Asia produced observations of Asia, even though Columbus was half a world away. Such is the power of labeling. Very many experiments have been designed to show that perceiving is indeed subject to unconscious influences. Likes, dislikes, traditions and taboos all play important parts in perception and interpretation. Thus obscene words flashed across screens took longer than control words to be perceived or recognized and assimilated. Similarly, children of poor families overestimated the size of coins compared to children from affluent families. Field-Dependant Another factor in perception is that some people are field-dependent while & Independent others are field-independent. Thus, field-independent people are able to draw a vertical Perceptions line in a picture where everything was drawn tilted or slanted. The field independent people are also able to detect simple figures such as triangles or faces in a complex pattern. When asked to sit in a chair and align themselves in a vertical position, in a room, the field- 93 independent people aligned themselves with the true gravitational vertical, while others aligned themselves with the visual cues they saw in the slanted room. Closing the eyes made vertical alignment easier. .Men seem to be more field-independent than women. All that glitters is not gold. Sometimes our perceptions do not portray or represent the world outside even in the limited sense that the shadows represented the world for the prisoners in Plato's allegory. Illusions, hallucinations and other factors often misrepresent the reality and confuse us. Illusion is a misrepresentation or misinterpretation of an object stimulus as when we see a piece of paper in a kaleidoscope as a flower. Illusions are caused by real objects. Hallucination on the other hand needs no such external stimuli and can be brought about by drugs, illness and physical deprivation. Illusions may arise from factors beyond our control such as in mirages or as when a stick appears to Illusions and bend at the point of entry into water. Auditory illusions include Doppler effects, as when Hallucinations the whistle of train grows shrill as it approaches. Rainbow is an optical illusion. The moon appears larger on the horizon than overhead even though the moon on the horizon is further away than the overhead moon. Perhaps the best instance of optical illusions is the sky. Most religions and myths portray the sky as a tangible entity. In the Genesis, the creation of the skies takes up almost a full day. However, modern knowledge tells us that the blue sky is just an optical illusion resulting from the scattering of light by atmospheric particles. Illusion is not limited to the visual or the aural senses alone. When a single pencil is held between two crossed fingers in such a way that it stimulates the skin at two points on the two crossed fingers, we feel there are two pencils. We also saw that if we simultaneously dip our left hand in cold water and the right in hot water, and then dip both hands together in tepid water, the left hand feels warm and the right feels cold. These are cases of tactile illusions. The cases illustrated above are quite common cases of illusions. There are also quite abnormal cases Color of perceptional illusions. Some people see visual color patterns when they hear certain Hearing sounds. This phenomenon is called synesthesia. It is also called “colored hearing,” The sound-color relationship in synesthesia is not the same for all people and different people see different colors and patterns for the same sound. However, there are some consistencies in such illusions such as darker colors corresponding to deeper notes. The déjà vu is a feeling or illusion that comes over us in certain situations, as if we are reliving an experience under the same circumstances. Some Hindus attribute it to a previous birth in which we had faced Deja Vu an identical situation. The déjà vu is evidently an illusion or rather a hallucination of familiarity which is triggered by stimuli identical or similar to past experiences. It may also be noted that sometimes the senses often combine to produce a kind of common, unitary or integrated experience. This is most pronounced in our cuisine. Thus, the visual array of food on the table, the background music and the aromas combine to enhance the dining experience. It has been recognized that food is as much of an olfactory experience as one of the taste buds. As a result, it is said that a good chef must have a good nose for aromas. Though it might seem a bit out of context here, it may be pointed out that many such features as prganz and illusions are applicable to real life as well. We tend to connect random events as causes and effects when there are no connections whatsoever. The Prophet holds up his hands and his people win the war. Though the raising of the hand and the victory are unrelated, some tend to see the former event as the cause of the latter event. We tend to see patterns in events when there are no such patterns. Labeling an entity influences our perceptions of and reactions to an entity in life. Thus label a man or a nation capitalist or communist, and all the actions of the man or the nation concerned are judged in the context of that label or suggestion. The role conditioning and training play in both perception and in real life can never be overemphasized. There are field-depended people who react to situations in accordance with social and cultural cues while field-independent people are able to make decisions independent of ethnic or established cues, views and suggestions. It also seems that women are more prone to such 'field-dependent', pro-establishment reactions than men are. Discrimination is the ability to distinguish between subjectivity and objectivity and to respond accordingly. Be it in perception or in our approach to life, discrimination is a more advanced form of learning and intelligence than generalization. 94 Concepts and Concept Formation: When a baby is born, its mind is blank except for the intrinsic knowledge built into its genes as in the ROM of a computer. A turtle knows which way the sea lies as soon as it emerges out of its eggs. A human child has much inbuilt knowledge such as the Inbuilt knowledge to suck on anything that touches its lips. One of the first things a baby learns is Knowledge the consciousness of the self, that it is an entity that is separate and distinct from its surroundings and yet part of it – separate and yet inseparable. Another thing that a Baby learns early on is the concept of consistency. The newborn sleeps most of the time. As it opens its eyes more and more frequently, it notices movements and things. Consistency Each thing or event is recorded as unrelated bits of information. Associations between events Concept form later. One of the first things a baby learns is the consistency factor mentioned above. It sees its mother at different distances as well as at different angles. These different visual perceptions of his mother are first recorded in its brain as separate entities – it may not even be aware of separateness and sameness. In the same way the infant records the different perspectives of a table as different and unrelated. In time, the baby learns that though the perceptions or perspectives are different, these perceptions represent the same essence or entity- its mother or the table as the case may be. This consistency of essence or entity, in spite of differing perspectives, is one of the first things we learn, associating the different perspectives with the same entity or essence – table, mother etc. After realizing the consistency of entitles – mother, table etc as illustrated above – the next thing we learn is perhaps cause-effect relationships of events; that each event leads to a specific Cause-Effect effect event under the same conditions. The seemingly aimless thrashing of the arms and Relationships legs of the baby is aimed at learning to control muscles movements which in turn will lead to limb movements. By such aimless thrashing of limbs, the baby is able to learn the coordinated movements of muscle and limbs as causes and effects. Learning about concepts comes next – the ability to learn concepts is inherent in us. Swiss psychologist, Jean Piaget (1896–1980) was one of the first to study how concepts are formed. A concept is formed whenever we realize that two experiences have something in common. A concept is the sameness in Generalizations two different situations. Concepts are universals, factors common to or associated with & Concepts different situations and events. We have seen how the child forms the concept of consistency of entities in spite of the different perspectives he gets of his mother or table at different angles and at different distances. Later on, when a child sees an animal, which his elders tell him, is a dog, he just registers it. He then sees another animal varying from the first animal in color, size and other factors, and yet he is told that the animal is a dog. After many such experiences, the child forms a concept of 'dog', which is applicable to many animals in spite of variations between one dog and another. In similar fashion the child acquires the concepts of other things and entities he comes across in life. The formation of concepts is an ongoing process and many of the concepts, which we now take for granted, have not always been around. In his book 'The Art of Clear Thinking', Rudolf Flesch lists some such concepts and the date of their origin. Here they are: zero -ca. 500 CE (by Aryabhatta), romantic love - ca. 1150 (from Arabic folklore), corporation – 1553 (The first joint stock company was formed for the discovery and exploitation of new lands), sovereignty – 1576 (by the Frenchman Jean Bodin), the opera – 1600 (The first recorded opera is 'Daphne' by the Florentine musicians Jacopo Peri and Giulio Caccini), the novel – 1678 (The first novel was 'The Princess of Cleves' by a French author called Madame de La Fayette), progress and self improvement – 1683 (The first book in this genre was 'The Idea of Progress' by John Bagnel Bury), personal success – 1684 (The first book on self-improvement was "The Tradesman's Calling' by Richard Steele who in turn was inspired by Martin Luther who encouraged his followers to work hard at their calling against the traditional religious concepts of asceticism and renouncement of worldly riches) , gravity – 1687 (by Newton) and so on. It may be noted that most of these concepts were formed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in the aftermath of Renaissance and the enlightenment when human thoughts and mental activities saw frenzied activity and progress. If all our perceptions of particular things were stored as separate bits of memory, manipulation of memories such as in thinking would become cumbersome. Therefore, we note the sameness in perceptions, which we call concepts and stow them away as universals. Thus, it would be cumbersome to remember that 95 Tim barks, Sim barks, Jim barks etc. Instead, we form the concept of a dog from Tim, Sim and Jim and conclude that dogs bark. Most if not all of out memory is stored in the form of concepts such as dogs alongside particular bits of memory as pertaining separately to Tim, Sim and Jim. We have to categorize and conceptualize for processing our perceptions, Categorization, thoughts and activities. As a result we have to adopt new categories and concepts as our Classification activities – both mental and physical – surges ahead as in the Renaissance. And in step & Hierarchies with the explosion in thought and activities with the new waves, our repertoire of vocabulary also explodes. Alongside concepts, classifications are also necessary to process data and to think. Classification or categorization is the flipside of concept formation. We cannot process data about things without classifying them first in terms of our experience. As John Dewey remarked “A classification is a repertory of weapons for attack upon the future and the unknown. Thus we have to classify substances as solids, liquids and gases and then reclassify them further as metals and nonmetals and further on as organic and inorganic substances and so on and so forth. Such classifications are absolutely necessary if we are to study and understand materials from their various manifestations. In the same vein we classify people by their sex, color, nationality, religions and so on for processing data on them and on guessing as to how they will react to emerging situations. The difference between classifying things and classifying people are that the classification of things can often be made by objective observations and measurements whereas classification of people often depend on nebulous factors, and conclusions arrived from such classifications can be overly biased or overly patronizing as the case may be. By six years of age, we are able to absorb abstract concepts such as good, bad, like, dislike, present and past tenses etc. Though the role of instruction is not well assessed, all of our cultural Abstract concepts are taught explicitly and implicitly. Habits such as toilet training are imbibed by that Formation time. This ability to learn new concepts grows with age, peaks and then decreases. Though some children retain their better conceptual abilities into their adulthood, it is by no means universal. Some dull or colorless students make pronounced strides in conceptualization, and other cerebral activities. School dropouts like Einstein and Edison are neither the rules nor the exceptions in this development in conceptual powers. The ability to form concepts begins to decrease after an age of twenty or so, though skills related with pure mathematics and theoretical physics, as well the skills related with applying concepts to situations go on increasing with age. Applying social, political and religious concepts improve steadily with age and last into the sixties and seventies. On the whole, we peak in performance in the thirties as regards technical matters and in the fifties and sixties as regards social matters. Our perception and assessment of the world form a complex process. Our perceptions, illusions and hallucinations of the world around us are recorded as combinations of sounds, pictures, smells, feel and so on. The final product is always a unique idea or a concept. Thus, when we speak of a dog it is a general idea, distinct from other ideas like a cat or a table. Each dog is unique in its own way as regards color, dimensions, etc. On the other hand, the general concept of a dog may not have such a unique set of attributes. We can say Tim is a poodle and weighs 5 Kg, whereas we cannot say specifically that dogs are poodles and weigh so many kilograms. Some concepts like destiny, omnipotence and integrity are formed from abstract ideas and are unconnected with any external stimuli. A triangle is another concept and when we are asked to select a triangular object from a group of objects, we select objects, which conform, to our concept of triangle by comparing the shape of the object with the concept of the triangle. Similarly red, big, cruel etc are words that represent virtual concepts. The word red is comparatively absolute as it refers to a certain part of the light spectrum. However, there is a range of shades, which we call red. Like the concept 'red', the concept 'big' is also not absolute. The concept 'cruel' too is subjective and varies according to the beholder just as the concept of obscenity. In like manner, concepts like justice, freedom, fairness, spirituality, anger etc cannot be pinned down or measured exactly as to their meaning. Everyone interprets these abstractions as they think right or as the words serve the interpreter's purpose. According to Rudolf Flesch words that have a concrete meaning are 1. Names of people and animals, 2. Numbers and number words, 3. Time and dates, 4. Words that are male or female 5. Words that point to one specific person or thing such as I, you, he, she, it, my, me etc and 6. words made more specific by words 96 in one of these five groups above such as Jim's idea, Joe's wife, his dog etc. All other words have no concrete meaning and are abstract ideas. Thus, even words like mango and cake are mere concepts unless qualified by a concrete word such as five mangoes, his cake etc. As we enter adolescence, we not only conceptualize and classify things but also form concepts of hierarchies or subclasses. Thus, we know by adolescence that a poodle is an animal, a dog and a special kind of dog at that. Coming to classifications the first classification we learn in the social context is the classification between male and female. According to Freud, this ability to classify in a hierarchical order is innate in man and probably in animals too. Every real object has a number of attributes or dimensions such as color, shape, hardness, size etc. Such attributes can be relative, absolute or both. There is a variety or a spectrum involved with most concepts such as red or big as mentioned above. This is where the actual senses come in to the aid of communication. There are many shades of red and a particular shade of red paint can only be chosen by visual inspection as in a shade chart provided by paint manufacturers. On the other hand, numbers are concepts that are far more objective. The statement that a newborn baby is big is relative and subjective, whereas the statement that a newborn weights six kilograms is absolute and objective. In addition to concepts of real and abstract entities portrayed above, hypothetical entities like dragons, angels, ghosts, etc also come into the picture. In order to assimilate these hypothetical entities into the realm of our knowledge and concepts, we break them down into parts that conform to our real-time experiences. Thus, the dragon though hypothetical, can be broken down into concepts of experience such as wings, nails, tails, fire etc. In the concept of the dragon, realties are thus combined to give an imaginary form. The same thing can be said of angels, gods and other extra-natural and supernatural beings. Angels though ethereal, have to be depicted as innocent babies or maidens with wings and other attributes which we know as real. The God of the Bible is often depicted as a Patriarch, with flowing robes and a snow-white beard.
Language and Communication: Our senses are our means of direct perception and experience of our environment. Such direct experiences account for only a miniscule percentage of our knowledge and concepts. Indirect experiences, experiences communicated to us by others, account for the bulk of our intellectual or knowledge inventory. Communication is the most important means of acquisition of such indirect knowledge. Communication can be classified into vertical communication and horizontal communication. Vertical communication accounts for the knowledge transmitted to us Communication by those who have gone before us. Technology, language, religion, traditions, taboos, – Vertical and cuisine and other cultural and ethnic factors that contribute to the continuity of a Horizontal particular society comes to us through vertical communication. Horizontal communication comes to us from our contemporaries, and it modifies the content of the vertical communication to suit contemporary realities and helps in the evolution of the society and its culture. Horizontal communication builds up on vertical communication, and leads to the explosion of the knowledge and information base of our society. This explosion in its turn helps in achieving the ultimate aim of society- optimum economic efficiency through cooperation. We have to convert all our ideas and sensations- whether directly experienced or communicated- into words for processing the information, and for communicating them to others and to the community at large. As we saw, it takes communication for a society to cooperate and prosper. As a result, the degree of cooperation and of the sophistication of any society can be gauged by the extent of its vocabulary and its Vocabulary level of communication. Most of our thought processing or word-processing through self- In Data talk, is done in our mother tongue or in the language we are most comfortable with. In the Processing process we are talking to ourselves as to another person, reasoning, rationalizing, joking and so forth all the time whether awake or asleep. Dreams are probably visual forms of self-talk. The word is the most powerful influence in our lives as individuals and as social beings. It is the word that controls us, conditions us and programs us most. Vision is our most prominent mode of perception, and a picture is worth a thousand words. But when it comes to social aspects like communication, ideas and interactions, the word is far more significant. Because of our reliance on words in social interactions, we can understand messages in books or over the 97 radio even without visual effects. In contrast, pictures or movies without sound or subscripts carry little or no meaning. Accordingly, silent movies of the past had to have subscripts, to convey the meaning of the picture frames to the viewers. For the same reason a blind man has a better grasp about the goings on in his world when compared to a deaf man. Words fire up our imaginations and emotions far more than pictures do. That is why many of the movies or performances have not been as exciting or stimulating as the novels or literary works, they are based on. It is often the dialogues that makes the difference between a good movie and mediocre one however classy the visuals. Because of the emotive power of words, acronyms are used widely to make an impact. The Federation of Interstate Truckers looks a harmless mundane name. But its acronym FIST sounds really ominous and one would not deal as casually with FIST as with the Federation of Interstate Truckers. Communication is aimed at information, persuasion and entertainment or a combination of these. Language is a tool for communication. It takes different forms such as spoken, written, sign language, codes etc. It is a symbolic tool in which a sound or a series of sounds, signs or marks on paper or stones are allotted arbitrary meanings culturally. The sound representing 'table' is arbitrary in English and is represented by different sounds in other languages. Without communication, no society can survive. Animals and insects also use languages and other means of communications. The honeybee uses different forms of dances to communicate vital data. Animals and primordial men probably had the same number of words in their vocabulary – words and signs for universal and basic elements like water, fire, trees, sky, grass, prey etc. Then man broke away from the pack and surged ahead in technology. His vocabulary burgeoned over the years, centuries and millennia to take in the surge in technology and cooperation. Communication is defined as the exchange of concepts and their meanings between individuals through a common system of symbols. In the process, our minds act upon the environment and this environment in turn acts upon others' minds and influences them. According to the American psychiatrist and scholar Jurgen Ruesch, there are forty varieties of communications, including architectural, anthropological, psychological, political, and so on. If such informal communications as sexual attraction and play behavior are included, there may be a minimum of fifty modes of interpersonal communications. On the mass scale, the telegraph, the telephone, wireless radio and telephoto devices, newspapers and periodicals, broadcasting, motion pictures, television and the Internet play important roles in communication. Social scientists are investigating how myths, styles of living, mores, and traditions are passed from generation to generation and from one segment of society to another. Political scientists, economists and others admit that communication, whatever their forms, lies at the heart of the regularities and irregularities in the social order. The important components of communications are its source, an encoder, which converts the source into transmittable form such as radio waves, the message, the channel of conveyance or transmission, a decoder that reconverts the transmitted message, and finally a receiver that converts the decoded message to perceivable forms. Thus in radio the transmitter’s voice is encoded or converted to electric pulses, transmitted as waves, these waves are received, decoded, amplified, reconverted into electricity and then into audible sound at the receiver’s end. A concept related to communication is associated with the notion of entropy in thermodynamics. Entropy is the outside influences that diminish the reliability of the communication and, often distorts the Entropy message for the receiver. Negative entropy refers to instances of blurred or incomplete Loss messages that are nevertheless filled in to give a complete message. In the process, the message may be distorted beyond recognition. Generation-to-generation verbal communications are especially prone to such distortions. In a class on communication, we were divided into four columns of about ten each, and four separate verbal message were passed down the column in whispers, in a limited time frame. By the time the message had passed down the column of ten, all four messages were distorted beyond recognition. Written and recorded messages do not suffer this fate of entropy. But it happens that such recorded messages account for only a tiny fraction of our communication. Most of our communication is in the spoken form and is highly vulnerable to entropy losses and distortion. 98 Form Plato's allegory above, we saw that we perceive only 'shadows' of the reality around us through our senses. Entropy in communication further erodes the content, as our vocabulary is wholly inadequate in communicating our thoughts and sensations. Because of the combined loss in perception and entropy, we can communicate only a tiny-weenie fraction of the reality around us to others. Repetition may make up for entropy losses and the redundancy that arises therefrom. Most written and spoken messages are overstuffed with words and even if 50% of the words of an article or message were removed at random, the article would still make sense. Probably such overstuffing is indispensable for effective communication, as it compensates for entropy losses. A feedback from the receiver of communication also helps in containing entropy losses. However, there is no scope for such feedbacks in certain cases such as in seasonal greetings or a novel or when the communicators are long since dead and gone. Under such circumstances, texts must be written with greater clarity. An example of this difference between written and spoken language is most evident in languages that have only recently developed written variants. In the written variants there is a rapid increase in the use of words such as because and however in order to make explicit links between sentences—links that are normally left implicit in spoken language where there is feedback. In the strict sense, we may discuss and communicate only things that are bound by space and time. All else is speculation. Thus, a discussion about the supernatural, which is not bound by space or time, is speculation. Discussions on concepts such as triangles and other two dimensional entities are also Speculation speculations in the strictest sense. However, unlike in the case of religious and superstitious speculations, principles and rationale related to triangles and other two dimensional concepts are applicable to real space-time situations, in a consistent manner. With technological advances, mass communications have come into their own in the modern era. Mass communications condition us and homogenize us. Over the years, control over mass communication has fallen into the hands of relatively small numbers of professionals. However, they do not have the field to themselves, and are in turn controlled by the laws and traditions of the land and its people. It cannot be denied that mass communication modifies public opinion, national priorities, lifestyles, consumer behavior and other important aspects of modern life. Evolution and changes are wrought by communication in these aspects of life, and these changes in turn influence mass communication content and so on in mutually reinforcing cycles that may be desirable, undesirable or mixed in their outcomes. Patriotic propaganda thus affect people and the changes thus brought about in the population influence the media content and so on. Commercial advertising is another case in point. Commercial ads influence public tastes and even gestures and these influences in turn may spur media ads to evolve further. In most mature democracies, the deciding factor in election is the undecided voter. Communication and media blitzes seem to have an effect on this segment of the voters and to bring about unpredictable electoral swings. Surveys indicate that in the absence of alternatives, people are often reasonably satisfied with the quality and content of the communication they receive, even when the source of such communications is totalitarian dictatorships or is from a dubious source. Though critics fear that the few who control the media may misuse it, it has been found that this does not come easy in the face of established and culturally sanctioned social institutions. What is more, people resist drastic changes in their environments whether materialistic, social, cultural, economic or political. Slow change can be brought about by media through the sheer power of repetition. As cited above, language is a system of symbols and abstractions from experience and provides an important medium of thinking and communication. It seems that the capacity to acquire languages is inbuilt genetically into us and we pick up the language from the age of one to about the time when we are six. Though language is highly conceptual and symbolic, the fact that some children who are good at picking up languages are poor at conceptual thinking and reasoning seems to point out that though language involves conceptual manipulations, it may nevertheless be an independent phenomenon unlike other conceptual processes. The process of learning the first language is quite complex. Children are predisposed to this learning process, which involves controlling the vocal tracts, acquiring the grammatical principles and other characteristics of a spoken language. Though newborns have no predilection to any particular language, by the time they are six months old they begin to specialize in the nuances of their ‘mother tongue’, and can
99 differentiate between his mother-tongue and other languages. It is assumed that they pick up the basics of the mother-tongue from the 'motherese', which is associated with the petting, the nourishing, and the lullabies. Talking is closely related to hearing and repetitions. So children born deaf cannot talk though they may have the capacity to talk like any child. So we often use the tern ‘deaf and dumb’ in combination though the child may not be dumb in the strictest sense. Second language acquisition denotes the acquisition of a language after reaching puberty. This often is a difficult process. However, frequent contacts with the groups that speak the language concerned make things easier. Second languages are also acquired more easily where such acquisition is customary as in the erstwhile European colonies. The same goes for multi-linguism, the acquisition of more than two languages. This is common in countries like India where people handle English and Hindi in addition to their own mother-tongue. Though ideas may be associated with pictures, sounds or smells, ideas and concepts have to be converted into words for 'data processing' or thinking and then for communicating them to others, as mentioned above. Language plays a very important part in this process. Thus the word 'cousin' has a very general meaning in English while in other societies there are so many words to denote the exact nature of kinship and each such word denotes duties, rights, traditions and taboos associated with the particular relationship. Though sexual relationships between cousins are taboo in the west, it is the rule rather than the exception in most societies. In some societies marriage between children of brothers or between children of sisters are allowed whereas it is tabooed in other societies. Some societies encourage marriage between children of a brother and a sister. Such taboos and traditions are reflected in the language. Thus in my language Malayalam 'murapennu' (mura means tradition and pennu means girl) means the daughter of the maternal uncle or the daughter of the paternal aunt whom a boy is duty-bound to marry. The word excludes other cousins like children of brothers or children of sisters. Therefore, a word like 'murapennu' speaks volumes about the traditions and taboos of our society. Similarly, there are separate words for elder brother and younger brother as well as for elder sister and younger sister in our language and in most languages of the world. Each such word denoting the different kinship also denotes the mutual rights and obligations, which form the foundations of any society. Any language may be employed without major alterations to say the same thing as may be said in another language, though a considerable amount of circumlocution and illustrations may be required in the process. Consequently, it has been possible to explain the most sophisticated Western technological aspects to the primitive tribes of the Amazon. Just as knives can be used to function as screwdrivers, primitive languages can be substituted for sophisticated languages, to accomplish the same tasks effectively. In the final analysis, different languages may be different looking tools for accomplishing the same task, as a means of communication. A language is also an indicator that trace the history, concepts and traditions of a culture. A language is transferred from parents to children and over many generations, the language undergoes modification and divergence and gives rise to different dialects of the same language. The isolation and insulation of societies in the Original State and the Agrarian Wave provided fertile ground for this divergence and modification of languages. In time, the dialects become 'foreign' to each other. However many of the original words are retained in the divergent languages. The number of such words common to two languages decreases with each generation. Thus the divergence between two languages is an indication of the time elapsed since the two societies concerned parted ways from a common ancestry. The Indo-European languages number over a hundred and have many words in common. This indicates that the ancestry of the societies that speak these languages is the same. The less the number of common words between two people, the more remote in time is their common ancestry. Conversely, the more the number of common words between two societies, the shorter is the time-span before which they had common ancestors. This affinity between societies of common ancestry can also be found in concepts related to culture and arts, religions and superstitions, traditions and taboos, ethics and morals etc. Present turbulent flow conditions coupled with universal education tend to homogenize social and cultural characteristics. As a result, the trend to develop dialects and distinct languages and cultures is on the decline. Sociolects Just as different cultures use different languages, the different strata of the society in the same locality may also use distinct variations of the same language. Such varieties of the same language used by the different strata of the same society are called Sociolects. High caste Hindus use dialects that are 100 different from the ones used by the low castes. Hindus, Christians and Muslims in India use different dialects of the same language and it used to be easy to distinguish one's religion and caste from the Sociolects they use. Universal education has helped in homogenizing these differences too. Languages also indicate the importance a particular society gives to different aspects of life. The Eskimos use many single words to describe whale blubber in its various states such as ready-to-eat blubber, tender blubber, rancid blubber, cooked blubber and so on. The Laplanders have dozens of words to denote reindeer in their various forms and ages. Because of the cultural and social dimensions of the mother-tongue, languages have considerable emotional characteristics. Apart from race and color, language is undoubtedly one of the most important factors that distinguishes one ethnic group from another. Tamil is one of the most ancient of languages spoken in the world and the Tamils have an emotional attachment to that language that cannot be gauged by most others. Way back in the late 1960s the central government of India imposed Hindi on the non-Hindi speaking populations of India. Though there were only murmurs from the other language groups against this imposition, the Tamils took it up in earnest and there was much rioting and arson in Tamilnadu against the draconian enactment. Even to this day the Government of India has not been able to make much headway in introducing Hindi into the schools of Tamil Nadu, because of the emotional attachments the Tamils have to their language.
Memory and Knowledge: Retrieval of learnt material is as necessary as learning new material if the learning is to be of any use. The power of retaining and recalling past experience is called memory. Though learning, remembering and forgetting were considered separate processes, researches show the difference may be more apparent than real. According to some researchers, there are at least three stages in memory function- immediate, short term and long term. Thus memorizing the telephone number before dialing involves short-term memorization. The number is immediately forgotten thereafter. Repetition and rehearsal strengthen the process of memorization and leads to longer-term memorization. Such memorized information may also be forgotten over long periods if that memory is not reinforced by usage. What is more, similar or identical bits of information can confuse the memory. Thus once you have learned a telephone number of a man by heart and then if you have to learn another number, which is similar to the first number, it leads to confusion, and recall becomes difficult. Thinking is manipulation of memories and concepts. Reasoning, syllogism or logic is the formal Logic study of the thinking process. In its elementary form, thinking or logic may be demonstrated in the following form: - All men are mortal Socrates is a man Therefore, Socrates is mortal. This is a straightforward set of statements. Things are seldom that easy. Suppose there is an elixir that makes men immortal. The train of logical statements would then be: All men are mortal Socrates is a man However, there is an elixir that makes men immortal Therefore, Socrates is mortal unless he takes the elixir or If he takes the elixir, Socrates is immortal. If a certain minimum quantity of the elixir is required to render men immortal, then the train of logic lengthens further and becomes more complex. In the first set of statements, there are only three variables – mortality, men and Socrates. In the second set of proposition a fourth variable – the elixir – is introduced and this confounds the smooth flow of logic in the first set of statements. The fifth variable – a minimum dose of elixir – makes it even more complex in an exponential fashion. Connecting words such as and, but, if, not only – but also, however, consequently, nevertheless etc expose the complexities in relationships between propositions in a logical train of propositions. The more such words in a statement, the more complex the variables involved and their relationships. We will be looking into the different aspects of thinking later on in this chapter.
101 Knowledge is a sort of organized manifestation of memory whether generalized as concepts or in particular forms. Knowledge is defined as "the psychological result of perception, learning and reasoning." Epistemology or the "Theory of Knowledge' is the study of human knowledge (Episteme is Greek for knowledge and logos means reason). This is one the most ancient of disciplines of learning and philosophy, and dates back to the times of Socrates and before. We are being bombarded by trillions of bytes of stimulus, some of which are perceived and become our information and knowledge. As rational human beings we have to fit these seemingly unrelated bits of information to form concepts and patterns. Patterns formed from memories whether conceptual or particular, may be called knowledge. Humans, especially philosophers tend to find commonalities in the information and knowledge and to construct rules and regulations for forming such patterns. This does not come easy. Things, which may seem very simple at first sight, may appear very complex on closer examination. In the section on perceptions, we have seen illusions caused by our 'misreading' cues or stimuli. A stick appears to bend on entering water, the whistle of a train grown higher in pitch as it approaches and lower in pitch as it departs etc. We have to find reasons for such aberrations so that these aberrations too can be accommodated into a larger pattern. The bending of the stick as it enters water is an aberration that can be explained by the differences in refractive indices of air and water. We know that the stick is straight though it appears bent. There is an obvious discrepancy between knowledge and perception. However, we cannot say categorically that the stick is not bent at the interface. When we touch or feel the stick it is not bent. Nonetheless, we have seen that tactile senses too are prone to illusions. Here, our visual perception tells us that the stick bends on entering the water while our tactile senses tell us that the stick does not bend. Though we cannot be certain by perception whether the stick bends or not on entering water, for all practical purposes we know that the stick does not bend. Practicality might be the most important factor in determining the essence of such knowledge. Thus, a circular coin appears elliptical at certain angles. However, in measuring the diameters as well as in practical applications, it acts as a circular disc and so the coin is categorically circular, though we can say for arguments' sake that the measuring tape too undergoes distortion at different angles. There is also the problem of internal perception – mainly pleasure and pain- to be considered here. When one says that he has a pain in the leg we cannot in any way gauge the pain or arrive at an objective assessment of the pain. We can just get an inkling of another's pain by comparing it with our own pains, past or present. Obviously, we cannot be certain about what goes on in another's mind. Philosophy is the apex discipline, which studies all forms of knowledge – whether scientific or other Philosophy and - and unifies them into a well-coordinated whole. Philosophy divides or classifies Epistemology knowledge into many branches: metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and so on. Each of these disciplines has its own subject matter and subdivisions. Thus metaphysics is concerned with the ultimate nature of the world; ethics is concerned with the way we should behave towards others and so on. Epistemology is closely related to each of these disciplines as it is epistemology or the theory of knowledge that can coordinate the propositions in all these disciplines and verify them.. When we utter the word 'boys' it implies the male of the human species which has not yet attained maturity. The 's' at the end denotes there are more than one of them. This type of knowledge, which is implicit or inherent in the word itself, is called a priori knowledge or truism. Most mathematical principles constitute a priori knowledge in that mathematical principles are independent of A priori & a posteriori personal experience. René Descartes held that all the ideas required for a knowledge priori knowledge were innate in each human mind like Jung’s archetypes described in the chapter on fear. In contrast, knowledge attained by experience or by deduction, whether one's own or transmitted, such as "Two bodies attract each other in proportion to the product of their masses" is called a posteriori knowledge. In addition to our direct experiences, we are constantly bombarded by indirect a-posteriori- knowledge statements from other sources such as parents, teachers, peers, books, media etc in the form of propositions, advertisements, lectures, speeches, sermons of revelations, hearsay, rumors, gossips and what have you. Much of this may be of dubious origin. Others may have suffered much entropy losses as they pass from mouth to mouth and from generation to generation. In the process, the original bit of information or
102 message may be deformed beyond recognition and may even evolve into propositions that go against the meaning of the original proposition. Clearly, a posteriori knowledge, which is based on experiences, experiments and communication, is only as reliable as the observations and the sources of communication, which support the particular bit of knowledge or proposition. Dots, lines and areas, are not three dimensional in its pure sense and so non-existent. Nevertheless concepts about these zero, one and two dimensional figures also form part of our knowledge. Therefore, Reasoning & knowledge need not be fully derived from senses. Such concepts are to some extend Empiricism inborn. Innateness and learning has been much discussed. Reasoning is the ability to apprehend reality as it is from other realities. Thus, 2+3=5 is the reality derived from the reality that two of a thing put together with three of the same thing gives five of the same thing. If such a consistent correspondence were lacking, it would be impossible for us to understand the world. Empiricism is based on the precept that all knowledge comes from experience. Experience in turn consists of impressions and sensations of events and chains of events as perceived by our senses.
Associations: The word 'dog' represents a concept. It may also bring to our mind the picture and sound of a particular dog or particular dogs or incidents related to them. This interconnection between concepts, perceptions and knowledge is called association. It was presumed that they were cells called dendrites that stored information in the brain and that cells called axons functioned as transmitters of information between dendrites. Thus, when we speak of a black dog, the dendrite where concept of dog is stored connects to the dendrite where the concept of 'black' is stored through the axons and the combination outputs the idea of a ‘black dog.’ Later on, Dendrites & they found that things were much more complex and that dendrites can transmit impulses Axons and that axons can store information. It seems like the brain itself, its components too seem to throw up surprises in their complexity and uniqueness. To make things easier, we will use the term 'dendrite' for the storage cells of the brain, and 'axons' for the cells that interconnect the dendrites. Einstein is acknowledged as the greatest genius of all time. After his death, Einstein's brain was subjected to a thorough examination to see what made him the genius he was. They found that the number of dendrites in his brain were only about as many as any ordinary man's. In contrast, they found that he had an astounding number of axons that connected the dendrites to each other in every possible way. These axons are what form associations in our brain. The more the number of axons the more complex are the associations between things, ideas, concepts, events and so on. It may not be in the capacity of the memory that a genius differs from a moron, but in the number and complexity of the axons and the associations they signify. Einstein was a mathematical genius. Edison was another kind of genius who was not anywhere as good in mathematics as Einstein. Then there are geniuses like Shakespeare, Mozart and Michel Angelo. Leonardo Da Vinci was another kind of genius who excelled in both science and the arts. There was Aryabhatta, the genius from India, who conceived 'zero', which I consider the biggest conceptual discovery of all times. Did all these geniuses have the same type of dendrites and axons as Einstein, or are there various categories of dendrites and axons - one for mathematics, another for economics, a third category of dendrites and axons for music, a fourth for football and so on and so forth? Every bit of idea we acquire, come in bundles of stimuli. Thus, a book has a title, color, size, subject, author and other details, which make it unique. Each of these properties or attributes of the book are stored separately in our dendrites, which in turn are connected together by axons to give the idea of that particular book. There may be another book with entirely different attributes, which are stored in other cells. However, the idea of the book connects their attributes together. Imagine, we have seen only two books in our lifetime, one on the moon and another on cockroaches, both books differing from each other in color, shape and whatever attributes you can think of. The mention of a cockroach, however, can bring to our minds the picture of a moon, as the two are associated with each other in our brains through the idea of the book. Every word we use –noun, verb, adjective, adverb, conjunction and the whole works - is symbolic of either a concept or an association between concepts. Associations come every which way imaginable. Thus, ideas of table and chair are associated with each other, because they often form sets in normal life. Similarly, buses and cars may form sets as they have many common attributes. Balls, bats, boots and baseball hats form sets and may be associated with each 103 other. Similarly, opposites such as black and white, fire and water, big and small, male and female, god and devil, capitalism, communism, socialism etc are associated with each other. Similar sounding words are associated. Thus, Mr. John Carpenter may be associated with carpentry and furniture for an Englishman. The English word 'coach' means a bus or a trainer in sports and games. So, an American dreaming of football may be thinking of a bus or a car and vice versa. In his best selling work on the interpretation of dreams, Freud gives many such forms of associations. According to him, sexual associations are the most universal. Accordingly, the number three, mountains, snakes, some flowers and so on have universal sexual associations in our subconscious, irrespective of our ethnicity. This theory of universal sexual associations has been strongly disputed by other psychologists. It is in the nature, number and complexity of associations that we differ from computers. Computers have only one ‘sensory organ’, the keyboard, and so their inputs are limited in number and scope by what we key in to the computer. They also make very few associations and most of these associations are inbuilt or programmed in simple machine languages. On the other hand, we receive trillions of bits of information every second through our five senses and process them, forming thousands of simultaneous associations to choose from. In comparison, computers have so few choices to make and that is why they are so fast and accurate. It may be pertinent to note here that one of the best methods of remembering things like names and numbers is to form as many associations as possible with the name or number. Thus if you meet a person called Arnold and want to recall the name when you meet him again, then associate the person with Arnold Schwarzenegger and picture the new Arnold with his eyeballs sticking out as in 'Terminator-2' or picture the new Arnold with mud all over his body as in 'Predator'. The more the associations formed about anything, the easier it is to recall the thing from memory. Associations reinforce memory and vice versa. The famous dream by Maury as narrated by Sigmund Freud in his bestseller 'The Interpretation of Dreams,’ gives a clue to the methods of forming associations as well as to the speed of the thinking and dreaming process. Maury dreamt that he was in the thick of the French Revolution and its reign of terror, where after summary trials of many innocents and their condemnation, he himself was brought before the revolutionary tribunal, consisting of Robespierre, Marat and other leaders of the revolution. Maury’s He was questioned extensively and condemned to the guillotine. As he was led up to the Dream guillotine, he was followed by a large unruly mob baying for his blood. He was led up to the scaffold and was blindfolded and tied to the stand. Finally, the guillotine fell and sliced through his neck and decapitated him. Maury woke up trembling only to find that the top of his bed had fallen down on his neck. He had associated the fall of the top of the bed with the guillotine and what is more in that microsecond between the fall of the bed-top and his wakening, the long and terrifying sequence of events had passed through his mind.
Thinking: We had had a cursory glance at logical thinking with the train of propositions on Socrates, mortality, elixirs and so on. We also saw that thinking, reasoning, syllogism or logic involve cerebral manipulation of memories and concepts. We shall now dwell at length on this process. Thinking or reasoning is defined as the cerebral response to external and/or internal stimuli. This cerebral response is often involuntary and symbolic. Thinking is also a process of forming patterns from concepts. The purpose of thinking is to find answers to questions and solutions to problems. The process of thinking or reasoning consists of forming patterns of associations or cause-effect relationships of past events and applying the past patterns to evolving patterns of events in the present or in the future. Our thoughts are our personal evaluations of the world around us. Naturally, much of it is subjective, unique and customized. Thinking is also a process of arriving at new knowledge by the manipulation of existing knowledge. Thus when we are presented with a problem, we organize and manipulate existing knowledge to arrive at new knowledge that may solve the problem. This is also called reasoning. Mathematics is the most formal and rigid system of such reasoning. Einstein thus manipulated already available data or knowledge by mathematical techniques and arrived at the new knowledge of the Theory of Relativity and its implications. Edward De Bono, the originator of the idea of lateral thinking, observes in this context that since God is omniscient he cannot think, as all knowledge is there before him. And, if he cannot think his omnipotence is in doubt. This inference illustrates that concepts such as omniscience and omnipotence are mere words of speculation and conjecture, words full of sound and fury that signify nothing in the final 104 analysis. Alas, we are conditioned by many such words that raise the adrenaline in us and lead us to irrational thoughts and actions. Here we come to the various disciplines of knowledge. Science is precise in that phenomena are measured accurately and immutable cause-effect relationships are firmly established. On the other hand there are the statistical disciplines like economics, weather, psychology and so on where instead of exact cause- effect relationships, correlates are established by statistical methods. Accordingly, in weather forecasting there is no exact cause-effect relationship between temperatures and rainfall, because there are too many other factors of various complexities involved in rainfall. Here statistical models indicating correlating factors are made and weather forecasting is done within reasonable limits of accuracy. Apart from the exact sciences and the statistical disciplines, there are the arts. In the arts, nothing can be measured and cause- effect or correlating factors are impossible to measure. The whole discipline depends on factors that are intuitive and subjective. The scientific disciplines belong to the nanocosm. When nanocosmic science discoveries are applied to our microcosm, it is called technology. Many macrocosmic forces and variables are at work in this microcosm. As result, they are the statistical disciplines which are most useful in the microcosm vis-à-vis the macrocosm. Empiricism is the name of the game in our microcosmic world. Due to constraints of time and knowledge of the number and scope of variables involved it is next to impossible to apply statistical principles to every incident of life, and we have to play such incidents intuitively. But often things are carried to the extremes. Thus we jump to conclusions from just an incident or two, Miracles are the best examples of jumping to such conclusions. A man goes on a pilgrimage or makes an offering to his favorite deity, and if a cure from a decease or a solution to a problem ensues, then the cure or the solution of the problem is attributed to his religious activities. Here a general conclusion is drawn from a singular incident without giving due consideration to the many variables involved, above all to the more numerous cases of such religious activities not being successful and to cases where such pilgrimages have ended in disaster. When our brain idles and operates free of immediate and external Primary & urgencies, thinking becomes imagining, fantasizing, dreaming, day-dreaming, Secondary Thinking hallucinating, or delusioning. Freud termed this type of involuntary thinking as primary as compared to the second form of problem-solving cerebral activity, which he termed secondary thinking. The primary thinking is more involved with the Child and the secondary thinking with the Adult. In a way, the secondary thinking is aimed at satiating the wishes, lusts and dreams of primary thinking as well as at assuaging the fears and insecurities, which are associated with the Child. Primary thinking is instinctive and wishful; secondary thinking is realistic and aimed at problem-solving. Primary thinking is universal and may be prevalent even in animals. Secondary thinking varies from society to society and even from man to man. Secondary thinking involves planning, rationale, monitoring and controls, and continuous organization. Accordingly, the vocabulary related to primary thinking is universal and limited, as it is concerned mostly with the Child and his primordial world, which is the same for all men and animals. On the other hand, secondary thinking has to do with attainment of primary objectives and so is concerned with evolving technologies and varies greatly with development. With technical advances and developments, the vocabulary related with secondary thinking explodes to include the terms associated with the new tools, processes, technologies and institutions involved. Primary and secondary thinking are also termed autistic and realistic respectively. The terms are not mutually exclusive but rather correspond to relative degrees of influence of different conditions that enter into thinking. Experimental thinking consists in limiting the variables involved in a particular situation to manageable proportions, and keeping other variables constant. Thus in Boyle's Law, temperature is kept constant in finding the relationship between pressure and volume. Measurability of the variables involved as well as of the results is imperative in the experimental approach to thinking. In science and associated disciplines, exact measurements are taken. In subjects like meteorology and weather forecasting, computer models are made, using past experiences and the models thus obtained are applied to developing situations. In more complex situations, sample surveys are conducted to arrive at conclusions and solutions. Convergent Certain forms of thinking demand the abilities to amass and systematize & Divergent information. The process is directed towards achieving aims or solving problems. This goal Thinking oriented thinking is called convergent thinking. Convergent thinking often entails conventional thinking. General mathematical solutions provide the best example for such 105 conventional or convergent thinking. The more the number and complexity of variables involved, both experimental and convergent thinking become cumbersome and difficult, and often result in unreliable conclusions. However, we have to arrive at conclusions in many of life's situations and we have to pick one of many choices. Only the outcomes will then determine whether our decision was right or wrong. Under most such circumstances, nothing succeeds like success. Idiotic decisions like the charge of the light brigade become heroic acts whereas well-thought-out strategies fall dud on their faces. A change in the wind can make all the difference between success and failure such as in the Battle of the Trenches in which a change of wind forced the Qureysh to withdraw and helped Prophet Muhammad win a crucial war. Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo in spite of Napoleon's meticulous planning and strategies is said to have come about as a result of an unexpected change in weather conditions. Creative or divergent thinking involves thinking along unconventional lines. Whereas convergent thinking adopts conventional tools such as mathematics and formal logic for processing data and arriving at conclusions, divergent thinking or creative thinking adopts unconventional and intuitive methods of data processing to arrive at solutions. Insights play a significant part in such divergent thinking. Lateral thinking, as espoused by Edward De Bono can also play an important role in divergent thinking. Divergent thinking calls for elasticity, innovation, fluency, and ingenuity, especially in situations in which the individual must supply his own, unique perceptions and solutions. In divergent thinking the relevant data are first collected and classified in a loose unconventional manner. In the second step these data are allowed to incubate in the mind. Here again no rigid disciplines are resorted to in mulling over the data. Such incubation is partly involuntary and takes place even during sleep or when engaged in other activities. Then out of nowhere comes the third step, which is termed an illumination or the ‘Eureka’. In the final stage the “Eureka’ idea is verified with experiments. In a way of speaking convergent thinking starts out with known facts and uses rigid, conventional tools of thinking and data processing such as mathematics to arrive at a conclusion. In contrast, in divergent thinking a conclusion is arrived at intuitively through illumination and verification is resorted to only subsequently. Creative thinking is a matter of using intrinsic resources to produce tangible results. This process is markedly influenced by early experience and training. Schools and teachers that encourage individual expression and that tolerate idiosyncratic or unorthodox thinking seem to foster the development of creative or divergent thinking. Within the scope of these types of thinking and planning, individual variations also play an important part. Motivation, incentives, risk and rewards involved are also relevant in thinking and decision-making. Some perform well while others become mental wrecks under pressure. Some come to quick decisions as if by reflex while others chew and ruminate over the situation before they make decisions. Some concentrate only on the essentials while others take in the fringes, while still others fritter away their energies on the superficial. Judgment is another form of thinking and decision making in which information is sieved through prescribed filters to reach a conclusion. A zebra is judged to be one by its unique and characteristic stripes. On the other hand, in many cases, the judgment is not so simple as a number of factors and criteria are involved in the references required in reaching a decision. The judgment in a court constitutes Judgment reference to a number of acts, rules, regulations etc in coming to a decision and the possibility of reaching the right judgment, if there is such a thing at all, is difficult. In such cases, subjectivity plays an important part. This is the reason why there are so many levels of appeals possible in the judicial system as even learned judges are liable to arrive at wrong conclusions. Thinking or reasoning is also a process of self-talk or silent speech or word processing. E. Jacobson and L.W. Max, during their researches in the 1930s, found that there was electrical stimulation of the vocal chords and other organs of speech during the thought process as during reading. Later on, it was found that other parts of the body were similarly involved. Thus, when we think of kicking a ball, our leg muscles are stimulated. In his masterpiece 'The Outsider', Albert Camus describes a scene in which young men coming Body out of an action movie had an extra spring to their stride. Similarly, it was found that Language students wrote faster when the name of Michael Schumacher, the car-racing legend, was And Dreams mentioned. As a result, it has been suggested that we think and express emotions with our whole body. Modern studies and findings in 'body language' confirm this conclusion. However hard we may try to conceal our thought and intentions in our verbal communications, our body
106 language gives it all away. Nevertheless as social animals, we use words and self-talk predominantly to think, reason, communicate and debate. Our self-talk and the background 'movie' of pictures, sounds and smells and other sensations associated with those words, ideas and concepts are a continuing 24/7 process through our waking and sleeping hours. During our waking hours, the background 'movie' is overwhelmed by the intensity of the real-world stimuli around us. During sleep, these external stimuli are shut out and the background 'movie' comes on as our dreams. Dreams are the recorded sensations associated with our sleeping thoughts. Because we think with our body, our actions associated with our thoughts become more pronounced in dreams - we speak, sweat, ejaculate and jump up from bed during dreams and in extreme cases, we sleepwalk. Thinking and dreaming seem to be identical activities. With the Industrial Wave and the universal use of machines, they began to talk of the universe and of man in terms of the concerted movements of a clock or other machines. In like manner, with the Digital wave came computers, and now people speak of the thinking process in terms of storage, retrieval, and transmission of bits of information - like a computer. The example might even extent beyond storage, retrieval and transmission. The functional use of sleep has not yet been fully comprehended. Nevertheless, sleep may partly be compared to the defrag function of computers. During our waking hours we receive millions of bits of information every second from the outside world, and we get little or no time to sort and store them as more and more megabits of information bombard our senses. During sleep, we shut out most of these external stimuli and begin defragging the info received during our waking hours. That may be how we often find solutions to problems when we sleep over them, for sleep puts our fragmented bits of sensations in the right order with the right associations and brings out the best solutions. That may also be one of the reasons why we go haywire if we do not sleep for days together. Problem solving entails trial and error as in solving a jigsaw puzzle. Insight also plays an important part. Insight is the intuitive appraisal of the data related to a problem and finding a solution. Solutions from insight would suggest that we already know the solution. All that is required is to rearrange Insight the whole data and make a break-through, which involves breaking through the mental resistance to the solution becoming conscious. We have dwelt above on divergent or creative thinking. One of the best instances of such divergent thinking involving insight is the discovery of the structure of Benzene by Friedrich August Kekulé. The scientific world had been working its brains out in developing a plausible formula for Benzene and other aromatic hydrocarbons. Kekule, a qualified architect-turned-chemical-researcher, was in the forefront of the search. One night he went to sleep after a 'useless day' in resolving the issue of the Kekule’ Dream benzene structure. That night he dreamt of six snakes in a circle and each snake had in – Snakes and its mouth the tail of the snake in front. He woke up in 'eureka' mode and the solution to Benzene Rings the problem of benzene structure was clear in his mind. His cyclical formula for benzene evolved, with six Carbon atoms and six Hydrogen atoms. Obviously, he had an intuition as to the formula even before he went to bed. But there was some resistance to the surfacing of that knowledge. Somehow, this knowledge broke through the resistance in his sleep and we had a break-through in organic chemistry. Systematic, logical or mathematical thinking on the other hand, involves far more rigid processes built upon established theories as the law of gravitation or by established processes as in Arithmetic, Algebra, Trigonometry, Calculus, dispensation of justice and so on and so forth. There are two types of reasoning or problem solving which correspond to the convergent and divergent forms of thinking discussed above – inductive and deductive. In inductive reasoning, a more inclusive decision is arrived at from the commonalities in a number of observations. Thus from the Inductive and observation that most objects fall to the ground, it was induced that all objects are attracted Deductive to the earth. Such induced conclusions are valid only if all observations in context conform Thinking to the conclusion or law arrived at. Even if there is a minor anomaly, which cannot be explained by the common conclusion, then that conclusion is liable to be rejected unless it can be explained by other laws. The conclusion that all objects are attracted by the earth, is vitiated by the observation that a Hydrogen-filled balloon does not fall to the ground. However, this aberration can be explained by other laws of nature, and so the inductive conclusion that all objects are attracted by the earth is acceptable. 107 Deductive reasoning is quite the opposite process. Thus from the observation that all objects are attracted by the earth we can deduce that a coconut will fall to the ground if unsupported. Here we have applied the principles as applied to all objects as applicable to a single object-a coconut. We use both these types of reasoning –inductive and deductive- as the situations demand them. Both these types of thinking are also highly prone to errors especially in complex social, political and economic situations. Just because thousands of Germans were involved in the murder of Jews, it would be wrong to induce that all Germans are Jew killers. This type of inductive thinking without adequate studies on representative samples lead to prejudices. Prejudices can be both good and bad. The above one on all Germans being Jew haters is a negative induction. On the other hand, the induction that all Englishmen are literate, just because the majority of Englishmen are literate is an optimistic case of inductive thinking. Negative attitudes lead to bigotry. Positive attitudes though on the whole harmless or optimistic, may also lead to taking undue advantage of the attitude. Thus, Indians on the whole think that Westerners are honest and businesslike. Therefore, an Indian is more likely to fall for an American swindler than for an Indian one. For the same reason, a scientific discovery made in the US is likely to be deemed more authentic than one made in India or Africa. As mentioned above, creative or divergent thinking involves thinking along unconventional lines. Lateral thinking is a form of such creative thinking. The term 'lateral thinking' was coined by Edward De Bono and has been applied in problem solving. Thus in a problem involving bad debts in a bank, a probe- word seemingly unrelated to the problem – such as 'fish' - is suggested as a starting point, and a solution is arrived at by a number of associations and threads of thoughts. We have discussed at length the subject of creative thinking or divergent thinking and the four steps involved in it – accumulation of data, the incubation, the ‘eureka’ and the verification. We have also seen how circumstances and intellectual ambience such as schools, which nurture idiosyncratic ideas, play a prominent part in such creative thinking. Thus a man in the jungles of the Amazon cannot come out with a sophisticated idea that a child in modern society can come out with, however creative the Amazonian is. Among creative thinkers, artists seem to operate in almost total isolation from environmental constraints. On the other hand, scientists adopt disciplined and logical thinking and apply both deductive and inductive thinking principles to most situations. It may also be noted that group thinking may be more effective in certain situations such as in politics, whereas personal opinions matter in spheres of special expertise. Nonetheless in many cases the opinions of one man may be more authentic than that of many. Thus, Galileo's decision or thinking was far more authentic than that of all his contemporaries including the divine representatives as regards the shape of the earth. A decision reached by a small group of experts holds more value than the decision taken by a nation. Brainstorming is a kind of group thinking where a problem is posed to a group and all solutions that come up, including the seemingly unviable and ridiculous ones are given due consideration. Group This is a sort of lateral thinking and plausible solutions are often arrived at by insightful Thinking associations. Group thinking is also useful when the issues call for expertise in different fields and so inputs from different specialists are necessary. Divergent or creative thinking is the sort of thinking that leads to new concepts and solutions. There may be both desirable and undesirable concepts drawn from divergent thinking. The formula of Benzene as discovered by Kekule has helped considerably in the development of aromatic Chemistry. The concept of the sovereignty and indivisibility of nations is also the result of divergent thinking. However the ‘discovery’ has had disastrous effects on freedom struggles everywhere in the world. Most dogmas and doctrines whether religious, political, economic or otherwise arise from divergent thinking. The only thing that is lacking in such dogmatic thinking is the final step that we have mentioned as crucial to divergent thinking – verification. Dogmatists seldom bother to verify their dogmas and doctrines except by circular logic as we have discussed in the chapter on Parental and social conditioning. Maury's dream described above also show that we may not be thinking in straight lines or in chronological order. If the fall of the top of the bed 'the guillotining' set in motion the thinking process then the guillotining took place first in the dream process and the trial later on, a sort of backward thinking. However, the brain put things in the right chronological order in the dream. Humor often comes from extraordinary associations formed out of ordinary remarks. Take the following from one of those joke-books, which I came across when Saddam was in power: - Humor, Paradoxes, 108 Oxymorons Clinton, Thatcher, Schroeder and a number of other Western leaders died and ended up in hell along with the likes of Saddam Hussein. One evening the leaders had lined up before the telephone booth in hell to call home. Clinton and the other Western leaders called their homes and were billed in hundreds of dollars. Saddam spoke on the phone endlessly, but was charged a mere ten cents. 'How come we had to pay such exorbitant charges?' the Western leaders enquired of the telephone operator. 'Oh!' said the booth operator, 'For Saddam it is a local call' To start with, associating the politicians with hell speaks volumes about their ethics and morals. In addition, in the final crack about the local call, an ordinary remark insinuates the extraordinary association that Iraq under Saddam is pure hell. Undoubtedly, humor is one of the most complex forms of thinking. Humor also comes from the unexpected trains of thoughts involved in the punch line. Nothing is unexpected for God and so God obviously cannot have a sense of humor. Paradoxes and oxymoron are other forms of associations that seem valid statement at first sight, but then are seen to be invalid on closer examination. The famous statement by Orwell 'Some are more equal than others' is one such statement that is not logical at first sight; nevertheless, it tickles the brain. I came across another paradox 'Can a man legally marry his widow's sister?' Then there is the semi-paradox, which states that he was conspicuous by his absence. When a paradox is compressed into two words, it is called an oxymoron such as sound of silence, living death, sweet pain, noble savage, and so forth. Like humor, paradoxes and oxymoron are also higher forms of intelligent associations. It seems our brain is trying out all forms of associations between words and bits of information all the time. Some of these associations may even be ridiculous or unexplainable. One morning I woke up with the words 'alkali honcity' in my mind. I am in chemical business and the word alkali has a definite meaning for me. However, the word 'honcity' baffled me. The part 'hon' I thought at the time had to do with 'to hone' as in honig a knife. Later on, I thought 'honcity' had to do with 'Honda City'. I have not tried to sort it out any further. Freud gives methods of sorting out the meaning behind the combination of such syllables, which mean nothing at first sight. Obviously, my brain had been trying out different permutations and combinations of many syllables, and had come up with a link or association 'alkali honcity', which though meant nothing at the time, may have made latent sense. An infant is never surprised at anything, as he is not conditioned in any way. Thus if a stone or man were to levitate, it would not surprise an infant. On the other hand, levitating would take us by surprise as we know from repetition and its conditioning that nothing can go up and that everything unsupported has to come down. Similarly, when a magician pulls out a rabbit out of a hat, it holds no surprise whatsoever for an infant. If the infant were to see the trick every day, by the time he is three or four, he becomes convinced that every hat contains a rabbit. The universe is full of chains of events. Thus, the unsupported body is an event and its fall is the next in a chain or sequence of events. The first is a cause event and the second is an effect event. These events happen in succession invariably everywhere and at any time. It happens to everyone. Therefore, we may say that it is a logical or universal chain of events or a valid association. On the other hand, the hat event and the rabbit event are not as universal as the unsupported body and its fall. Therefore, the hat and the rabbit have no valid cause-effect relationships and the particular child's inference that every hat holds a rabbit is unique and invalid. Computers have only one level of thinking, whereas animals and men have many. As stated above, Freud expounded in his theories on dreams that we have many levels of consciousness such as unconscious, subconscious etc. It seems to me that consciousness and thought are closely related or even synonymous. Therefore, if there are many levels of consciousness, there may also be many levels Intuition, Insight, of thought processing. As soon as a problem is posed to our brain, it processes the Inspiration, Instinct new information, compares them with its archived information along many parallel lines and spews forth thousands of solutions to every problem. We call these multilevel solutions by endearing names like intuition, insight, inspiration, instinct, hunch, inclination, suspicion etc. Thus, inspiration or intuition is seeing a pole as an extension of your arm when you use the pole to pull in something out of reach as when plucking fruits from a tall tree. A certain amount of conditioning and experience lie behind such inspirations and intuitions.
109 In a game of football or hockey the ball is the deciding factor and reflexes and skill often decide the outcome. There are few choices involved and decision-making is by reflex. In contrast, in a game of chess or bridge there are dozens of possible moves and counter-moves at every stage. Here decision-making comes into play and the outcome of the game depends on the right move. Who or what picks the right move of the many possible moves, and takes the final decision in our brain? Is it a super-brain that monitors the brain and makes the final unique choice? Is there a 'chain or hierarchy of commands' in our brain, which picks and chooses the final solution? Inspirations and speculations play important roles in every day life when it comes to real events and their logical chains. The sciences are concerned with such inspirations and speculations of common experiences. However, when it comes to abstractions such as in politics and religion, which we call doctrines and dogmas, things become difficult. Dogmas and doctrines are subjective impositions often enforced by violence or threat of violence. This is where definitions and specifications are indispensable so that the same word or statement means the same thing to everyone. We have seen that perception and communication erodes what we grasp of the outside world. Unless we define things in concrete terms, the speaker and the listener may as well be talking in languages foreign to each other. To return to valid and invalid associations, take Pavlov and his dogs. Here the events are 1. the bell, 2. its ring, 3. food, 4. its sight or smell and, 5. the salivation. The association between Valid & Invalid events 3,4 and 5 is universal and so valid or logical, food leads to salivation for most Associations hungry dogs. However, by repetition and conditioning, events 3 and 4 are bypassed and event 2 leads directly to event 5, a cause-effect relationship that is not logical or valid, though very real for Pavlov's dogs. Event 2 also can also be bypassed and the sight of the bell alone can lead to salivation by the conditioned dogs. Now we come to the term logic. Logic is valid thinking of universal and verifiable cause-effect patterns formed in our brains from past experiences. The whole process of our logical thinking is based on the principle that under constant conditions the same cause-event leads to the same effect-event irrespective of time and place. If bodies attract each other in one place or time and repel each other at another place or time in the universe, logical thinking would not have been possible. Therefore, universal consistency of cause-effect relationships is the most fundamental aspect of thinking and logic. Cause-effect relationships are formed from experience - our own experiences or others' experiences communicated to us through the different media. Only common experiences can be communicated as valid or logical. Common experiences can be drawn only from common perceptions. So events or series of events that are perceivable by everyone alone are logical. Others are mere speculations. For this reason, experiences or hallucinations unique to a person under a trance or under the influence of drugs or hearsay are illogical and invalid. Matters of religions, spirituality, beliefs, superstitions, miracles, dogmas, doctrines etc, are also of much the same kind as they have their origin in hallucinations, trances or unverified revelations. There are concepts such as sovereignty and holiness, omnipotence and infallibility that cannot be attached to or used in conjunction with real things. For this reason logic involving such conceptual words, which cannot be associated with real things, cannot be validated. Therefore arguments involving these abstract words are exercises in futility. A characteristic of such abstract words is that everyone gives a different meaning to and interpretation of such words. Since a common validation of such words are not possible, propositions involving such words cannot be validated and so are not logical. For this reason, a proposition that everyone interprets in different ways cannot be validated; nor can they be subject to logical argumentation. On the other hand, there are concepts such as numbers that have no meaning of their own, but have definite meanings when attached to real objects. Thus, the word three on its own is an abstract concept. On the other hand, in conjunction with concrete things like elephants, the word three does have meaning. What is more, everyone interprets propositions involving these words in identical fashion. We have seen that propositions can be validated only in terms of common perceptions and experience. Things that can be perceived can be measured. Therefore, most valid statements can be verified by being measured directly or indirectly. Talking of events, there is only one set of unique events. In Hindu thinking, time moves in a circular track and cause-effect relationships will repeat all over again. According to this premise, you will be reading these same words from the same book in the next cycle of creation. This again is mere speculation as the 110 circular track of time is beyond our experience. One of our most common forms of statements is like "If event A had not taken place, event B could have been avoided." Take the statement "If Hitler had not come to power, there would not have been a World War II." This statement seems quite logical and valid at first sight. Nonetheless, this is mere speculation as the condition "If Hitler had not come to power," is outside of historical events and so outside of our experiences. All the same, patterns made from real experiences can help us in dealing with future events, though there are limitations. There are millions of variables involved in any situation and so no two situations or experiences are identical even in a time span of millions of years. So in applying past experiences to solve future problems, even if we leave out a single variable it will make all the difference. Even a fart in church can make momentous changes for the future course of events. The meteorologist Edward Lorenz discovered that a simple model of heat convection possesses intrinsic unpredictability, a circumstance he called the ‘butterfly effect,’ implying that the mere flapping of a butterfly's wing can lead to drastic changes in weather. There are two kinds of arguments – reasoning and rationalizing. The former is in accordance with observations. It is rational and plastic, and amenable to change in accordance with observations. All scientific theories belong to this type of thinking. In the rationalizing type of arguments, the arguer merely tries to find excuses to hold on to his established views, however strong the proofs against Reasoning, his beliefs are. A man who is beset with delusions of infidelity about his wife thus finds Rationalizing every action of hers as establishing his views. If the wife goes out, he argues that she has & Apologetics gone to meet her lover. If she stays home, it is construed as her pretensions at fidelity. No amount of rational arguments can convince him of the truth. Such delusions are normally treated clinically. There are other delusions in the realms of religion, politics and other facets of life where such delusions hold fast irrespective of proofs to the contrary. Adherents to such delusions first scoff at theories that go against their beliefs, and then when the proofs get overwhelming against their beliefs, get around it with clumsy rationalization and apologetics. Evolution refutes every myth of creation. The religious establishment first scoffed at it, asking Darwin on which side of his parents he descended from the monkeys. When the proofs in favor of evolution got irrefutable, the venerable fathers found vague apologetics to get around it. The Bible says explicitly and implicitly that creation was accomplished in six days and that God rested on the seventh day. Furthermore, if the genealogy of Jesus in the Gospels (Lk 3: 23-31) can be trusted, the universe is no older than 4000 years. However, we now know for sure that the universe is millions of years old. The venerable preachers get around this Biblical anomaly saying that in the beginning, the days were not exactly formulated and so the days as expressed in the Biblical version of creation can be interpreted as millions of years. In similar fashion, if a piece of driftwood is found on Mount Ararat they rush in to call it a piece of the Ark of Noah without even a iota of proof to justify their claims. But if the Bible, the Koran and other so called ‘Holy Books’ were inspired by the omniscient God one fails to understand why He could not have dictated a more accurate version leaving no room for any debate, interpretation or apologetics. The question also arises as to who authorized these preachers with little or no scientific background to interpret the Bible as it suits them.
Dogmas and Doctrines: We have discussed above in the chapter on violence how the Nazis did not give due consideration to rival claims when they adopted the dogma of the Aryan racial supremacy as the cornerstone to their policies. Religions too often followed the same rout or rut. There have been numerous conflicts and much bloodshed on account of religious and political dogmas. In contrast, there has been no violence in the case of science as science is ever ready to admit mistakes and to rectify them with the knowledge that even the rectified precepts are prone to error. In religion everything is certain and infallible. For five centuries science has been breaking this down. Clear thinking in its essence is the application of scientific principles of thinking to everyday life – principles of inquiring, doubting, questioning, verification and acceptance/rejection. Science is based on doubt whereas dogmas and doctrines are based on claims of infallibility and immutable precepts or 'truths'. In contrast with the violence involved in religious and political dogmas, science has resolved far more complex issues of contentions peacefully. This is made possible by the readiness of scientists to accept mistakes readily. The fact is that truth like existence is multidimensional. As suggested by Mahatma Gandhi, each one 111 of us has a fragment of truth. Though these pieces may seem contradictory, putting them together will give us a better perception of truth. However in science variables are few and their interrelationship simple and so mathematical methods are available in solving scientific problems. In real life there are too many variables and complexities involved and mathematical solutions are often hard to come by. In spite of this complexity we can apply undogmatic and unconditioned thinking or clear thinking to everyday life. We can also avoid conflicts based on precepts and propositions if we are willing to admit slip-ups. As discussed above, it is in our nature to presume that our religious and political creeds hold good forever. So when facts go against our presumptions and prejudices we sulk or take to violence. Galileo established that the earth was round and that it went around the sun. This was against the Church's infallible teachings. So they harassed Galileo and cast him into the dungeons until he retracted his hypotheses. Nonetheless, neither his detention nor his enforced retractions make the earth flat or make the Sun go round the Earth. That is what we have to realize. The truth if there is such a thing as truth, comes in its multifaceted dimensions and is the domain of the macrocosm. Our authority however powerful is microcosmic at best and cannot challenge or alter the macrocosm. The presumption that the macrocosm is subject to human authority, however great, is sheer idiocy and vanity. And if there is such a thing as a divine, infallible being, you can rest assured it will not dance to the tune of the self-proclaimed divine representatives.
Fuzzy Logic: GIGO in computer parlance is acronym 'garbage in garbage out.' Clear thinking becomes irrelevant if you start out with the wrong premises. The story is told of how Charles II, back in the 1660’s presented to the Royal Academy an interesting problem: why does a dead fish weigh more than a living one? The scientists thought long and hard about this problem, coming up with many ingenious solutions. The actual solution lay in a different area altogether: the initial premise was wrong. Dead fish don’t weigh more than living ones. There was no problem to begin with. However, we often rush in to offer answers and solutions where none are needed. "Male or female, which is the better sex?" Ask a ridiculous question and you get a ridiculous answer. Males and females form the two sides of a coin – the species, and their functions are complementary rather than competitive. Similarly, there are other debating points where we are required to choose 'ayes' and 'nays' when the logical answer is neither. Some such questions are "Socialism or capitalism, which is better?", "Nature, or nurture, which has more impact on us?", "Christianity or Islam, which is the real divine religion?" etc. There are many pros and cons on such issues and a categorical yes or no is illogical. Under such circumstances, such questions only force us to take a stand, which only endorses our established views, opinions and prejudices. Instead of asking for a right-or-wrong or a yes-or-no answer, if people were asked to grade the answers, things would be far more logical. What is more, some of the above questions such as the one on Christianity and Islam and the other on socialism and capitalism force us to take confrontationist attitudes. In contrast, a non-categorical or graded option and the resulting attitude can leave the field open for tolerance and cooperation. Such irrational demands made on us as illustrated above, which requires of us to take a black-and- white or yes-or-no stand may have originated with religions and their theologies, which often expounded that if one religion is right all others were wrong, if one sect of one religion were right, all GIGO – Silly other sects and religions were wrong. If such arguments remained in the debating room Questions Get or on paper, it would have been innocuous. Instead, such differences of opinions often Silly Answers spilled out into the streets and the issues were often resolved by violence and bloodshed – the party that shed more blood emerged victorious and determined who was right. In the olden days, the whole world believed that earth was flat and the centre of the universe. No amount of clear thinking, which starts from this wrong premise, can lead to the right conclusions. The fact that Galileo, one of the first to propose that the earth is round, was scoffed at and cast into dungeons by the powers that be, also proves that just because the majority vouches for a premise, it does not have to be true. Conclusions drawn from unverifiable, mythical or doctrinal propositions cannot be reliable regardless of the numbers subscribing to such mythical or doctrinal views. This book is more about such fallacious starting propositions, doctrines and dogmas. As stated repeatedly, in mathematics and the scientific disciplines, the numbers of variables involved are few in cause-effect relationships and applying cause-effect patterns to future is easy. 2+3=5 means two of 112 a thing put together with three of the same thing gives five of the thing. This is a simple universal truth and contains only a few variables and no complexity of relationships between them. In like manner, the movements of the celestial bodies involve very few variables. Starting with Saturn's present position we can calculate accurately where the Saturn will be a hundred or a thousand years hence from the simple cause- effect relationships of the variables involved. Predicting weather, on the other hand, involves countless variables of complex cause-effect relationships. Consequently, it is impossible to predict tomorrow's weather anywhere as accurately as we can predict Saturn's position a thousand years hence. Variables concerned with economics, politics, origin of the universe and the like are far more complex affairs than weather, and we cannot form cause-effect relationships easily in these matters. This is where dogmas and doctrines come into the picture, and repetitions and conditionings play out their parts. Truth seldom comes in black and white. According to the principle of fuzzy logic, validity of propositions may range from 0-1, 0 standing for falsehood and 1 for the scientifically proven truth. However, even many so called scientific findings have been called into question by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, or indeterminacy principle, a statement, articulated in 1927, by the German physicist Werner Heisenberg. According to the principle, both the position and the velocity of an object cannot both be measured exactly, at the same time, even in theory. The very concepts of exact position and exact velocity together, have no meaning in nature. Likewise, Newton's Laws of motion were held screed and inviolable for centuries until Einstein came along with his theory of relativity according to which Newton's Laws may not hold good always and everywhere. In its article on mathematical analysis of systems and the chaos theory, ‘The Encyclopedia Britannica’ states, "These discoveries challenged the classical view of determinism, the idea that we live in a 'clockwork universe' that merely works out the consequences of fixed laws of nature, Poincaré's Theory starting from given initial conditions. By the end of the 20th century, Poincaré's Of Chaos discovery of chaos had grown into a major discipline within mathematics, connecting with many areas of applied science. Chaos was found not just in the motion of the planets but in weather, disease epidemics, ecology, fluid flow, electrochemistry, acoustics, even quantum mechanics. The most important feature of the new viewpoint on dynamics—popularly known as chaos theory but really just a sub-discipline of dynamical systems theory—is not the realization that many processes are unpredictable. Rather, it is the development of a whole series of novel techniques for extracting useful information from apparently random behavior. Chaos theory has led to the discovery of new and more efficient ways to send space probes to the moon or to distant comets, new kinds of solid-state lasers, new ways to forecast weather and estimate the accuracy of such forecasts, and new designs for heart pacemakers …" It is chaos, total chaos out there. Cent percent assertion of truth and falsehood is more often than not, a mirage. Fuzzy logic rather than black-and-white logic governs the universe. According to fuzzy-logic theorists, classical logic oversimplifies the concept of set membership by flatly including or excluding a proposition as true or false, whereas fuzzy logic expresses the extent to which a proposition holds good on a scale of 0 to 1. Fuzzy logic was first described in the mid-1960s by Lotfi Zadeh. As a result, fuzzy-logic systems like computers and washing machines adjust continually the values assigned to different probabilities and variables. Fuzzy-logic seems even more applicable to various spheres of our daily life than to washing machines and artificial intelligence. Thus we often assert that our religious or political stand is absolutely right and infallible and all others including slight deviations from our cherished views are heresies and anathema. More often than not, it does not really matter. Thus, whether one believes in one God and his neighbor in many gods, it does not in any way stand in the way of economical and social cooperation between the two. What is more, matters concerning doctrines and dogmas - be it in religion, politics or economics - cannot be resolved by reason or logic. Such dogmas and doctrines have more to do with rhetoric and conditioning than with reason. Court judgments are another case in point. Here decisions are arrived at after comparing the pattern of the case to the patterns promulgated in acts, rules and regulations of the land as well as in precedents. Court judgments vary from place to place and from time to time. Burning the national flag was a punishable crime in the United States. The concerned law has since been amended, and the Star Spangled Banner can now be burned with impunity. On the other hand, burning the national flag is a serious crime in India. Enactments may vary from state to state in the same country. Liquor laws in India vary greatly from state to 113 state from total prohibition to free access. Slavery was legal all over the world though in some places it appeared in its variations such as the caste system. In these spheres of changing enactments, fuzzy logic applies and ethics and morals change in accordance with it in time and place. Let us now consider the debate on fatalism, predestination, or determinism, which has raged in philosophical circles for centuries. Is the future predetermined or predestined? We have seen that the position of the Moon, Mars and most other heavenly bodies can be predicted much in advance, which means there is determinism in the case of heavenly bodies and in their movements. If there is determinism in the case of Fatalism heavenly bodies, there is no reason why there should not be determinism in the chain of other events too. The present is a unique set of events, which can lead only to another set of unique events and so on ad infinitum. In other words, the future is present here before us. The only trouble, as we said before, is that the variables involved are infinite in numbers and their interrelationships are most complex. Because of this complexity in cause-effect relationships, fuzzy logic seems to coexist along side determinism. Therefore, it seems there is determinism though no one can determine how the events will unfold themselves. In the final analysis, the difference between determinism and the fuzzy logic or chaos theory may be more apparent than real. There is a fascinating story in Hindu mythology. It was a conference of the gods, and Lord Vishnu had flown in astride Garuda, the eagle. Vishnu went into the conference and Garuda waited outside for his master's return. There, Garuda saw a small bird flitting about, and it was the most beautiful bird Garuda had ever seen. As he watched in fascination, Yama the God of death came by. Seeing the small bird Yama remarked, "How is it that this bird is still here?" and then went into the conference with a puzzled look on his face. Garuda concluded that the beautiful bird had been marked by Yama for death and decided to save it. He took the bird and flew fast to a thick forest hundreds of kilometers away, left it there in a tall tree and flew back just as the conference was ending. As Garuda waited outside for Vishnu to return, the other gods began filing out and Yama was one of them. Garuda asked Yama "Lord, when you saw the little bird why did you remark about the bird being still here?" 'Well" replied Yama "that bird was supposed to die in an hour of a snake bite in a tall tree in a forest hundreds of kilometers away. I was wondering how the little bird could fly that far in an hour" Obviously knowing the future is not going to help us in any way. What is more important is that debating about fatalism or predestination or determinism is against the most basic rule of logic, which is that in complex situations, only events of common past experience are debatable. As such, the future and determinism falls outside the scope of logical debate. It is as illogical as discussing about whether Argentina would have won the world cup if Maradonna's 'hand-of-God' goal had been disallowed. For, if the goal had been disallowed the game would have developed in a way which cannot in any way be established by logic or Mathematics. We now come to the all-important question "What is intelligence or cleverness or reasoning power?" As in many such qualities, nature and nurture play critical parts in matters of intelligence. In matters of health, nature seems to be predominant and nurture almost insignificant. Thus, those born of healthy parents are generally healthy even when exposed to unhealthy conditions. On the other hand, in the case of Intelligence & intelligence nurture seems to play a more critical part than nature. The more Reasoning Power associations one is exposed to, and the more complex such associations are, the more intelligent the exposed man seems to be. Einstein, Edison, Newton et al are considered the most intelligent of men ever. That all these intelligent men and women and many others like them were born in the West, goes against the basic laws of probability. There must have been many men and women born in other parts of the world with the right genetic makeup to create scores of Einsteins and Edisons. However, like the seeds fallen on rocks, these men could not develop their potential. A man of even mediocre intelligence, but exposed to computers and cell phones can perform and reason far more intelligently than the Einsteins born in the wildernesses of the world and exposed only to bows and arrows. Nurture or the exposure to a large number of events of complex quality of associations is obviously of prime importance in determining practical intelligence. By the same token that a man in a modern society is more intelligent in performance than a 'genius' born in a primitive society, a man in a modern society has far more reasoning faculties and practical intelligence than a man born five thousand or even one hundred years ago in 114 a simple, primitive, agrarian society. In the light of this reality, it is absurd that modern man should kow-tow to five thousand year old doctrines and dogmas, which were formulated by our ancestors, whose reasoning faculties were not as developed as ours. Falling back on age-old myths and dogmas for solving modern-day problems is as incongruous as Microsoft consulting Aristotle for solving its problems, though Aristotle's innate intelligence and even genius cannot be denied.
CONDITIONING AND PROGRAMMING: We have looked at different forms of thinking such as convergent and divergent thinking, deductive and inductive logic etc. In everyday life we adopt two methods of these forms of thinking – logical thinking and rhythmical thinking. Most of what we have seen in the forgoing treatments is on logical or formal thinking. Logical thinking is difficult as it involves the weighing of many pros and cons, and right conclusions are difficult or impossible to achieve. On the other hand, rhythmic or conditioned thinking is easy and effortless. The preceding chapter has dealt at length on conditioning by parents, society and the media. We will now consider its mechanism. Rhythmic or conditioned thinking involves many factors. We form associations Logical & between bits of information the first time around - whether the association is valid or Rhythmic invalid. In the introductory chapter to this book, we explained Pavlov’s experiments with Thinking the dogs. The first time Pavlov rang the bell and fed the dogs, the association between the bell and the food had been formed in the dog's brain. Repetition strengthens these associations and leads to conditioning. Thus, repetition enforces association and contributes towards learning. In contrast the ravings of a lunatic leads to fatigue and this in turn suppresses response. A process called reinforcement may be necessary to accelerate learning and to facilitate responses. There are differences of opinions regarding these theories of repetition and reinforcements. Motivation is another factor that contributes towards learning. However when the motivation is highly intense, the incentive can perform in a counterproductive manner. Thus in an examination or competition where the stakes are high, the mental pressure built up in the process may Motivation breakdown a student or competitor and lead to poor performance. Repetition and incentives comes in most handy especially in effecting changes when there is mental resistance to the change. Thus, people do not change their religions or other long established views at the first instruction or speech as the original views themselves involve much repetition by parents, teachers and peers. Adoption of new attitudes in the face of established attitudes call for repetitions and incentives. Susceptibility to new suggestions and ideas is called suggestibility. Suggestibility involves transference of the Parental and patriarchal role to the promoter of a new idea or cult. Some of the factors and variables affecting suggestibility are: Age: Children as we have seen have a clean slate for a mind. It can be written on easily without any erasing of existing data. A child can be conditioned easily and made to do even unethical acts, as it has no sense of ethics or morals. Sex: Women seem to be more pliable than men when it comes to suggestibility. This may be especially so for women from Agrarian Wave societies whose experience of the outside world and the exposure to logical thinking is very limited and little more than a child's. First fall: Everything is difficult the first time. A man or woman who is already conditioned to a certain way of life, thought and philosophy offers considerable resistance to new ways, which go diametrically against his or her established convictions. Breaking down the established barrier is the most difficult part. Once initiated into a new life – whether of crime, virtue or ideals – further indoctrination is Factors In easy. Once the new source of indoctrination is accepted, further indoctrination is Susceptibility readily accepted. It often takes a drastic or momentous event to convert a man from To Suggestions strongly held convictions to one that goes diametrically opposite to it. Saul the persecutor of early Christianity was thus converted to a staunch and tireless Christian missionary when he fell off his horse and heard a voice asking him 'Why do you persecute me'. Thus, it is difficult to convert overnight a die-hard capitalist to a communist and vice-versa. For the same reason it is difficult to convert a strongly monotheistic Muslim to Christianity, which advocates a Trinity and the incarnation of God in Jesus. On the other hand, Hindus and others who have no rigid religious dogmas have been easy game for missionaries. Resistance to suggestibility is often brought about by highlighting the similarities between old convictions and the suggested ones. Thus, mother goddesses like Isis were 115 slowly edged out by Christianity and replaced by Mary. Bridget was another mother Goddess to whom the Irish were deeply attached. Therefore, the early missionaries to Ireland declared her a Christian saint to facilitate her devotees' conversion to Christianity. Groupthink or the herd impulse: If one belongs to a group it is difficult as social beings for us human beings to diverge greatly from what is perceived as the groupthink. It may even be that every individual in a group may have an opinion contrary to what is projected as the group's opinion. I do not think Germans are less moral or ethical than any other ethnic group, and most Germans must have been appalled at the inhuman treatment meted out to the Jews and other ethnic groups. However, every German thought that he alone was the odd one out in opposing ethnic hatred, and was powerless to stand up against the groupthink. The same goes for Kashmir and other issues too. Every Indian I have met is of the opinion that Kashmir must be given autonomy. However, the nation as whole seems to think differently, and no political party worth its salt in India dare voice the common man's opinion on the matter. Groupthink might even be more critical when the group involved is one's own family, relations and close friends in the horizontal scheme, and ancestors and patriarchs in the vertical scheme as in matters of religions, traditions and taboos. The group as a whole can make it even illegal to carry out activities, which go against the groupthink. Blasphemy is a case in point. Religion and worship are purely personal matters and one's religious beliefs have little or no impact on the smooth functioning of the society. However, in medieval Europe as well as in modern Islamic nations, divergences of beliefs are punishable even by the death penalty. In such societies, a blasphemer may even be considered a worse criminal than a serial killer. The same goes for sexual offenses in prudish societies. The promoter: The prestige of the promoter also is a critical factor. The original promoter of a new idea, concept or cult is in most cases a person. He often meets considerable resistance as Jesus and Mohammed did, and most promoters succumb to the resistance they face. Others who survive the initial ordeal get a gathering of followers and adherents who increase in numbers in geometrical progression in step with the fame and prestige of the promoter. Many such movements then become institutionalized with an organic life and growth of their own. It may also be emphasized that for every promoter and his movement that succeed, hundreds fall by the roadside for lack of the right environment of growth. According to the National Geographic there were many contenders for the role of the prophesied messiah – Jesus, John the Baptist, Simon Magus and others. However, in the end for various reasons- most important of them the boundless energy of Paul and his organizing capacity, and later political and imperial support by successive Roman emperors after Constantine the Great– Christianity alone survived and flourished. If Paul had been taken in by the teachings of John the Baptist, it would probably have been John's 'voice in the wilderness', that would have laid the foundation for a modern religion. The prestige of a promoter is also enhanced by wearing special clothing such as feathers and paintings in a shaman to flowing cassocks and frilled robes in a priest. Speaking from elevated places like pulpits, dais and stages also enhance the prestige of the speaker. Repetition: This is perhaps the most important factor that influences the acceptance of a new idea, concept or cult. Just as the promoter of a new idea meets considerable resistance and ridicule, so does the new idea itself. This initial resistance is overcome with repetition. Indeed repetition is the most compelling argument. The more irrational or outlandish a dogma or doctrine, the easier it is to make it acceptable by repetition. Fancy words and concepts such as omnipotence, sovereignty, and spirituality also contribute to the easy acceptance of outlandish and crank ideas. The term ‘cosmic energy’ is thus used by promoters of Reiki, Pranic healing and other alternate medical disciplines though they fail to define what exactly this energy is. What is more repetition, though monotonous, has a hypnotic effect such as in repetitious prayers like the rosary and the litany and the chanting of Hare Rama, Hare Krishna. Drugs, liquor and dancing enhance the effects of hypnotism. Such repetitious chanting also can be effective in working up a crowd of reasonable men into a destructive mob of shrieking fanatics. Indeed repetition is the most compelling argument. The resistance to new ideas is simply broken down by the attrition-power of repetition as a sheet of iron is eroded by the sand impinging it on a seashore. Americans go wild when their President tells them of the great American People and their national interests. Indians, Egyptians and Greeks go gaga over speeches, telling them of their great heritage. ‘Onward Christian soldiers!’ triggered the Crusaders into marching on the Holy Lands. Promise of heaven drives many a Jihadi into suicidal attacks on innocents. Many people are enslaved or kept against their will, based on dogmas of 116 national integrity and national sovereignty. Hitler massacred Jews, because of his views of racial superiority, and many Germans were conditioned to fall in line. Communism has a whole slew of conditioning words like bourgeoisie, reactionary, socialism, and so forth. Most of these concepts, like sovereignty and great heritage, are full of sound and fury and often signify nothing. Take the religious dogmas on creation. The dogma that God created the universe means that God is the cause and the universe the effect. Now the idea or concept of god varies greatly from community to community and from man to man. What is more, god is beyond anyone's real-time experience. In addition, we do not know from common experience whether the universe was created or existed of its own. Obviously, there is no commonality of experience possible on the concept of god and creation and so no valid associations are possible between them. As a result, the dogma 'god created the universe' is not logical or scientific from the point of valid associations. Similarly, dogmas and doctrines touted by politicians do not hold true in the face of valid, universal associations. Instead, these dogmas, whether political, economic or religious, are repeated a million times, and these first confuse us and then condition us to bypass many valid associations and to adopt invalid associations, as in the case of Pavlov's dogs. Such conditioned thinking as described above, play out their parts in all realms of life. They are the Patriarchal establishment and the media that conditions us most by such repetition and rhetoric. Much of this conditioning may be beneficial. A society that is conditioned and therefore thinks and acts spontaneously as a single entity may be more efficient than one, which has to debate things every step of the way. When the society is not homogeneous, and the conditioning of each ethnic group within the society is at variance with, or in opposition to each other in critical matters such as religion, such conditionings may prove dangerous and counterproductive. We face such a scenario in much of the world today, where different social groups with variant and often incompatible ethnic conditioning live side by side. This can lead to dangerous conflagrations, especially when the ethnic groups concerned, believe that violence is the only way to sort out their differences. On closer examination, most such ethnic differences may prove to be insignificant or irrelevant. With clear thinking, we can often sort out to everyone's satisfaction, such seemingly insurmountable differences and problems.
SELF-TALK AND DECONDITIONING: Rudolf Fletch in his excellent treatise, The Art of Clear Thinking, outlines the origin of some man-made concepts, we take for granted as absolute and eternal. As cited above, the concept of zero had its origin ca 500 CE in India, the concept of romantic love and chivalry ca 1150 in Arabia, the concept of the corporation ca 1553 in Italy, the novel in 1678 in France and so on. Or take the concept of conservation of the environment. In my youth in the fifties and sixties of the last century, clearing the forests and cultivating the land thus cleared, was considered a sign of a progressive society. Then suddenly in the seventies and the eighties, there was talk of conservation, and now no one in his right senses can ignore environment and its conservation. The concepts of the welfare state, romantic love and marriage, progress, success, self-help, women's lib and so on and so forth are all of comparatively recent origin. Yet, they have profound influences on us as if they were concepts of a fundamental and eternal nature. One of the most dangerous of concepts – the concept of national sovereignty - is also of comparatively recent origin as narrated above in the formation of new concepts. This concept was promoted by Jean Bodin, a Frenchman, for the first time in 1576. He must have been a sycophant or had an axe to grind in forwarding the concept. Politicians and powerbrokers were quick to latch on to this concept and suppress freedom movements everywhere. The havoc it has played and goes on playing is immeasurable. Kashmir is a good case in point. Billions of dollars have been flushed down the drains by India in the last fifty years for retaining Kashmir - billions that could have been spent on alleviating the misery of the poor. Pakistan in spite of its much lower GNP, has more than matched India, dollar for dollar, life for life and blood for blood. The biggest losers in the fracas are the Kashmiris themselves, generations of whom have gone through hell, caught in the crossfire between the Indian military and the Pakistan-sponsored terrorists. The only winners in Kashmir are the military brass on both sides, their political godfathers and the arms dealers in America, China and Europe. To sum up what we have learnt here, we depend on our past experiences in our day-to-day decision- making. We register our perceptions of the world outside as concepts, and in order to facilitate our reasoning we have to classify and to categorize our concepts of objects and events, of subjects and predicates. We often 117 do not have access to statistics nor the time and resources to process them even when we have access to them. As a result, instead of going through the trouble of a mature decision-making process we often jump to conclusions based on an incident or two. This often makes things simplistic though illogical. We tend to make naive statements - blacks are lazy, Hindus are dolts, things were better in the past, the rich are callous, the poor are honest - all based on one or two stray incidents. Such simplifications may be handy, but can also prove dangerous. It seems that it is not the common man alone that jumps to hasty conclusions. In his masterpiece 'An Inquiry into the nature and causes of the Wealth of Nations' (1776), Adam Smith contents that the Irish are the most beautiful or handsome people on earth, because their staple food is the potato. Though Adam Smith's genius cannot be denied, he seems to have slipped up in making this generalization about potatoes and the Irish. For one thing, he fails to define what beauty or handsomeness is nor does he say how these qualities can be metered. After all, like obscenity, beauty often lies in the eyes of the beholder. What is more, Adam Smith fails to prove whether potato is the single factor that contributed to the presumed Irish comeliness or whether there are other factors or combinations of factors that made substantial contributions to Irish beauty. He also failed to consider the fact that the potato is native to South America and was introduced into Ireland and Europe after colonization of the Americas. If potato contributed to Irish beauty, then the South Americans who had been consuming potatoes at least a thousand years longer than the Irish should have been far more handsome or beautiful than the latter. Below are some more of such specialist/professional opinions that went awry. Conclusion: Even those who are real scientists or experts in any field need not be cent percent reliable in their views and opinions. "Computers in the future will weigh no less than 1.5 tons." (Popular Mechanics, forecasting advance of science, 1949.) "I think there's a world market for maybe five computers." (Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.) "I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year." (Editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957.) "But what is it good for?" (Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, commenting on the micro chip, 1968) "There is no reason why anyone would want to have a computer in their home." (Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp, 1977.) "640K ought to be enough for anybody." (Bill Gates of Microsoft, 1981.) "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." (Western Union memo, 1876.) "The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" (David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920's.) "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" (HM Warner, Warner Bros, 1927.) "Heavier than air flying machines are impossible." (Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.) "So we went to Atari and said, 'We've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.' They said 'No'. Then we went to Hewlett-Packard; they said; "We don't need you. You haven't got through college yet'." Steve Jobs, Apple Computer founder on attempts to get Atari and HP interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer. "Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy." (Drillers whom Edwin L Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil, 1859.) 118 "Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." (Irving Fisher, Economics professor, Yale University, 1929.) "Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value". (Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.) "Everything that can be invented has been invented." (Charles H Duell, Commissioner, US Office of Patents, 1899.) "Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction." (Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872.) "Fred Astaire Can't act, can't sing, balding... Can dance a little." (MGM talent scout, 1928.) "What can you do with a guy with ears like that?" (Jack Warner, movie mogul, rejecting Clark Gable, 1930.) "You ain't goin' nowhere son. You ought to go back to drivin' a truck." (Jim Denny of the Grand Ole Opry, Nashville, firing Elvis Presley after his first performance.) "I'm sorry Mr. Kipling, but you don't know how to use the English language." (Editor of the San Francisco Examiner, rejecting a short story from author and poet Rudyard Kipling.)
Homo Sapiens - that is what we are in technical language. We boast we are intelligent, rational, logical, sensible, wise, coherent and so on. This means we do not subscribe to our emotions; it means we use more of our brains than our heart. It means we weigh situations objectively, dispassionately, and analytically. Obviously, our claim to rationality is itself, more irrational than rational. We subscribe more often to rhythmic or conditioned thinking than to logical, rational or analytical thinking, because rhythmic thinking just happens to be easy and often convenient. The havoc that such spontaneous, simplistic and conditioned thinking plays is unimaginable. Humanity has had to pay a heavy price for such conditioned, dogmatic views in the realms politics, economics, religion, sex and relationships and other spheres of life. Some of these simplistic situations are handed down to us by our parents and forefathers, with their illiteracy, superstitions, mutual suspicions and bigotry at every possible level. Such handed-down logic or rhythmic thinking is often impossible to shrug off as they are deeply embedded or etched in our emotional psyches. Belief in such simplistic logic comes easy; all of us are born into one belief or another and bred in it. Rudolf Flesch advocates a method by which all propositions can be verified - just respond: “Specify!” or ask, “So what?” And things become clear. Modern commercial advertisements provide the best examples of conditioning or persuading the masses by appealing to their emotions rather than to their intelligence. We have seen in the preceding chapter on conditioning the tricks of the trade used by propagandists and how Aristotle classified them. We will now consider the method used by Rudolf Flesch in exposing some of the ridiculous propaganda we come across every day. In parentheses are the above words of verification as suited to each situation. (The content as well as the illustrations using the name Durtee Soap are drawn from the 'The Art of Clear Thinking' by Rudolf Flesch) Argumentum ad hominem might be: "Look at yourself in the mirror; only Durtee Soap will get you real clean." (Specify the word 'only'! Will not other soaps clean as well?) Argumentum ad populum: "The easiest way to be loved by everybody is to use Durtee Soap." (Specify how Durtee soap will make me popular!) Argumentum ad misericordiam: "Don't make your children unhappy by not washing their ears with Durtee Soap." (Specify how children will be unhappy if they are not washed with Durtee soap!) Argumentum ad baculum: "Durtee Soap is being advertised every hour on the hour on all major networks." (So what?)
119 Argumentum ad crumenam: "Durtee Soap costs 2 per cent less and is 50 per cent more floatable than any other soap." (So what if the soap is more floatable? What are the statistics to prove the cost advantage of Durtee soap) Argumentum ad verecundiam: "All five Rockefeller boys were brought up exclusively on Durtee Soap." (So what?) Argumentum ad ignorantiam: "Only Durtee Soap contains the miracle ingredient Lodahocum. ( So what? After all what is Lodahocum, and how does it enhance the hygienic function of soap.) Argumentum ad captandum vulgus: "Durtee Soap is the favorite of everybody from coast to coast." (Specify with numbers and statistics!) Another method of seeing through such misleading assertions are to apply questions why, when, who, what, how, where and if even one answer is not satisfactory the statement is liable to be rejected. Now take one of the most fascinating statements of the Bible. “Behold the birds of the air; neither do they sow nor do they reap. Yet their Father in Heaven takes care of them all.” Specify how the father takes care of them all! How about the birds, which fall dead in the woods? What about the many species of birds that have become extinct since ‘Creation’? Voltaire declared, “If you want to converse with me, first define your terms!” Discussing or debating on issues and events external to common experience, as well as polemics without exactly defining the terms used is mere semantics and a waste of breath and energy. Nevertheless, we often go into discourses and debates on subjects outside common experience and without defining the terms we use. Take Abraham Lincoln’s famous statement, defining a democratic government as “ … a government of the people, by the people and for the people." It is one of the most high sounding and Utopian of statements. Somehow, Lincoln forgot to define the all-important term ‘the people.’ Much of today’s bloodshed in the world, over secessionist movements and ethnic struggles, can be effectively prevented by defining the term ‘The People’ to the satisfaction of the peoples concerned. The strongest weapon for totalitarian regimes and dogmatic thinking is not logic or rationale; it is psychological - the tremendous and unstoppable power of repetition. However rational you are, it is often impossible to stand up to the compelling power of repetition. During the Indo-Pak wars, I had been led to believe by the Indian propaganda machinery that every Indian soldier was equal in valor to five Pakistanis; that though the Pakistanis had sophisticated American weaponry, they were not educated enough to use it. After some years, I went to one of the Arabian Gulf countries for employment, and came into personal contacts with many Pakistanis. To my surprise, many of them declared that every Pakistani soldier was equal in valor to seven Indian soldiers, and that though the Indians had sophisticated Russian planes and missiles, the Indians were just too scared and rustic to use them effectively. In like manner, India harps on the theme that had it not been for its size and strength it would have been taken over by external forces and all Indians would have to slog away as slaves of foreign invaders. India is not alone in this repetitious propaganda and most nations use this fib and the doctrine of the integrity of nations to suppress freedom struggles. No modern power in its right senses would dare or care to take over India or any other country for that matter, for its natural or human resources. Slave labor is no more as productive as it used to be in the Agrarian Wave. As for resources, the Sultanate of Brunei, the tiny nation in the South China Sea with so much oil wealth, would be the best candidate for an armed takeover and exploitation. Nevertheless, this has not come about. So all such fears of takeover by foreign powers is just a political gimmick or plain national paranoia. Not only nations and political institutions, but cult leaders and religions also put the power of repetition to good use. Repetition by religions and cults are even more effective than political propaganda, as this divine propaganda is taken up often by the people we trust most - our own parents and elders. Blind belief and acceptance comes easy in such matters. On the contrary, disbelief and rationality needs courage, an inquisitive mind and above all maturity, to give the Adult in you its due, in preference to the constant ravings of the Patriarch, and their dogmas, suspicions, bigotry, taboos and traditions. We have seen in the foregoing chapter how the Child in us cannot make any decisions on its own, and it has to consult the Patriarch and the Adult. This consultation is a continuous process, an incessant chatter within, which we call self-talk. Our beliefs and attitudes are formed by repetition by others, as well as by ourselves and often we are not even aware of them. They become second nature and like the wheels of a Self-Talk 120 car, which have fallen into a rut, formed by traffic on dirt roads, our thoughts take the same habitual routes. Only by tuning in consciously to our self-talk can we be made aware of the faults and flaws in our thinking and reasoning. Then alone can we get out of the ruts of conditioned, rhythmic or habitual thinking. By thus tuning in to the self-talk, we can distinguish between the Patriarch and Adult in us, and make suitable corrections, rectifications and modifications. The trick lies in detaching ideas from words, especially words, which have emotional dimensions to them and revalidate them from the position of one who holds no such awe or reverence for these conditioning words and concepts. We can then make mature decisions and avoid conditioned and dangerous ones. When the Patriarch and Adult agree then the decision-making is easy. When they are at variance, ignore the Parent and the Patriarch. Perhaps all self-help and management books are aimed at helping us become aware of our self-talk, at analyzing them and reaching good decisions and at attaining win-win situations in spite of apparent differences. Deep inside we “know” what is right and what is wrong, what is reason and what is superstition, what is logic and what is dogma. Nevertheless, we do not have the courage to say 'The king is Fear Of naked'; we dare not call a spade a spade, for the deep primordial fears in us. Speaking of fears, Unknown fear of the unknown is often far more terrible than the fear of the known. Kings were feared for the physical damages they could inflict and once the kings were dead or vanquished, the fear had no relevance. On the other hand, shamans were feared for their invisible powers. That fear survived even when the shaman was out of sight; that fear grew even more formidable when the shaman died and his spirit presumably became ubiquitous and more powerful than his living body. Even in this modern age, priests, the successors of the shamans of old, are often more feared and respected for their spiritual or superstitious powers than kings and their ministers for their temporal powers. In like manner, unknown fears of every possible kind stalk us from the inside of our insides. Doomsday prophets of every hue fan up our unknown fears into conflagrations to suit their nefarious agenda. In our utter feeling of insecurity and in our primordial fear of the unknown, we fall for their rhetoric, repeated over and over again to hypnotize us. Eventually, we become mere pawns in their hands. We begin to obey them implicitly and robotically and many then go out on a killing spree while others subscribe to weird superstitious practices and ceremonies. In our panic, we enslave our minds and reason to the charlatans and wolves of this world who appear in sheep's clothing as priests, cult leaders, saviors and politicians. They offer us their stale elixirs and their rotten panaceas for the ills and troubles of modern times. If we subscribe to them, it will only be at our own peril.
"Most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do." James Harvey Robinson
121 Chapter Five
The Political Animal
"A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman thinks of the next generation".James Freeman Clarke, Sermon
“Man is a political animal”, so spoke Aristotle. Politics covers a broad spectrum of activities and phenomena. I am no student of politics in any of its varied forms. Consequently, I have not provided any authoritative dissertations here. However, next to religions or alongside it, politics provide the largest scope for doctrines and dogmas. The only differences between religious and political dogmas is that religious dogmas are propped up by fear of divine wrath and retribution, whereas political dogmas are propped up by earthly powers. In addition, the Parental components in religious dogmas are far more formidable than in political affairs. As a result, religious dogmas hold sway over us far longer than political dogmas. Though politics and religions are separate entities in theory, the two often mix up and provide a deadly concoction that has lead to much violence and bloodshed in the world. Religion and its political aspects are dealt with in the chapters that follow. However even religious dogmas have relevance only if they have political sanction. Without political support no organized religion can last long. Though religions apparently cause much trouble and violence in the world, such bloodshed is due to the politicization of religions, as religions often become the most versatile of tools in the hands of unscrupulous politicians. In the final analysis, it is politics that account for the violence in the world including religious violence. Here we will consider how we can apply the art of clear thinking to politics and political doctrines and how we can diffuse many of the explosive situations that can arise in the name of politics. Politics is in its essence the art of attaining, retaining and deploying power, authority and responsibilities in a society. We are social animals like the apes for which hierarchy or ranking in the social scheme is essential. Even those who clamor for equality and fraternity are merely using their Utopian precepts to reach higher ranks and upper niches in the social hierarchy. The most universal measure of hierarchy is wealth and so politics is also about wealth and its acquisition, and even more about its distribution. Dominance hierarchy is a form of linear or nearly linear social structure and ranking in animal societies in which each animal dominates those below it and submits to those above it in the hierarchy. Dominance Dominance hierarchies are evident in social mammals, such as baboons and wolves, and in Hierarchy birds, notably among chicken from which the term ‘pecking order’ or ‘pecking right’ is derived. Such hierarchies or pecking orders help in keeping the society stable without constant conflicts as every member of the society submits readily to his superior in the pecking order without resistance. Temporary shifts in the order do occur. Thus a female mated to a high-ranking male assumes a high rank as long as the relationship lasts. Disabilities such as injury, disease, or senility have negative impacts on the ranking of an individual. Hierarchies are possible only when some submit to others, and 122 submission comes mostly from fear. Therefore, fear plays a significant role - perhaps the stellar role - in politics,. Submissive behavior is an essential part of hierarchies in which one individual adopts appeasement displays to avoid injury by a dominant member of its own species. Appeasement displays are common in carnivores and other animals, which are well equipped with deadly fangs and claws. These displays, even when performed by adult males, often incorporate elements of infantile behavior. Thus Submissive wolves roll over and beg for food from their superiors in the hierarchy. Some animals resort Behavior to pre-copulatory behavior as when baboons, present their posteriors to the dominant animal. Sometimes the submissive act consists in exposing most vital spots of the animal, such as the throat, to the dominant animal. For humans the palm upward or forward stance is the most explicit sign of submissive or amicable behavior. Animal societies are small in numbers and virtually isolated from each other. Each animal society is closely knit in nature and well integrated in function though their functions are limited to feeding and reproduction, and to self-defense against marauders. Modern humans in contrast, form just one huge global community with very complex interrelated functions in this modern age. Thus ethnic groups form subgroups of a larger community and the way to a high ranking in a community can be through the ethnic ladder. Thus leaders of ethnic groups vie with others in the same group for ascendancy, and in the process vie with others outside the ethnic group for a higher ranking in the larger society. Muslim leaders in Kerala thus vie with each other for a higher ranking in the Muslim League, which they claim represents Muslim interests. By gaining a higher ranking in the Muslim League, these leaders are assured of a higher ranking in the secular politics of the state and the nation in which the Muslim league forms an important political entity. Political ascendancy is also garnered through unions and guilds where leaders vie with each other for ascendancy in the unions and guilds, and through such ascendancy vie for higher ranking in politics outside the unions and guilds. Such processes of ascending the power ladder are called politics. Some like priests and doctors are assured of a high ranking in the society based solely on their professions. Then there are communities like those of artists and sportspersons where skills matter more than power games. By climbing up the arts or sports based ladders they get ascendancy also in the socio-political hierarchy. Philosophers and philanthropists often have critical say in political matters though they are not directly involved in the political power-games for hierarchical ascendancy. As mentioned, unlike among other social animals, the social hierarchies are quite complex among humans. Human hierarchies often form parallel paths as described above. Thus a man who is higher in wealth order may be lower in the political order. A man who ranks high in the sports-hierarchy may be a nobody in the music-hierarchy. In spite of these parallel hierarchies, whenever two or more individuals come and work together for long periods, a hierarchy is first established albeit provisionally, before the group can operate as a cohesive group. Hierarchy or hierarchies may even be essential for the smooth functioning of the society. This hierarchy-formation is especially relevant to males of our species. Thus when a group of men walk together the top-dog often takes the leading position ahead of the pack and in the middle while the others follow in the hierarchal order. Women do not seem to adopt this hierarchical or competitive posture in walking. If there were only a single individual in the world there would be no hierarchies, no ethics, no politics and no other socio-political issues and phenomena. The moment we come into contact with another person and associate with him or her all these issues come into the picture. Society is an association of persons, and ethics, morals, politics, laws, regulations, duties, rights and so on become imperative in such associations. Politics is about forming hierarchies as we have seen, and hierarchies are about more rights and privileges in the pecking order. So politics is also about a hierarchical distribution of rights and privileges. Whenever we speak of political struggles we mean the struggle for obtaining more rights Rights & and privileges from those at a higher level in the hierarchy. However there cannot be rights Duties without responsibilities. Rights without responsibilities is tyranny and responsibilities without rights is slavery. In a democracy a balance between rights and responsibilities is essential. Nonetheless, by nature we shirk our responsibilities and clamor for our rights. We tend to forget the benefits we have received from others, and often turn on our benefactors at the slightest of provocations. In contrast, 123 we keep on harping on the debts others owe us even after the debts have been repaid in cash or kind. As a consequence of our propensity to shirk duties and clamor for rights, those who are politically better organized or better connected abrogate more rights to themselves without taking on the corresponding responsibilities. This has been postulated in Michel’s Iron Law Of Oligarchy, which we have discussed in the chapter on violence. According to this law, no matter how egalitarian, idealistic or even radical the original ideology and goals of a party or religion, there must emerge a group of leaders at the center, limited in numbers but working full time. These leaders direct power efficiently, get things done through an administrative staff, and evolve some kind of rigorous order and ideology to ensure the survival of the organization, when faced by internal division or external opposition or both. In the process these organized few corner an uneven share of the rights and shirk their duties. This holds true even in democracies in spite of their pretenses to equality. There will never be true democracies until we take on our responsibilities voluntarily even as we clamor for our rights and privileges. In the final analysis, if everyone is committed to their duties and responsibilities there will be no need for anyone to clamor for their rights. This is the ultimate form of government, which all Utopians have been clamoring for – the Greeks called it anarchy while Marx called it Communism. In this Utopia governments become superfluous as everyone regulates himself or herself without external supervision, for the common good of mankind. This may never come about and that is why we call these ideals Utopian.
History of Political Philosophies: Before we proceed further, it might be most opportune here to study the various thoughts and philosophies, which prevailed in human societies down the ages. The Babylonian king, Hammurabi ((1792–1750 BCE) was perhaps the first in history to formulate codes for the smooth functioning of an agrarian society. These codes consists of two hundred and eighty case laws. These codes came in four categories- 1. Family laws regarding marriage and divorce, filial and adoption rights and duties and so on, 2. Criminal laws concerning assault, theft etc, 3. Civil laws regarding slavery, debt and so on, and 4. Economic provisions regarding prices, tariffs, trade, and commerce etc. Penalties, which varied according to the status of the offenders and the circumstances of the offenses, were also prescribed for in the codes. Hammurabi in his turn was influenced by Sumerian laws under which civilized communities had lived for many centuries. Moses’ codes – The Ten Commandments – were influenced by Hammurabi’s codes and were directed towards the smooth running of a monotheistic pastoral society. Whereas Hammurabi promulgated his codes as the self-appointed divine representative on earth, Moses (14th–13th century BCE) went one step further and declared that the Commandments came direct from the one God of Israel. The Egyptian vizier Ptahhotep (ca. 2300 BCE) also promulgated codes regarding trade and irrigation. In India, the Arthaśāstra of Kauṭilya, the grand vizier to Chandragupta Maurya in the late fourth century BCE, compares with the later European Machiavellian tactics on how to survive under a monarchy. Emperor Asoka, who ruled in India in the third century BCE, was inspired by the Buddhist concepts of dharma, which teaches that rulers and bureaucrats have moral responsibilities to their subjects. In China, the teachings of Confucius in the sixth century BCE are similar codes designed to lead to a stable and prosperous society. These political philosophers and their philosophies pertained to life in an agrarian society. However these ancient civilizations of the Middle East and Asia stagnated in an agrarian economy, which remained static for centuries and millennia. As a result these ancient political and social codes did not call for any modification, evolution or change. The West in contrast, became a dynamic society with the Renaissance and the industrial revolution. A scientific outlook and new discoveries churned up the Western society in economic terms, and political perceptions changed in tune with the tumultuous economy. Accordingly, it is Western political thinking that has been the most dynamic in recent times, and had the most profound impact on the present global society. For this reason, the following study on the history of political philosophy is limited to the Western version of it. The first elaborate work of European political philosophy is by the Greek philosopher Plato (428/427- 348/347BCE) His momentous work ‘The Republic’ has been recognized as a masterpiece of classical times. Later on came another of his works ‘Statesman and Laws’, prescribing how laws must be promulgated and ruthlessly implemented. ‘The Republic’ is perhaps one the first to paint Utopias, and one of 124 the first to endorse the cause of morality in political life. The setting is a slave owning city-state, which is quite elitist in outlook. Though Plato gives deep insights into the working of the human mind, he also proposes such unsavory practices as eugenics in which he advises that deformed and sickly infants be left out in the open to die, as if good looks alone are the main criterion for a prosperous society. He advocates the cause of the philosopher-statesman by which philosophically minded men alone can save the society. Plato was the advocate of the benevolent dictator. But he is astute enough to admit that there cannot be perfect governance by mere mortals and so Plato stresses the need for the rule of law. The next to dwell at length on political philosophy was Plato’s disciple, Aristotle (384-322 BCE). His work Politics, is only part of an encyclopedic account of nature and society. In the process Aristotle treats politics empirically like a science rather than as an intuitional art. Like Plato, Aristotle too thinks in terms of the city-states environment in which they lived. His famous definition of man as a ‘political animal,’ reverberates even to this day. According to Aristotle, man is the best of animals when law abiding, and the most savage of brutes when alienated from law and justice. Like the environment of the city-state, he also promotes such practices as slavery, which were well established in his society. Aristotle also advocates rule of law, and according to him the primary function of a politician is not to rule but to legislate and to ensure that law reigns supreme. His declaration that “Inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal, and equals revolt that they may be superior” is quite an eye-opener to Utopian promoters of equality, and in line with the primary hierarchical nature of men as expounded above. Aristotle and Plato had envisaged the city-state as the most viable political entity. Aristotle’s pupil, Alexander had a surprise in store for the concept of city-states. He went on an expansion spree, and by the time of his death at the age of thirty-three, his empire stretched as far east as India and encompassed all or much of the then-known civilized world around the Mediterranean. On his death his vast empire splintered into kingdoms ruled by Alexander's successors. In the process, the concept of the city-states gave way before the brute force of imperial powers. Imperial power asserted itself even more in the Roman Empire, which encompassed the civilized nations of Asia, Africa and Europe as well as the emerging areas of Europe like Britain. With rise of empires and emperors, the self-sufficient city-state was no more an option, and political philosophies that conformed to a life in the wider world had to evolve. Stoicism and Epicureanism were the most prominent of such philosophies. Stoicism advocated self-sufficiency and a sense of duty, while Epicureanism advocated the pursuit of pleasure and evasion of pain as the prime driving force in human affairs. Cicero was the next in line among the more famous of European political philosophers. He lived in the confusion of the transition from the republic to military dictatorships. The most famous of his works are De republica and Laws, which defined res publica or the commonwealth as an association bound together by law. His promotion of moral responsibility on the part of the ruler greatly influenced Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius in the second century CE. Christianity came next, and along with it the history of the unholy alliance between religion and politics. With the conversion of Constantine, Christianity became the predominant religion of the Roman Empire. Theodosius, emperor from 379 to 395, declared Christianity the official religion of the empire, and in the process suppressed heresies and pagan faiths. This had a profound impact on political philosophy, as the emperor became responsible more to God and the religious hierarchy than to his subjects and their welfare. Preservation and propagation of the religion became the paramount duty of the ruler, and a theocracy in the form of the Holy Roman Empire was instituted in the West. Saint Augustine's ‘City of God’ and ‘Confessions’ were the prominent works of political philosophy to emanate in this period and were compiled in the theocratic settings of the times. Saint Augustine (354-430 CE) was a fatalist who believed that some were predestined to salvation and others to damnation, some to be rulers and others to be subjects. In contrast with Plato and Aristotle who believed that peace and prosperity could be achieved by the good works of men, Saint Augustine projected a fatalist destiny in which the Christian Church alone was divinely sanctioned to govern. In this scenario, the authority of the Church became ubiquitous and omnipotent. The next milestone in political philosophy after Saint Augustine was John of Salisbury (1115/20- 1180), who was the Bishop of Chartres. In his Policraticus, he promoted the Roman concept of a centralized authority, which however rules by the law. He also insists that the central authority or the prince should be 125 benevolent, unlike a tyrant who oppresses the people. In his works we can see the kernels of the concepts of liberty and trusteeship, which are essential to modern political philosophy. Thomas Aquinas (1224/25 – 1274), was the next philosopher to contribute to European political thinking. His works are projected against a background of static agrarian society, steeped in Christian values. His ‘Summa Theologiae’ attempts to answer all the major questions of our existence on earth from a Christian perspective. The works of Aristotle, destroyed by Christian zealots and now retranslated into Latin from Arabic versions, contributed much to Aquinas’ dissertations. Like Aristotle, Aquinas believed that the purpose of political power is to promote common good. Political power to be legitimate should be backed up by popular goodwill. Like Aristotle, he projects oligarchy as unjust and democracy as evil. The ultimate purpose of human life is to attain heavenly bliss, and it is the ruler’s function to provide for happiness on this earth and in the hereafter. Dante (1265-1321) was another celebrated European political philosopher whose thoughts deviated beyond the ambience of his times. He was extremely pro-establishment. Though he espoused the cause of general peace and goodwill in his work ‘De monarchia’, he also eulogized monarchial and religious predominance, with the former having primacy over the latter. According to him Christ gave his own personal endorsement to the Roman Empire by condescending to be born in the empire. By the time of the Renaissance, monarchial and ecclesiastical authority had eroded considerably due to squabbling and internecine conflicts. Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) was the most prominent political thinker of Renaissance. Though he was an experienced diplomat and administrator, he did not mince his words on the ruthless techniques, which according to him are essential for a sovereign to remain in power. His celebrated work ‘The Prince’ remains one of the renowned works of the Renaissance. His observations that “ … Since this is to be asserted in general of men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowards, covetous, and as long as you succeed they are yours entirely: they will offer you their blood, property, life, and children when the need is far distant; but when it approaches they turn against you” and the comment that “ … since the desires of men are insatiable, nature prompting them to desire all things and fortune permitting them to enjoy but few, there results a constant discontent in their minds, and a loathing of what they possess ...” do provide deep but cynical insights into the human psyche. It is probably from this biased view of human nature that his avocation of ruthlessness in political matters springs. According to him the ruler must combine the strength of the lion with the cunning of the fox: he must always be vigilant, ruthless, and prompt in striking down or neutralizing his adversaries. In the process rulers are absolved from morals, honesty, integrity and the other positive qualities required of ordinary men. The ruler is a law unto himself. In politics there are no permanent friends or foes, and ends justify the means. Though his work is best known for its Machiavellism, he also lays the greatest and repeated stress on the necessity for rulers of generating goodwill among the people. Without the goodwill of the people no ruler can stay long in power. The love and goodwill of the people are the greatest strength of any sovereign. Hobbes (1588-1679) started where Machiavelli left off, with the same precepts based on the fickleness of the common man who according to Hobbes is naturally antisocial; and, even when men meet for business and profit, only “a certain market-fellowship” is engendered. According to Hobbes society is only for gain or glory, and the only true equality among men is in their power to kill each other. In his momentous work ‘The Leviathan’, he projects a superman who is not subject to the weaknesses and follies of the common man. ‘The Leviathan’ shocked most of his contemporaries. Hobbes was accused of atheism and of ‘maligning Human Nature.’ However, his espousal of a powerful, Leviathan, sovereign nation-state was not lost on later political thinking. Like Hobbes, Benedict de Spinoza (1632-1677) also tried to make a scientific political theory. However in contrast with Machiavelli and Hobbes, Spinoza’s approach was more humane and modern. Most of the philosophers we considered above came from conservative, agrarian societies. In contrast Spinoza, a Portuguese Jew born in Amsterdam, represented an urban setting. As against Hobbes’ espousal of an authoritarian Leviathan rule, Spinoza advocated tolerance, intellectual liberty and other similar ideals. He was a scientific humanist who had but contempt for metaphysics and religious dogmas, which were then the root-cause of many violent divisions in society. Most of his predecessors had maintained that the divine and capricious power of kings and centralized Leviathans were supreme, and that the common man’s lot was to submit meekly to such supreme powers. Spinoza on the other hand taught that the individual is within his rights to turn against a despot. ‘Tractatus Theologico-Politicus’ and the ‘Tractatus Politicus’ were two of his 126 major works in which he developed this theme of the primacy of the individual. He was a pioneer in promoting toleration and personal liberty. John Locke (1632-1704), a contemporary of Spinoza, influenced political thinking considerably with the idea of constitutional supremacy. He also advocated the cause of a balanced division of powers between the executive, judicial, and legislative wings, with particular emphasis on the legislative. However his idea of a constitutional commonwealth was by no means democratic, as we understand it in terms of universal suffrage. Instead, political power was to be based on the will of the elite and the propertied class. He believed that making the poor work harder was progress. On the question of religion, he advocated tolerance. He also denounced the state’s right of arbitrary taxation or of imprisonment without trial. Though he was a political conservative, Locke’s works played an important part in the rise of modern liberal political philosophy. The Irishman, Edmund Burke (1729-1797) also championed the cause of a constitutional commonwealth, though he did not favor abstract political theories, which lead to divisions in society. He was also of the view that no one had the right to destroy traditions and customs outright. According to him “Neither the few nor the many have the right to govern by their will.” Legitimate changes could however be brought about constitutionally as long as they were not too drastic. He also believed that violent revolutions would spin off into mindless violence, which would only be a setback to society. The French philosopher Montesquieu (1689-1755) differed from Locke in that he laid overemphasis on the separation of the executive, the judicial, and the legislative. These views did influence the founding fathers of the United States and the early French Revolutionaries. The Swiss-French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) was another political philosopher who had considerable influence on European political thinking. The rights of the common man was being recognized as best expressed by a Puritan who said “ The poorest hee that is in England hath a life to live as the greatest hee” Religious revivalism had considerable influence on such political philosophies of equality and fraternity. Rousseau gave this philosophy another perspective when he declared that “Man is born free, but he is everywhere in chains.” Rousseau relegated hierarchical elitism to the backroom, and championed the cause of equality. He also favored a federal Europe and deplored the obsession of European politics with military conquests. Rousseau’s writings came at a time when the conventional dynastic authority was on the wane and the power of the masses was on the ascent. Unwittingly Rousseau also forwarded the idea of powerful nation-states. With Utilitarianism there was a discernible shift in the eighteenth and nineteenth century political views. According to Utilitarianism ‘The greatest happiness of the greatest number’ was the new catchphrase. The idea originated with Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), an eccentric Englishman. According to him optimum utility for the greatest number was the acid test for judging all laws and institutions. Bentham reasoned that the common man was very reasonable and calculating by instinct when it came to his own welfare. According to him, punishment is purely a deterrent and not retribution. He rated offenses on the harm they did to general happiness and prosperity, and not on how such offenses affronted divine laws and traditions. Bentham’s adherent, James Mill (1773-1836) believed that success in governance lay with an educated electorate, and prosperity and social harmony in a laissez-faire economy. James Mill's son, John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), was one of the most influential and sophisticated of mid-Victorian liberals. He believed that civilization is indebted to a minority of creative minds who in turn can flourish only in an atmosphere of intellectual freedom. In his age of strident nationalism, quixotic utopianism and vicious revolutionism, his theories of intellectualism came as a breath of fresh air. Mill also promoted the emancipation of women, universal education and the cause of private property. Further contributions to political thinking in the nineteenth century came from all over Europe. Alexis de Tocqueville of France (1805-1859) was an admirer of J.S.Mill, and like Mill Tocqueville also promoted the creativeness of the minority and universal education in a democratic setup as the best way to prosperity. The Italian Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-1872) was a prominent thinker of the nineteenth century. He was a liberal nationalist who believed in strong nations and associations of nations, and in the abolition of clerical, military and feudal privileges. Mazzini also espoused the cause of a united Europe though this dream began to be realized only long after his death from lessons learnt during the two world wars. T.H. Green (1836-1882), an Oxford educated English philosopher, promoted the cause of a free market economy. In a departure from the extant liberal thoughts, Green advocated state control over 127 education, health, housing and urban planning and over reduction of unemployment. Green’s theses laid the foundation of the British welfare state. American constitutionalism was another concept, which had considerable impact on modern political thinking and organization. George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson and others who contributed heavily to formulating the American Constitution, were considerably influenced by republicanism and the French Enlightenment. The French Enlightenment in turn arose from political philosophies based on rationalism, empiricism and naturalism, which were at various times endorsed by the likes of Descartes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The American Constitution provided for a balance of power between the executive and the legislative supervised by an independent judiciary. Any amendment of the constitution could only be implemented by the unanimous endorsement of all the states. The civilian establishment had absolute control over the military. Religious freedom and freedom of expression were enshrined in the constitution, which also provided for a laissez-faire economy. Though the ideals of the French Enlightenment influenced the formulation the American Constitution, this constitution in turn contributed considerably to European thinking and inspired the Declaration of the Rights of Man by the French.
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen [1789] : Adopted by the National Assembly during the French Revolution on August 26, 1789, and reaffirmed by the constitution of 1958.
Preamble : The representatives of the French people, formed into a National Assembly, considering ignorance, forgetfulness or contempt of the rights of man to be the only causes of public misfortunes and the corruption of Governments, have resolved to set forth, in a solemn Declaration, the natural, unalienable and sacred rights of man to the end that this Declaration, constantly present to all members of the body politic, may remind them unceasingly of their rights and their duties; to the end that the acts of the legislative power and those of the executive power, since they may be continually compared with the aim of every political institution, may thereby be the more respected; to the end that the demands of the citizens, founded henceforth on simple and uncontestable principles, may always be directed toward the maintenance of the Constitution and the happiness of all. In consequence whereof, the National Assembly recognizes and declares, in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
Article 1--Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be based only on considerations of the common good. Article 2--The aim of every political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are Liberty, Property, Safety and Resistance to Oppression. Article 3--The source of all sovereignty lies essentially in the Nation. No corporate body, no individual may exercise any authority that does not expressly emanate from it. Article 4--Liberty consists in being able to do anything that does not harm others: thus, the exercise of the natural rights of every man has no bounds other than those that ensure to the other members of society the enjoyment of these same rights. These bounds may be determined only by Law. Article 5--The Law has the right to forbid only those actions that are injurious to society. Nothing that is not forbidden by Law may be hindered, and no one may be compelled to do what the Law does not ordain. Article 6--The Law is the expression of the general will. All citizens have the right to take part, personally or through their representatives, in its making. It must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes. All citizens, being equal in its eyes, shall be equally eligible to all high offices, public positions and employments, according to their ability, and without other distinction than that of their virtues and talents. Article 7--No man may be accused, arrested or detained except in the cases determined by the Law, and following the procedure that it has prescribed. Those who solicit, expedite, carry out, or cause to be carried out arbitrary orders must be punished; but any citizen summoned or apprehended by virtue of the Law, must give instant obedience; resistance makes him guilty. Article 8--The Law must prescribe only the punishments that are strictly and evidently necessary; and no one may be punished except by virtue of a Law drawn up and promulgated before the offense is committed, and legally applied. 128 Article 9--As every man is presumed innocent until he has been declared guilty, if it should be considered necessary to arrest him, any undue harshness that is not required to secure his person must be severely curbed by Law. Article 10--No one may be disturbed on account of his opinions, even religious ones, as long as the manifestation of such opinions does not interfere with the established Law and Order. Article 11--The free communication of ideas and of opinions is one of the most precious rights of man. Any citizen may therefore speak, write and publish freely, except what is tantamount to the abuse of this liberty in the cases determined by Law. Article 12--To guarantee the Rights of Man and of the Citizen a public force is necessary; this force is therefore established for the benefit of all, and not for the particular use of those to whom it is entrusted. Article 13--For the maintenance of the public force, and for administrative expenses, a general tax is indispensable; it must be equally distributed among all citizens, in proportion to their ability to pay. Article 14--All citizens have the right to ascertain, by themselves, or through their representatives, the need for a public tax, to consent to it freely, to watch over its use, and to determine its proportion, basis, collection and duration. Article 15--Society has the right to ask a public official for an accounting of his administration. Article 16--Any society in which no provision is made for guaranteeing rights or for the separation of powers, has no Constitution. Article 17--Since the right to Property is inviolable and sacred, no one may be deprived thereof, unless public necessity, legally ascertained, obviously requires it, and just and prior indemnity has been paid.
In the meantime the people of the West had switched over from the agrarian wave to an industrial one. Political thinking too had to change in tandem. Many of the evolutions in European political thinking as illustrated above reflect this economic switchover, which highlighted the new wave. Saint-Simon de Comte (1760-1825) pioneered such thoughts. He pointed out that if France were deprived of three thousand leading scientists, engineers, bankers, painters, poets, and writers, the outcome would be disastrous. On the other hand if all the courtiers, bishops and landlords were to vanish, it would hardly be noticed. Saint-Simon also favored a united Europe, with a European parliament and a joint development of industry and communication. Hegel (1770 -1831) was one of the most prominent political thinkers of all times. He also favored a strong state, which he eulogized as “…the divine idea as it exists on earth.” Though a conservative, Hegel exerted considerable influence on Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895), who formulated the ‘Communist Manifesto’, which provides for the most profound political philosophy of the transition stage from agrarian to industrial economy. Like Hegel, these ‘prophets’ of communism too tried to interpret politics and power in terms of the totality of history and through a process of dialectics of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. But they deviated from Hegel in some important aspects. Whereas Hegel interpreted history in terms of conflicts between nation-states, Marx and Engels interpreted history in terms of a struggle between economic classes. Considering the impact it had on the world, Marxism is perhaps the most dramatic of all political philosophies. Marxism advocated a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ in which the working proletariat would seize all the means of production from the capitalist bourgeoisie. In the final scenario the state would become superfluous in a classless society. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the West was well on its way to becoming one homogeneous industrial society. However, the competing demands for raw materials and markets had brought to the fore the Hobbesian idea of Leviathan states. These states could not brook equals and there were unending struggles for supremacy among these states. This competition for resources and markets led to the two world wars, which shook the West to its foundations in every sphere of life. The realization came that though these states had achieved the rule of law within their domains, it was a free for all when it came to dealing with each other. Sovereignty of nations had been equated with a right of nations to do as they pleased with each other. The idea still persists all over, and is the cause of much strife in modern times. There were many other political thinkers in the twentieth century who made significant contributions to politics and philosophy. Various versions of humanism promoted by the likes of Lewis Mumford (1895- 1990) of the United States and Bertrand Russell (182-1970) of the United Kingdom made their marks in 129 bringing human rights to the fore as against capricious state power. They also placed particular stress on toleration, sexual freedom, compassion, and common sense. Existentialism nurtured by the likes of Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980) and Albert Camus (1913-1960) of France also had considerable though transient impact on Western political thinking in the twentieth century. In the meantime Western ideals of freedom, equality and fraternity have permeated throughout the world and led to many a freedom struggle against the Western colonizing powers. These erstwhile colonies have by and large adopted Western democratic ideals though they have a long way to go in implementing these ideals due to inherent nepotism and rampant corruption. General illiteracy also stands in the path of these pseudo-democracies in attaining the high ideals of their founding fathers such as Gandhi and Mandela. Marxism also had considerable impact on the people of these fledgling democracies. The idea of creating equality by taking from the haves and distributing among the have-nots really converted many into ardent Marxists. However Marxism failed in delivering its promises of prosperity. What is more, Marx had prophesied the weakening of the State in a Communist regime and strengthening of the individual proletariat. Instead, Communist countries like Russia, China and Cambodia suppressed individualism and intellectualism, and promulgated draconian laws to suppress freedom of the common man. Marxism has been forced to abandon its Utopian ideals and to adapt to changing economic conditions of a globalized market, which depends on the power of knowledge, whereas at the time Marx envisaged his theses, muscle power was the predominant form of labor. Traditional political equations were concerned with distribution of available wealth. Since there was little or no improvement in productivity even over centuries as in India and many parts of the ancient civilizations, total per-capita wealth remained stagnant over a lifetime and more. Here wealth means assets that can be consumed directly by man - human consumables - and/or assets such as land, transport etc that can contribute directly or indirectly to production of human consumables. Labor deserves special mention here. Labor has a dimension of time to it, as labor output is proportional to time when all other factors are constant. As such labor is as perishable a commodity as time itself. Each second wasted in idleness can never be restored. Consequently labor is a fictitious asset that is also very much an integral part of man, which cannot be alienated from him or her. It is Labor & Human also this asset that adds value to all other assets directly or indirectly. However, in the Resources past labor supply exceeded demand and labor quality was uniform, and was often limited to physical or muscle power. This labor was also the main criterion for distribution of wealth or wages among the population. Productivity was low and so were wages. Laborers lived in abject poverty. Since productivity stagnated, the most significant and feasible method of increasing this wealth consisted of taking wealth from the haves by whatever means feasible. Violence was one form of such takeovers. Politics was another such as in communism, though such politics also implied violence. With the industrial and digital waves there is a significant shift in productivity with the human resources taking central stage. Entrepreneurs like Bill Gates have assets, which are worth GDPs of entire nations put together. However these assets are often symbolic in nature such as in shares and securities, and can no longer be taken over by legislation or by force. What is more, in the pre-industrial ages most enterprises were either proprietorships or partnerships. With the industrial wave and the stock market, capital became far more broad-based and the distinction between capitalists and proletariats became blurred and indistinguishable. The industrial and digital waves have also resulted in quantum jumps in productivity. Taking from the haves and distributing to the have-nots is no more an obligation in humanitarian terms. With the burgeoning productivity, the rich are growing richer and the poor are also getting richer. The Marxist slogan “The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries, unite!” does not hold anymore in the modern world, where there is a high demand for labor, which is now euphemistically termed human resources. If distribution of wealth by violent takeovers was the most feasible thing in the primitive economic waves, cooperation is the keyword in the high productivity waves of the present. We are now poised to increase wealth by mutual cooperation in spite of ethnic and perceptual differences. Conflict is no more a rational option. If politics were about conflicts as in the past, it is about cooperation in the present context of booming productivity and trade. Machiavelli and other political writers of yore were concerned about getting the upper hand over your political rivals by hook or by crook, for that was the only option available then. But
130 the hook-or-by-crook political philosophies are no more feasible where every one stands to gain from a policy of cooperation than from a policy of confrontation. Just as philosophy is concerned with all branches of knowledge, politics is concerned with all forms of power and authority in a society and its distribution along the hierarchical lines. Being the most perishable of commodities, time is the most important input to any production of goods or services. Along with other techniques, optimum efficiency comes from doing things in minimum time. Perhaps even more significant a factor in increasing efficiency is the good will of men. The more goodwill a man can garner from his contemporaries, the more wealth, power and prestige will come his way. So power is also about goodwill and politics is about generating the maximum good will with minimum inputs. According to Alvin Toffler’s Power Shift violence was the means to power in Primordial and Agrarian Wave societies. But with the Industrial Wave and democracies, money power came into its own. It is this money power which Marx dubbed as Capitalism and revolted against. But with the information-based Digital wave, knowledge has become power. Nonetheless, violence still forms the most fundamental form of power and so of politics in the modern world. A violent incident catches the world’s attention quicker and easier than thousands of every-day events. It is because of the political power of violence that extremists and terrorists resort to such acts as sky-jackings and suicide-bombings to capture and hold the world’s attention. Flexibility holds the key to economic success and to political rationale. With every discovery and invention, with every bit of technical or other knowledge that comes to light, we regulate and amend the nature of our economic outlooks and activities. However, in politics and other spheres of human life such flexibility is often anathema. Thus it was after considerable bloodshed that the concept of the divine rights of kings gave way to elitism and then to true democracy. Of late communism is a political Politics & doctrine that refused to change in tune with economic changes and is at present going through Change the tantrums of a slow and painful death. In the process the welfare of many people are compromised. No man however intelligent, well intentioned or principled can have even an inkling of the changes that are likely to come even in the short term. It is impossible to predict how the economic scenario is going to change in this age of transience. We have seen that the political philosophers expounded their propositions within the framework of their own political environment – Plato within the city-state- environment of his times, Dante with the religious zeal of his times and so on. Transience and global cooperation are the hallmarks of the present developing world and it is imperative that we too adopt political strategies in tune with the economic and social realities. It may also be mentioned here that in democracies, leaders cater to followers and so in a democracy people get the government they deserve. In an autocracy or dictatorship in contrast, there are followers who cater to the whims and fancies of the leader. As a result, in autocracy there is sycophancy, corruption and lawlessness. We have also stated all along that they are dogmas and doctrines that lie behind most violence. Dogmas and doctrines provide no scope for discussions, debates or consensus. The only alternative is violence. Much of the violence we see in the world today comes in the form of secessionist and freedom movements. Violence has become an essential part of these movements due to the dogmas of the ‘Sovereignty And Integrity Of Nations.’
The dogma of the sovereignty: Sovereignty of nations is a political dogma that asserts the absolute and arbitrary power of nations in decision making, legislation, taxation, in making wars and concluding peace treaties, and in all other external and internal realm of politics. The word sovereignty is derived from the Latin term ‘superanus’ through the French term ‘souveraineté’, and means to be a supreme absolute power in all matters. It was the Frenchman Jean Bodin (1530-96) that first used the term to assert the power of the absolute king over the feudal lords in the process of transition from feudalism to nationalism. Bodin’s precepts influenced later thinkers like John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The state is founded on a mutual contract between the citizens for dealing with internal functions of legislation, implementation and adjudication, as well as in dealing with other sovereign states. The doctrine of sovereignty found place in the United States’ Declaration of Independence in 1776. The French constitution of 1791 went one step further and declared that “Sovereignty is one, indivisible, unalienable and imprescriptible; it belongs to the Nation; no group can attribute sovereignty to itself nor can an individual abrogate it to himself.” Later on it was concluded by the British in tune with their form of parliamentary democracy that sovereignty was vested in a nation's parliament. This concept of parliamentary supremacy did not gel with the American concept of 131 constitutional supremacy by which many enacted laws were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the Unites States of America. What complicated matters was that in the United States, the states too had their own constitutions. It was consequently argued that sovereignty resided in the state in all matters except in those matters where powers had been delegated to the union of states. Thus arose a concept of dual sovereignty invested in both the union and the constituent states. The concept of sovereignty had few repercussions in internal matters except in cases of secessionist movements within nations. Bodin had interpreted sovereignty as absolute power subject to divine laws. Hobbes however interpreted sovereignty as absolute power, which was not limited by ethical or moral considerations. The sovereign was a law unto himself. Hobbes highlighted the right of might of nations rather than moralistic laws. This led to a perpetual state of squabbles and wars, as each sovereign tried to impose his will on other sovereigns. The situation has changed little since, and sovereign states have continued to claim the right to be legislators, executors, complainants, defendants and judges, all rolled into one, in all matters including the right to enforce their arbitrary rights by war if necessary. Sovereignty also gives the state a free hand in dealing with their own citizens as well to regulate economic and other policies with little regard for economic or environmental repercussions in other states. The realization has come in the twentieth century that unrestricted national rights will only lead to international wars and chaos just as unrestricted freedom for the individual can only lead to internal chaos. Increased globalization and the interdependence of states restricted the principle that might is right in international affairs. International regulations were deemed necessary for nations when it came to mutual transactions as well as in dealing with internal populations. The Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907 thus established rules on the conduct of wars on land and at sea. The Covenant of the League of Nations restricted the right to wage war, and the Briand-Kellogg Pact of 1928 condemned recourse to war for the solution of international controversies and its use as an instrument of national policy. Subsequently, Article 2 of the Charter of the United Nations urged member-states to “ … settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace, security, and justice, are not endangered.” The charter also urged member states that they “ … shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force. …” though the charter also asserted that ‘the principle of sovereign equality of all its members’ was not compromised. Furthermore, international nongovernmental organizations have also been exerting considerable restraints on absolute sovereignty of nations in internal matters of human rights, environment, corruption, transparency and so on. Furthermore, the international community feels the necessity to form super-sovereign bodies such as the United Nations and the International Court of Justice, which will have a say not only in matters regarding international relationships but also in matters of human rights and environmental issues. Thus though democracy is based on the rights of individuals and the decentralization of power, the same principles have opened our eyes to the necessity of forming hierarchical organizations to the international level such as the United Nations, so that the human society may function as smoothly as an anthill. The need also has been felt that for building win-win situations between sovereign states, it is absolutely essential that the states concerned resort to the policy of give and take, where unrestricted sovereign authority is compromised to the optimum extent for the good of all. Subsequently the idea of a world government has been mooted, and the need for such a government is imperative. However this has led to irrational xenophobic fears. John Birch Society of the United States is thus of the view that if the United Nations were to evolve into a true world government, it would "mean an end to personal freedom and the independence of this nation and all nations." Such fears are unfounded. As social beings we have to associate with each other. Our high degree of cooperation and its complexity has indeed been the cause of the spectacular success of our species. If I were all-alone in the Privileges & world, I am an absolute sovereign. But I would also be at the mercy of nature and totally Obligations helpless – a nanocosm in a macrocosm. We need a microcosm of help from others to get on with our daily chores and responsibilities. The moment I associate with another man, duties and quid-pro-quos come into the picture without which there cannot be any association or cooperation. This often means a compromising my absolute sovereignty and freedom. In this compromise we have to abdicate some of our absolute rights and privileges as quid-pro-quos for sharing our duties and responsibilities to ourselves. But such abdication of rights and privileges does not amount to a loss or surrender of our rights and privileges. Instead we are merely delegating them to the association and in the process we share them with our associate or associates. The association thus formed then becomes the 132 custodian of our rights and privileges in which we share. If the body formed by such an association such as the family decides to associate with other associations the process of delegation and sharing of rights and responsibilities are repeated. Thus associations as well as associations of associations have been formed to the international level. In the process we delegate and share our rights and privileges at each stage. Even so, they are not only the rights and privileges that are thus shared. In associating with others we are also delegating and sharing our duties and responsibilities as clarified. No man is an island, and we need help from others in carrying out even the simplest of chores. Even a simple chore as shaving cannot be done without the assistance of manufacturers of razors, brushes, creams, mirrors and so on. Associations are formed for getting assistance in carrying out Synergies of our chores and duties with the minimum of inputs. Sharing of duties, responsibilities and Association workloads is thus the primary purpose of forming associations. Sharing of rights and privileges only come in secondary in the process of the quid-pro-quo necessary for sharing our workloads with others. Such associations are also synergetic in that the output from such associations is much higher than the sum of the component outputs. Thus two men working together on a project can output much more than the two of them working separately on the same project. In order to enhance economic efficiencies in accordance with ‘The Law of Optimum Efficiencies’, we have to specialize to higher and higher degrees. The more we specialize the more we have to associate and cooperate with other specialists and specialized economies. In the process we integrate into larger and more complex local economic communities and these into larger national economies and further on to the global Specialization economies. Primitive economies, which in contrast have a low degree of & Association specialization, are left out in the cold, as they have little to offer the sophisticated and specialized economies. Many Utopian leaders like Gandhi have clamored for self- sufficient communities and villages. Self-sufficient communities are doomed as there is little scope for specialization in these communities since they have to produce and market too wide a range of products and services to be self-sufficient. This makes their economy inefficient. On the other hand specialization of economic activities and association and integration with other specialized economic niches enhances the efficiency though sovereignty has to be compromised or rather shared in the process. But of what use is sovereignty without prosperity? As we integrate more and more, our sovereignty decreases in quantity but our lifestyle enhances in quality. Thus people living in the jungles of the Amazon are far more independent and sovereign than a modern city dweller. People living in the jungle have very few needs and so have to depend very little on others. Their sovereignty is of a high degree though of little use since they are inefficient in productive terms and so live deprived lives limited to the absolute minimum for survival. In contrast a man in the city has a very high quality of life as he is integrated into a highly efficient economy, though he has to compromise or share his sovereignty in the process. There is no case for limiting socio-political associations to any level as long as it proves generally beneficial to the lowest level. It has been proved that associating to the international level has its own synergies. Just as sharing of rights and responsibilities is beneficial at the lowest levels of society, sharing sovereign powers and delegating them to a world body works out to the benefit of the sovereign and subsequently to the benefit of the citizen. By such association and globalization we are not abdicating our right of decision making. Instead we are delegating the decision making process to the appropriate higher level so that the decision will have optimum impacts. As decision-making is delegated to the right higher level, there may be quantitative erosion in sovereignty, but the qualitative difference in economic efficiency is worth the trouble. There are two opposite forces at work here. On the one hand a necessity of associating with other sovereign nations especially with the neighboring ones is strongly felt for economic and other reasons. On the other hand, universal xenophobia stands in the way of abdicating even part of the absolute sovereignty though such abdication is essential if an association of sovereigns is to be forged. As a result the process of international integration of sovereign states has been far more sluggish than ideal. Nonetheless, it is a comfort to know that the process of the synergetic associations of sovereign entities are moving ahead albeit at a snail’s pace. We have seen in the chapter on fear how infants fear every stranger and how as they grow up, they accept more and more strangers into their personal zone. We have also seen how such contacts with and acceptance of strangers are fraught with xenophobic fears, which are inborn and impossible to shirk off. 133 However we subdue or overcome these xenophobic fears with rational thinking and thus get on in the world of strangers. I do not see why it should be any different in international affairs where xenophobia has far less relevance when compared to personal affairs. Though progress has been made on the external front, the concept of sovereignty still stands in the way of internal progress. There are secessionist movements in almost every nation on earth and these movements are suppressed often by force. Efforts at compromises, mediations and adjudications in such matters are thwarted on the grounds of the sovereignty and integrity of nations. However the concept of the sovereignty and integrity of nations is just another dogma, which cannot stand up to the light of reason and clear thinking. Suppression of the political aspirations of groups within a nation is also against the principles of democracy by which most nations swear. By the principles of democracy the voter is the absolute sovereign. The individual, according to Henry David Thoreau, the father of the concept of civil disobedience, is “a higher and independent power,” from which the state sources its own power.” He considered the individual as the primary source of political power rather than the state, which is just an entity, conceived by the will of the people. However since each state and nation consists of millions of such voters it is imperative that we form hierarchical associations of voters for the smooth functioning of the society. So the sovereign voter delegates his sovereignty to higher and higher levels of associations of voters so that the sovereign voter can reap maximum economic benefits from the association and association of associations. Governments at various levels are thus organized by the will of the voter. Thus in Kerala the political organization move from the family level to the Panchayat level, the Block Panchayat, the District Panchayat, the Kerala State Assembly and the Indian Parliament in a pyramidal hierarchy. The top or apex point of a pyramid is the most visible. However the apex point has no existence of its own without its base. It is the same with the political pyramid. Under natural conditions and without external interferences the political hierarchy has to be built from the bottom up. Any sovereignty or power a democratic government has is what has been delegated to it by the voter. Thus the political Pyramids power in isolated communities of ancient India lay in the village councils or Panchayats as of Power they are called. If the kings, emperors, colonizers and their armies had not figured in Indian history, they would be the families and village Panchayats, which would form the real political base of the pyramid. The power of the nation would thus be derived from the village Panchayats at the lowest level of political organization. Real political power should have originated from such village Panchayats. However history threw a monkey wrench into the natural evolution of democratic hierarchy. The British conquered India, and then integrated the hundreds of warring states and kingdoms of India into one political entity for administrative purposes. The will of the people had nothing to do with the colonial integration. Independent India just inherited this political hierarchy instituted by the British. The present states of the union had little or no choice in the matter. The Panchayats and the voters had even less of a choice. The cases of many modern democracies like those of the United Kingdom are also the same. They were all integrated by force of armies and not by the will of the people. Rationally speaking, in a democracy rights are to be delegated from the bottom to the top. In reality however, all democracies are continuations of erstwhile kingdoms, empires and colonies where power was invested in the king or the colonizer. As a result delegation of authority has been from the top to the bottom, by which governments condescend to give away their rights to the sovereign citizen. It is this anomaly that has led to human rights violations even in professed democracies like India. In a true democracy where authority is delegated from bottom to the top there cannot be secessionist movements or human-rights violations. In a democracy real sovereignty lies with the voter. However in the pseudo-democracies, which have come into being in the wake of various independent struggles, sovereignty lies with the governments and it is this irrational state of affairs that leads to secessionist movements, and the irrational dogmas of sovereignty and integrity of nations. Kashmir is a case in point. One day my son Anup, then eight or nine, asked me “Papa, what is this Kashmir problem?” “We Indians say that Kashmir is ours, Pakistanis say Kashmir is theirs” I explained. Whack, came the next Kashmir question like a whiplash “What do the Kashmiris say?” The total solution to the sixty-year-old Kashmir problem lies in that simple question of an eight year old. Coming from an eight year old it is an intuitive question that reflects natural human aspirations towards independent choices. But now that Anup is in his mid-twenties he would not ask the 134 same question, as he knows that such questions are pointless. However like us, in the inside of his insides he knows that the question “What do the Kashmiris say?” has fundamental ethical implications when it comes to solving the Kashmir imbroglio. It is also a pity that India, which swears by its nonviolent origins, has adopted a Hegelian attitude, in contravention Thoreau’s concept of real political sovereignty lying with the voter, a concept that helped India in its nonviolent struggle against the British. Anup’s question also proves that real power has to lie at the lowest level if it is to be constructive. Instead, thanks to the billions of trillions of bits of propaganda we have been subjected to, we grownups are conditioned to think that this obvious solution is disastrous, and will lead to the break-up and ultimate disintegration of the country. These ideological cataracts, which occlude our reasoning, prevent us from seeing the economic payoffs that can arise from an independent Kashmir. An independent Kashmir could well have been a buffer between India and Pakistan, and that would have slashed India’s and Pakistan’s defense budgets considerably. What is more India is now throwing millions of dollars down the drain every day in subsidies to Kashmir and in ‘defending’ Kashmir. An independent Kashmir would have meant a trading partner, which would in all probability have worked in India’s favor. With peace on the boarder, Pakistan too would have made an excellent market for India’s goods and even more so for India’s services like movies and music. What stands in the way of solving the Kashmir imbroglio are mere political dogmas and conditioning. An excellent example of conditioned political thinking occurred in the late 1990s. The Kashmir assembly had voted for autonomy from the Indian Union. Kushbao Thakre, the then-president of the ruling nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, declared “What is to become of the Indian Union if every state opts for autonomy?” Over the years, he had been conditioned to think that autonomy for the states meant disaster for the nation. He had not once asked himself who had primacy - the people or the nation? He had not once bothered to think whether the people existed for the sake of the union or the union existed for the people. But then, neither he nor his slogan-shouting followers bothered much with such ‘trivial’ questions. India is a union of people from ethnic backgrounds as diverse as you can imagine- there are over two hundred dialects in India and the cults, cultures, creeds and beliefs are too numerous to list here. India formed an association of states in the hope that such an association would prove beneficial to everyone concerned. However, if every state is waiting for the first opportunity to break away, then there is something the matter with the association of India’s states. The cause for such a separatist or secessionist desire should be identified and addressed rather than the union enforced against the will of the states and the people. In the process it should also be taken into account that secession does not spell the end of the world. If secession is more beneficial to the parties concerned, nationalist and political dogmas should not be allowed to stand in the way of a gracious secession and separation. It is the intransigence of the political leadership on all sides, which has lead to an impasse on the Kashmir issue. These myopic leaders find in Kashmir a bottomless goldmine. As a result, instead of having a win-win-win situation vis-à-vis India-Kashmir-Pakistan we now have a lose- lose-lose situation, and poverty-poverty-poverty and blood-blood-blood, just because we will not allow ourselves be de-conditioned. However economic forces as we have seen are the most important factors in socio-politics and it is a matter of time before simple economics gets the upper hand over xenophobic dogmas. However, as in all matters, it is ‘The Law of Optimum Efficiencies’ rather than political dogmas, which will have the last laugh under such circumstances. They are the vested interests, which promote such myopic dogmas. Thus were it not for the dogmas concerning Kashmir, India would not have had to build up such an expensive army. The defense department appropriates a large portion of the country’s GNP, and is also one of the most corrupt of establishments in the country. These vested interests raise the specter of national security when corruption in defense transactions is mentioned, and use it as a ruse to hide their despicable wheeling and dealing. It would seem that the ministers, the generals, the bureaucrats, the arms manufacturers and the power brokers alone are interested in national security, and that the tax-paying public is just waiting for the first opportunity to sell out their country to the highest bidder. When all the information involved in any defense contract is well known to the external arms manufacturers and their agents, what harm can there be in disclosing them to the tax-paying citizens?
135 As reiterated above, in accordance with ‘The Law of Optimum Efficiencies,’ it is economic prosperity alone that can hold a group or association of people together in the long term. Be it family, village or state, any association of men and women has significance only when they stand to gain economically from such an association. It is not in the economic interests of any of the states of the Indian Union to hold on to Kashmir against the will of the Kashmiri people, and at such great expense. The Kashmir problem has more to do with vested interests and national vanity, in that order, rather than with national sovereignty or national security. The Kashmir imbroglio is the biggest threat to the sovereignty and the national integrity of India than any foreign intervention. Had it not been for the diversion of over 20% of successive Indian government budgets - year after year since 1947 - directly or indirectly into Kashmir and Kashmir related problems, India would have been a very prosperous nation. Instead, it remains abjectly poor, and this in turn has spawned secessionist movements elsewhere - in the Punjab and Tamil Nadu as well as in Assam, Manipal and the other North Eastern states. Given a choice, I wonder how many of the over-fifty states of the Indian Union would opt to stay with the Union at this point of time even as they sanctimoniously sing ‘Sara Jeha se acha, Hindustan hamara …’ (Our India is the best of all lands …) Had it not been for the enforced unity, India would in all probability have disintegrated into over a hundred independent nation states, thanks mainly to the Kashmir problem and its drainage on the Indian exchequer. Among the nations of today’s world like Pakistan, China, Britain, Spain, Russia, Iraq, Sudan, Ethiopia and so on, India’s policies are more the rule than the exception, to the detriment of the despondent and miserable multitudes of these countries. The only ones to gain from all this are the handful of politicians and the arms-dealers as mentioned above. Secessionist movements may be likened to the split up of joint families. In the agrarian Patriarchal era, the joint family formed the basic economic unit of association of individuals. Everyone in the joint family was involved in the same economic activity and larger families were more efficient and powerful. Often there would be disagreements and squabbles between the family members. Such squabbles could often be smoothened out by the patriarch or through external mediation. Breakup of the joint family was looked upon as a shame and a disgrace on the family as it was perceived that such breakups weakened the group. Such squabbles became frequent with the industrial age when even siblings had little in common with each other as regards economic activities. The wise patriarchs tried their best to hold the family together as long as they could. But once a patriarch saw the futility of such unwilling cohesion, once he saw that the squabbles were getting out of hand, he divided up the land among his sons and grandsons according to prevailing customs and conventions. The pigheaded patriarchs would not listen to the pleas of such separation until the squabbles turned too violent for anyone to manage. Whenever the siblings were allowed to go their ways and set up their own homesteads at an early stage, the relationships between them often matured. On the other hand when siblings are kept in a joint family against their aspirations and ambitions, it will only end up in violence, violence that can do irreparable damage to the future relationship between siblings. It is the same with nations and their political constituents. If the political constituent of a nation such as a state of the Indian Union thinks of disengaging itself from the union, it is best for all concerned that the components have their way. Holding a political group against its will can only do irreparable damage to the sovereignty and integrity of the nation, especially when such sovereignty and integrity has been wrought about by external forces and not natural ones as in the case of India. There is also a more fundamental issue involved with regard to integration and secession. Sikkim was for long a sovereign state bordering India and then became a protectorate of India from 1950. Eventually it opted to join the Indian Union of states in 1975. Now that it is a part of the union it would not in all probability be allowed to secede and revert back to its former sovereign status. The army would in all probability step in if the Sikkimese were to clamor for independence as the Kashmiris do. This raises a fundamental issue, “Is the union a rat trap which states can get into but cannot get out of?”
Communism and Socialism: We saw how communism slipped up in assuming that by taking the rich and distribution among the poor, everyone would be equally rich. However communism caught the fancy of even the educated elite in the Third World, with its premise that by taking from the rich, and distributing among the poor, everyone would be equally rich. In the excitement and euphoria, no one bothered to think of the alternative of such a distribution making everyone equally poor. We were carried away by the Utopian words and conditioned by them. 136 It might be an excellent exercise to study how due to lack of clear thinking Marxism and communism failed to recognize the momentous changes that took place after its inception and implementation. Because of its inflexibility, communism got entangled in its own rhetoric and went bonkers. Marxism and communism is based on the antithetical natures of capital and labor, the most important factors of production at the time Marx formulated the theories of communism. The solution Marx offered was state capitalism in which the proletarian state put up the capital and the proletarian population offered the labor. But the movement failed to deliver, because it failed to accommodate changing ground realities. In an agrarian society there is little or no possibility of specialization or division of labor. Labor involved is mostly physical power. Except for a few specialists such as blacksmiths, goldsmiths and others, nearly all the population put in hard labor and lived by the sweat of his or her brow. In the early stages of the industrial age too, muscle power played a prominent part. Efficiencies were effected by bringing together the manufacturing activities under a factory roof, thereby providing for greater supervisory control. Adam Smith cites the example of the manufacture of nails. A black smith working alone could forge a maximum of five or six nails a day. On the other hand, in an assembly line of a nail factory, the productivity was in the hundreds per man-day. It was in this scenario of near-homogeneous labor quality that Marxism raised its head. However, things were changing rapidly and Marxism was too preoccupied with its own slogans and rhetoric to take note of these momentous changes on the economic scene, especially the 'heterogenization' of labor and the 'marginalization' of capital. According to Alvin Toffler, the main features of the industrial age were synchronization (people synchronizing their activities by the clock), standardization of products, specialization, concentration of factors of production under one factory roof, maximization of production for lessening unit cost and centralization of political power. (For details see Alvin Toffler’s ‘The Third Wave’) Of these features, specialization is the most important feature as far as human resources - labor as it was called then - are concerned. With specialization thousands of labor-niches were formed and in time every man may become a unique niche. In the Agrarian Wave and in the early Industrial Wave, it was quantity of labor that counted rather than quality, and value addition was proportional to number of laborers, other factors remaining the same. It was this kind of labor that Marx took into consideration when he formulated his revolutionary theories. The repetitious and simplistic rhetoric of Communism caught the fancies of the illiterate and semiliterate laborers of the time and raised new hopes in China, Cuba and other nations, which applied communist principles to an agrarian society where crude muscular labor, played an important role. Russia on the other hand, applied Marxian principles to the nascent industries where labor was as physical as in agrarian society. Communism might have had some theoretical relevance in this scenario of the physical- labor based Agrarian Wave and early Industrial Wave. With specialization and the need for better organization and management, labor quality has turned heterogeneous as against its homogenous nature in the past. In the crude-labor oriented Agrarian and early Industrial Waves, the capitalist did little manual work and was quite dispensable except for his total control over capital and other factors of production. In this scenario, it was deemed that the Capitalist was a leach Human Resources who fattened off the labors of the proletariat. The fact that most capital and & Entrepreneurship land were inherited and not earned in those days only confirmed the thesis and alienated the capitalists from the proletariat. As the Industrial Wave waxed strong, there came onto the scene a new form of human resources - entrepreneurship. Capital was no more the most important ingredient of production and people born into rich capitalist and landowner families became impoverished overnight. On the other hand, people like Henry Ford who started out as an ordinary farmhand, became immensely rich almost overnight by sheer imagination and initiative. In the process, they also contributed much value addition and wealth to their respective societies. There are people like Bill Gates of Microsoft and Narayana Murthy of Infosys, who started out from their garages on shoestring budgets, and generated enough wealth on their own in a decade or two that matched the GNP of many Agrarian nations like Kenya. Entrepreneurship had become the most important factor of production, and an entrepreneur with vision and initiative was equal to millions of ordinary laborers when it came to value addition and efficiency enhancement. In their ignorance of ‘The Law of Optimum Efficiencies,’ the Communists failed to see the writings on the wall, and went on equating entrepreneurs with capitalists, and ended up stifling enterprise and initiative instead of capitalism. 137 Communism failed, because it slipped up in defining their keywords - labor, capital and enterprise. Passionate rhetoric clouded the eyes of the early communist leaders and their diehard followers, and this prevented them from clear-think. Instead, they resorted to more political and economic doctrines and dogmas to support the obsolescent ones, and ended up in poverty and misery. Communism does not seem to have learnt its lessons from its long and intricate experiences. Communist movements in poor countries, in spite of their unquestionable humanism and earnestness, are still concerned with distribution of available wealth or poverty rather than with creating new wealth. What is more, socialist movements everywhere put the onus of development on the respective governments as a result of which people clamor for more and more freebies. It would seem that it pays to remain poor in socialist countries whereas in more advanced societies 'It is a crime to be poor'. There are limitations even to the richest of economies, and handouts and freebies have to stop somewhere. It is sad that unscrupulous politicians raise popular expectations of living off government handouts, as if government resources were unlimited. In countries where communism came to power, they looked on with suspicion on all who disagreed with them and in the process stifled initiative and entrepreneurship. China seems to have taken a different path in recent years and gone on a spree of attracting private capital and global enterprises. However, it remains to be seen whether communist autocracy and laissez-faire entrepreneurship are compatible with each other. It would be opportune here to consider here the stance of the so-called management gurus. About a decade or two ago, management gurus like Lee Iacocca and Peter Drucker were all praises for the Japanese system of decision making, where issues are debated from the lowest levels to the highest in a pyramidal hierarchy, and a consensus is reached. The management gurus claimed that such a Chinese Vs democratic system of decision making, though slow in reaching decisions, was Japanese expeditious at the implementation stage, and this was one of the main reasons why Managements Japanese industry had that edge over the West. Now China, where decisions are pushed down the peoples' throats with scant respect for human rights, has become the blue-eyed boy as far as the management gurus are concerned. It would seem that nothing succeeds like success and success alone is the most reliable management mantra. According to me, freedom and equality are absolutely necessary for success in modern business. However, this does not seem to be the case in China where human rights are trod on with impunity – if the Western media can be believed. Realignment or readjustment between political institutions and economic compulsions are inevitable in China. Whether this readjustment will be violent or peaceful remains to be seen. Another Tiananmen Square is inevitable in the light of ‘The Law of Optimum Efficiencies,’ though it does not have to turn as bloody as it did the first time round. Communists and Socialists also harp on the dichotomy between private and public enterprises. If we apply the 'Art of Clear Thinking' to the debate we find that this dichotomy is superficial. Governments and public enterprises are mere concepts. The realities are the personal interests of the ministers, their caddies and the bureaucrats who man the government posts. Their private interests are as selfish or Private Vs egotistic as those of the men and women outside the government. In the private sector, the Public egoistic interests of the entrepreneurs are often mutually negated by competition. Enterprises Consequently, in an environment of competitive markets, there is little room for inordinate profiteering as the common man fears. On the other hand, in the government and public enterprises where there is little scope for competition, corruption reigns supreme. Corruption is in the final analysis the operation of egoistic predatory interests in the public regime. Squabbles between government departments and between ministries as well as between bureaucrats in the same government departments inexorably point to the fact that rulers and bureaucrats are always driven by their own personal and egoistic interests rather than by their commitment to the public welfare. If they were in the least interested in public interests they would surely have avoided such squabbles and struggles for one-up-manship. Instead they would have ironed out their differences for the good of the public. Electricity generation and supply are public sector monopolies in most states of India. Ministers and their cronies, as well as the bureaucrats have the free run in all state electricity boards. This atmosphere of state monopoly with no competition breeds gross inefficiency and corruption. Millions worth of machinery and equipment are bought and are allowed to rot away. The main consideration in granting contracts is the commissions paid to the ministers and their cronies. Power outages are regular and losses run up by the 138 boards are taken care of in successive budgets at the expense of the taxpayer. Arbitrary hikes in power charges are also common FACT (Fertilizers and Chemicals Travancore) is a state-owned enterprise that was set up on the outskirts of Cochin before India's independence. Setting up fertilizer units in the public sector was very much relevant then, as in those days the private sector did not have the financial capability to take up such monolithic enterprises. However, with monopoly came corruption and apathy. The company took to promoting arts and culture at the expense of proper management, and it has since been running at heavy losses for decades. Every year millions of dollars are budgeted to offset the losses run up by the giant. The average income of an FACT employee is four to five times the income of the average Indian. It is gross injustice that the taxes paid by the average Indian should go to prop up the loss-making but snobbish lifestyle of the FACT employee. However at the mention of privatizing FACT there is an uproar that public interests would be compromised by privatizing the behemoth. In sustaining FACT against all propriety and justice, the interests of the well-paid employees alone are protected. FACT and public concerns like it are more the rule than the exception in India. However, it is a matter of time before ‘The Law of Optimum Efficiencies,’ takes over from socialist slogans and rhetoric. KSRTC (Kerala State Road Transport Corporation) is another parasite of a public enterprise operating to no purpose. Like most public enterprises, the KSRTC is a white elephant that has no relevance in any economical environment, because the bus and lorry transport sectors in which KSRTC operates can easily be managed by the private sector without any help from the government. The KSRTC has been running up heavy losses since its incorporation forty or fifty years ago, and the KSRTC employees are known for their rude and arrogant conduct towards the public. KSRTC has the monopoly on the so-called nationalized routes where the private sector buses are not allowed to ply. On such nationalized routes, the public are at the mercy of the arrogant KSRTC bus drivers and conductors. Some years ago a court ordered an opinion-poll on whether some bus routes should be denationalized. Almost all those who took part in the poll were of the opinion that bus routes should not be nationalized. This poll should have counted with the rulers in a democracy like India. Alas, this was not so. There is a minister of transport in Kerala whose prize milch cow is the KSRTC, which provides him and his party with the bulk of their funds in commissions on purchases and contracts. Keeping the routes nationalized against the will of the people as demonstrated in the survey is a clear case of the egoistic interests of the ministers and the employees taking precedence over public interests even in a professed democracy like India. When the losses of the KSRTC got unmanageable some years ago, the government hiked up ticket charges, though the private sector buses were operating at a profit at the prevailing rates. As the transport charge hikes cannot be made applicable to the public sector alone, the private sector bus operators had a windfall from a hike they had not even asked for. As in all such cases it was the disorganized public that suffered. At the mention of denationalizing the routes in accordance with the wishes of the people, there is invariably a ruckus by the organized KSRTC employees that such denationalization would compromise popular interests, though it is not clear what they mean by popular interests. In support of their claim they point out that each KSRTC bus provides employment to twelve against only five in a private bus. But the statistics they offer in support of this claim is mere eyewash. True, each private bus gives direct employment to only five people. However, they provide indirect employment to the local automobile workshops, the bus- body builders and outfitters, the spare part dealers, the rethreading industry and so on. On the other hand the KSRTC with its large-scale operations, outsource spare parts, rethreading and other goods and services to out-of-state concerns. So if the indirect employment opportunities provided by the private sector buses are taken into account, the private sector contributes to more value addition in Kerala than the KSRTC. Here again public interests are compromised by the private agenda of the political powers and the KSRTC employees. For decades, there has been talk of splitting up the monolithic KSRTC into zones. It is not clear how bifurcation would improve the inept state of affairs in the KSRTC. However, even this quack remedy has not been implemented due to strong resistance from the unions. Similar moves for higher efficiencies in banks and other public concerns have to be often shelved in India due to strong hostility from unionized interests. This raises the question whether unions have the right to oppose purely management decisions like bifurcation, privatization, outsourcing etc wherein labor interests are not directly affected. However in the 139 face of organized clout, propriety and economic optimizations become secondary considerations. Michel’s Law is operative in India where the organized few hold the unorganized many to ransome. The telephone services were one of the best operations in the Indian public sector. However monopoly breeds corruption and inefficiency, and it was no different with the Indian telephones department. There was a long waiting list of applicants for telephones in India a decade or so ago. These applicants had to pay a sizeable application fee. This along with the exorbitant telephone charges would have been enough to install sufficient lines for the long waiting list of applicants, and this would have provided meaningful employment to many. Alas, it was not so. Instead, other government sectors and departments were stuffed with employees who idled away their hours on duty. The result of the decades' long waiting list for telephones was that a very high premium had to be paid if you wanted to get an immediate telephone connection. What is more a sizeable amount had to be paid to the department to allow the out-of-turn allocation of connections in a scheme called Own Your Telephone (OYT). As in all nationalized set-ups it was the political and bureaucratic personnel who stood to gain from the nationalized monopoly. Suddenly the telecommunication sector in India was thrown open to all and sundry, and the resulting competition has ensured immediate connections and ever tumbling rates. In India, telephones used to be a symbol of the rich. With privatization and the resulting competition, even common laborers sport mobiles, and the contribution this makes to the Indian economy is beyond computation. (Sukh Ram the Indian Minister for communications a decade ago was caught with millions of unaccounted cash stuffed into sacks and stacked up at his home. But he was never brought to book - so much for public servants serving public interests.) The automobile sector in India was another field where unnecessary government controls went against public interests. A decade or two ago there were only a couple of car manufacturers, and four or five two-wheeler manufacturers in India. Imports attracted duties so high as to take imported cars and two- wheelers beyond the reach of even the upper-middle class Indians. The Ambassador and the Fiat models were the only cars available to the ordinary Indian. The waiting lines for these cars were decades long, and these outmoded cars commanded very high premiums. The same went for the Indian two-wheeler market where Bajaj Autos, Java and Bullet had the field to themselves with a decade long waiting list of applicants and the resulting high premiums. The only ones to benefit from this closed door policy were these monopoly manufacturers and the political set up who saw to it that there would be no competition in the name of so called 'national interests'. Then about six or seven years ago, the Indian car and automobile markets were thrown open to outside automobile manufacturers. Suddenly every middle class Indian is sporting a Japanese motorbike or a car. What is more, the liberalization opened up the economy to thousands of workshops and spare-parts shops all over India providing meaningful or value-adding employment to hundreds of thousands of Indians. The opportunities had been there for decades for providing such meaningful employments. However the private interests of the political and bureaucratic institutions stifled growth in the name of 'National or public interests'. The above examples prove beyond doubt that competition between private interests provide for higher quality products and services at lower costs, whereas public sector or controlled monopolies invariably lead to lower quality and higher prices. The story could go on and on in enterprise after enterprise and department after department. It is not the function of the government to provide Mental direct employment except to those living below the poverty line or in times of distress Infrastructure like the great depression or in times of natural disasters. Instead, the function of governments is to create the infrastructure and the atmosphere for creating meaningful employment. In this context, Sam Pitroda of India speaks of 'mental infrastructure'. It is the prime duty of governments all over – whether democratic, communist, socialist, capitalist, or autocratic- to build the mental infrastructure whereby the people are taught to fend for themselves and to add value to status quo. The best infrastructure and asset a nation can have is the mindset of its people, a mindset that is ever on the look out for business opportunities and for value addition, a mindset that is ever on the lookout for opportunities to make their world a better place than they found it. Unless abnormal conditions demand it, as in times of depression and natural disasters, the function of government is not to give bread but to create the infrastructure, especially the mental infrastructure, required for producing bread. President Kennedy's famous words "Ask not what the nation can do for you! Ask what you can do for the nation" may be rephrased as "Ask not what the nation can do for you! Ask what you can do for yourselves!" After all, the nation is just a concept wherein the people are the reality and the 140 function of those in power, especially in democracies, is to help the people help themselves. Instead, we see governments in India and in other emerging democracies take on projects beyond their scope and fowl every thing up in the process. What is more, in a democratic setup there should not be discrimination between the few citizens in the government employment and the majority of the voters outside when it comes to trust. Every citizen has the right to be trusted as any politician or bureaucrat is trusted. Discrimination between citizens on the basis of whether they work in private enterprises or government departments goes against the very grain of democracy. Farmers form the backbone of all emerging economies like India and China. The top-heavy government establishments in these countries are propped up by the sweat of these hardworking farmers. Yet the farmers get the rawest of deals. Tikkait, the leader of Indian farmers' movement two decades ago, remarked that the average accounted income of the lowest level bureaucrat was as much as a farmer tilling twenty acres of land. Taking into account the rampant corruption among the public servants of India, the disparity must be much greater. What is more the farmer's income is subject to the vagaries of nature and suicides are common among Indian farmers on account of crop failures In contrast, the government employees stand no such risks. Natural disasters only provide the bureaucrats with additional income, as the lion's share of aid disbursals in the wake of natural disasters, end up in the pockets of unscrupulous government employees. India had the caste system for thousands of years wherein the higher castes like the Brahmins looked down upon the lower castes with contempt, and appropriated the labor outputs of the working lower castes. Caste system has since been eradicated to some extend in India though a lot remains to be done, especially in the illiterate parts of the country. The old system of caste discrimination has given way to a new system of discrimination where the public servants and the employees of the blue chip banks and companies are the new 'Brahmins' These 'Brahmins' look down with disdain on the hapless Indians working on the farms or in the unorganized sector. There is a government run industry in Cochin – running at a loss of course-, which generates some poisonous residues during its operations. The regular organized employees refuse to touch the hazardous waste. Instead, the poisonous waste disposal is contracted out, and the employees of the contractor handle the hazardous waste for their living. These contract-workers remind one of the scavenging castes of the past whose function it was to clean out the refuse including night-soil from the homes of the affluent higher castes. Democracy ought to be a government of the people for the people and by the people. Instead everywhere democracy is a government of the unorganized majority, by and for the organized minisculity. All the hype about national or public interests is sham. There are only private interests and private agendas, and the good leader is one who can mesh in his own interests with the concerns of the people. In the past it was liability unlimited as far as the common man was concerned. Everyone had to look out for himself. Come war, draught or plague, and everyone was for himself. But with the evolution of modern nations the state has taken over responsibility for most of the travails of the individual. But this has lead to a society that is based on rights alone against the societies of the past, which were based on duties alone. A society based on rights alone cannot survive. An association of people has relevance if it gives predominance to duties and responsibilities. This is especially so in democracies. Governments whether totalitarian or democratic are mere concepts. It is the people and their sense of responsibility that matters. In his master piece 'The Prince' Machiavelli reiterates again and again that the strength of a monarch depends on the good will of his subjects. Even a tyrant draws his strength from his people and their wealth. In a democracy this is even more imperative. The strength of a democracy depends wholly on its people. This may be why it is reiterated that in a democracy people get the government they deserve. India it seems is a democracy based on rights alone and people feel they are more and more entitled to state handouts. In the process they shirk responsibilities and we have one of the most corrupt establishments in the world. In contrast Singapore is a democracy that is based on discipline and responsibilities. The result is obvious. A government or the opposition that encourages rights only will make for a country steeped in anarchy and chaos. It has been argued that stricter punishment regimes will not be effective in curbing anarchy and violence. However, it seems social justice alone will not restrain violence. It is an undeniable fact that where there is abject poverty alongside lascivious gluttony, violence takes central stage. Violence and crime become even more widespread when corruption becomes all pervasive and the rich and the powerful can get 141 away with crimes while the poor become scapegoats. Prompt and judicial implementation of law and order can thwart crime and violence even in deprived societies. Thus Ataturk Mustafa Kemal Pasha (1881-1938) was able to curb violence in an impoverished and war-torn Turkey by sheer will power and implementation of expeditious law and order. Lee Kuan Yew was another statesman who accomplished for Singapore what Kemal Pasha had done for Turkey. More than anything else, it was their no-nonsense approach to law and order that made these nations comparatively free of violence and paved the way for their modernization. No wonder these statesmen are remembered gratefully by their people. Discipline Vs The suspension of democratic rights and implementation of emergency in India Rights (1975 – 77) by Indira Gandhi too tells the same story, which is that more than social justice, it is the blind and judicious implementation of law and order that paves the way to a non-violent society especially in a democracy. After the declaration of emergency in India, the government was able to put down crime and tax-evasion and to increase productivity. The Indian economy surged under the regime of public discipline. All the congress governments that had implemented the emergency evenhandedly in the five states of South India, returned to power with much bigger majorities in the elections that followed emergency. Perhaps it was only in these post-emergency elections have the incumbent governments returned to power with greater majorities. (In all the other elections, incumbent governments have either lost the elections or returned to power with reduced margins of votes.) Had it not been for the excesses committed by Indira Gandhi's son Sanjay Gandhi and his goons in North India behind the scenes of emergency, India's story would have been more like that of Singapore. These incidents of strict implementation of law and order in Turkey, Singapore and India also proves beyond doubt that the public is not averse to sacrificing their own freedom and their rights as long as it can curb violence and lawlessness, as long as it can promote peace and prosperity in society. Injustice, delayed justice and indiscipline under the pretext of freedom and democracy can only lead to rising spirals of crime and violence. Social justice and an equitable distribution of wealth probably come second only to judicial implementation of law and order in preventing incidents of crime and violence. Politics encompasses an inexhaustible branch of knowledge and I could go on and on. However it is beyond the scope of this book as this book is not about politics but more about the application of the principles of clear thinking to daily life in the light of ‘The Law of Optimum Efficiencies’. Politics, as we have demonstrated, abound with muddled up dogmas and doctrines, and often it is might that rules even in these days of enlightenment. Thus America espouses a slew of doctrines, chief among them the Monroe Doctrine. According to the Munroe doctrine, no external power is allowed to interfere militarily in the Americas. But the doctrine does not seem to apply to the United States of America itself. The United States has a policy of indiscriminate intervention in any part of the world. America the self-professed champion of international democracy thus demonstrates that it is more equal than others. The same goes for banning atomic weapons. Here again those who have the bomb are more equal than the others, and they go on developing their nuclear arsenal and deploying them even in space. It would seem that they alone have national security concerns and the nuclear have-nots do not have the right to protect themselves. Such discrimination based on power has to go if we are to integrate ourselves into a global community. Xenophobia used to be the basis of all political thinking and political strategies in the past. In the ensuing global village trust is the keyword. Without a certain amount of mutual trust we cannot integrate ourselves into an efficient global economy. In a modern globalized economy every nation has the moral obligation as espoused by Confucius “Do not do unto others as you would not have others do unto you.” The dictum goes for dealing with one’s own citizens too. The citizen is the primary element of the nation or state. The nation or the state exists only at the will of the citizen and for the welfare of the citizen as he deems fit. The rulers and bureaucrats are mere trustees for the citizen in running the affairs of the state, which the citizen has willed into existence.
"Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber." Plato
142 Chapter Six
Cooperation and Globalization
'No man is an Island' John Donne
This work submits that the next step in quantum jump in efficiency or the next economic wave will come from cooperation between different ethnic groups and nations. Such cooperation is already evident in the European Community, ASEAN, SARC and other organizations. What is the limit to which such cooperation can go? If cooperation is to be limited in scope, to what extend is it desirable? These are the questions that are dealt with in this chapter. If cooperation between ethnic or political groups is to be geographically unlimited in scope, then it is called globalization. Globalization is the process of growing worldwide interaction, integration and interdependence in the economic, social, military, technological, cultural, political, ecological, and other spheres of human life. According to ‘The Encyclopedia Britannica’ globalization is the " … process by which the experience of everyday life ... is becoming standardized around the world." Globalization is basically aimed at economic interaction in the form of trade between people, which benefit the parties involved. In the wake of this economic globalization and enhanced economic interdependence, ensue improved cultural interactions, communications, and exchange of ideas, knowledge and technology. Globalization involves homogenization on one hand as heterogeneous people from far-flung areas adopt similar or even identical ways of thinking and living, and heterogenization on the other as hitherto homogenous people from the same geographical locations adopt diverse ways of thinking and living. There may be an apparent dichotomy as some lay stress on the homogenizing effects of globalization while others lay stress on its heterogenizing effects. In real terms, globalization has both homogenizing effects and heterogenizing effects. The effects are more complementary than contradictory. Globalism is the end result of globalization wherein previously variant ethnic groups across geographic boundaries have Globalism already adopted similar outlooks, customs, technologies and ways of life. Globalization is a dynamic process whereas globalism is a static state of being albeit temporary. Globalization and globalism are often understood or misunderstood as exchange and adoption of above-mentioned factors across international boarders only. International boarders are often temporary and arbitrary. Thus India is in essence a union of various erstwhile kingdoms, which were often at conflict with each other. What is more, the people of North India and South India differ from each other considerably in cultural, linguistic and other spheres of life. On closer examination, North India has more affinity with Pakistan in many of the above spheres of globalization than with South India. In similar vein, South India has more affinity with Sri Lanka in the above spheres of globalization than with North India. However accidents of history have integrated North and South India into one nation and alienated Pakistan and Sri Lanka from present day India. It is absurd that arbitrary international boarders drawn by quirks of history should determine what is globalization and what is not.
143 The first step towards globalization of human race took place when man began bartering his surplus with his neighbor. In the process it is inevitable that both parties adopted at least some of the mannerisms, ideas, knowledge and other aspects from each other. Globalization might have been effected even earlier than our evolution into Homo sapiens. Globalization is inevitable in all social animals. It was noticed that a rhesus monkey living on the seashores of Japan dug out a root from the shore to eat. The root was covered with the mud and dirt from the earth. As the monkey was trying to wipe off the dirt on her furs, the root fell in the waves and by the time the monkey retrieved the root it was clean. Thereafter the monkey began washing muddied roots in the sea before eating them. In time other members in her troupe began to copy her. What is even more significant was that even neighboring troupes of monkeys adopted the practice of washing roots before eating them in a process of rudimentary ‘globalization’. The rate of diffusion of the practice to neighboring troupes was proportional to the frequency of the troupes meeting and communicating with each other. In human beings, the frequency of communicating with each other has been increasing substantially with each economic wave as we have seen. With the internet, most if not all of the decision-making humanity is assembled in one huge convention hall as it were, and communicating with each other at break- neck speeds and higher. It is inevitable that in the process of this 24/7 instantaneous communications and interactions, we adopt each others’ ideas, customs and practices quicker than ever in the past. In terms of clear thinking, globalization is the process of exchange of goods, services, cultural aspects, ideas, technologies and other factors from man to man, family to family, village to village, state to state and nation to nation. In this light, such exchanges between North India and South India are as much a process of globalization as those between India and Pakistan or between India and Sri Lanka. In the same vein, adoption of North Indian cultural and technological aspects by South Indians is as much globalization as the adoption of these customs from Pakistan or Sri Lanka. Bringing in arbitrary national boarders as a critical factor for globalization is itself arbitrary, and is as absurd as assigning nationalities to migratory birds. Humans will adopt whatever ideas and practices they think are useful irrespective of its source. Even ideas and technologies from inimical societies are thus adopted without hesitation. It is not the source of ideas, technology or culture that counts; it is the quantum of usefulness and satisfaction that matters in the final analysis. In this light, every society has something or other to offer to other societies, and naturally the more advanced societies have more to offer especially in terms of technology for enhancing economic efficiency. It is also natural that in the process of such technological exchanges, more of the cultural aspects are imbibed by the less developed society from the more advanced one than the other way round. In the contemporary world, few third world societies can progress without considerable inputs from the advanced societies of the West. Specialization accentuates this process of economic exchange or globalism or mutual adoption of ideas and technologies. Due to geographical and historical reasons some regions of a state or country or the world are in a better position or specialized to produce certain goods or services more efficiently and economically than other parts. Surplus in such goods or services is inevitable as far as Specialization the region is concerned. In like manner, other regions of the state, country or the world & Globalization may have surpluses in other goods and services. By exchange of such surpluses all concerned regions and the people therein benefit. Thus globalization contributes considerably to specialization and enhanced efficiency in production, which we have stated all along, is the ultimate force underlying all human activities. Globalization is in effect a great factor contributing to overall economic efficiency and no amount of sloganeering or rhetoric can reduce its significance. The Law of Comparative Advantages promulgated by the English economist Robert Ricardo The Law of established that societies and nations stand to benefit by specializing in goods they produce Comparative relatively efficiently and trade these goods for other goods in which they are relatively Advantages inefficient. The keyword here is ‘relatively’. Thus consider the situation where India can produce an item A at a cost of Rs.100 per Kg and item B at a cost of Rs.300 per Kg whereas Pakistan can produce item A at a cost of Rs.200 per Kg and item B at Rs.400 per Kg. Here India has an absolute advantage in the production of both A and B. However relatively speaking B is thrice as costly as item A in India whereas it is only twice as costly in Pakistan. So India has a comparative advantage in the production of A while Pakistan has a comparative advantage in the production of B. Under such a condition it is to the advantage of both countries if India concentrates on the production of item A and Pakistan concentrates on the production of item B and then trade with each other in items A and B. 144 Globalization and integration of economies is not an end in itself, as its opponents would have it highlighted. It is an inevitable process created by supply and demand for goods and services and made imperative by ‘The Law of Optimum Efficiencies’. Interference with the process of globalization may be necessary to bail out traditional economic activities. But such interferences should be limited to the absolute minimum necessary and should be phased out as quickly as possible, as neither the state that subsidizes such uneconomic activities nor the people involved in such activities benefit from activities that are wasteful, inefficient and doomed to extinction. Thus traditional manual weaving industries in many parts of the world have suffered from the onslaught of nontraditional, modernized imports. As such it is incumbent on democratic governments to protect traditional weavers with subsidies and handouts. But this is not to be an ongoing process. Traditional weavers will have to switch over to modern methods or to alternative economic activities within a definite time frame. Keeping them on perpetual subsides is to no one’s advantage and is tantamount to bottle-feeding a man even after he has become an adult. As stated, the first step towards globalism took place when some man hundreds of thousand of years ago bartered his surplus with his neighbor. The most significant globalizing factor in historical times is the silk route. The hardy traders of the times penetrated the inaccessible interiors of Asia and Europe and introduced goods and services from one part of the world to another. In like manner trading vessels connected together the different ports and civilizations around the Mediterranean as well as along the sea routes from Arabia to China. As people interacted, they lent and borrowed knowledge, ideas and technologies. The adoption of the different religions such as Buddhism, Christianity and Islam across many regions of the globe is also a face of Globalism . In a subsequent chapter on religion we will see how religious concepts such as one god and virgin birth were not unique to any single religion, but were lent and borrowed, modified and redistributed from one civilization to another in a process of diffusion and globalization. Similarly the concept of zero was introduced into Europe from India by the Arabs in a process of globalization. In modern times, democracy is indeed a product of globalization and adopted mostly from the West. Europe did not adopt the zero nor does the world adopt democracy as a matter of fancy or fashion. Such Globalism takes place only because these globalized factors contribute towards economic efficiency. Thus the zero is one of the biggest discoveries of man that contributed considerably to thinking and processing data along arithmetic lines. Democracy also contributes towards optimum efficiency in a high- tech economy. All those who oppose globalization and globalism forget that both of these are inevitable processes towards enhancing economic efficiencies. Political and economic concepts like communism and environmental protection are products of globalization. However Communists and environmentalists overlook this fact when they oppose globalization tooth and nail, especially when they oppose globalization in trade and culture. There is no dispute among these groups that globalization of ideas are beneficial. However globalization of ideas can proceed if and only if such globalization is economically feasible, and for such economic feasibility globalization of commerce is imperative. Later on in this chapter we will see why Chinese ideas and culture were not globalized whereas Western ideas and culture are globalized for the simple reason that the latter rode the waves of commercial globalization. We have discussed how it was the hardy trader that opened up the silk routes and the sea-lanes of the world and paved the way for globalization and globalism. However, for some reason or another, all through human history everywhere, traders have been disparaged for looting the public. In the process we forget that for every successful trader or businessman we meet, dozens have lost all they have in the course of business. A fledgling entrepreneur’s lot is most precarious, and it is only natural that his feeling of Role of Traders insecurity forces him to adopt an inflexible stance. Thus if a small trader were to sell on in Globalization credit to all and sundry in the name of compassion, it would be a matter of time before he wound up his business. Adam Smith the father of Economics recounts the strategic and valuable role played by middlemen and traders in society. Were it not for the services rendered by middlemen and brokers no trade would be possible. All this talk about eliminating middlemen in trading is just hogwash. The role of small traders and middlemen are in tune with ‘The Law of Optimum Efficiencies’ The Kerala government constituted a Civil Supplies Corporation and set up shops all over the state in its effort to do away with middlemen. The state also instituted subsidies on sales effected through these shops. It was presumed that the corporation could procure cheap as their purchases were direct from manufacturers and in bulk as they put it. But such ‘purchases from producers’ is next to impossible as such 145 producers of grain and other supplies are often small farmers who have to sell to a trader. As a result, the Kerala Civil Supplies Corporation was forced to source these wholesalers in other states for their procurements. What is more, the Kerala Civil Supplies Corporation like any other government department is only a concept. The realities are the employees who man the corporation and their frailties. These employees are no saints and are as avaricious as the middlemen or traders whom they replace or eliminate. What is more small entrepreneurs and traders have almost unlimited risk in the proprietary concerns they run. As a result in a competitive buyer’s market they have to satisfy the customers with quality goods at optimum prices. State employees in the Civil Supplies Corporation have no such constraints. Consequently it was found that these employees, ostensibly representing the corporation and the public, were procuring supplies on rates that were much higher than the prevailing market prices, and pocketing the margins. They were also compromising on quality in the process. The lack of proper auditing in the corporation made things easier for the corrupt employees and the politicians backing them up. The corporation ran up heavy losses year after year, and the people got supplies at lower prices only because of the heavy subsidies allotted to purchases from the corporation outlets. On the other hand, if there were no government interference mutual competition between traders - both wholesale and retail - would have ensured optimum conditions to the consumer. In setting up the corporation and its outlets, the government failed to recognize the fact that government corporations also have to be manned by ordinary men and women who are as avaricious as any trader. There were also systemic flaws in constituting the Civil Supplies Corporation. Their outlets are mostly situated in urban or semi-urban areas. The rural areas are always sparsely populated and have very low purchasing power. As a result, the Corporation did not have outlets to cater to the rural poor. The rural poor had to pay higher prices for their home supplies, which also included heavy taxes, which often exceeded 35% of the marked price. It was this tax paid for by the rural poor that subsidized in part the Corporation’s sales to the urban and semi-urban middle class. In the context of globalization also, the role played by middlemen and small time peddlers cannot be depreciated. Had it not been for his economic activities no silk routes or seaways would have been open for ideas and technology to diffuse from one part of the world to another. Any silk route or shipping lane has to be first economically viable before ideas, however divine or noble, can flow along these routes. Thus it was the John-Bull characteristics of the Englishman that made Britain the biggest globalizing power ever on earth with much of the world adopting the English language, football and other aspects of British culture. Long before the European expeditions by the likes of Columbus, the Chinese under Cheng Ho, the eunuch admiral, had sailed the length and breadth of Asia and the East Coast of Africa. The Chinese had accomplished this feat a century before Columbus or Vasco Da Gamma in an armada consisting of ships and men that dwarfed the later European expeditions. However the Chinese expeditions were intended to show off the power and glory of the Chinese empire to the rest of the world. As a result these Cheng Ho expeditions proved to be a severe drain on the imperial coffers though at the time China was & Chinese the most powerful and rich of all the nations on earth. The Chinese expeditions had to be Expeditions called off consequently as economically unviable. In contrast, the European expeditions, which came a century later, were trading ventures and were self-sustaining from the start. Subsequently the trade with the colonies proved to be a means of considerable revenue to the colonizing powers. The fact that the Chinese had failed where the Europeans succeeded goes to demonstrate the relevance of the irresistible forces of economics. It shows that even empires with seemingly unlimited resources are subject to ‘The Law of Optimum Efficiencies’, which is as macrocosmic law as any in Physics or Chemistry. It also demonstrates how even a simple idea can lead to momentous outcomes. If the idea of trading had occurred to the Chinese instead of the idea of ostentation and flamboyance, China would in all probability have conquered and colonized the earth. In the process, the magnificence of the Chinese imperial power too would have been demonstrated to the world. What is more, Chinese ideas and culture would have diffused through the trade routes instead of European ideas and culture had the idea of trading occurred to the Chinese instead of the idea of ostentation. Marx and Engels highlighted the relevance of labor in bringing about prosperity. However, it seems that an idea is worth much more than all the resources in the world including labor. Getting back to globalization and globalism, another factor that has been objected to by the pseudo intelligentsia is cultural hegemony. Here again there seems to be more than a tinge of duplicity all around. No culture in the world is wholly indigenous. All cultures have elements borrowed from other cultures. Thus if anything Karnatic music is the icon of South Indian culture. But no Karnatic rendition would be possible 146 today without the violin, which is explicitly Western. In addition to this type of ubiquitous globalism, all cultures have both desirable and undesirable elements as well as indifferent elements. Thus Sati, child marriage, female feticides, ceremonial cannibalism, polygyny, polyandry, the all-pervasive caste system and so on are as much a part of Indian culture as yoga and meditation. It is globalization of ideas of democracy and women’s rights, which ended the unsavory practices native to Indian culture. In the same vein, Hindu women used to go topless and the first women to cover their breasts were beaten up. Now thanks to globalism any woman going around topless would be booked for indecent exposure though going covered or topless has no bearing on human rights or economic efficiency. Normally cultural globalism refers to ethnic art forms, either static as in painting, or dynamic as in singing, dancing and the performance arts. There is indeed a tendency to copy the West in many fields of life in India. Even more significant in this respect is the prevalence of the modern entertainment industry. Take Kathakali or Koodiyattom for instance. These are ancient cultural performances of Kerala involving singing, miming and acting. These performances were long affairs often lasting from dusk to dawn. People used to come to these performances with mats to lie on. In the process of the drawn out performances, the same verses were sung to different rhythms and variant steps and mimes, over and over again. In those days the society had little or no entertainment available, and such drawn out performances were looked forward to with much excitement. The arrival of modern media has changed all that. Now that top class performances of all kinds are beamed into the living rooms of Kerala, these ancient performances like Kathakali and Koodiyattom are sure to die a natural death unless kept on the artificial ventilation of state subsidies. The hypocritical pseudo-intelligentsia moans over this demise and the demise of similar cultural performances even as they stay glued to television serials in their air-conditioned drawing rooms. This highbrow pseudo-intelligentsia is often the first to accept that changes such as the abolition of sati and the caste system are changes in the right direction, though they often forget that it is globalization that brought these changes about. It is also globalization of the medical sciences that eradicated the scourges of malaria, small pox, sleeping sickness and a host of other killer diseases from the face of the earth, though this has in turn led to the population explosion and the environmental devastation we witness today. As for cultural hegemony that this pseudo-intelligentsia stomp about, who is to decide what forms of culture should be adopted and what should be rejected. At the beginning of this book I have demonstrated in no uncertain terms that in a democracy no one has the right to impose his or her own morals such as in matters of drinking and smoking on others. It is even more relevant in matters of globalization. Thus we have seen that the violin, though of Western origin, is crucial to Karnatic Music performances. If the globalization of the violin is ideal, what prevents the adoption of the guitar into Karnatic Music performances? Who is to decide that the violin is aesthetic whereas the guitar is jarring on the sensibilities? Such matters of culture should be left to the individual – the performer and the audience as in the case of Karnatic Music. In a democracy the citizen is king and should be allowed to pick and choose without the choices being pushed down his throat. Since every citizen has his own unique set of tastes and preferences in all matters, it is natural that each one adopts different ideas and aspects of culture. It is only in matters of technologies that measurements can be made and objective selections made viable. The maximum that pressure groups and NGOs who object to globalization may come to is to indoctrinate the public on the evils of globalization. But here again a certain amount of dichotomy and hypocrisy are unavoidable as indoctrination against globalization can be done only through modern media, which are part and parcel of our globalism. There cannot be antiglobalism without globalism and the antiglobalists exploit globalized media to propagate their pseudo-intellectual views using anecdotal statistics. Anecdotal statistics involves citing a few incidents here and there and often out of context without a proper study of the whole picture and the statistical factors involved. Thus they wail over the demise of ancient art forms and cite the case of Kathakali alone when other forms such as Bharatha Natyam and even the shorter versions of Kathakali itself have flourished. They also fail to notice that communities are no more limited to geographical locations. Thus followers of Godmen like Satya Sai Baba and Amrithananda Mayi are spread all over the globe though in small pockets, and are well connected together and act as a single community in matters limited to Satya Sai Baba and Amrithananda Mayi. In other matters each goes his or her own way without any homogeneity. In the same vein ingredients of ancient Eastern cultures like Judo, Kung Fu, Yoga, Meditation, Kalarippayattu, Acupuncture, Ayurveda, Pranic Healing, Feng Shui and so on have more adherents today than ever before, though they are spread all over the globe. In this context looking for adherents of Yoga in parts of India 147 alone, where Yoga has its origin, and concluding that Yoga is on the decline due to globalism is a case of anecdotal statistics, and is highly misleading. The higher per-capita income today and the all-pervasive modern media have indeed ensured the preservation of ancient art and cultural forms, which have enough inherent strengths to attract followers. Thus Yoga and meditation have intrinsic values and so have been adopted on a global scale. On the other hand the 12-hour long performances of Kathakali as practiced a century or less ago are no more feasible economically and are liable to be cast off. On the whole, thanks to the globalizing of ideas and technologies, ancient cultural forms have benefited in finding adherents on a much wider scale today than before globalism acquired the immense scale and dimensions of modern age. It may also be noted here that we may choose to globalize or not in many matters such as in commerce and culture. But environmental issues constitute one field where globalization and globalism are imperatives rather than prerogatives. In the context of acid fumes evolved from industries in the United States causing acid rains in Canada, and in the context of automobile fumes from India leading to global warming, environmental issues just cannot wait to be globalized. We have touched upon the various aspects of globalization and globalism and the resistance put up by some pressure groups against these economic forces. Such resistance to globalization springs from xenophobic fears that the whole world is out to get you. Cooperation itself in any form is globalization. In the old days, ethnicity mattered in such cooperation and exchanges. Strangers were mistrusted. But mutual trust is the watchword now in business whether local or international. Goodwill and public opinion have come to play significant parts in the success of any business. As a result, international business or any professionally managed business for that matter, can ill afford obnoxious practices that compromise their goodwill. In addition, the surplus of goods brought on by the industrial and digital waves have ensured a buyer’s market where the customer is king. In this scenario good will is the biggest asset any commercial enterprise can have, and unscrupulous exploitation of the market is no more feasible especially in international trade and commerce. It may be pertinent to note here that whenever import prices of a particular commodity dip below domestic prices there is an immediate furor against the evils of globalism. Thus some time back there was such an outcry in Kerala against globalism when the price of imported rubber fell below domestic prices, and there was a natural surge in imports, which cut into the margins of the domestic rubber producer. But such demonstrations against globalism go against the spirit of any global cooperation. Like any region on earth, Kerala has a basket of products, which are exported, products such as fish, cashew, tea, coir, titanium and so on besides rubber. It is only rubber that suffered a setback at the time, while trade in most other commodities flourished. So if India were to restrict imports of rubber from other countries in the name of protecting the domestic producer, the other countries too would be at liberty to restrict imports from Kerala of the other commodities listed above. Therefore, such restrictions would in the final analysis be detrimental to Kerala’s total trade portfolios. In matters of cooperation a give and take attitude or a win-win strategy is essential. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. I have also to submit that these anti-globalists are quite biased and double faced in their attitudes. As detailed above in the case of imports of cheap rubber into Kerala, while these antiglobalists go bonkers at cheap imports they are also the first to shout tiger when any other state in the country or a foreign nation adopts protectionist measures. These antiglobalists disparage competition when it goes against them and welcome it when it suits them. It is a win-lose situation or a heads-I-win-tails-you-lose syndrome. It is their own interests that matter. Others’ welfare and alien interests do not bother them in the least. Speaking of resistance to globalism in Kerala on the aspect of rubber imports, these antiglobalists also forget that rubber itself was brought to Kerala in a process of globalization. Rubber is not native to Kerala and was brought to India from South America by European colonizers. The same goes for cashew nut, another important export commodity of Kerala, which was brought to Kerala by the Portuguese as a result of which the nut is also known as ‘Portuguese nut’. Cocoa and Vanilla and a host of other crops, which were domesticated into Kerala, thus form the backbone of the Kerala economy and this was made possible only because of globalism. Other New World crops, such as corn (maize), cassava, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and peanuts (groundnuts), were responsible for the agricultural revolutions in Kerala as well as in Asia and Africa, opening up terrains that had previously been unproductive.
148 Cuisine is another important ingredient of ethnicity or culture. Chilly is perhaps the most essential ingredient of the Indian culinary arts. Here again antiglobalists ignore the fact that chilly too, like rubber and cashew, was brought into India from South America. At the time of the independence from Britain, India was deficit in food. As a result, starvation and malnutrition were a way of life. Now India has a surplus in food grains thanks to globalization of agriculture technologies involving better strains of crops as well as intensive farming technologies. In the same vein, though India had the biggest population of cattle in the world, the milk production was nowhere near sufficient for the population. Here again globalism came into the picture, and high yielding strains of cattle were brought into the country from abroad and better rearing practices also were borrowed. Now thanks to globalism India has a surplus in milk in spite of the booming population. We have seen above how it was China that was the supreme global power a century before the Europeans came into the picture. The Chinese expeditions under Cheng Ho as described above were commissioned by the Yung-lo Emperor. The Yung-lo emperor was very globalist in outlook and interchanged ambassadors and gifts with most of the kings and emperors that Cheng Ho visited. But the Hung-hsi emperor who succeeded the Yung-lo Emperor was an introvert of sorts and suspended all such naval expeditions in a process of anti-globalization. China withdrew into the Great Wall in a process of anti- globalism, leaving the field open for the European colonizers. Subsequently China was weakened considerably in economic and military terms. The lesson from this holds good even to this day. We do not have any choice in the matter of globalization. We have to globalize or perish. Alongside the economic, cultural and other aspects of globalism, financial globalism also has come to play a significant part in the modern world. An aspect of globalism that has attracted much flak is capital. Here again the pseudo-intellectual antiglobalists warn that once World Bank or other international agencies come into the picture, the borrowing country is at the financier’s mercy. They also submit that such international financing compromises sovereignty of the borrower nation. Whenever we deal Financial with any one or any entity there is always give and take and it is no different for the countries Globalism and institutions. A country too has to give and take whenever it deals with its own citizenry or with outside entities. Politics is all about arriving at a balance between the ‘give’ and the ‘take’. Whenever anyone takes any credit from any bank it is only natural that the bank ascertains that the borrower is credit- worthy and that the borrower can pay back its debts. No bank in its right mind would lend money to a profligate alcoholic or to an irresponsible scoundrel. The same goes for any state too. No bank however large its resources, can afford to lend money to a rogue state. As for the lender bank not being interested in the welfare of the borrower – nothing could be farther from the truth. The bank has considerable control over things until the loan is approved. But once the loan is disbursed the bank has little or no control over the borrower whether the borrower is an individual or a nation. After disbursal it is in the bank’s interest that the borrower performs well. No bank in its senses would drive its borrower to penury. It may also be noted that globalization and circulation of capital, goods or services warrant that everyone involved benefits from the trade relationships. There is not much scope in doing business with a pauper as that will drive the healthy businesses too into insolvency. In this context I would like to narrate a story that I came across recently. An award-winning farmer was asked how he got his high yields. He replied that in addition to developing better strains of corn, he also distributed the seeds of the high-yielding strains to the farmers around him. As a result, his corn was pollinated from the good quality corn that surrounded his farm. By distributing his quality seeds around, he ensured a very high yield of corn on his own farm. The rationale for all transactions between humans and especially trade transactions lies in this story. If your business activity impoverishes all around you, then it leaves no further prospect for further trade. What is even more significant, if you enrich your selves at the expense of your neighbors, you are more liable to be mugged and robbed than in an affluent neighborhood. This principle holds good at the international level too. If a nation's activities impoverishes the world, that leaves little scope for that nation to engage in further trade and acquire higher profits. In addition no nation on earth is safe if its neighbors are impoverished. Those who disparage globalization of trade, culture or finance also forget that mutual exploitation is a way of life. Any trading concern or bank in your own country is as likely to exploit you in the course of business as any international institution. ‘Thumps Up’ the Indian soft drink manufacturer is as likely to exploit any Indian as the icon of globalization ‘Coca Cola’. Before the liberalization and globalization of the 149 Indian economy, it was a license-raj that prevailed in India. There was considerable government controls over all aspects of the economy, and it was impossible to set up an industry without numerous government permits and licenses. Imports were looked on with suspicion, and import duties were the highest in the world. The result was that smuggling became the most profitable enterprise in India. In step with government controls, corruption also flourished as the single biggest ‘business’ in India. Were the Indian manufacturers who made the best of the license-raj concerned with the common Indian? No! The monopolies that thrived under the controlled economy fleeced the Indian, as would any multinational. Only healthy business competition can ensure freedom from unscrupulous mass exploitation. The automobile industry is perhaps the best example of how Indian enterprises exploited the Indian public under a regime of anti-globalization. There were just two automobile manufacturers in India before it began to think of liberalization of the economy. Because of the monopoly these manufacturers enjoyed, they turned out internationally obsolete automobile designs for decades on end. What is more, because of the seller’s market created by controlled economy, there was a huge black-market premium even on the obsolete designs. The politicians and the manufacturers and traders of these mobile ‘containers’ alone profited. The fact that they were fleecing their own fellow-citizens did not bother them in the least. Whenever there was talk of liberalization or reduction of import duties there was an uproar over foreign exploitation. Nonetheless, the automobile industry in India was subsequently liberalized and modernized. As a result, automobiles of international quality are readily available to the common Indian and smuggling is a thing of the past. This boom in the automobile sector has in turn revitalized the Indian economy with spare part manufacturers and service providers springing up all over the country. This and other instances prove beyond doubt that the xenophobia about foreigners exploiting us and compatriots protecting us are mere illusions. Our compatriots are as likely to exploit us as any foreigner in a seller’s market. On the other hand, in a buyer’s market of hot competition, the buyer is king and no compatriot or foreigner can exploit the consumer unfairly in the long run. If anyone is strident over liberalization and globalism you can rest assured that it is a wolf in sheep’s clothing that cries wolf in order that he or she may have a monopoly market to exploit. If I were asked what the greatest benefit of globalization is I would answer that it is this factor of making the consumer king. In a controlled economy the seller can afford to take the consumer for granted, and so in erstwhile controlled economies of India and the Communist blocks businessmen were rude and intransigent to the public. But with the liberalization and Globalism, good manners and civility have become a way of life. In addition, the dynamics of ‘consumer satisfaction’ that is essential to a competitive economy has ensured quality products at affordable prices to the consumer. Consumer power in its turn has led to political liberalization and democratization, which are as essential to modern economies as globalization, and liberalization. Before I conclude I would like to tarry a while on the subject of ‘foreign exploitation’ on which the antiglobalists harp. This obviously springs from the xenophobia, which is tantamount to the feelings of a child that is forced to go out into the world as it grows up. In the commune life of the original state, the members of the commune trusted each other. Unfair mutual exploitation if any was along established hierarchal lines. Strangers were looked on with suspicion and there was little or no personal wealth or possessions that warranted violent takeovers. The Agrarian wave changed all that. Man began to accumulate wealth and organized warfare became established as a means of acquiring wealth. Furthermore, the labor component associated with agriculture was very simple and unsophisticated in nature, and slave labor was very much feasible. In addition, in these primitive waves, total human wealth remained stagnant, and violent takeovers were a way of life. For this reason strangers were looked on with as much or more suspicion than in the original way of life. The Industrial wave brought about drastic changes. Specialization, organization and management, the most essential components of modern business warranted a sophisticated work force, which was well educated and working on its own free will. It was in this context that Adam Smith described how inefficient slave labor was in comparison with free labor. A dissatisfied or suppressed work force cannot contribute its best to the economy. So in the context of modern production, a satisfied work force working of its own free will is essential. Furthermore, modern manufacture has ensured a buyers’ market that consists of the work force in the industry that produces the commodities. A buyers’ market demands consumer satisfaction, which in turn demands political freedom. Thus in a modern economy enslavement is not only feasible, but also counterproductive. What is more, there is little scope in marketing anything to an enslaved economy, which is also impoverished. So it is in the interests of producers, whether they be individuals or 150 nations, to keep their consumers free and prosperous. In addition, under modern methods of production, total human wealth is ever on the increase in leaps and bounds and there is enough to go around without resorting to violent and unfair practices of the past when wealth stagnated. As put forward so succinctly by Chairman Mao, in those days power flowed from the barrel of the gun where wealth acquisitions was effected most easily by armed aggression. The better-armed man or society conquered and enjoyed the fruits of all human toil. The whip represented the best tool in a slave- based economy. Successive economic changes brought about significant changes as specialization, knowledge, broad-based consumerism and the quality of human resources are at present the most important factors of modern production. In this scenario the gun and the whip have very limited significance, and that too mostly in bringing rogues into line. In modern economies, power whether economic or political flows from the goodwill and trust of the common man, the worker-consumer.
“Globalization is not something we can hold off or turn off . . . it is the economic equivalent of a force of nature -- like wind or water.” Bill Clinton
151 Chapter Seven
Arithmetic in our Environment
"So bleak is the picture... that the bulldozer and not the atomic bomb may turn out to be the most destructive invention of the 20th century." Philip Shabecoff, New York Times Magazine, 4 June 1978
his book is partly on ‘The Law of Optimum Efficiencies’ and partly on the application of the principles of ‘Clear Thinking’ to the different aspects of life. One might wonder what Tthe ‘The Law of Optimum Efficiencies’ or the principles of clear thinking might have on environmental issues. Environmental devastation and damage is a universal problem now and so is environmental conservation a universal obligation. Conservation of environment should have been conducted in a scientific manner. But alas! The movement for conservation of nature has been hijacked by hippies, artists, singers, actors and others of that genre who are best known, more for their impassioned and emotional approach to problems rather than a cold scientific and logical one. As a result, conservation is now more of a fad than a scientific discipline. And fads can often be as bad as or worse than dogmas, as long as they last. However the application of the Art of Clear Thinking to environmental issues can contribute much to alleviate the problem of environmental degradation and so this chapter in this book on ‘The Law of Optimum Efficiencies’ and . ‘Clear Thinking’ The Hulk TV serial was quite popular in the seventies. A young man growing to giant proportions under extreme stress conditions such as in anger or pain and then carrying out superhuman feats form the theme of the serial. There are other stories of Superman, Spiderman and Batman flying through space like birds. Maybe with millions of years of evolution these super-feats may be possible for humans. However, ballooning up in size and weight and then getting back to normal size like Hulk is impossible from the Thermodynamics point of view, which says that nothing can be created nor destroyed. This law of Thermodynamics is called the Law Of Conservation Of Mass. This means the total weight of the Earth remains constant for all practical purposes. So for every single gram of body-weight that Hulk puts on, a gram has to come from the environment and the same has to be returned to the environment when Hulk returns to normal size. Stoichiometry is a subject in Chemical engineering, which is based on this law of Thermodynamics. According to Stoichiometry, if A+B react to form C+D then the sum of the weights of A and B is equal to the sum of the weights of C+D. Put more succinctly, the total weight of reactants is equal to total weight of the products.
152 For Hulk to grow in weight he has to absorb the weight from the environment. What is more a man like Hulk cannot increase in weight by absorbing inorganic matter such as sand or water. Instead, he has to absorb organic matter or biomass, which alone can function as part of a living body whether human, animal or plant. Now take the human race as a single organism H-Bioshift like Hulk. The thermodynamic and stoichiometric laws mentioned above are applicable to the human race as a whole. For the total weight of the human race to increase even by a single gram the organic matter in the environment has to decrease in weight by the same amount. The weight of humanity has been increasing in leaps and bounds for over a century due to increase in numbers as well as increase in the average weight of each human being. Along with increase in humanity's weight, we keep higher and higher stocks of food, clothes as well as other utilities like furniture, pets etc, which are of an organic nature, and these too have to come from the environment. This transfers or shift of organic or biomass from the environment to human forms or to forms useful to man may be called the H-Bioshift. Since the total mass of organic mass or constituents like carbon, hydrogen and oxygen remain constant on earth, the H-Bioshift results in a depletion of biomass in the non-human environment. Let us now examine environmental issues in the light of the laws of Thermodynamics and Stoichiometry as well as in the light of the H-Bioshift stated above. One of our reigning fad is the use of natural products. Thus use of natural wood is endorsed in everyday usage for doors, windows, furniture and other outdoor and indoor fixtures. Natural wood means timber from the forests and this fad for natural wood leads to the cutting down of forests worldwide for timber. This in turn endangers many a flora and fauna to the point of extinction. Trading in elephant tusks, in rhino horns, in tiger skins, in wild animals and birds for pets etc have been banned on the grounds that such trade endangers the wild fauna concerned. But cutting down of forests for timber endangers all species of flora and fauna, including those mentioned above. On the other hand, if the fad for natural wood were turned around to one using synthetic materials such as polyols, reinforced plastics and fiberglass, large areas of forests, worldwide can be saved from destruction, and along with it the flora and fauna, which depend on these forests for their survival. Another fad that facilitates environmental devastation is the endorsement of cotton, jute and other natural fibers. These fibers are grown on farms like any crop and large areas of natural forests or vegetation have to be cleared to make way for these farms, and as a result environment suffers irreversible damage. A new fad that is catching on like wild fire is the one for natural food - food grown without any synthetic fertilizers or insecticides. It has not been in anyway conclusively or even remotely proven that natural food is superior to conventionally grown food. According to the Law Of Conservation Of Mass described above, for every ton of biomass that goes out of the farm in the form of its produce a ton of biomass has to be replaced on the farm. This replacement has to come partly from photosynthesis - the conversion of Carbon dioxide and water to chlorophyll by sunshine - or from external sources. In the primitive system of slash and burn agriculture, forests used to be cut down and burnt to produce a humus-rich farm, ideal for agriculture. As the farm produce was taken out without replacement the farm became depleted of its humus and fertility. Finally the farm was abandoned and the process of slash and burn agriculture would be repeated at a new location. After some years they would return to the first site, as that would have then revived. The process of revival of the abandoned farm came about mainly by photosynthesis. Now slash and burn agriculture is no more feasible, and with our foliage shrinking in area, the contribution of photosynthesis to the production of greenery and natural fertilizers is decreasing at an alarming rate. A century ago photosynthesis more than made up for devastation of nature brought on by humans, and the area under forest kept expanding. In those days progress was often
153 depicted, especially in third world countries, as clearing of forests to make way for agriculture. But the population explosion has turned things round. Now photosynthesis alone cannot compensate for man's exploitation of nature. To return to natural food, it would take a decade at least for photosynthesis alone to replace the ton biomass taken out the farm. It is not possible to leave the farm fallow for that long. So every ton of produce taken out of the farm has to be replaced by fertilizers from outside the farm. In natural-food farms this has to come from natural sources alone and this means humus from outside the farm, from the wild, from the environment. As a result environment suffers. As in the case of timber and cotton, if the ton of produce of the farm were replaced by synthetic fertilizers like urea, a lot of natural humus can stay in nature to nurture flora and fauna that no one wants, but which nevertheless forms part of nature. The laws of Thermodynamics, Stoichiometry and the H-Bioshift are matters of simple arithmetic, and yet they have been ignored in the clamor for natural food by the very people who boast that they champion conservation causes. In the process they help degrade nature further by their insistence on natural food, natural timber, natural fibers and other fads. In their myopia they have never considered the conversion of synthetic fertilizer to natural fertilizer. Urea forms the predominant form of synthetic fertilizer today. Using urea to fertilize foliage and then converting the foliage to compost would provide for a first generation of natural humus or fertilizer. If the first generation of humus is not to the standards set by the die-hard faddists, a second or a third generation of natural compost can be produced from the first generation compost and used in the production of natural food. Whether the faddists acknowledge it or not, simple Arithmetic tells us that for every ton of synthetic fertilizer used, a ton of foliage in nature is saved to fertilize nature and its flora and fauna. Bio-diesel seems to be latest craze in the quest for natural products. Bio-diesel is made from natural oils like jetroba oil. Here again biomass is converted into vegetable oil, which is subsequently processed to form bio-diesel. This bio-diesel when burnt in a diesel engine is converted into energy, Carbon Dioxide, Carbon Monoxide and water. The upshot of all this is that biomass is converted to greenhouse gases. If urea or other synthetic fertilizers are used to cultivate the jetroba or other plants that produce the vegetable oils, then the impact on the environment brought on by bio-diesel may be minimized. But then I wonder how viable it would be to convert petroleum to urea and bio-diesel when petroleum can be directly converted to diesel. However, if natural fertilizers are used in the cultivation of vegetable oils for the manufacture of bio-diesel, we may rest assured that the impact on the environment is going to be devastating. We have said that the environmental movement is led by artists and singers and others of an emotional nature. These people often subscribe to alternate medicine, magical cures and other occidental and oriental frauds. They often subscribe to disciplines, which often treat the symptoms rather than the disease. It is this same irrational and casual approach that they have taken to environment and its conservation. Environmental devastation is the symptom rather than the disease. The real disease is the population explosion and the resulting H-Bioshift. In nature there used to be a balance in the cycle of life. Thus the primary food producers are vegetations. The vegetation fed the next level of life, herbivorous animals, which in turn provided food for the top of the chain, the carnivores and the omnivores. All along the chain death took its toll and returned living things to inanimate biomass, which can then be absorbed by vegetation and thus get reincorporated into the cycle of life. Any increase in numbers or rather the tonnage of living matter had to come from photosynthesis. Malthusian phenomenon also applied and population always outstepped means of sustenance. When nature found it impossible to sustain larger populations, death came in the form of starvation, disease, still-births and violence. Overpopulation was thus decimated to sustainable levels. There
154 was also another way nature compensated for overpopulation; it shared the available food among the burgeoning population, and there was less and less food to go around. As a result the individuals of the population became underweight and grew smaller in size over generations even as the total population increased in numbers.. In matters of environment, simple arithmetic applies in terms of tonnage rather than numbers. Thus a certain biosphere can support only a limited tonnage of living organisms and diseased matter or biomass - organic mass that can readily be absorbed by living organisms. The numbers of living organisms can vary in the biosphere even over short periods whereas the tonnage of organic matter remains pretty constant. Photosynthesis increases the biomass while forest fires and the metabolic process decrease the biomass. The disproportionate appropriation of biomass-tonnage by human beings had to come from somewhere else. Thus for every ton of increase in weight of humanity, a ton of biomass has to come from elsewhere; it can come from photosynthesis, it can come from synthetic fertilizers or it has to come from nature. Below is a profile from ‘The Encarta Encyclopedia’, depicting the continent wise increase/decrease in population, with the percentage increase in population over 50 years shown in parentheses:-
Year 1750 1800 1850 1900 1950 2000 2050 Population (Millions) with percentage population increase in Parenthesis Africa 106 107 111 133 228 797 1846 (0.9) (3.7) (24.4) (71.4) (250) (131.6)
Asia 502 635 809 947 1,437) 3,689 5,369 (26.5) (27.4) (17.1) (51.7) (156.7) (45.5)
Europe 163 203 276 408 546 727 642 (24.5) (36.0) (47.8) (33.8) (33.1 (-11.7)
Latin 16 24 38 74 166 523 480 America and (50.0) (58.3) (94.7) (124.3) (215.1) (-8.2) the Caribbean North 2 7 26 82 221 481 722 America (250.1) (271.4) (215.4) (169.5) (117.7) (50.1)
Oceania 2 2 2 6 12 30 45 (200.0) (100.0) (150.0) (50.0)
Total 791 978 1,262 1,650 2,556 6,073 9,104 (23.6) (29.1) (30.7) (54.9) (137.6) (49.9)
We can see from the total world population pattern that the world population has increased by 137.60% during the period from 1950-2000 and it is precisely during this period that environment took a severe beating. The increase in tonnage of human biomass is not due to increase in numbers alone. As we have seen the average weight of a human being has been increasing steadily from generation to generation and this further augments the H-Bioshift, arising from the population explosion in numbers. 155 Another factor that contributes to the H-Bioshift and the ensuing devastation of nature is that we stockpile more and more food against possible hard times ahead. Fifty or seventy years ago, much of the world population led almost a hand to mouth existence, and famines were not uncommon. India is a case in point. India's agriculture, though more than 90% of the population was engaged in it, was not productive enough to feed its own population. When imports were not sufficient and when there was draught, there was widespread famine. This was the case in the 1950s and 60s. The picture has changed dramatically since then. Due to the adoption of intensive agriculture, the food production has gone up and now India has a surplus, and stocks more than a hundred days supply of foods against future shortages. In the United States the agricultural surplus went upto such an extent that wheat had to be dumped into the sea to prop up wheat prices. This increase in productivity came about mainly from intensive agriculture, which in its turn depended on synthetic fertilizers. If the Indian population were to be fed on natural food alone, India would have starved and forests would have been totally denuded to provide natural fertilizer for the natural food. Gandhi’s statement, “There is a sufficiency in the world for man’s need but not for man’s greed” has been adopted by environmentalists and conservationists. But in the face of the exploding populations, the Earth cannot provide for man’s needs let alone his greed. Africa is now going through a process India went through 50-100 years ago. As we see from the above table, the African population is going to explode by a whooping 131.6% in the period 2000-50. This corresponds to the worldwide increase of 137.6% in population during 1950-2000 as we saw above. So the worldwide devastation of environment, we witnessed during 1950-2000, is going to be enacted all over again in Africa over the next fifty years. The population of Africa will increase by over a billion over the next 50 years. On an average weight of 40 Kg per human being, the biomass tied up in human form is to increase by forty billion Kilograms or forty thousand million Metric Tons. There will be a corresponding increase in food stocks in the form of corn, cereals, cattle, poultry and other life-forms, kept specifically for human use. These forms of biomass useful to human beings including pets and exotica will increase at the expense of biomass of little or no use to human beings. Cattle, chicken, pets, spices and other life forms will proliferate while lions, tigers, rhinos, poison ivy and other life forms will become extinct, until and unless the H- Bioshift is reversed and that means world population control. In ignoring the population issue and taking up environmental issues in isolation, environmentalists seem to have forgotten the basic rule that ‘you cannot have your cake and eat it too.’ You cannot have a burgeoning consumer population and save the environment at the same time. In the face of an empowered consumer population that is increasing exponentially, environment issues have to take a backseat. It may be opportune here to discuss the attitude of Catholicism, Islam and other religions and their sects towards birth control. These religions and sects have considerable influence in regions like Africa where the population explosion is having its heyday. Nonetheless, these religions object to Birth- birth control on the grounds that birth control amounts to interfering with life and that God Control alone has the right to interfere with life. Life and death are two sides of a coin. If we have no right to interfere with life, we also do not have the right to interfere with death. However these religions and sects, especially Catholicism, promote modern medical practices, which interfere with death in a big way. If it were not for modern medicine, increases in deaths from accidents, plagues and diseases would have automatically offset the burgeoning birth rate. Since we have chosen to interfere with death through modern medicine, it is imperative that we interfere with life too with birth control. Another factor that augments the H-Bioshift is man's mobility. In the old days man used to occupy a square Kilometer or two a day. Now with faster and faster travel, man occupies several sq. kilometers every day. Infrastructure like roads and hotels required for this travel also has a high impact on the environment. In addition, per-capita built-up areas for commercial usage such as showrooms, offices, workshops, godowns etc. are also increasing at the expense of nature. The human body as well as those of cattle, chicken, pets and other stock kept for human usage is two-thirds water. So the H-Bioshift is even more pronounced in the case of water than in the case of organic mass. Just as in the case of biomass, the increase in commercial spaces take up much water also. Unlike as in the case of organic matter, which burn and irretrievably convert to Carbon Dioxide and water, much of the water merely re-circulates without molecular breakdown. Nevertheless, ground water levels are sinking steadily all over the globe as a result of the H-aquashift.
156 In conclusion, environmental degradation and depletion of ground water are merely the symptoms. The disease is the H-Bioshift, caused by population explosion, man's mobility and other factors. It is simple arithmetic of tonnages. The solution lies in population control and this in turn means birth control. Environmentalists and The Church had better take note of realities rather than play around with fads and dogmas. There is no solution to the environmental problem in isolation from the population problem. Our earth is like a farm that has been overgrazed.
“Those who in principle oppose birth control are either incapable of arithmetic or else in favor of war, pestilence and famine as permanent features of human life” Bertrand Russell
157 Chapter Eight Of Quacks and Cures
‘Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, which we ascribe to heaven.’ William Shakespeare
This work promotes the art of clear thinking vis-à-vis ethnic and dogmatic conditioning. Because ill health is one of the greatest obstacles to efficiency in daily life, promotion of health goes central-stage in our quest for optimum economic efficiency. For the last century or so the field of medicines and cures have taken on the form of a scientific discipline. Before that the field of medicines and cures were the realm of the intuitive approach based on empirical observations. Such intuitive approach to healthcare is still widely practiced worldwide. Such healthcare practices may have some substance to it as in the case of herbal medicines or may be based on mere superstitions. Such healthcare practices that are not amenable to a scientific approach belong to the realm of alternate or complementary medicines. As in most ethnic practices alternate and complementary medicines also have considerable contents of unverified intuitions and doctrines. An example of such an unverifiable doctrine in alternate or complementary medicines is the long practiced discipline of Homeopathy and its dogma of vital forces. We shall be going into the intricacies of various such healthcare disciplines in our treatise below, and we shall try to make some sense out of such practices in the light of clear and unconditioned thinking.
Alternate or Complementary Medicine: Most, if not all superstitious practices have medicinal value. The most basic function of the supernatural is to cure. Wealth and prosperity are only secondary to good health. It also seems that most of our ailments arise from mental causes. Even under normal conditions, the patient’s will and mental powers seem to be a critical factor. Therefore, faith healing practices may be indeed effective. The terms alternate medicines and complementary medicines are commonly used as synonyms. Nevertheless, the real meanings implied are different. Alternate medicine implies that conventional, scientific medicines are synthetic and harmful and as such they should be sparingly used and may be substituted, as far as possible, by processes involving no medicines or medicines based on natural herbs and other products. Complementary medicine, on the other hand, implies that other medical practices can synergize conventional medicines and medical practices and that the two are not mutually exclusive. Alternate or complementary medicines (CAM) are mostly ancient practices, though some modern disciplines have also found favor. CAM includes practices that incorporate spiritual, metaphysical, or religious underpinnings; non-European medical traditions, or newly developed approaches to healing. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine defines complementary and alternative medicine as "a group of diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not presently considered to be part of conventional medicine". It also defines integrative medicine as "… combining mainstream medical therapies and CAM therapies for which there is some high-quality scientific evidence of safety and effectiveness." The list of therapies included under CAM gets modified gradually. If and when CAM therapies that are proven to be safe and effective become adopted into conventional health care, they cease to be considered 158 as CAM. However such processes of incorporation of CAM into conventional medical practices is a time- consuming process. This also implies that there can only be one medical discipline and all else – practies that cannot stand up to the rigors of the tests for inclusion in modern practices – are quack practices. It is also strange that that conventional medicines have to undergo years of such rigors of testing while quack practices have a free hand especially in third world countries like India. In the final analysis it may be stated that there is medicine that has been adequately tested and medicine that has not been so tested, medicine that works and medicine that may or may not work. Once a treatment has been tested rigorously, it no longer matters whether it was considered alternative at the outset. If it is found to be reasonably safe and effective, it will be accepted as medicine. Whether a therapeutic practice is 'Eastern' or 'Western,' is unconventional or mainstream, or involves mind-body techniques or molecular genetics is also irrelevant except for their historical and cultural dimensions. As believers in science and evidence, we must focus on fundamental issues - the patient, the target disease or condition, the proposed or practiced treatment, and the need for convincing data on safety and therapeutic efficacy. Quack-practioners are quick to pounce on incidences of failures on the part of modern professional medicines and to proclaim modern practices as undpendable or harmful. On the other hand when CAM fails as is often the case, they blame the particular practitioner or the medicine prescribed by him. This means that when modern medicine fails the whole discipline is blamed whereas when CAM practices fail, these failures are painted over as unique – heads I win, tails you lose. The important factors to bear in mind with regard to CAM are: 1. CAM treats the symptoms rather than the causes. As a result, visual and other sensory examination of symptoms is used as diagnostic tools rather than instrumental diagnosis. This in turn means that treatment is more important in CAM, whereas diagnosis is of prime importance in scientific medicine and often more expensive than the cure. 2. Most of these CAM disciplines evolved in an era, in which man was not aware of germs, bacteria, viruses and other microorganisms that cause the largest number of diseases. As a result, these disciplines give more importance to cure rather than prevention, contrary to the common wisdom “Prevention is better than cure.” 3. All animals including man have evolved over millions of years and have built up considerable natural resilience against most diseases. As a result, over 80% of our diseases disappear of their own, given enough time. Naturally, any treatment or no treatment seems to be effective in over 80% of the cases. Not surprisingly, CAM disciplines have the same success rate of over 80%. Practitioners of CAM like Homeopathy boast that their remedies are effective for babies and animals where the placebo effect does not come into play. Even if the placebo effect or other factors do not come into play, animals and babies are also reasonably robust and about 80% of their health problems disappear of their own accord with or without treatment. Alternate or complementary medicines are not recognized by the scientific community as scientific disciplines though they have been widely practiced as they work in over 80% of the cases as stated above. The list of alternate/complementary medicines and medical disciplines is mind-boggling. Some of the more important of these CAM disciplines are Acupuncture, Appitherapy (with bee products including bee sting therapy), Applied Kinesiology, Aromatherapy, Ayurveda , Biofeedback, Buteyko, Chelation Therapy, Colloidal Silver, Colonics and Colonic Cleansing, Color Therapy, Ear Candles, Flotation Tanks, Flower Essences, Gemstone Therapy, Herbs, Roots, and Seeds, Homeopathy, Hormones, Hypnotherapy, Iridology, Jewelry, Light Therapy, Macrobiotics, Magnetic Therapy, Massage Therapy, Meditation, Mind- Body Medicine, Music Therapy, Naturopathy, Orthomolecular Medicine, Polarity Therapy, Pranic Healing, Qigong, Raw and Living Foods, Reflexology, Reiki, Sensory Deprivation, Somatic Education, T'ai Chi, Therapeutic Humor, Therapeutic Touch, Trepanation, Urine Therapy, and Yoga. Some of these therapies like meditation and yoga can complement modern medicines. But most of these disciplines are built on shaky foundations of intuition and verbal jugglery. Many of these systems use high-sounding terms like life energy, vital energy and elements of nature without clear-cut definitions of these terms. Naturally, alternate or complementary medicines open up numerous avenues for quacks and swindlers. Alternate medicine is to modern medicine what religion is to science, and next to religion, the realm alternate medicines provide the best scope for charlatans to ply their trade. Many practitioners of CAM talk about the balancing of energy-flow around the body. Some practitioners claim that they can feel these life energies by keeping their hands over the bodies of their clients 159 without touching them. One such practitioner was put to the test. He was blindfolded and asked to sit at a table with his hands on the table, palms up. The examiner then held one of his own hands and sometimes both his hands over the practitioner’s hand/hands without touching them. The practitioner was asked over which of his hands the examiner had held his hands. The practitioner had no clue whatsoever, belying his boast that he could feel the body energy without touching. Most if not all of these medicines and practices have only the placebo effect (See Placebo Effect in the alphabetical section below). There was a Hindu ‘Siddhan’ or holy man at Chalakudy, about 60 Km from my home. Patients came to him and were cured by a glass of water he gave them, which he said contained some ancient potion. The line at his door grew longer by the day and so did his beard and his bank balance. The beard enhanced his holy, Patriarchal looks. Then one fine day the police arrested him. It turned out he was a Muslim and that he had married a dozen women and then scrammed with their gold and dowry. He also admitted that the medicine he gave his patients was plain water, laced with a few common spices and herbs. Richard Dawkins, Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, defines CAM as a "...set of practices which cannot be tested, refuse to be tested, or consistently fail tests. If a healing technique is demonstrated to have curative properties in properly controlled double-blind trials, it ceases to be alternative. It simply...becomes medicine." He also states that "There is no alternative medicine. There is only medicine that works and medicine that doesn't work." It has been proposed that placebos and quack medicines have considerable mental effects on the patients as these release relaxants into our body-system, which helps alleviate the disease and pain. In addition, medical practitioners of all hues have their own personal touches. Thus, a practitioner who seems to care for the patient and his illness seem to have a better impact on patients than those who seem reserved and impersonal. As a result, in 80% of the cases, it is the doctor rather than the medicine that cures, especially in CAM. Let us now look into some of the disciplines within the realm alternate medicine.
Acupuncture: is an ancient Chinese system of medicine, which presumes that stimulation of the nerves to the different organs, with specially designed needles, can cure ailments in these organs. As in the case of many false propositions, people swallow this too and do not bother to ask whether stimulation of nerves can really have the claimed effect. It was found in a case study that stimulation by acupuncture, of a nerve leading to the heart, had a curative effect on the heart. When the nerve to the intestines was similarly stimulated it too had the same effects on the heart as long as the patient believed it would be effective. Another variation of acupuncture that is gaining popularity in some parts of the world is ‘dart therapy’ Acupuncture needles are sent as darts to the acupuncture nerves and these too seem to have effects on the faithful. though it is doubtful whether the darts hit home every time. It is normal practice to play classic Chinese music during acupuncture sessions. This probably enhances the placebo effect.
Ayurveda: Ancient system of Indian medicine - in Sanskrit Ayur means longevity and Veda means knowledge or science. Like all ancient systems, it is far more intuitive and empirical than scientific. The medicines are mostly herbal concoctions, in powder form or extracted with water, alcohol, oil or fat. Different forms of massaging, after applying herbal-oil formulations, are also widely practiced. The herbs used in Ayurveda do contain ingredients that may have palliative effects. In the past, the ingredients were not known nor isolated and strict quality control was impossible. Now modern techniques have been adopted though the rigorous exactitudes, required of a modern scientific discipline, is still a long way off. According to Ayurveda, the body is a miniature or microcosmic universe, wherein the five great primordial elements (panchamahabhutas) - ether or sky (akasha), air (vayu), fire (agni), water (jala) and earth (prithvi) - combine to form three humors (doshas), known as wind (vata), choler (pitta) and phlegm (kapha). This of course is a spacious proposition that can be applied to anything as everything on earth is a miniature or microcosmic universe depending on how you look at it. Each dosha has its own characteristics. The balance between the doshas determines the individual constitution (prakriti) and its predisposition to various diseases. Constitution is also affected by the strength of a person's 'digestive fire' (agni) and bowel function (kostha). Seven tissues (dhatus) and their waste products (malas) make up our body and a network of channels circulate fluids and essences through the 160 body. The three interdependent universal constituents or the three gunas - purity (sattva), activity (rajas) and solidity (tamas) - also influence health and determine mental qualities. Diseases result if lifestyle, mental or external factors cause an imbalance in one or more of these components. This again constitutes more of , concepts, words and propositions that cannot be defined or validated. Ayurvedic Diagnosis consists of eight-fold examination (astavidha pariksha) to determine the balance of the three doshas. This involves examination of pulse (nadi), tongue (jihva), voice (sabda), skin (sparsa), vision (drishti), general appearance (akrti), urine (mutra) and stools (mala). The whole thing sounds quite appealing and high sounding and Patriarchal. In the final analysis, these high sounding terms appeal more to mysticism rather than hard facts. Most other CAM disciplines also adopt such mystic approaches to a discipline that should be scientific. Like all ancient systems, Ayurveda treats symptoms rather than causes. It too had no knowledge of invisible microorganisms that cause water, air and mosquito borne diseases. As a result though it was universally practiced all over India for centuries, it was totally powerless in preventing or curing malaria, tuberculosis, leprosy, cholera, small pox, polio and a host of other diseases that decimated the Indian rural population frequently. Now that modern medicine and its preventive inoculation procedures have liberated India from the clutches of these dreaded maladies, the advocates of Ayurveda have began boasting about its effectiveness in treating all sorts of diseases. Success rate is over 80% as with placebos.
Chelation Therapy: Chelating is a process of combining insoluble metal ions with chelating agents to form soluble complexes. Hard water contains salts of Calcium and Magnesium, which are only sparingly soluble in water. These salts give rise to scales and fowling in boilers and heat exchangers. Consequently, these scales cause considerable trouble as they insulate the heat-transfer areas. In order to keep these Calcium and Magnesium salts from depositing on the heat-transfer surface, chelants or chelating agents are added to the boiler water. These chelants make the scale forming salts highly soluble in water and prevent them from depositing as troublesome scales. Disodium Salt of Ethylene Diamine Tetra-Acetate (EDTA) is the most commonly used chelant. During the Second World War, chelants were used for medical purposes in cases of lead and mercury poisoning. The chelants react with the poisonous metals to form blood-soluble chemical complexes, which are then flushed off from the system by the kidney. In recent times claims have been made that chelation can remove cardiac blocks which are formed by coagulation of blood. According to these proponents of chelation therapy, these blocks in arteries are caused by metals such as Calcium and Sodium in the blood. These proponents claim that chelation therapy is a preferable alternative to coronary bypass surgery. This may sound feasible in principle. In practice however, these claims are unsound. For one thing, even if Calcium were the cause of coagulation of blood in arteries, the calcium is often as much an integral part of the arteries themselves and the amount of chelants required to dissolve the Calcium in arteries would be prohibitive even if the chelants could penetrate the arterial walls at the low concentrations used. Moreover removing calcium from the artery walls may lead to troubles more deadly than the disease that is treated by chelation. What is even more dangerous is that these chelants will first remove essential metals in the blood- stream itself, as they are more readily accessible than the metals deeply embedded in the arteries. The removal of essential traces of metals in the blood can prove disastrous. Thus, Calcium is essential in blood for the formation and maintenance of the bone structures in our body. Chelation removes this Calcium in blood before it removes the Calcium deeply embedded in our arteries and their obstructions and blocks. The blood thus depleted of Calcium can prove detrimental in bone formation and maintenance. Based on numerous in-depth studies, various prestigious organizations such as the FDA, the FTC, National Institutes of Health, National Research Council, California Medical Society, American Medical Association, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, American Heart Association, American College of Physicians, American Academy of Family Physicians, American Society for Clinical Pharmacology Therapeutics, American College of Cardiology, and American Osteopathic Association have warned against the use of chelation therapy in the treatment of cardiovascular blocks. It is also pertinent to note that no insurance companies recognize chelation therapy and no compensations are made for expenses involved in chelation therapy. Like most alternative medicine systems 161 such as naturopathy, chelation therapy also advocates drastic changes in life-style. Beneficial effects if any arising from chelation therapy and other alternative therapies arise from these life-style changes and the 80% factor illustrated above rather than from the direct effectiveness of these therapies.
Chiropractic: a system of healing, which assumes that diseases result from a lack of normal nerve function. Chiropractors manipulate and adjust body structures especially the spinal column, and use physiotherapy when necessary. Chiropractors are over-concerned with the musculo-skeletal structures, which they say, influence all functions of the body and the nervous system. The chiropractic method was founded in 1895 by, D.D. Palmer, an Iowa merchant who reportedly cured deafness by realigning a misaligned vertebra. Chiropractic Procedures include the adjustment and manipulation of the various joints of the body, particularly of the spinal column, and adjacent tissues. Chiropractic is often supplemented by heat therapy, traction, and nutrition counseling.
Homeopathy: (also Homeopathy or Homoeopathy; from the Greek, ὅμοιος, hómoios, .similar’ + πάθος, páthos, ‘suffering’ or ‘disease’) is the most controversial and widely practiced form of alternative medicines and was founded in 1796 by the German doctor Samuel Hahnemann (born April 10, 1755, Meissen, Saxony -now in Germany – and died July 2, 1843, Paris, France). Homeopathy is based on the theory of 'Similia Similibus Curantur' or 'like cures like', a theory that dates back to ancient Greece. According to this system, the choice of the medicine is fundamentally based on the principle that the medicine must have the capability of producing in healthy persons symptoms, which are most similar to those of the disease to be cured. In aphorism 26 of 'Organon of Medicine', Hahnemann states this law: "A weaker dynamic affection is permanently extinguished in the living organism by a stronger one, if the latter (whilst differing in kind) is very similar to the former in its manifestations." At the time Hahnemann laid the foundations of Homeopathy, mainstream medical practices conformed to a degenerate form of Galenism, which was based upon the ancient Greek idea of four humors. According to these prevailing ideas, treatment consisted of restoring the balance of the humors, by such measures as bloodletting and purging, use of laxatives, enemas and substances that induced vomiting. These practices often compounded the disease and even proved fatal. Hahnemann rebelled against these methods including the use of mixed drugs in strong doses. Instead he favored the use of single drugs in milder doses. Hahnemann proposed that diseases arise because of the body's ability to heal itself becomes dysfunctional, and that only a small stimulus is needed to kick-start the healing mechanism of the body again. Later on he promoted a vitalistic view of how living organisms functioned and concluded that diseases have spiritual, as well as physical causes. In the process, he termed the prevailing medical practices as ‘Allopathy’ and his own newly discovered discipline as ‘Homeopathy.’ Though Hahnemann used the term ‘Allopathy’ in a derogative sense to refer to all kinds of quack practices prevailing at the time, the term is often used to refer to modern medicines in the present context. As stated at the outset of this article, Homeopathy is based on the ‘Law of Similars’ that ‘like cures like.’ At the time quinine was extensively used for the treatment of Malaria. Quinine is derived from the bark of the Cinchona tree and Hahnemann noticed that when he consumed an overdose of cinchona bark he had bouts of fever, shivering and a few other symptoms similar to those of Malaria. In Hahneman’s own words:- “I took for several days, as an experiment, four drachms of good china (cinchona) daily. My feet and finger tips, etc., at first became cold; I became languid and drowsy; my pulse became hard and quick; an intolerable anxiety and trembling (but without a rigor); trembling in all the limbs; then pulsation in the head, redness in the cheeks, thirst; briefly, all those symptoms which to me are typical of intermittent fever, such as the stupefaction of the senses, a kind of rigidity of all joints, but above all the numb, disagreeable sensation which seems to have its seat in the periosteum over all the bones of the body - all made their appearance. This paroxysm lasted for two or three hours every time, and recurred when I repeated the dose and not otherwise. I discontinued the medicine and I was once more in good health.” [Haehl, vol. 1, 37] It was from this observation that Hahnemann formulated his ‘Law of Similars’ that ‘like cures like.’ Subsequently Hahnemann conducted extensive tests on healthy volunteers to determine the particular symptoms produced by test substances, and such trials later become known as ‘provings’. In his Essay on a New Principle in 1796 Hahnemann advocated twenty-seven ‘proven’ drugs. Among the drugs described by 162 Hahnemann were Aconite (monkshood), Arnica (leopard’s bane), Belladonna (deadly nightshade), Chamomilla (chamomile), Nux vomica (poison nut), and Pulsatilla (windflower), all of which are still widely used in Homeopathy. A subsequent collection of sixty-five remedies was published in The Materia Medica Pura in 1810. A compilation of his Lectures published in ‘The Homoeopathic Materia Medica’ in 1905 by James Tyler Kent listed 217 remedies. New remedies keep augmenting the list. Hahnemann did not use the word homeopathy in print until the following year in 1797. The basic tenets on which his therapeutic discipline as well as those of modern Homeopathy are founded are the following:- Medicines are to be chosen on the basis of the patient’s symptoms, without reference to the supposed disease process underlying them. The symptoms are the disease, and once they have gone the disease is cured. The effects of drugs can be known only by means of experiments on healthy people. It is no use relying on what is found in patients because the symptoms of the disease will be difficult to distinguish from those of the drug. Medicines must be chosen for the similarity of their effects to the symptoms of the patient. This ’similimum’ principle is the kernel of the homeopathic method. Medicines are to be given in single doses instead of complex mixtures. Medicines are to be given in small doses to prevent ’aggravations’. (Hahnemann believed that a correctly chosen medicine would always produce some slight worsening of the patient’s condition though often transient; this could be reduced to a minimum by judicious reduction of the size of the dose.) Medicines are to be repeated only when recurrence of the patient’s symptoms indicates the need. As explained above, as a system Homeopathy was very different from the orthodox medicines of the day and certainly a lot safer. At any rate, it quickly brought success to Hahnemann, who had been penurious almost the whole of his life. What is remarkable is that he had taken some fifty years to arrive at his system, and he went on adding to it almost up to his death at the age of eighty-nine. As he believed that large doses of such remedies would only aggravate illness due to the side effects of the drugs, Hahnemann advocated extreme dilutions of the remedies as he reasoned that such dilutions would eliminate the deleterious effects of substances contained in the remedy. Subsequently he came up with a technique for making such dilutions that he believed would preserve the remedy’s essence in the remedy while removing its deleterious effects. He published a complete work on his new medical system in 1810 in the sixth edition of ‘The Organon of the Healing Art’, which is used by homeopaths even to this day. Homeopathy was an instant success and proved immensely popular, and many Homeopathic schools and institutions sprang up all over Europe and the United States in the early nineteenth century. Homeopathic dilutions are effected on three scales of potencies –X for the 10th degree of dilution, C for the 100th degree of dilution and M for the 1000th degree of dilution. Thus on the X scale 1 ml of the remedy is diluted with nine times its volume of diluents to give 1X potency. This is further diluted to a tenth to give 2X potency and so on. For a remedy of 30X potency the process of dilution is repeated thirty times. On the C scale of potency each dilution is done to the 100 th degree. Thus 1C means a remedy diluted with 99 times the diluents, 2C refers to a further dilution of the 1C remedy with 99 times the diluents; 30C means the dilution the 100th degree repeated a total of thirty times. On the M scale of potency each dilution is done with 999 times as much diluents as the remedy at the previous stage. Thus a remedy of 10M refers to the remedy diluted ten times repeatedly with 999 times as much diluents as the previous stage. Hahnemann also seems to have a favored a Q scale where the dilutions are effected to the 50000 th degree. Homeopaths claim that such dilutions enhance the curative powers of the remedy. Water and alcohol are the most common diluents used in the manufacture of Homeopathic remedies. Insoluble remedies such as pollen, quartz, charcoal, oyster shells, poison ivy etc. are thinned down by grinding them with lactose or milk-sugar at each stage of potentiation and this process is known as trituration. Homeopathy uses many animal, plant, mineral, and synthetic substances in its remedies. Examples include Natrum Muriaticum (sodium chloride or table salt), Lachesis muta (the venom of the bushmaster
163 snake), Opium, and Thyroidinum (thyroid hormone). Homeopaths also use treatments called nosodes (from the Greek nosos, disease) made from diseased or pathological products such as fecal, urinary, and respiratory discharges, blood, and tissue. Homeopathic remedies prepared from healthy specimens are called Sarcodes.
The term ‘potentiation’ or ‘dynamization’ is an important term in the manufacture of Homeopathic remedies. We have seen the different systems of dilutions such as X, C and M effected in getting different potencies. At each stage of such dilution the contents are vigorously shaken by ten hard strikes against an elastic body in a process called ‘succussion’ which Homeopaths claim imprints the diluents with the memory of the original remedy. Hahnemann had a wooden board specially constructed for the purpose, which was covered in leather on one side and then stuffed with horsehair and it was against this board that the dilutions were struck during succussion. Homeopaths content that the succussion both activates the vital energy of the diluted remedy and imprints the diluted but potentiated remedy with a memory of the remedy and its therapeutic powers. Another important conceptual contribution by Hahnemann to Homeopathy was the concept of ‘miasms.’ Hahnemann accounted for some of the hard-to-treat chronic diseases with this precept of ‘miasms’, which he claimed, could produce symptoms of disease within the body. Hahnemann associated various miasms with specific age-old diseases with each miasm causing several diseases. This miasmatic infection may first lead to external symptoms, which if suppressed by medication penetrates deeper, and manifests itself later as disease of the internal organs. Homeopathy contends that restoring the balance of vital forces alone can counter this deleterious effect of miasms and not direct medication. The miasms are classified into psora, sychosis, syphillis, and tuburcular. Psora, the mother of all diseases goes back the farthest in human history. Psora Greek for ‘itch’ is the only real fundamental cause and producer of all the other forms of disease. However the other miasms also play out their parts. The expositions on miasms are too intricate and voluminous to be included in detail in this treatise and so is left to the reader to pursue further. According Hahnemann the vital force in the body has the ability to react to disturbances, referred to as the ‘law of susceptibility’, and that various causes can attract the ‘miasms’. According to Homeopaths diseases are caused by imbalances of vital forces in the body and that this imbalance provides fertile ground for the miasms, and Homeopathic remedies can restore this balance in the vital forces and thus curb the miasms. Homeopathy classifies patients by their 'constitutional type' - certain physical, mental and emotional characteristics that may predispose a person to certain types of imbalance. Accordingly, many homeopaths maintain that certain people have a special affinity to a particular remedy - their ‘constitutional remedy’ - and will respond to it readily for a variety of ailments. Thus the constitutional type ‘Ignatia,’ for example, is nervous, tearful, and dislike tobacco smoke. The typical ‘Pulsatilla’ is a young woman, with blond or light- brown hair, blue eyes, and a delicate complexion, who is gentle, fearful, romantic, emotional, and friendly but shy. The ‘Nux Vomica’ type is aggressive, bellicose, ambitious, and hyperactive. The ‘Sulfur’ type likes to be independent, and so on. A typical list of Homeopathic remedies is given at http://www.healing- arts.org/children/ADHD/homeopathy.htm#return with special regard to ‘constitutional types’ When we apply the art of clear thinking to Homeopathy and its principles we find the following flaws in Homeopathy and the concepts and premises Homeopathy is founded on:-
1. As we have seen above Homeopathy is based on several concepts and principles such as ‘like cures like’, provings, potentiation or dynamization, succussion, vital energy, miasms, ‘law of susceptibility’, constitutional type and others which have no scientific validation whatsoever. The ‘vital energy’ philosophy of Homeopathy that diseases and sickness are caused by disturbances in vital force or life force and that these disturbances manifest themselves as unique symptoms are merely a jugglery of high sounding words without any exact definitions. So also are Homeopathy’s precepts of ‘miasms’ that invade the body and produce symptoms of diseases. The simplistic classifications of humanity into constitutional types remind one of the astrological divisions of men and women by their Zodiac signs into various emotional types. 2. We have seen how Samuel Hahnemann found that excessive ingestion of the bark of the Cinchona tree gave rise to various symptoms of Malaria. Though this was a singularity – the phenomenon has not 164 been observed since on anyone else- it was based on this singular observation on himself that Hahnemann jumped to the conclusion that ‘like cures like’, the most basic and fundamental principle of Homeopathy. Jumping to generalities from singularities is irrational. Statistically, Hahnemann did not conduct an adequate number of tests under controlled conditions before concluding that ‘like cures like.’ Subsequent ‘provings’ effected on healthy individuals as described above were also not statistically adequate enough in numbers to lead to scientific conclusions. Repetitions under rigid conditions of the provings as conducted by Hahnemann and Homeopathic maestros did not give the same results or conclusions as the ‘provings’ on which Homeopathy is based. It is also pertinent to note that if the principle of ‘like cures like’ were right then tobacco, which causes oral cancer in large doses, could be used to treat cancer in dilutions. Similarly large doses of castor oil are used as purgatives. If like cures like then dilutions of castor oil can be used to treat diarrhea, cholera and other diseases. This is not practiced by Homeopaths for the simple reason that it does not work. Homeopathy’s basic precept that ‘likes cures likes’ is totally absurd, unfounded and invalidated by observations. 3. We have seen that Hahnemann and others diluted the medications to eliminate its deleterious effects. In the process they overlooked the fact that the beneficial effects too would be compromised by dilution. Instead they claim that the dilution and succussion will potentiate the medication though they fail to define the term ‘potentiation’ or how the potentiation can be verified or measured as becomes a scientific concept or phenomenon. In this claim that dilution will potentiate the beneficial effects but will negate the deleterious effects is self-contradictory. The dilution and succussion will potentiate or negate both beneficial and deleterious effects simultaneously and not selectively as claimed by Homeopaths. 4. The hypothesis that repeated dilution makes a drug more powerful is antithetical to the principles of Physical Chemistry as well as to the observed dose-response relationships of conventional medicines. Even other alternate medical disciplines like Ayurveda and Unani concentrate their formulations for faster and better restorative outcomes. According to the principles of Chemistry and chemical kinetics the intensity of action or reaction of a remedy or any substance for that matter, is proportional to the molecular concentrations of the remedy or matter. Obviously principles of homeopathy are antithetical to and totally incompatible with the principles of chemistry, and so are mutually exclusive - if the laws of chemical kinetics are right then those of Homeopathic pharmacology have to be wrong and vice-versa. The principles of chemistry have been proved right in all the chemical, pharmaceutical and petroleum industries of the world. So the principles of Homeopathy that dilution increases effectiveness is not sustainable in theory or practice. 5. For any substance to be effective there must be minimum of a molecule of the active ingredient present. The dilutions effected in Homeopathy go to such ridiculous extremes that there is not even single molecule of the active ingredient in most of the Homeopathic potions that we buy off the shelf, especially those of 15X potency and higher. We have seen how Homeopathic remedies of X, C and M scales are made and remedies of 30X and 30C are administered regularly by Homeopathic practitioners. According to Physical chemistry there is what is called the Avogadro’s number by which a molecular gram of a substance contains 6.022 × 10 23 Molecules. Thus the molecular weight of Sodium Chloride or common salt is 58 and so 58 grams of Sodium Chloride contains 6.022 × 1023 molecules. Without going into the intricacies of the calculations involved, we can say that at a potency of 30X a patient has to consume about 25-30 MT or 2-3 truck loads of a Homeopathic drug to get a single molecule of the active ingredient into his system. (Whether a single molecule will be effective is another matter) For a better perspective of Homeopathic dilutions, 1 ml of a solution which has gone through a 30C succussion would have been diluted into a volume of water equal to that of a cube of 1015 Kilometers per side, or about 105 light years (A light-year equals about 9.46053 × 1012 km or 5.878 × 1012 miles) – enough water to engulf a few solar systems – many Suns, Moons, Earths and all. We often buy only half a liter or less of Homeopathic medicines off the shelf and the chances of getting even one molecule of medicine from that half liter is less than one in several billions or trillions. So most of the time we are consuming plain water, alcohol or lactose as the case may be when we take standard Homeopathic remedies. This arithmetic flaw was countered by Homeopaths with their concept of ‘memory of water’ according to which a memory of the remedy and its therapeutic effects are imprinted on the diluents in 165 the process of Homeopathic succussion. In a famous but controversial study in 1988, French professor Jacques Beneviste confirmed, after much experimenting, that even in such infinitesimal dilutions as used in Homeopathy, the ingredient can still influence living cells, because according to Beneviste, water or tincture is able to carry a 'memory' of the ingredient after the succussion process. This ‘memory of water’ theory, which was published in prestigious magazines and took the world by storm, was subsequently proved erroneous and has been abandoned by the scientific community. What is more, as stated above Homeopaths fail to explain how succussion imprints the therapeutic effects alone and not the deleterious effects of the remedy. 6. Though it was not always so, in the face of mounting simple arithmetic evidence, Homeopaths now admit that there is no medicine whatsoever in the concoctions they prescribe. Instead they resort to the apologetics that during the process of dilution the medicine is potentiated or dynamized with a ‘vital force’ ‘Vital force’ is a term which is much bandied about by all sorts of quacks, a term full of sound and fury which signifies nothing. Though these quacks repeat the term at every breath they do not specify how this vial force can be detected or measured as becomes any scientific phenomenon. 7. We have seen how the dilutions are effected to X, C, M and Q potencies. Homeopaths claim that the vibration and its energy produced during the succussion are absorbed into the contents of the vessel and imparts the vital force or potency to the medicine. This theory too is unfounded. Whatever vibrations and energies are produced during succussion are immediately dissipated into the environment and none of that energy remains in the medicine. If the claim by Homeopaths were true then the water at the bottom of a water-fall – even an ordinary one - would have a million of times as much vital force as a concoction which receives a mere three hundred manual strokes against an elastic board. It is also pertinent to note that no two strokes can be alike. Even in modern times with electrical and digital controls there are bound to be variations in the intensity of strokes applied to each medicine at each stage of succussion due to variations in power input and other factors. In the days of Hahnemann these strokes were conducted manually and you can imagine the variations that can occur even in a 30X concoction, which requires 300 uniform strokes. The strokes also do not seem to have been standardized as to their intensity. The surface or board used for the strokes too will vary in elasticity and this will also lead to variation in the in the absorption of the energies of the stroke. A Homeopathic remedy of 10X potency is of the same dilution as a remedy of 5C potency. However the former receives twice as many strokes as the latter and so ought to contain twice as much vital energy as the latter. At these potencies the concentrations of the active matter can be determined by conventional chemical analysis. However can any Homeopath determine the difference in vital energy contents between the two potencies -10X and 5C – of the same remedy? 8. Water, alcohol or lactose used for Homeopathic dilutions can never be obtained in the absolutely pure state. This was even more so in the times of Hahnemann when water purification technologies had not developed to the stage it is now. Even assuming that water can be purified to the ultimate 100% it is inevitable that contaminants get into the medicine at the time of the repeated succussions. Thus air itself, especially air near the sea, contains traces of various salts. These salts are sure to contaminate the system. Thus Sodium Chloride will be there in all Homeopathic medications. Now Natrum Muriaticum is a Homeopathic concoction where pure Sodium Chloride is diluted to potencies by succussion as described above. But inevitably the sodium chloride in the diluting water too comes into the reckoning. So after repeated dilutions to 15X or so there is no more of the original pure Sodium Chloride left in the concoction. However the sodium chloride in the diluent - water - remains in the concoction and its percentage remains constant however many times the potentiation is done. Now the question arises as to how the drug knows how to act as the therapeutic pure sodium Chloride with which succussions are done and of which nothing remains at 30X potencies, and not as the sodium chloride in the diluent of which there are traces in the final product? The same goes for all Homeopathic concoctions. In the final product of 30X potency there will not even be a molecule of the original therapeutic substance with which the succussions are done whereas it will contain considerable quantities of the contaminating Sodium Chloride and other salts. In the same vein a bottle of 30X Nux Vomica contains no Nux Vomica whatsoever whereas it contains Sodium Chloride and other contaminants from water – and Sodium Chloride itself is a Homeopathic medicine sold under the name Natrum Muriaticum as stated above. This is even more so in the case of Homeopathic concoctions in powder form where insoluble active 166 ingredients are ground down to the required potency with lactose. Lactose is a milk product and its purity and ingredients change with its source of milk, and lactose of cent per cent purity is impossible to come by. What is more during the grinding operations part of the mortar and pestle used for the grinding is inevitably ground into the remedy thereby contaminating it. 9. At any time our bodies contain considerable quantities of Sodium Chloride, Potassium Chloride and other substances, which are used as Homeopathic remedies. It is not clear how these substances in the remedy alone will be therapeutic even though in negligible quantities while the same substances ever- present in the body will stay inert. Homeopaths content that it is the potentiation that does the trick. If so what is the difference between Homeopathic Sodium Chloride and the chemical Sodium Chloride in the body? 10. Fifty identical bottles of water as well as various Homeopathic remedies of varying potencies were taken and their name labels were masked and superscripted with numbers or codes. Homeopaths were asked to identify the contents of the bottle as to the remedies they contained and their potencies. It is impossible to carry out such an identification. This especially so for potencies of 30x and above as mentioned above. Even when chemical concentrations can be evaluated at below 15X potencies it is impossible to distinguish between corresponding potencies of the same concentration. Thus potencies of the various scales such as X, C and M have the arithmetic relationship nM=1.5nC=3nX. Correspondingly for n=4, 4M=6C=12X, which are potencies within the range chemical detection and quantification. Thus 4M, 6C and 12M of Natrum Muriaticum contain the same content of Sodium Chloride. Nonetheless, at ten strokes per succussion the 4M, 6C and 12X potencies undergo 40, 60 and 120 strokes. If strokes impart vital energy to the medications as they claim, then the quantity of vital energies of 4M, 6C and 12X will be in the proportion of 2:3:4. However they have no means of distinguishing between 4M, 6C and 12X potencies of Natrum Muriaticum. This confirms that Homeopathy is not a scientific discipline as it boasts. Instead Homeopathy is based on the placebo effect where qualitative and quantitative assessments are not viable. Quack formulations prescribed by shamans too are not amenable to scientific validations, and Homeopathy is no different. 11. Hahnemann also rejected the notion of a disease as a separate thing or invading entity, and insisted that it was always part of the ‘living whole.’ This is against the germ theory, which was established in the twentieth century, by the works of Robert Koch, Louis Pasteur, Alexander Fleming, Joseph Lister and many others. According to this modern germ theory many of our diseases are caused by external agents like germs and viruses. Homeopathy has not taken germs and viruses into account nor is it possible for Homeopathy to do so with its unfounded precepts of vitalism and ‘like cures like’ A therapeutic discipline that cannot take into account germs and viruses have no relevance in modern times. 12. On one hand Homeopaths claim that they treat patients and symptoms, and not diseases. On the other hand, in recent times they have come forward with preventives for chikun gunya, chicken pox, and even for bird flu. It is not clear how Homeopathy that claims that it treats only symptoms and not diseases can develop a preventive for a disease. It seems Homeopaths contradict themselves too often. Thus they contradict themselves when they claim that dilution will potentiate the beneficial effects and not the deleterious effect of their medicines. They contradict themselves again when they claim that they treat symptoms and not diseases and yet boast that they have preventives for epidemics, which are essentially diseases. 13. No Homeopathic concoction has passed the double blind tests, which most if not all modern medicines undergo. Instead Homeopathy finds sustenance in spacious arguments based on concepts and principles, which have no scientific evidence or validation whatsoever. 14. In order to lure in clientele Homeopaths have started seeking modern medical diagnostic methods such as blood tests, X-rays and scans. Such diagnostic methods are used for assessing internal symptoms only. Such assessments of internal symptoms are against Hahneman’s dogma by which all Homeopaths vouch that external symptoms alone are relevant.
Not withstanding its scientific discreditation, Homeopathy seems to be flourishing in much of the illiterate third world alongside religions and superstitions. The popularity of Homeopathy is on the rise in Asia, and especially in India. It was Dr John Martin Honigberger who introduced Homeopathy into India – 167 Lahore - in 1829–1830. India has the largest homeopathic infrastructure in the world at present, with about 250000 clinics and outlets. In addition, there are 180 Homeopathic colleges, and 7500 government clinics and 307 hospitals prescribing Homeopathic remedies. In the West Homeopathy is on the wane. The last school in the U.S. exclusively teaching homeopathy closed down in 1920, though the Hahnemann School of Medicine, now part of Drexel University, continued to offer homeopathy electives until the 1940s. A few homeopathic courses are still taught in a few colleges, but usually alongside other alternative medical treatments. Scientific and clinical studies have proved beyond doubt the therapeutic inefficacy of Homeopathic treatments. Modern homeopathic practitioners also use Homeopathic vaccines, which they refer to as ‘nosodes’, and are created from dilutions of highly infectious agents including material such as vomit, fecal matter or infected human tissues. While Hahnemann was opposed to such preparations, modern homeopaths frequently use them though there is no evidence to prove their worth. Homeopathic therapies have neither positive nor negative therapeutic value. Beneficial outcomes of Homeopathy if any are due to the placebo effect. We have also noted that over 80% of our problems including diseases disappear of their own accord given enough time. Consequently Homeopathy also has a high success rate as any quackery, voodoo or shamanism. However Homeopaths often raise false hopes in patients and advise patients to avoid standard medical procedures. This often leads to delays in seeking professional help and this delay can often prove fatal in critical situations. Homeopaths have been known to discourage the use of anti-malarial drugs and this often helps in spreading Malaria. It is this delay in seeking professional therapies that is the most deleterious effect of Homeopathy. Alchemy was a form of speculative thought that, among other aims, tried to transform base metals such as lead or copper into silver or gold. Alchemy also tried to discover a cure for diseases and a way of extending life. Though alchemy was proved unscientific, its principles and methodologies helped in shaping modern chemistry and its subsidiary disciplines such as metallurgy and pharmacology. In the same way Homeopathy is considered to have paved the way for modern medical practices by evolving methodologies to a systematic evaluation of remedies as well as to assess statistical and quantitative aspects of remedies. Early scientists including Joseph Lister and Sidney Ringer have acknowledged the role of these procedures evolved by Homeopathy, which led to many of their important pharmacological discoveries. However this does not in any way absolve Homeopathy of still claiming medical infallibility in these modern times when many if not all of Homeopathy’s principles and precepts have been proven spacious by modern medical research. James Randi, the famous skeptic, has offered a million dollars to anyone who can prove that Homeopathic principles are scientifically viable. No one took up the challenge. Finally BBC’s documentary, The Horizon, took up the challenge. Tests were conducted under rigorous conditions and under the most expert, professional supervision available. The tests proved conclusively that Homeopathic principles are untenable. Randi’s million-dollar wager still stands unclaimed. Any takers out there? (See http:www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2002/homeopathy.shtml)
Magnet Therapy, Or Magnetic Therapy, Or Magnotherapy: is a form of alternative medicine which claims that certain medical disorders can be effectively treated by exposure to static magnetic fields. Proponents of magnet therapy claim that subjecting certain parts of the body to doses of magnetic fields has a beneficial effects. This belief has led to the popularization of an industry involving the sale of magnetic-based products for ‘healing’ purposes: magnetic bracelets and jewelry; magnetic straps for wrists, ankles, and the back; shoe insoles, mattresses, and magnetic blankets (blankets with magnets woven into the material); and even water that has been ‘magnetized’. Magnet therapy makes use of the static magnetic fields produced by permanent magnets. There is a related alternate medicine field of electromagnetic therapy, which involves the application of electromagnetic waves to the patient. Scientific studies have proved that claims made by practivtioners of magnetic therapy are totally unfounded. Thus the claim that magents can focus energy on ailing parts are baseless and there was no differnce in temparature or other factors in parts of the body exposed to magnet therapy when compared to surrounding areas of the body. Another claim by practitioners of this therapy is that magnets influence the iron ions in blood and polarise them to give beneficial results. This claim too is wholly unscientific. Iron in blood is in organic form 168 and cannot be influenced by magnets in any way as magnets attract or repel only ionised or polarised inorganic iron. What is more the concentration of iron in blood is too low to make any magnetic impact whatsoever. This can be varified by holding a magnet to a drop of fresh blood. In addition, ‘north pole’ or ‘south pole’ magnetized water is marketed to treat different ailments ignoring the fact that that water being diamagnetic cannot be magnetised in any way. Even if water could miraculously be magnetised, then the water would polarise acquire both the poles simulatneously and not one pole as claimed by the quacks. It may be pertinent to note here that many researchers and employees work constantly in magnetic fields of varying intensities throughout their lives. Their whole bodies are thus immersed in magnetic fields far stronger than those from the bracelets and other articles. However there is no evidence that these people are more or less healthy than others who work in non-magnetic environments. In recognition of the fact that magnetic therapy is not only usesless but can even have fatal consequences, many presitigous institutions like the FDA in the United States have declared it illegal to market a magnet therapy product that claims to treat any ‘significant’ condition such as cancer, AIDS, asthma, arthritis, or rheumatism.
Placebo Effect, The: The placebo effect is a well-documented medical phenomenon. Often, a patient taking pills will feel better, regardless of what the pills contain, simply because they believe the pills will work. Doctors studying the placebo effect have noticed that large pills work better than small pills, and that colored pills work better than white ones. All forms and disciplines of palliative care, including quackery and religious ones, show the placebo effect. Animals and babies, who may not be so easily taken in, also often demonstrate the placebo effect.
Pranic Healing: A system of natural healing technique that utilizes prana or life energy and has drawn widely from ancient Chinese and Indian practices. Grand Master Choa Kok Sui, who was interested in yoga, psychic phenomena, mysticism, Chinese chi kung, and other esoteric sciences, is said to have published the first book on Pranic Healing, after studying these disciplines for over eighteen years He claimed he had close associations with yogis, healers, clairvoyants, practitioners of chi kung and a few extraordinary people who are in telepathic contact with their Spiritual Gurus. From the Agnostic point of view, Pranic Healing is GIGO, garbage-in-garbage-out, for none of the basic tenets of Pranic healing, such as drawing on universal life energy and focusing on diseased parts or organs of the body, are tenable from the rational point of science. Like all alternate forms of medicine, Pranic Healing also boasts of over an 80% success rate. Once I attended a class on Pranic Healing, conducted by a lady who seemed well educated with a slew of high-sounding words. She demonstrated how, if the left hand was held forward with the palm up, the energy would flow into it. This energy could then be focused on patients and suffering parts of the body by the right hand, with the forefinger and middle finger held like a pistol. The energy thus focused could cure. She then asked the class to imitate her, and many confirmed that they could feel the energy course through their bodies from the left hand and out the extended fingers of the right. I asked her what difference it made to the energy whether the left arm was held forward or lay limp at the sides, and what difference it made whether the palm was held face up or down or sideways. After all energy flows only from a higher level to a lower level, or from a hotter object to a colder one, and the position or stance of the arms and fingers has little to do with the flow of energy. She answered using high- sounding words, which had nothing to do with energy or its flow. My own vocabulary was not up to her gift of the gab and I called it a day with many in the class drinking in every word she said.
Reiki: In its simplest form the Reiki practitioner places his hands, in prescribed forms, on the recipient or patient, and willing the Reiki energy to flow into the patient with the intent of healing him or her. According to its practitioners, since there is no time and space to limit spirit, Reiki can operate without regard to limitations of space. A level II Reiki practitioner can bring remote healing to a recipient regardless of distance. In remote healings, the recipient is to be objectified somehow, as in witchcraft with dolls or other objects. There are many ways of visualizing or objectifying the recipient. For instance, the healer might pretend that his own knee is the same as the intended recipient, which will create the necessary connection. 169 Or they might draw in the air a shape to represent the recipient, or use a teddy bear, pillow or some other physical object as a stand in. The only limit is the healer’s imagination. For the healer’s intent is primary on bringing forth the Reiki energy. And yes, you can Reiki your car by sending Reiki through the gearshift and dashboard into the car. Many people use Reiki on their food before eating and much more.
Siddha: A system of cure used in South India and especially in Tamil Nadu. Siddha refers to a man who has attained corporeal and spiritual enlightenment. There are many secret ‘rasayanas’ or potions involved in the siddha system of therapy. Preparations generally incorporate parts of plants and trees such as leaves, bark, stem, root etc, but also include minerals and animal ingredients. The incorporation of metals like gold, silver and iron powders in powder or ‘bhasma’ (Sanskrit for ash) form is a unique feature of siddha medicine, which claims it can detoxify metals like Mercury to enable them to be used for stubborn diseases.
Unani: A system of Graeco-Arabic medicine practiced widely in Arabia and the Indian subcontinent. The word ‘Unaani’ is derived from the Greek word ‘Iona’ for the Asia Minor coastline and also from the word ‘Al Yunaan’, Arabic for Greece. The system is based on the teachings of Hippocrates who believed in the four humors - Phlegm (Balgham), Blood (Dam), Yellow bile (Safra) and Black bile (Sauda ) – as the basic constituents of our body. The origin of the Unani principles dates back to Claudius Galenus of Pergamum, who lived in the second century CE. However the implementation of Unani in its modern form is dated circa 980 CE in Persia when Hakim Ibn Sina, also known as Avicenna collated the scattered fragments of knowledge about the therapy. Unani was popular in Asia, and particularly among the Muslims of India and Pakistan. Unanai has government approval as a therapeutic discipline in India. Its formulations are similar in content to those of Ayurveda. Most medicines and remedies such as common herbs and foods as used in Ayurveda have found favor in Unani also. While Unani was influenced by Islam, Ayurveda is associated with Vedic culture and consequently Unani is subscribed to mostly by Muslims whereas Ayurveda is catered to by Hindus. According to Unani medicine, the elements, fire, water, air and earth, are present in our body fluids and their balance leads to health and their imbalance leads to illness. The base used in Unani medicine is often honey. Honey is considered by some to have considerable therapeutic properties, and so its widespread use in Unani. Real pearls and metal are also used in the making of Unani formulations.
“ All superstition is much the same, whether it be that of astrology, dreams, omens, retributive judgment or the like, in all of which the deluded believers observe events which are fulfilled, but neglect and pass over their failure, though it be much more common.” Francis Bacon
170 Chapter Nine
Faiths And Beliefs
“ To become a popular religion, it is only necessary for a superstition to enslave a philosophy. Many people believe that they are attracted by God or by Nature, when they are only repelled by man.” William Ralph Inge
Why do dogs bay at the moon? Are they paying homage to the powers up there? It has been noticed that elephants behave strangely when they come across the skulls and skeletons of their erstwhile companions. Are they paying their respects to their dear departed? It is a familiar sight for crows to summon all other crows with a weird, loud and urgent cawing when one of them falls dead to the ground. The crows caw over the dead crow for some time before going their separate ways. Are the crows mourning their dead? In a bizarre but poignant incident, a leopard cub was killed and partly eaten by hyenas. When the mother leopard returned from her kill, all that was left of her cub was part of one hind leg and the skin. She took this up into a tree, mourned and kept vigil over it for two days, without eating or drinking. She then brought it down and buried it ‘solemnly’, taking an unusually long time in digging up the ground and in the burial. Was it a solemn burial ceremony that the leopard was 'undertaking'? Traditional philosophy boasts of the vast differences in all aspects between animals and men. However, the more we study animals, the more we realize that the similarities between man and animals are far more striking than the differences. It has come to light that animals have extremely complex societies as well as different languages and customs, social hierarchies etc. It would not be surprising to find animals having their own versions of ethics, morals, arts, games and religions. It is possible that much of our instinctive and transmitted knowledge is far older than the human race itself. The dinosaurs lived hundreds of thousands of years before we evolved into what we are today. Some form of our ancestors must have existed side by side with the dinosaurs and these ancestors have probably transmitted the lore about dinosaurs down the different stages of evolution to present day human beings. Thus, stories of dragons are quite widespread all over the globe and these dragons often seem to allude to the dinosaurs as regards shape, size and their scary natures. After all, animals have some sort of generation-to- generation transfer of information and myths, and these have played their parts alongside evolution itself. Consequently, some of our religious concepts may predate humanity itself by hundreds of thousands of years. Jane Goodall, the British ethologist, known for her exceptionally detailed research on the chimpanzees of Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania, reported occasional cannibalism among these chimps. In one case, I watched on ‘The National Geographic’ channel, a baby chimp was snatched from its mother; it was then killed, and the meat was shared among some chimps, even though there was no scarcity of food at the time. Such gory feasts of cannibalism are very infrequent indeed among the chimps. Was it some ceremony of religious significance that Jane Goodall recorded as cannibalism? Animal and human sacrifices were common in human societies, and so was the partaking of the sacrificed victim, in the belief
171 that by such an act one could acquire the powers and other qualities of the victim. The Holy Eucharist, in its essence, is a ceremony with cannibalistic overtones – the belief that the consumption of the flesh and blood of Jesus would impart the divinity of Jesus to the consumer. Almost certainly, most intelligent animals have some sort of religious beliefs. Man has had them from time immemorial. In the chapters on fear and violence we discussed Jung's theory of the collective unconscious, mental phenomena such as fear and violence that are hard-wired to form the basic platform for our psyche. Though probably of later vintage than fear or violence, ethics, morals, arts, games and religions are also psychical phenomena that are almost certainly older than human kind itself. Man’s psychic need for a supernatural god or spirit is so overpowering that it is said in the Acts of the Apostles, that the Athenians had a temple, built in honor of the Unknown God. Archeologists have found signs of religious practices in sites as old as 65,000 years. Therefore, some form of religion must have existed long before any of today’s religions came into being. Like music and dance, religion too seems to be a universal phenomenon, universal in place and time.
RELIGIOUS CONCEPTS AND THEIR ORIGINS: What is religion? No simple definition can portray the numerous religions of the world. Religion is a worldwide phenomenon that has played a part in all human culture and so is a much broader, more complex category than the set of beliefs or practices found in any single religious tradition. An adequate understanding of religion must take into account its distinctive qualities and patterns as a form of human experience, as well as the similarities and differences in religions across human cultures. In all cultures, human beings make a practice of interacting with what are taken to be supernatural powers. These powers may be in the form of gods, spirits, ancestors, or any kind of sacred reality with which we believe we can connect. Sometimes a spiritual power is understood broadly as an all-embracing reality as in Pantheism, and sometimes it is approached through its manifestation in special symbols. It may be regarded as external to the self, internal, or both. People interact with such a presence in a sacred manner - that is, with awe, reverence and care. Religion is the term most commonly used to designate this complex and diverse realm of human experience. The belief in and the terror of a supernatural, omnipotent, omnipresent and eternal being or spirit or god that created our world and runs it at will, are the foundations, on which all religions are built. Ceremonies, rituals, chants, sacrifices and other means of propitiating and gratifying the gods or spirits, form the superstructure of all religions. It is mostly in these superstructures that one religion differs from another. In psychological terms, religion, like violence, springs from fear. There are three possible reactions to fear – fight, flight or submission. However, when it comes to the supernatural the first two reactions are not feasible – you cannot outrun an omnipresent deity nor can you fight an omnipotent one. The only option left is submission and that is what religion is all about – submission to the fearsome almighty. It is in this light that Mohammad named his religion ‘Islam’ which means submission. However, since the supernatural is not perceivable by human or animal senses, the fear and the resulting submission are often projected on to those who claim they represent the almighty. Thus, religion also entails fear of divine representatives like priests, shamans, and others of that ilk. Knowledge and clear thinking alone can dispel this fear. The most essential features or characteristics of all religions of the world are: 1. A belief in invisible supernatural forces like gods, devils, angels and spirits, which directly supervises and controls events in our daily lives. 2. A belief in the power of these supernatural beings and the spirits of the dead, to work miracles. 3. A belief in the dogmas and myths regarding the nature, characteristics and preferences of these spirits and supernatural beings. 4. A belief in the ceremonies, chants, offerings and other prerequisites required to please these supernatural beings and spirits and thus induce them to work miracles. 5. A belief in prophets, incarnations and priests and their powers of intercession with the supernatural. 6. A belief in a life after death including reincarnation.
172 The idea of invisible forces and invisible spirits might have risen from the sight of winds coming out of nowhere and lightning bolts from the blue. Our forefathers were not aware of static air, as they could not perceive it by any of their senses. Therefore, when air began to move around they naturally assumed that it was some invisible, living force at work. They did not know of static electricity and when lightning tore the sky apart, it was attributed to live but unperceivable forces. When these forces of nature like storms, earthquakes, floods, tidal waves and lightning wrought havoc and brought death, it was assumed that these forces were angry and were wreaking vengeance like people often do. Man was projecting his own nature on to these invisible forces. As for ancestor worship, it must have had its origin in dreams of the dear departed. Misfortunes were attributed to the displeasure of ancestors, and ceremonies were instituted to placate the dead. Guilt complexes also must have contributed, guilt complexes arising from wrongs or presumed wrongs, done to the dead man, while he was alive and well. And, in all probability, animals and crows also dream of their dead, just as we do. Maybe these dreams also gave rise to beliefs in a life after death. It was believed that these ancestors went on protecting the tribe or community even after their death, as they had protected them in life. Accounts of their lives and exploits were narrated, and after many generations, facts and fiction became intermingled. The narrations handed down from generation to generation became myths and these ancestors became mythical figures to those in the community who had not directly known them, but had only heard about their glorified exploits from their parents and grand parents. Euhemerus, the Greek philosopher, had proposed circa 300 BCE that all gods and mythical figures were mere mortals who had been glorified and deified as folk heroes by succeeding generations. Religion has been defined as the relationship between human beings and the invisible and presumed supernatural forces around us, forces that can manipulate events at will for good or evil. In practice, religion is presumed to have preventive as well as curative values. It can prevent misfortunes and illness, or alleviate them, and help wreak vengeance on enemies. Speaking of forces, in Physics, there are two kinds of forces, static and dynamic. Dynamic force or the force of movement is the product of mass and acceleration. Thus, when a car speeds up, the force involved is its mass multiplied by its acceleration. Without mass or matter, there cannot be any dynamic force or force of movement. Then there are static forces like gravity and electromagnetism. These too cannot exist of their own and are always associated with matter, and form an integral part of the matter. Thus, there cannot be magnetic forces without iron or some magnetic substances. In short, there cannot be force divorced from matter. Belief in forces, independent of matter, whether natural or supernatural, is unscientific and superstitious. Religious concepts are always closely interlinked to other spheres of life such as the mundane economic activities, and are in tune with them. Thus, Original State religions of aborigines and other primitive people regarded chieftains and matriarchs as gods and goddesses, and their ceremonies were directed at better hunts. South India has a horde of Original State gods, chief among them is Murugan. He is also referred to as ‘Dhandapani’, which is short for ‘Dhandayudhapani’, which means ‘one who is armed with a stick or pole’. Murukan was obviously a primordial, pre-iron-age god who wielded a stick like the primordial people of the Amazon and the Andamans do even to this day. Came the Agrarian Wave and the gods switch to spears as well as bows and arrows in the Indian and Greek myths of the period. What is more primeval gods and goddesses were offered food and drinks to gratify them. Meat and alcohol were the more common offerings to these matriarchal and patriarchal gods. With the Agrarian Wave, gods and goddesses are of royal lineage for whom meat, drink and other essentialities are of no consequence. Consequently, they are offered agricultural produce such as fruits as becomes landlords, or gold, silver and cash as becomes royalty. With the industrial age and its surpluses, fruits too become too crude to offer as gifts, and we move on to the more sublime offerings of flowers and other sophisticated offerings. One of the popular offerings in Kerala is the ‘kathina firing’. Kathina is a cast iron cylinder 15-20 centimeters long and 5-7 centimeters in diameter with a small bore along its axis. There is also a bore vertical
173 to the axial bore at the bottom of the Kethina. The axial bore is rammed tight with gun powder and it is fired from the side bore like in a cannon. This offering is probably a version of the western gun salute and must have become fashionable as a divine offering after colonization of India. If Original State societies conferred divinity on chieftains and matriarchs, Agrarian Wave societies often conferred divinity and immortality on kings and royalty. The obsession and fixation of modern religions - most of them Agrarian Wave institutions - with royalty is much in evidence. Ram and Krishna, the main incarnations of Vishnu in Hindu mythology, were kings. Their military exploits and conflicts with enemy kings form the main themes of ‘The Ramayan’and ‘The Mahabharath,’ the great Hindu epics. Ethics, if any, come into the picture only to justify the capricious and often authoritarian actions of the incarnations. The other incarnations of Vishnu were also mostly royalties or took on royalties on equal terms. Thus, Vaman, another incarnation of Vishnu, took on human form as a poor Brahmin only to vanquish King Mahabali to the nether-worlds. In Japan and Egypt as well as in many ancient civilizations, royalty was adored as divinity. Greek and Roman gods such as Jupiter and his divine ancestors were all of them of royal vintage. Buddha was a prince, and that might in all probability have contributed to his becoming almost divine. In spite of its pretenses to modernity, Christianity is no exception. Christianity flaunts Jesus as belonging to the royal lineage of David, as if that made any difference to his teaching. Both Mathew and Luke go to great pains to establish Jesus' royal lineage from King David, though in the process they are at great variance with each other. (See Mat 1:6-16 and Lk 3: 23-31). The essence of Christianity should have been the teachings of Jesus and his messages of love, compassion and forgiveness. Instead, though Jesus categorically denied his lineage from David in Mk 12:35-37, the Church flaunts his resurrection and his royal lineage, as if these two factors had predominance over his teachings. In addition to social and hierarchal characters, there were significant variations based on the economical waves between religions in other spheres of life as well. Thus, Original State religious ‘rituals’ are directed at better hunts whereas Agrarian Wave ceremonies are directed at better harvests and at victories in wars. On the technical side, primordial divinities moved around as spirits or on such contraptions as mice and eagles (In Hindu mythology, the mouse is the transport for Ganapathy, the peacock is the transport for Murugan and the eagle is the transport for Vishnu). Came Agrarian Wave, and incarnations graduate to chariots, horses and elephants. Likewise, the Lord God of Israel delivers the Ten Commandments on a tablet, an agricultural-society gadget. Came 1917 and Mother Mary hands over a sealed envelope to Bernadette at Fatima in Portugal, with orders not to open it until 1960. Here again the ‘goddess’ Mary uses a contraption of the times. If it were in modern times, gods would in all probability have used jets to move around and e-mail to convey messages. They would in all probability have also hosted websites to publish their exploits and teachings. As a result erstwhile divine messengers like Mercury and Narada would find themselves unemployed and on the dole. A question arises in context. If gods are as omnipotent and omniscient as claimed, they could easily have blazed the Commandments and other messages across the skies in flashing laser displays, or even used futuristic technologies of a thousand years hence. If so, one fails to understand why omnipotent God has to have a representative or a go-between, when he can inspire millions with the same ease as inspiring one. However most of today’s religions are based on claims of divine revelations and inspirations to just one man or woman, though none of such claims have ever been verified. What is more some such purported messages from the godhead were often bandied about by the self-styled prophets to suit their ends. (See box The Prophet and his Messages of convenience in chapter 10 of this book) Furthermore, few if any of such claims have passed on to us directly from those who purportedly received the revelations at first hand. Instead these divine revelations have been conveyed to us by the works of third parties. The Bible and the Koran are examples. These have been written down presumably by the followers of those who claim that God has revealed himself to them. Thomas Paine’s observation is very relevant in context that such divine revelations are revelations only for those who receive them, and only hearsay for others. Consequently most modern religions are based on hearsays. What is more, in the process of transmitting such hearsay, there is often variance between transmitted narrations. Thus the Gospel is based on the four reports of Mathew, Mark, Luke and John. There were however over eighty gospels in the second century and variances between the various hearsay accounts of these gospels were so embarrassing that the
174 Church was forced to ban all but the four Canonical Gospels. However these four Canonical Gospels themselves are often at variance or even at contradictions with other. The two articles in the following box reveal differing accounts of the words and acts of Jesus and how they are at variance with each other to the point of many a contradiction. (See also entropy losses in communication as discussed in chapter 4 on Clear Thinking) Another argument also comes to mind in context. We have seen that we are born with many predispositions, which are necessary in life, predispositions such as towards fear, violence, love, hatred, social skills etc. If it were God that created all these and other mental infrastructures, which are essential to life, he would have also created a propensity towards religion. Consequently we would have been born with the true religion instead of a Babel of religions being shoved down our throats by self-proclaimed incarnations and prophets as well as by their representatives and priests.
Gospels – four or forty?: As a born-and-brought-up Catholic I always believed or rather I knew there were four Gospels - four and only four. I believed it even after I started writing this book in Nov 2002. Then I found from reliable sources that there were many versions of the Gospel and I must own, that in the light of what I have now leant, I have had to modify some of my former notions. I always thought that it was Saint Paul who established Christianity. Saint Paul had been arrested by the Romans and on his demand that he be tried in Rome as befits a Roman citizen. This proved to be his undoing and he ended up dead in Rome, awaiting trial. (See the Acts). In the meantime he had sown the seeds of Christianity in Rome, where it sprouted and caught on. But it remained on the fringes until Emperor Constantine and his vast resources picked up the ball and made a touchdown. The ball Constantine picked up happened to be Paul’s version of Christianity for obvious, geographical and historical reasons. The Roman version or Paul’s version of Christianity got a head start because of its positioning in Rome, the epicenter of the Western world. It might only be partially right to term the early followers of Jesus as Christians. They were also variously called as Nazarenes, Ebionites etc. In Arabic, followers of Jesus are called what sounds like 'Messiha' even to this day. Paul was not the only man to carry the torch of early Christianity or its equivalents. There were many others like, Mathew, Mark and a confounding number of Thomases, Timothys and Philips who stood shoulder to shoulder with Saint Paul and some like Barnabas who were even better placed than Saint Paul in the early scheme of things. Early Christianity or Essenism was a real missionary movement and the pioneers were involved, heart and soul in the movement and were ready to lay down their lives for the good of humanity. On deep deliberations I am inclined to think that it was the message of ‘love’ that turned on these first missionaries. Jesus' Adventist message that the end of the world was near also must have contributed to the missionary zeal of early 'Christians'. Until the Christian era it had been an eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth. Suddenly there was this prophet of love and forgiveness who even as he lay dying on the cross said “Father forgive them…” There have always been idealists, romantics, and Utopians down the ages and there will always be such men and women who in the final analysis are the hope of mankind, in spite of all their idealism and foolhardiness. Christianity or Essenism or whatever, the early followers were fired up with their idealism and their message of love and brotherhood. They needed neither leaders nor dogmas. They were not interested in gaining political mileage out of the movement. They just thought they had the final solution to the ills of the world and they put all their energies and resources into the movement. Early Christianity was not a monolithic political establishment, as we know it today. There were many diverse groups in the early years, each claiming to have the true teaching. The movement sprouted and took roots at various locations of the then-civilized world, with their own variations of teachings and liturgies and sacraments. There were also a bewildering number of
175 Gospels, often at odds with each other when it came to the details regarding the life of Jesus and the various incidents, but generally in agreement as to the teachings of love and forgiveness. It was on this scene of chaos that Constantine made the touchdown with Paul’s version of Christianity. Constantine decided to bring order into the chaos and to standardize Christianity. And he did quite a decent job of it. He called the First Nicene council in 325 CE and formulated the Nicene Creed, which forms the basic skeleton-work of Christianity even to this day. Constantine also decided to do something about the bewildering number of Gospels – over eighty-six by one account - that were doing the rounds then, many of which were embarrassingly self-contradictory in character with too many discrepancies and contradictions. He placed the problem before the Council of Bishops and the Council decided to adopt just four versions of the Gospel - Mathew, Mark, Luke and John - as the official or Canonical versions. The Nicene Council also ordered that all original Gospels, except the Canonical ones in Hebrew script, be destroyed. An Imperial Edict was issued that any one in possession of these non-Canonical Gospels would be put to death. Like many kings and emperors before him Constantine too believed that a uniformity faith was necessary for the unity and the integrity of the empire – Charlemagne was another. Such beliefs had often led to persecutions of many religions and sects in the past. Constantine set about bringing order into Christianity and its variations. So that that there would be uniformity of beliefs in his empire. Constantine obviously plumbed for the beliefs held by some Christian sects and declared others, especially those of the Gnostic Christians of Egypt and Alexandria, as heretical. According to the Gnostic tradition Jesus is not a savior but primarily a teacher and a revealer of wisdom and knowledge of oneself and God. Because of imperial endorsement the beliefs of orthodox Christianity and Rome thrived at the expense of the Gnosticism of Alexandria and Egypt. If it were the other way round, if the Gnostics had imperial sanction, we would have had the Gospel of Mary or the Gospel of Judas or some of the over-eighty Gnostic Gospels instead of just Mathew, Mark, Luke and John. In the 'Gospel of Judas', one of these Gnostic Gospels, Judas by his betrayal, assists Jesus in his mission and is the hero among the twelve apostles. If this Gospel were declared canonical we would have had a Saint Judas Iscariot as the patron saint of missionaries. But even an emperor has his limitations. In December 1945, a major archeological discovery was made in the Egyptian Desert at a location called Nag Hammadi. The fourth century codices in the find were some of the versions of the Gospels that had not been destroyed. Unfortunately the find did not dovetail into Judaic-Christian version of history and so did not generate as much interest as the Dead Sea Scrolls. These Nag Hammadi findings include the Gospel of Saint Thomas - unconnected with the disciple-, The Gospel of Barnabas, the Gospel of Mary and an ‘Unknown Gospel.’ Additional early gospels of the same time period - around 150 CE - were also unearthed - Secret Mark, Gospel of the Ebionites , Gospel of the Nazareans , Gospel of the Hebrews, Marcion’s Gospel, the Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Truth, the. Aquarian Gospel of Jesus Christ, Secret book of James, The Gospel of the Savior, The Gospel of Judas etc. And for every version of the Gospel that survives at the Nag Hammadi Library, we can safely assume many versions were destroyed for fear of death. The spread of Islam in the areas, originally occupied by various Christian or Essene sects, might have given the burial rites to the corresponding versions of Gospel that might have survived there. Gospels, Notes on the: The word "gospel" was coined by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15.1 when he reminded the Corinthians of the "Gospel I preached to you." This was before the literary Gospels of the New Testament canon had been written. According to some authoritative sources, there were over 80 versions of the gospels, each claiming a divine origin. There were so many variations and contradictions between these versions that the church was forced to cut down their numbers to the four canonical gospels as we know them today. The other eighty plus 176 gospels were banned by law at the pain of death. These banned Gospels claimed as authentic a divine origin as the adopted ones. The first three of the Canonical Gospels are similar in content and style. The German scholar JJ Griesbach (1776) arranged these three Gospel in a three-column synopsis to study their similarities and as a result, Matthew, Mark, and Luke have come to be known as the synoptic Gospels. It is now thought that Matthew and Luke used Mark as their source. In addition they used a second source, which is called Q (from German Quelle.) Because of their commonalities and similarities, they may be considered as one Gospel. This means that in effect there are only two canonical versions - John and the synoptics - out of over eighty - a pathetic and disgraceful record indeed for divine inspiration as claimed. As for the synoptics, inspite of their common origins there are variations and unbridgeable contradictions among themselves too. Another factor is that variations and contradictions are possible only between narrations of the same event. John and the synoptics seldom describe the same event. Therefore, there is little or no possiblity of variation or contradiction between them. On the other hand, when John describes the same events as the synoptics, such as the crucifixion and the resurrection, there is considerable ambiguity. John claims in 21:24 that he was Jesus' favorite disciple. This seems to have been nearly impossible as it is almost certain that John was written at the end of the first century or the beginning of the second century when John, if he were Jesus's disciple, would have been quite old and senile. What is more the other three gospels describes the miracle in which Moses and Elijah converse with Jesus in the presence of Peter, James and John (Mt. 17:1–8; Mk. 9:2–8 and Lk 9:28) This should indeed have been one of the high points in Jesus' life and his miracles. Yet, John who is supposed to have been there in person, is silent on this incident. Obviously, the whole miraculous incident is one of many concocted ones in the Bible and the Gospels. The four official gospels themselves seldom agree with each other on other grounds. These variations are often so embarrassing that even staunch apologists for the Gospels try to pass them off as copying errors. If it were God that dictated and inspired the Gospel writers, he would have inspired the copiers as well as the translators as well. Consequently such copying errors would not have been possible. It also raises a serious question: "If there were copying errors in some parts, how can we rule out errors in other parts or all over the Gospels?" The religious reformer, John Wesley, remarked: "If there be a single mistakes in the Bible, there may as well be a thousand. If there be one falsehood in that book, it did not come from the God of truth." Let us now examine the Gospels so that we can judge for ourselves whether they came from an infallible God. Jesus’ Genealogy: According to Thomas Paine, those who have no achievement to their credit often boast of their heritage. The essence of Christianity should have been the teachings of Jesus and his messages of love, compassion and forgiveness. Instead, though Jesus categorically denied his heritage from David in Mk 12:35-37, the Church flaunts his resurrection and his royal lineage, as if these two factors had predominance over his teachings. However, this was in line with the Agrarian Wave traditions and concepts of gods being of royal lineage. In accordance with this norm, Matthew and Luke go to great lengths to establish Jesus’ lineage from King David and come up with accounts that are at unbridgeable variance with each other. According to Mt 1: 2-16 the lineage from Abraham to Jesus is: Abraham-Isaac-Jacob-Judah- Perez-Hezron-Ram-Amminadab-Nahshon-Salmon-Boaz-Obed-Jesse–David-Solomon. (Solomon’s mother had been Uriah’s wife.)-Rehoboam-Abijah-Asa-Jehoshaphat-Jehoram- Uzziah–Jotham-Ahaz–Hezekiah-Manasseh-Amon-Josiah-anonymous -(This was during the time that the Babylonian exile.) –Jehoiachin-Zerubbabel-Abiud-Zadok -Achim -Eliud –Eleazar- Matthan –Joseph-Jesus. Mathew goes on to say in 1:17 that there were fourteen generations
177 from Abraham to David, another fourteen from David to the Babylonian exile and a third fourteen generations from Babylonian exile to Jesus. This makes 42 generations from Abraham to Jesus. Luke has quite different ideas in 3:23-38. According to him Jesus genealogy is Jesus-Joseph –Eli-Matthat -Levi -Melchi -Jannai -Joseph -Mattathias -Amos -Nahum -Esli -Naggai -Maath -Mattathias -Semein -Josech -Joda -Joanan -Rhesa -Zerubbabel -Shealtiel –Neri-Melchi -Addi -Cosam -Elmadam –Er-Joshua-Eliezer -Jorim -Matthat -Levi -Simeon -Judah -Joseph -Jonam -Eliakim -Melea -Menna -Mattatha -Nathan –David-Jesse -Obed -Boaz -Salmon -Nahshon -Amminadab -Admin -Arni -Hezron -Perez -Judah –Jacob-Isaac-Abraham-Terah-Nahor-Serug- Reu-Peleg-Eber-Shelah -Cainan –Arphaxad-Shem-Noah -Lamech -Methuselah -Enoch -Jared -Mahalaleel –Cainan-Enos – Seth-Adam –God. Jesus seems to have taken the Solomon-route from David according to Matthew, whereas it is the Nathan line according to Luke. They also raise doubts as to Joseph's father - according to Matthew it is Mattahan whereas according to Luke it is Eli. The evangelists and their omnipotent god seem to have mixed things up terribly in the matter of Jesus' lineage. The only thing they have in common is that Joseph was Jesus' father or rather the surrogate father. Another moot point is that if Jesus was born of a virgin, then it is the Virgin’s lineage rather than the stand-in husband’s lineage that is relevant. Therefore, Jesus’ real blood lineage is through Mary and Mary being Elizabeth’s cousin, must have been a Levite and not of David’s lineage. Let us now get down to arithmetical realities of life. A generation is from the time when a man or woman is born to the time when his or her particular son or daughter is born. Thus, David’s generation as far as Solomon is concerned is the period between David’s birth and Solomon’s birth. The David-Nathan generation is the time span between David’s and Nathan’s births. As in most agrarian societies, in Jewish societies too the birthrights and heritage - including royal heritage - went to the first-born male. If so, a generation for determining royal heritage in those days was around 25 years, the average age at which the first male-child is born to a man. The only authentic time-reference available in the matter is the Babylonian exile, which took place ca 586 BCE. According to Mathew, the exile took place fourteen generations or approximately 350 years before Christ. This leaves a yawning gap of about 236 years between Matthew and history. In addition, according to Luke, there are 77 generations from Jesus to Adam and creation, which places creation about 4000 years BCE or 6000 years to the present, which is totally ridiculous in the light of modern knowledge. Annunciation: Matthew says nothing of the angel appearing to Mary and announcing the birth. Instead, the angel appears to Joseph who is about to divorce Mary, and tells him that the upcoming birth is legitimate. Matthew does not name the angel (Mt 1: 18-21). According to Lk 1:26-38 it is Angel Gabriel that appears to Mary who is engaged to be married and announces the 'Hail Mary'. The other two evangelists are silent on the subject. Jesus' Birth: In Chapter 2 of his Gospel Matthew narrates the visit of the three wise men, the massacre of infants and the flight into Egypt. The angel then appears and tells Joseph to return to Israel and he settles down in Nazareth, as he was afraid of Archelaus who had succeeded Herod. In Chapter 2 of his work, Luke says that there was a census and that Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem and so on. He also narrates the angels heralding Jesus' birth to the shepherds. Luke does not mention Herod or the visit of the Magi or the flight into Egypt and Matthew does not mention the heraldry or the birth in a manger. The other two evangelists are silent on such a momentous incident. Luke's claim that they went to Bethlehem for a census is a bit hard to digest. Censuses, then as of now, are taken to assess possible taxation and planning. Going to the origins or roots as Joseph and Mary
178 had to, defeats the whole purpose of the census, which is to be taken at the place of residence. Saying that Joseph's family had to go to Bethlehem for census, just because Joseph hailed from the House of David, which had its origins in Bethlehem, is as absurd as saying that an American went to Europe or Africa for census, because of their roots. John' Birth: It is Luke alone that narrates the story of Zechariah, Elizabeth and the incidents associated with John the Baptist's birth. In Lk 1:20 Angel Gabriel strikes Zechariah dumb for doubting him whereas he lets off Mary without any punishment though she too doubts the angel in Lk 1: 34 Jesus' Childhood: It is again Luke alone that narrates the incidents about Jesus' childhood such as the presentation, the joy of Simon and Anna and the disappearance of the boy Jesus and his discourse with the learned priests in the temple at Jerusalem. Jesus' Family: Mt 13: 55-56 and Mk 6: 3 confirm that Jesus had four brothers and at least two sisters. The brothers are James, Joseph, Simon and Judas. Mt 12:46-47, Mk 3:31-32 and Lk 8: 19-20 confirm the fact that Jesus indeed had brothers and sisters. Consequently Mary must have given birth to seven children including Jesus. Mary's immaculate conception, her virginity and assumption into heaven: These form corner-stone dogmas of the Church. There is no mention of the immaculate conception and the assumption in any part of the scriptures. Mary became important figure in early Christianity only because of her pivotal role in early dogmatic controversies as to whether Jesus was divine or merely human and as to whether Mary was the mother of the divine Jesus or of the Human Jesus only. What is more, early converts had been practicing some form of worship of the Mother Goddess. Christianity with its monotheistic scheme of things offered no scope for any mother goddesses. Mary provided and excellent surrogate mother goddess that would keep the erstwhile pagans happy. As for Mary's virginity, Matthew 1:25 says that Mary remained a virgin until Jesus' birth. He is silent as to whether she remained a virgin all her life. As mentioned above, the Gospels confirm that Mary had a minimum of seven children, including Jesus. If Mary remained a virgin all her life, then the only possibility is that all her children – male and female - were conceived of the Holy Spirit as Jesus was. Jesus' Temptation: (Mt 4: 1-11 Mk 1:12–13; Lk 4:1–13 Matthew and Luke details the temptation by the devil. However there is difference in the sequence of events; in Matthew the devil takes Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem first and then to the mountain. In Luke, the temple in Jerusalem comes last. In Matthew Jesus tells the devil to get lost whereas there is no such impropriety in Luke. Mark mentions the whole incident in a single verse. (Mk 1:12–13) John is silent on the subject. Jesus Mission: Mt 10:5-6 Jesus sends the twelve apostles on the mission. He also tells them “Don’t go to the non-Jewish people. And don’t go into any town where the Samaritans live…" As a follow up on these orders comes the story of the Canaanite woman in Mt 15:26 where Jesus says “It is not right to take the children’s bread and give it to the dogs." Mark does not say about the mission being for the Jews alone. Nevertheless, he too narrates the story of the woman to whom Jesus repeats the same words as Matthew-Mk 7:27 that food meant for children should not be given to dogs, implying that Jews alone are entitled to salvation. Nevertheless there are differences in details - whereas in Matthew it is a Canaanite woman, in Mark she is described as a "… Greek, born in Phoenicia, an area in Syria." Both Mathew and Mark are agreed on the number of disciples sent on the mission - twelve. But according to Lk 10:1, "after this, the Lord (Jesus) chose seventy-two more men." From the above passages it is clear that Jesus' mission was to the Jews alone. The Apostles also refused to take on gentiles into the early Christian fold. It was Paul that started baptizing the gentiles and so he is called the Apostle to the gentiles. Nonetheless, the question arises as to who authorized Paul to preach to the gentiles against Jesus' command that only Jews be considered for conversion and salvation. If Jesus had meant what he commanded, then all the non-Jewish saints, Popes and Bishops had to be left out of the fold to end up in hell. Who do we trust, Jesus or Paul? Money on Missions: In Mt 10: 9, Lk 10:4 Jesus commands that they carry no money on the missions. Nonetheless the command does not seem to have been adhered to. In 12:6, and other verses in John, Judas Iscariot is described as the group's cashier.
179 What is more, Paul starts collecting money right away after his conversion and he tells tall tales in Acts 5 of people like Ananias and his wife who are stricken dead for not handing over their wealth to Paul. In addition to the conversion of gentiles, it seems Paul got his way in other things too, irrespective Jesus' commands and wishes. Nonetheless thanks to Constantine, they were Paul’s teachings that survived as Christianity instead of Jesus’ teachings. End of the World: In Mk 9:1 and Lk 21:32-33 Jesus predicts that the whole world, earth and sky, will be destroyed while people of his time are still living. Obviously Jesus was the first Adventist, warning others of immediate Armageddon. That may have been the main reason for his getting many followers so early on in his mission. His example has been imitated by many of his followers down the ages right down to the Moonies of Korea. However the earth and humanity does not seem to have fallen in line with Jesus’ predictions of Armageddon and is thriving to this day. In order to get around this difficulty they concocted a story of the ‘wandering Jew’ according to which a Jew who had been alive at the time of Jesus has been wandering around the world even to this day and the end of the world will not come about as long as he is alive. It may also have been due to Jesus’ beliefs in the impending end of days that he exhorted his followers to give up their wealth and to help others as well as to turn the other cheek; for of what use is wealth and bloodshed if the world is to end soon. He who is not with me: Mt 12: 30 says “If a person is not with me, then he is against me. The person that does not work with me is working against me" This is as bigot a statement as they come. Mark and Luke use much the same words to the diametrically opposite effect. Thus Mk 9:40 says "The person that is not against us is with us" and Lk 9:50 says, “Don’t stop him. If a person is not against you, then he is for you.” What did Jesus really mean? This is one sure instance when the gospels make statements that are contradictory, statements that are mutually exclusive,. Either Mark has to be right and the other two wrong or vice-versa. And, if there is one wrong statement in the Bible, there may as well be a thousand and the whole of the Bible becomes suspect as regards its divine origin. Respect for parents: Jesus blames the priests of the day in Mt 23:3 "So you should obey the things they say. You should do all the things they tell you to do. But their lives are not good examples for you to follow. They tell you to do things, but they don’t do those things themselves" Jesus too seems to have been no different from the priests and does not practice what he preaches. In Mt 15:4 Mk 7:10 Jesus stresses the importance of honoring one's parents.. Nonetheless Mt 12:46–50, Mk 3: 31-35 and Lk 8:19–2 cites Jesus refusing to see his mother and brothers when they come visiting. Like the priests, Jesus too seems to have followed the dictum "Do as I say; don't do as I do!" Divorce and Remarriage: Mk 9:10 Lk 16:18 forbids divorce and remarriage except in cases of fornication (on the part of the woman.) Marrying a divorcee is also adultery. How is it that so many professed Christians divorce and remarry whereas some ardent Christians like the Mormons practice polygyny (but no polyandry) Jesus came to bring peace or war?: We have been led to believe that Jesus was the champion of peace. Nonetheless Mt 10:34-36 quotes Jesus as saying, “Don’t think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace. I came to bring a sword. I have come to make this happen: ‘The people in a person’s own family will be his enemies. A son will be against his father. A daughter will be against her mother. A daughter-in-law will be against her mother-in-law.’ Lk 12: 51-53 repeats much the same thing. It seems that the Crusaders, the Inquisitors and the Christian world down the ages, right from Paul, have taken this message of strife to heart rather than the message of love and forgiveness. Woman Washes Jesus' feet: This incident is described in Mt 26:6–13; Mk 14:3–9 and Jn 12:1- 8. According to Matthew the incident takes place at the house of Simon the Leper, where an
180 unknown woman pours expensive perfume on Jesus' head while he was eating and the apostles upbraid her for wasting so much money and Jesus tells them to leave the woman alone. Mark too agrees with Matthew. On the other hand according to John there was Lazarus and Martha at a feast and it is Mary - presumably Martha's sister - who brings the perfume. According to John Mary proceeds to pour the perfume on Jesus' feet and wipes it off with her hair and it is Judas alone that upbraids Mary. The Last Supper: is one of the few incidents common to all four gospels. It is described in Mt 26:26–30, Mk 14:21–22; Lk 22:7–14, 21–23; Jn 13:21–30. The scene is set at a house, which according to Matthew is found at Jesus' instructions as “Go into the city. Go to a man I know. Tell him that the teacher says, ‘The chosen time is near. I will have the Passover meal with my followers at your house.’ According to Mark it is “Go into the city. You will see a man carrying a jar of water. The man will come to you. Follow that man. That man will walk into a house." Luke too has much the same story as Mark. According to John, it is not a Passover meal. It is just a supper. Consequently, John describes only the washing of the apostles' feet at the last supper while the other evangelists are silent on the incident. Also the way to identify the betrayer also varies between John and the other evangelists. John claims he was present at the Last Supper. However he is silent on the breaking of bread and the institution of the Eucharist, the most important ceremony in Christianity. The Eucharist: One of the most telling aberrations in the Gospels has to do with the institution of the sacrament of the Eucharist. According to the synoptics it is at the last supper that Jesus institutes the sacrament of the Eucharist, the most important ceremony in Christendom. However John does not even mention the incident in which Jesus takes the bread and wine and says that they are his body and blood. According to John, the washing of the feet is the most important event at the Last Supper. John reports a number of times about Jesus saying in a general way that he is the bread of life and that he who eats that bread will live forever. The usage of the term 'bread' in these contexts is much like its usage when Jesus tells the tempter: "Man does not live by bread alone." As for wine being Jesus' blood, there is no word whatsoever about it in John. John uses the word wine only in the context of the miracle at Cana. John boasts that he is Jesus' favorite disciple and that he was personally present at the Last Supper. He should have known better than any Pope or Luther about the institution, if any, of such an important sacrament as the Eucharist at the Last Supper.. Jesus' Arrest: is described Mt:(Mt 26:47–56, Mk 14:43–50; Lk 22:47–53; Jn 18:3–12. In Matthew, Mark and Luke one of the followers draws his own sword and cuts off the ear of the High Priest's servant. . In John it is Peter that strikes the servant with his own sword. In Luke alone Jesus heals the servant. The Crucifixion: The crucifixion is another one of the few incidents common to all the four gospels. It is described in Mt 27:32–44; Mk 15:21–32; Lk 23:26–4 and ,Jn 17:19-27. The first three evangelists say that Simon carried the cross while John says that Jesus carried the cross. Mt 27:44 and Mk 15:32 say that the two robbers strung up on either side of Jesus hurled insults at Jesus. But according Lk 23:39-43 one of the thieves hurled insults at Jesus while the other asks Jesus to remember him and Jesus promises the good thief " … Today you will be with me in Paradise.” (How could Jesus have made this promise when he himself could not get to paradise the same day as there were three more days to resurrection?). John 19:18 simply says that they nailed two men on either side of Jesus. He does not say whether they were criminals or robbers. The first three evangelists do not mention any relatives of Jesus being present at the crucifixion. On the other hand according to John, "Jesus’ mother stood near his cross. His mother’s sister was also standing there with Mary the wife of Cleopas, and Mary of Magdala. Jesus saw his mother. He also saw the follower that he loved very much standing there. He said to his mother, “Dear woman, here is your son.” Then Jesus said to the follower, “Here is your mother.” So after that, this follower took Jesus’
181 mother to live in his home." Jesus' Resurrection: The resurrection is the true foundation on which Christianity, especially Paul’s version of it, is built. Let us see how the four Gospel Authors wrote about it. Who went to the tomb? Matt: Two women – Mary Magdalene and the other Mary. Mark: Three women – Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome. Luke: At least five women – Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James and the others with them. John: One woman – Mary Magdalene. When did they go to the tomb? Matt: At sundown Saturday evening. Mark: Early Sunday, just after sunrise. Luke: Early Sunday morning. John: Early Sunday, while it was still dark. Why did they go to the tomb? Matt: To look at the tomb - no anointing is mentioned. Mark: To anoint Jesus' body. Luke: They took spices and perfumes. John: Unstated, but since the body had already been generously anointed (John 19:39-40) and since Mary Magdalene was alone, it seems unlikely that she would go to anoint the body again. How many angels appeared to the women? Matt: One. Mark: One. Luke: Two. John: Two. Where were the angels? Matt: Sitting on the stone at the tomb's entrance. Mark: Sitting on the right side, inside the tomb. Luke: Standing beside the women inside the tomb. John: Sitting where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. What did the angels say to the women? Matt: "Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.' Now I have told you." Mark: "Do not be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.'" Luke: "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.'" John: "Woman, why are you crying?" Who else saw the empty tomb? Matt: Some guards. Mark: Nobody. Luke: "Some of our companions," including Peter. John: Peter and the beloved disciple, John. Did Peter go to the tomb before or after the vision of angels? Matt: no account Mark: no account Luke: After. John: Before. Did the women tell anyone about the angels? Matt: Unstated, but strongly implied; it was for telling the disciples that they ran from the tomb. Mark: No, they were frightened and said nothing to anyone. Luke: Yes, as explicitly stated twice. John: Unstated. To whom did the risen Jesus first appear? Matt: To Mary Magdalene and the other Mary as they ran from the tomb. Mark: To Mary Magdalene. Luke: Either to Cleopas and his companion on the way to Emmaus or to Simon; Jesus did not appear to the women. John: To Mary Magdalene as she wept at the tomb. What did Jesus say to Mary Magdalene? Matt: "Greetings. Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me." Mark: Unrecorded. Luke: no account. John: "Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?" ... "Mary." ... "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'" When did Jesus first appear to the apostles? Matt: Unstated, but enough time must be allowed to travel to Galilee; it could not have been on the first Sunday of the resurrection. Mark: Unstated. Luke: On the first Sunday of the resurrection, late in the evening. John: On the
182 evening of the first Sunday of the resurrection. Where did Jesus first appear to the apostles? Matt: On a mountain in Galilee. Mark: At a meal. Luke: In Jerusalem. John: In a locked house in Jerusalem. Who was present at the first appearance of Jesus to the apostles? Matt: All eleven apostles. Mark: The eleven apostles. Luke: The eleven apostles and those assembled with them, along with Cleopas and his traveling companion. John: Only ten of the apostles; Thomas was absent. How many appearances did the risen Jesus make? Matt: Two – to the women and on the Galilean mountain. Mark: Three – once to Mary Magdalene, again to the two walking in the country and the last time to the Eleven while they were eating, after which Jesus was taken up into heaven and sat at the right hand of God. Luke: Three – once to Cleopas and his companion on the way to Emmaus, once to Simon and finally to the disciples assembled in Jerusalem, after which Jesus was taken up into heaven. Later, when Luke wrote the book of Acts, he changed his story to include forty days of appearances (Acts 1:1-12). John: Four – first to Mary Magdalene, then to the disciples without Thomas, again to the disciples with Thomas and later to seven disciples, while fishing at the Sea of Galilee. How did the risen Jesus empower his disciples? Matt: He said, "Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." Mark: Those who believe would be accompanied by signs. Luke: He told them to remain in Jerusalem until they 'have been clothed with power from on high.' John: Jesus breathed on the disciples and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit..." Well it is a free for all. No wonder Thomas doubted, as becomes any intelligent man
Jesus' Miracles: Changing of water into wine at Cana is considered to be Jesus' first miracle and raising of the dead Lazarus to life is one of his major miracles. These miracles are reported only by John. The synoptics are silent on these important miracles. Other miracles in the gospels are Jesus walking on the water, feeding the crowds, calming the storms, the fig tree, curing the blind and lepers etc. There are differences in the narratives as well as in the context and sequences of their occurrences. Thus in Mt 15:28-32 there are two men with evil spirits whom Jesus cures whereas in Mk 5:1–20; Lk 8:26–39 there is only one man. There are also differences in the number of fish and bread that Jesus uses to feed the crowds and their sources.
Variations, contradictions and the errors of omission and commission are in evidence in every incident and message narrated in the gospels. It would take another gospel to list these errors and blunders. If coming from human sources some of these aberrations are pardonable though all of them cannot be easily written off. However coming from an infallible divine source, such differences are unpardonable. It would seem the Gospel has more to do with Babel than with a divine Bible. No wonder, they banned the other eighty - something gospels. I shudder to think of the bedlam it would have caused and the number of sects that would have sprouted up in Christianity if all the eighty-plus gospels were made canonical. Suppressing the eighty-plus gospels seems to have been one of the few inspired steps that the church has taken in its long history. However this does not seems to have prevented the proliferation of sects in Christianity, which came about by the differences in interpretation of the Gospels. Even where there were identical views on and interpretations of the Gospels, schisms proliferated on account of power struggles within the ecclesiastical hierarchy and even minor dogmatic differences were projected as the cause of schisms in the course of the power struggle for supremacy.
183 Thus we have seen that in religions there are entropy losses of communications not only in the revelations and the hearsay but also in the interpretations of the divine messages. The box below demonstrates how such entropy losses at each stage – revelation, its hearsay and its interpretation – created a veritable Babel of dogmas and their interpretations. There are over twenty thousand sects of so-called Christians as noted above, some of them holding opposing views or dogmas. The following are some of the names I garnered from the Internet Yahoo directory. African Methodist Episcopal, African Methodist Episcopal Zion, African Orthodox Church, American Baptist Churches USA, Anglican, Anglican Catholic Church, Antiochean Orthodox, Armenian Evangelical Church, Armenian Orthodox, Assemblies of God, Associated Gospel Churches of Canada, Association of Vineyard Churches, Baptist, Baptist Bible Fellowship, Branch Davidian, Brethren in Christ, Bruderhof Communities, Byzantine Catholic Church, Calvary Chapel, Calvinist, Catholic, Cell Church, Celtic Orthodox, Charismatic Episcopal Church, Christadelphian, Christian and Missionary Alliance, Christian Churches of God, Christian Identity, Christian Reformed Church, Christian Science, Church of God Anderson, Church of God, Church of God Seventh Day, Church of God in Christ, Church of God of Prophecy, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Church of Scotland, Church of North India, Church of South India, Church of the Brethren, Church of the Lutheran Brethren of America, Church of the Nazarene, Church of the New Jerusalem, Church of the United Brethren in Christ, Church Universal and Triumphant, Churches of Christ, Churches of God General Conference, Congregational Christian Churches, Coptic Orthodox, Cumberland Presbyterian Church, Disciples of Christ, Episcopal, Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, Evangelical Congregational Church, Evangelical Covenant Church, Evangelical Formosan Church, Evangelical Free Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church, Evangelical Methodist Church, Evangelical Presbyterian, Fellowship of Christian Assemblies, Fellowship of Grace Brethren, Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches, Free Church of Scotland, Free Methodist, Free Presbyterian, Free Will Baptist, Gnostic, Great Commission Association of Churches,, Greek Orthodox, Hutterian Brethren, Independent Fundamental Churches of America, Indian Orthodox, International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, International Churches of Christ, Jehovah's Witnesses, Living Church of God, Local Church, Lutheran, Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, Mar Thoma Syrian Church, Mennonite, Messianic Judaism, Methodist, Moravian Church, Nation of Yahweh, New Frontiers International, Old Catholic Church, Orthodox Church in America orthodox Presbyterian, Pentecostal, Plymouth Brethren, Presbyterian, Presbyterian Church USA, Presbyterian Church in America, Primitive Baptist, Protestant Reformed Church, Reformed, Reformed Baptist, Reformed Church in America, Reformed Church in the United States, Reformed Churches of Australia, Reformed Episcopal, Reformed Presbyterian Church, Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Revival Centres International, Romanian Orthodox, Rosicrucian, Russian Orthodox, Serbian Orthodox, Seventh Day Baptist, Seventh-day Adventist, Shaker, Society of Friends, Southern Baptist Convention, Spiritist, Syrian Orthodox, True and Living Church of Jesus Christ of Saints of the Last Days, Two-by-Twos, Unification Church, Unitarian-Universalism, United Church of Canada, United Church of Christ, United Church of God, United Free Church of Scotland, United Methodist Church, United Reformed Church, Uniting Church in Australia, Unity Church, Unity Fellowship Church, Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, Virtual Churches, Waldensian Church, Way International, Wesleyan, Wesleyan Methodist, Worldwide Church of God. Then there are the following sects or associations of sects, again collected from the web. Alabama Bible Methodist American Evangelical Christian Churches, Apostolic World Christian Fellowship, Bible Fellowship Church, Christ's Sanctified Holy Church, Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, Church of God International, Church of God The Eternal, Church of the
184 Firstborn, Church of the Living God, Church of the Leaf of the Tree of Life, Creation Day Adventists, Episcopal Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of America, Essene Nasarene Church of Mount Carmel, First Christian Fellowship of Eternal Sovereignty, Independent Church of Australia, Intercontinental Church of God, International Fellowship of Bible Churches, Jesus Fellowship, Living Word Fellowship, Maranatha Christian Fellowship, Missionary Church, New Apostolic, New Apostolic Church International, Praise Chapel Christian, Remnant Fellowship International Restored Church of God, United Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Churches, Yahweh's Restoration Ministry The above lists are by no means exhaustive; they represent just the tip of the iceberg, a bewildering, confusing hotchpotch of indeterminate dogmas and high-sounding words, which often mean nothing. Thus, there are numerous dogmas on the Trinity, Christ’s birth, nature, death, and resurrection, on his mother, his body vis-à-vis the Eucharist etc. Had it not been for his ascension, Jesus would have been turning over and over in his grave at this pandemonium going on in his name. Below are in detail, some of the dogmas, movements, schisms, personalities, theories and concepts, which impacted Christianity in its two thousand year history. We will see how irrational most of these ‘sacred’ dogmas and concepts are. Most of the issues involved will drive any sane mind crazy, with the banality of it all. It is a veritable Babel of ideas and dogmas like the Lilliputian theory on which end of the egg is to be broken. (Most of the data below are from ‘Hutchinson Dictionary of Ideas’. ‘The Encyclopedia Britannica,’ ‘The World Book Encyclopedia,’ and ‘The Encarta Encyclopedia’. Internet resources have also contributed.) Adoptionism: Three tenets, namely, 1. God is one, 2. Jesus is the Son of God and is to be worshipped and 3. The Son is not identical with the Father, formed the basis of the early church Credo. In 190 AD, Theodotus, a leather worker, relinquished the second of these tenets and taught Jesus was a mere man, endowed with divine power at his baptism and exalted to god’s right hand; because of his all-surpassing excellence. Theodotus’ followers were called Adoptionists. Adventism and End-of--World Predictions: There are almost as many end of the world myths as creation myths. There have also been countless end-of-the-world predictions and prophesies from time immemorial. However, this became strident with Christianity. Islam took up the story and endorsed it. According to the Bible and the Koran, Jesus will return at the end of the world as a judge and will put the righteous ones on his right hand side and the wicked ones on his left. Those on the right will be awarded heaven and all its pleasures whereas those on the left will be relegated to hell to burn for eternity. This idea as we have seen has evolved from Egyptian mythology. The phenomenon of the second coming of Christ is called Adventism, from advenire, Latin for 'arrival'. Isaiah 13:10 and 34:4 30 says, “At that time, there will be something in the sky that shows the Son of Man coming. All the people of the world will cry. All the people will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds in the sky. The Son of Man will come with power and great glory. The Son of Man will use a loud trumpet to send his angels all around the earth. The angels will gather his chosen people from every part of the earth." Among other things, the Advent is characterized by events such as 1. The war in Armageddon, Israel, where the forces of good will win over the forces of evil, 2. The arrival of the Antichrist, 3. A period of trials and tribulations, 4. Some natural disaster probably fire that will wipe out the world populations and 5. The Advent and the judgment. Jesus himself promoted the idea in Mt 16:28: "...there shall be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom." and in Mt 24:34, Jesus is recorded as saying: "...This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled." The other gospels also confirm this (Mk. 8:31–9:1; Lk. 9:22–27). In Jn 21:22 Jesus tells Peter and John, “Maybe I want him to live until I come …".insinuating that John would be around at the second
185 coming. Even if we take 120 years as the maximum longevity, the world should have ended by about 150 CE – give or take a decade or two -according to Jesus' own predictions. Paul of Tarsus, as becomes a true disciple, repeated Jesus' warning of the impending rapture and this too was predicted to occur in approximately a lifetime. Alas, it did not come about as the founders of Christianity – both presumed and real – had prophesied. Nonetheless, these prophesies might have played quite an important part in the success of early Christianity as they play important parts even in these modern times. Around 90 CE, Saint Clement predicted that the end was imminent. He went out into the desert along with a large following, to meet the Messiah. Alas! The Messiah failed to turn up. It was the turn of the Montanists next. They predicted the Advent to occur in the 2nd century CE. According to them, Jesus would return to establish the New Jerusalem in Pepuza in Asia Minor. Around 365 CE, a Hilary of Poitiers too proclaimed the Advent would take place that same year. Neither of these predictions had any outcome. Nonetheless, the dooms-day predictions did not end. Saint Martin of Tours, a student of Hilary predicted that it would be curtains for all come 400 CE. 500 CE paved the way for the millerianist phenomenon of round numbers. Hippolytus, the Antipope and an earlier Christian academic Sextus Julius Africanus predicted the end in 500 and such predictions recurred every five hundred years and became strident with every millennium. In 992 Good Friday and the Annunciation coincided and this had long been foretold in the book of Revelation as the event that would usher in the Antichrist. There were reports in Germany of a new sun in the north and of as many as three suns and three moons fighting. The year 1000 saw general panic in the name of the Advent and people donated all they had to the Church. The year came and went and the earth went on rotating in blissful ignorance of the divine prophesies and the Church failed to return the wealth donated to them. There was a terrible famine throughout Europe in 1005-1006 and this was construed as humankind's days being numbered. 1033 CE was estimated as the 1000th anniversary of Jesus' birth and this gave rise to predictions of the rapture among the believers and hope of the second coming. In 1147 a Gerard of Poehlde proposed that the millennium had actually started in 306 during Constantine's reign and that consequently the world's end would happen in 1306. In 1179, John of Toledo predicted the end during 1186. The alignment of certain planets was the basis of his predictions. Joachim of Fiore predicted in 1190 that the Antichrist was already in the world, and that King Richard of England would defeat him. Pope Innocent predicted the finale for 1284 as this was the 666th year of the founding of Islam. 1346 caused another spate of Adventist predictions as the black plague swept across Europe decimating its population by a third. Christians had killed many cats before that in the belief that cats were embodiments of witches. This might have caused the upsurge in rat population and the plague. Predictions of Armageddon followed regularly - in 1496, 1524 and 1533. Needless to say, there were reasons for all these predictions. Benjamin Keach, a 17th century Baptist, predicted the end of the world would come about 1689. William Whitson, British theologian and mathematician, predicted a great flood similar to Noah's starting the 13th of October 1736. Some Quakers earmarked 1792 for universal kingdom come. Charles Wesley, founder of Methodism, thought the end would come in 1794. In 1830 Margaret McDonald, a Christian prophetess, predicted that Robert Owen would be the Antichrist. Owen had helped found New Harmony, Indiana. In 1843, Joseph Smith (1805-1844), the founder of the Mormon movement, heard a voice while praying. He wrote, "I was once praying very earnestly to know the time of the coming of the Son of Man, when I heard a voice repeat the following: 'Joseph, my son, if thou livest until thou are eighty-five years old, thou shalt see the face of the Son of Man; therefore let this suffice, and trouble me no more on this matter.' I was left thus, without being able to decide whether this coming
186 referred to the beginning of the millennium or to some previous appearing, or whether I should die and thus see his face. I believe the coming of the Son of Man will not be any sooner than that time." Smith would have reached the age of 85 during 1890. Unfortunately, though Smith had been quite dead by then for almost a half century. William Miller, founder of the Millerite movement, predicted that Jesus would turn up on the 21st of March 1843. When this did not come about, Miller put off the date to the 22nd of October 1844. His credulous followers sold their property and possessions and quit their jobs. The day passed uneventfully. This came to be known as the "The Great Disappointment", not that it made any dent in Miller's following. 1850s saw Ellen White, founder of the Seven Day Adventists movement, making a series of predictions of the end of the world. All failed. She made one on 27th June 1850 that only a few months remained before the end. She quoted her angel as saying, 'Time is almost finished. Get ready, get ready, get ready.' Ellen White's last prediction put the end of the world for 1856. She said that she was shown in a vision the fate of believers who attended the 1856 Seventh Day Adventist conference. She wrote, "I was shown the company present at the Conference. Said the angel, 'Some food for worms, some subjects of the seven last plagues, some will be alive and remain upon the earth to be translated at the coming of Jesus." This meant that some of the attendees would die of normal diseases; some would die from plagues at the last days, others would still be alive when Jesus came. By the early 1900s, all those who attended the conference had passed away, leaving the Adventists in the dilemma of trying to figure out how to explain away such a prominent prophetic failure. Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon Church, attended a meeting of church leaders. He said that the meeting had been called because God had commanded it. He announced that Jesus would return within 56 years - i.e. before 15th of February 1891 Jehovah's Witnesses (Watchtower Bible and Tract Society) were the next to predict the end of days. From a prophecy in the book of Daniel, Chapter 4, they computed 1914 as the year for Armageddon. When 1914 passed without any incident they asserted that Jesus reign had already begun albeit invisibly. As per subsequent predictions by the Watchtower Society, we should have all ended up by 1915, 1918, 1920, 1925, 1941, 1975 or 1994, etc. Though all these yeas have elapsed uneventfully, the WTS has not given up. According to their latest prediction, it will be Armageddon, 6000 years from the date of Eve's birth though no one knows when Eve was born or created. Herbert W Armstrong, founder of the Worldwide Church of God, predicted that the Day of the Lord would happen sometime in 1936. When the prediction failed, he made another prediction that it would be all over by 1975. Similarly, a Bible teacher from Australia, Leonard Sale-Harrison, held a series of prophesy-conferences across North America in the 1930's. He predicted that the end of the world would come in 1940 or 1941. The state of Israel was founded in 1948 and some Christians believed that this event was the final call for Armageddon. The Branch Davidians of Waco Texas believed that they would be killed, resurrected and transferred to heaven by the 22nd of April. 1959. In 1974, Charles Meade, a pastor in Daleville, Indiana, predicted that the end of the world would occur during his lifetime. He was born ca 1927, so the end will probably come early in the 21st century. Luckily for him, he does not have to explain away any failed predictions until he is quite dead. After he is dead, no one can ask him for an explanation. In 1978, Chuck Smith, Pastor of Calvary Chapel in Cost Mesa, California, predicted the rapture in 1981. Came 1980 and Leland Jensen leader of a Baha'i World Faith group, predicted that a nuclear disaster would happen in 1980. This would be followed by two decades of conflict, ending in the establishment of God's Kingdom on earth.
187 Arnold Murray of the Shepherd's Chapel taught an anti-Trinitarian belief about God, and Christian Identity in the 1970's, and predicted that the Antichrist would appear before 1981. Rev. Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church also predicted that the Kingdom of Heaven would be established in that year i.e. 1981. His followers gathered together in a stadium in South Korea and waited futilely for the Advent. The Moonies reenacted whole thing again in 2000. Arnold Murray of the Shepherd's Chapel predicted that the war of Armageddon will start on the 8th or 9th of June 1985 in "a valley of the Alaskan peninsula." On the other hand, Moses David of The Children of God faith group predicted that the Battle of Armageddon would take place in 1986. Russia would defeat Israel and the United States. A worldwide Communist dictatorship would be established, forcing Christ to return to earth in 1993. Came the year 2000 and there was frenzy of end-of-the-world predictions. The prophets of doom had their reasons. One of the arguments was that if the year 2000 were divided by the number 3 the integer result would be 666, the Antichrist's number. (The integer rounding off ought to be 667. However, this did not bother the prophets or their dim-witted followers.) The year passed as any other year, not that it thwarted the predictors. I could go on ad-nauseam on the predictions and their failures from the past and the present. The predictions have been going on month after month and year after year. The pity is that there are takers out there for these doomsday prophesies though they too boast that they are rational human beings (The author is indebted to the website religioustolerance.org for the information in this article on 'end of the world' predictions. Exhaustive details on many of the end-of-the-world predictions can be found on their URL http://www.religioustolerance.org/end_wrld.htm) Adventism and Jesus' Teachings: Jesus came from a Jewish society, which was quite materialist in outlook and was based upon a philosophy of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Jews also considered marriage and rearing of children as god-given commandments. Against these precepts, Jesus remained a virgin all his life and preached the Utopian philosophy that we sell all we have and give it to the poor, and that we turn the right cheek when struck in the left. Were Jesus and his followers naïve in promoting such an impractical philosophy of life, which even the Church, the custodian of Jesus' teaching, finds it impossible to follow? (Instead, against the letter and spirit of Jesus' teachings, the Church has amassed infinite wealth and has not been averse to resorting to violence against all those who rubbed it the wrong way.) Jesus' Utopian philosophy makes sense only in the context of Adventism. Jesus and his followers firmly believed that the world would end in another fifty or hundred years and in such an eventuality marriage, economic activities and violence become superfluous. Obviously, impending Adventism and rapture hold the key to Jesus' Utopianism and its relevance. Jesus' philosophy is not aimed at our world of centuries and millennia of prosperity and development. Albigenses: Heretical group of Christians (associated with the Cathars) who flourished in South France near Albi and Toulouse during the 11th-13th centuries. They adopted the Manichean belief in the duality of good and evil and pictured Jesus as being a rebel against the cruelty of an omnipotent God. The Albigensians Showed a consistently anti-Catholic attitude with distinctive sacraments, especially the consolamentum or baptism of the spirit. An inquisition was initiated against the Albigensians in 1184 by Pope Lucicus III (although the Inquisition as we know it was not established until 1233); it was, however, ineffective and in 1208 a Crusade (1208-29) was launched against them under the elder Simon de Montfort. Thousands were killed before the movement was crushed in 1244. Amish: Christian group based on the Mennonite Church, found today in the USA and Canada and characterized by its rejection of modern and urban ways of life. The Amish make no use of modern
188 inventions and anyone marrying out of the community is cast out forever. They are also one of the pacifist churches, alongside the Quakers and Mennonites. When the Anabaptist movement of the 1520s and 1530s was suppressed, Anabaptist communities fled into remote areas. The Amish were a splinter movement from one such group, the Mennonites, formed in the late 17th century. They were named after their leader Jakob Ammann, who setstrict standards and rejected the Mennonite Church as too secular. They were persecuted until the early 19th century. Many migrated to North America. Anabaptists: Were one form of what has been called the radical wing of the Reformation of the 1500's. They believed that the church was a gathering of people united by faith, repentance, obedience and discipline. Thus, baptism as an entrance to this community should be limited to believers old enough to choose membership. People called them Anabaptists (rebaptizers) because they baptized adults who had been baptized as infants. The Anabaptists condemned government involvement in religion, which eventually led to the idea of the separation of church and state. Many Anabaptists were persecuted in both Protestant and Roman Catholic countries. Their movement was concentrated in Switzerland, southern Germany, Austria and the Netherlands. Their beliefs survive today in Mennonite and Hutterite religious communities Anglican Communion: Family of Christian churches including the Church of England, the US Episcopal Church and those holding the same essential doctrines, that is the Lambeth Quadrilateral 1888, Holy Scripture as the basis of all doctrine, the Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds, Holy Baptism and Holy Communion and the historic Episcopate. In England the two archbishops head the provinces of Canterbury and York, which are subdivided into bishoprics. The Church Assembly 1919 was replaced 1970 by a General Synod with three houses (bishops, other clergy and laity to regulate church matters subject to Parliament. A decennial Lambeth Conference (so called because the first was held there 1867), attended by bishops from all parts of the Anglican Communion, is presided over by the archbishop of Canterbury. it is not legislative but its decisions are often put into practice. In 1988 it passed a resolution seen as paving the way for the consecration of women bishops (the first was elected in the USA Sept 1988). Anglo-Catholicism: In the Anglican Church, the Catholic heritage of faith and liturgical practice, which was stressed by the founders of the Oxford movement. The term was first used in 1838 to describe the movement, which began in the wake of pressure from the more Protestant wing of the Church of England. Since Church of England voted in 1992 to ordain women as priests, some Anglo-Catholics have found it difficult to remain within the Church of England. Apostasy: Public rejection of one’s faith or taking up another faith. Julian the Apostate was a Roman emperor who rejected the growth of Christianity in the Empire and tried to restore the older religions of Rome and Greece. Technically the term is used by the Roman Catholic Church to denote either someone who totally defects from the faith or the abandonment of religious vows by a monk or nun. Arianism: system of Christian theology that denied the complete divinity of Jesus. It was founded about 310 by Arius. It was condemned as heretical at the Council of Nicaea in 325. Some 17th and 18th century theologians held Arian views akin to those of Unitarianism (that God is a single being and that there is no such thing as the Trinity). In 1979 the heresy again caused concern to the Vatican in the writings of such theologians as Edouard Schillebeeckx of the Netherlands. Semi-Arianism was a 4th-century Trinitarian heresy in the Christian church. Though it modified the extreme position of Arianism, it still fell short of the church's orthodox teaching that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are of the same substance. Arius held that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit were three separate essences (ousiai) or
189 substances (hypostaseis) and that the Son and Spirit derived their divinity from the Father, were created in time and were inferior to the Godhead. Semi-Arians, however, admitted that the Son was “like” (homoiousios) the Father but not of one substance (homoousios) with him. This doctrinal controversy, revolving around two words distinguished by a single iota (¹), gave rise to the popular expression, “It makes not one iota of difference”. To Orthodox Christians, however, the iota was of great importance. Both Arianism and semi-Arianism were condemned at the Council of Nicea (325). Arius: Egyptian priest whose ideas gave rise to Arianism. He was born in Libya and became a priest in Alexandria in 311. In 318 he was excommunicated and fled to Palestine, but his theology spread to such an extent that the emperor Constantine called a council at Nicea in 325 to resolve the question. Arius and his adherents were condemned and banished. Armenian Church: One of the oldest branches of the Christian faith. The earliest authentic accounts of the introduction of Christianity into Armenia date from the apostolic work of Saint Gregory the Illuminator, who, in 303, converted King Tiridates III and members of his court. Christianity was strengthened in Armenia by the translation of the Bible into the Armenian language by the Armenian monk and scholar Saint Mashtots (also called Mesrop or Mesrob). Following the ecclesiastical controversy concerning the twofold nature of Christ, the Armenian Christians refused to accept the decisions of the Council of Chalcedon and formed a separate church, sometimes referred to as the Gregorian church. In 1439 a union with the Roman Catholic Church was accepted by some members of the Armenian Church. This was later repudiated, but a group of Armenian Catholics accepts papal supremacy and the authority of the Catholic Armenian patriarchate of Sis or Cilicia (in Beirut, Lebanon), which was set up in 1742. They use an Armenian rite. The remaining larger portion of the Armenian Church is headed by its Catholicos, who resides at Echmiadzin, a monastery near Yerevan in Armenia. He is nominally in authority over the Armenian patriarchs of Jerusalem and Constantinople The monastery has been the ecclesiastical metropolis of the Armenian nation since the 4th century; it is said to be the oldest monastic foundation in the Christian world. The older branch of the Armenian Church in the United States, the Armenian Church of North America, has been under the jurisdiction of the See of Echmiadzin since 1887. In 1957 this diocese joined the National Council of Churches. In the early 1990s, the diocese reported about 14,000 confirmed members in 72 churches. Another diocese, which left the parent American body in 1932, recognized the authority of the See of Cilicia in 1957. Known as the Armenian Apostolic Church of America, it reported a confirmed membership of 200,000 in 28 churches in 1998. Assumption: Doctrine that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was taken (assumed) into heaven, body and soul, following the end of her life on Earth. The doctrine was declared dogma for Roman Catholics by Pope Pius XII in the apostolic constitution Munificentissimus Deus on Nov. 1, 1950. The Assumption is not considered a revealed doctrine among the Eastern Orthodox and is considered an obstacle to ecumenical dialogue by many Protestants. Athanasian Creed: One of the three ancient creeds of the Christian church. Mainly a definition of the Trinity and Incarnation, it was written many years after the death of Athanasius, but was attributed to him as the chief upholder of Trinitarian doctrine. Baptist: Member of any of several Protestant and evangelical Christian groups that practice baptism by immersion only upon profession of faith. Baptists seek their authority in the Bible. They originated among English Dissenters, who took refuge in the Netherlands in the early 17th century and spread by emigration and later missionary activity. Of the world total of approximately 31 million some 26.5 million are in the USA and 265,000 in the UK. Baptist Missionary Society, The: formed in 1792 pioneered the 19th century missionary
190 movement, which spread the Baptist creed through Europe and to British colonies. In 1905 the Baptist World Alliance was formed. British Israelism: The principal belief of Anglo British Israelism is that the British (and by extension Americans, Canadians, Australians and others) are the spiritual and literal descendants of the ancient Israelites. Anglo-Israelism has a long history. The Puritan colonists in America also viewed themselves as spiritual descendants of the ancient Israelites. However, it was not until 1840 that John Wilson published "Lectures on our Israelitish Origin" and first proclaimed that the British people were the actual genetic descendants of God's chosen people. Calvinism: Christian doctrine as interpreted by John Calvin and adopted in Scotland, parts of Switzerland and the Netherlands; by the Puritans in England and New England, USA; and by the subsequent Congregational and Presbyterian churches in the USA. Its central doctrine is predestination, under which certain souls (the elect) are predestined by God through the sacrifice of Jesus to salvation and the rest to damnation. Although Calvinism is rarely accepted today in its strictest interpretation, the 20th century has seen a neo-Calvinist revival through the work of Karl Barth. Cathar: Member of a religious group in medieval Europe, usually numbered among the Christian heretics. Influenced by Manichaeism, they started about the 10th century in the Balkans where they were called ‘Bogomils’; spread to South West Europe where they were often identified with the Albigenses and by the middle of the 14th century had been destroyed or driven underground by the Inquisition. The Cathars believed that this world is under the domination of Satan and men and women are the terrestrial embodiment of spirits who were inspired by him to revolt and were driven out of heaven. At death, the soul will be reincarnated unless it has been united through the Cathar faith with Christ. For someone who has become a Cathar death brings release, the Beatific Vision and immortality in Christ’s presence. Baptism with the spirit the consolamentum was the central rite, believed to remedy the disaster of the fall. The spirit received was the Paraclete, the Comforter and it was imparted by imposition of hands. The Believers or credentes, could approach God only through the Perfect (ordained priests), who were implicitly obeyed in everything and lived lives of the strictest self –denial and chastity. Chalcedon: Council of ecumenical council of the early Christian church, convoked in 451 by the Roman emperor Marcian and held at Chalcedon. The council, attended by over 500 bishops, resulted in the Definition of Chalcedon, an agreed doctrine for both the Eastern and Western churches. The council was assembled to repudiate the ideas of Eutyches on Jesus’ divine nature subsuming the human. It also rejected the Monophysite doctrine proposed that Jesus’ nature, which it was hoped would satisfy all factions; was one person in two natures, united ‘unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably’. Charismatic movement: Late 20th century movement within the Christian church that emphasizes the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the individual believer and in the life of the church. Cherub: Type of angel in Christian belief, usually depicted as a young child with wings. Cherubim form the second order of angels. Christian Endeavor: Association in evangelical Protestant Churches for strengthening spiritual life and promoting Christian activities among its members. The first Young People’s Society of Christian Endeavor was started in 1881 by Dr. Francis E. Clark in Portland, Maine. Within a few years the organization had become not only interdenominational but also international and a world union was formed in 1895, with Clark as president. Started primarily as a youth movement, the
191 association now includes all age groups and numbers in the millions. Many denominations are represented in the association’s membership Christians of Saint Thomas: Sect of Indian Christians on the Kerala Coast named after the apostle who is supposed to have carried his mission to India. In reality the Christians of Saint Thomas were established in the 5th century by Nestorians from Persia. They now form part of the Assyrian church and have their own Patriarch. Church in Wales: The Welsh Anglican Church, independent from the Church of England. The Welsh church became strongly Protestant in the 16th century, but in the 17th and 18th centuries declined as a result of being led by a succession of English appointed bishops. Disestablished by an act of Parliament 1920, with its endowments appropriated, the Church in Wales today comprises six dioceses (with bishops elected by an electoral college of clergy and lay people) with an archbishop elected from among the six bishops. Church of England: Established form of Christianity in England, member of the Anglican Communion. It was dissociated from the Roman Catholic Church 1534. There were approximately 1,100,000 regular worshippers in 1988. Two archbishops head the provinces of Canterbury and York, which are subdivided into bishoprics. The Church Assembly 1919 by a General Synod with three houses (bishops, other clergy and laity) to regulate church matters, subject to Parliament and the royal assent. A Lambeth Conference (first held in 1867), attended by Bishops from all parts of the Anglican Communion, is held every ten years and presided over in London by the archbishop of Canterbury. It is not legislative but its decision are often put into practice. The Church commissioners for England manage the assets of the church (in 1989 valued at $2.64 billon) and endowment of livings. The main branches, all products of the 19th century, are: the Evangelical or Low Church, which maintains the church’s protestant character; the Anglo-Catholic or High Church, which stresses continuity with the pre-Reformation church and is marked by ritualistic practices, the use of confession and maintenance of religious communities of both sexes; and the Liberal or Modernist movement, concerned with the reconciliation of the Church with modern thought. There is also the Pentecostal Charismatic movement, emphasizing spontaneity and speaking in tongues. Church of Scotland: established form of Christianity in Scotland, first recognized by the state in 1560. It is based on the Protestant doctrines of the reformer Calvin and governed on Presbyterian lines. The Church went through several periods of episcopacy in the 17th century and those who adhered to episcopacy after 1690 form the Episcopal Church of Scotland, an autonomous church in communion with the Church of England. In 1843 there was a split in Church of Scotland (the Disruption), in which almost a third of its ministers left and formed the Free Church of Scotland. Its membership in 1988 was about 850,000. Clement of Alexandria: Christian Theologian who lived around ca 150-211/216 CE. Clement was about thirty when the concept of a three-god triad, which later evolved into a trinity, was first postulated by Theophilos of Antioch. Clement tried to nip the new dogma in the bud, and wrote a vigorous defence of the old orthodoxy that Yahweh was Christianity's only god, and Jesus was Yahweh's anointed king. Clement was canonized before trinitarianism finally replaced monotheism as Christian orthodoxy. He has since been decanonized by Pope Clement VIII, since his teachings are out of favor with present day Catholic doctrines of a Trinity. Copt: Descendant of those Egyptians who adopted Christianity in the 1st century and refused to convert to Islam after the Arab conquest. They now form a small minority (about 5%) of Egypt’s population. Coptic is a member of the Hamito-Semitic language family. It is descended from the language of the ancient Egyptians and is the ritual language of the Coptic Christian church. It is written in the Greek alphabet with some additional characters derived from demotic script.
192 The head of the Coptic Church is the Patriarch of Alexandria. Since 1971, Shenouda III (1923- ), is the 117th Pope of Alexandria. Before the Arab conquest, a majority of Christian Egyptians had adopted Monophysite views (that Christ had ‘one nature’ rather than being both human and divine). When the Council of Chalcedon in 451 condemned this, they became schismatic and were persecuted by the orthodox party, to which they were opposed on nationalistic as well as religious grounds. They readily accepted Arab rule, but were later subjected to persecution. They are mainly town-dwellers, distinguishable in dress and customs from their Muslim compatriots. They rarely marry outside their own religion. Counter–Reformation movement: Initiated by the Catholic Church at the Council of Trent 1545- 63 to counter the spread of the Reformation. Extending into the 17th century, its dominant forces included the rise of the Jesuits as an educating and missionary group and the deployment of the Inquisition in Europe and the America. Creed: In general, any system of belief; in the Christian church the verbal confessions of faith expressing the accepted doctrines of the church. The different forms are the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed and the Athanasian Creed. The only creed recognized by the Orthodox Church is the Nicene Creed. The oldest is the Apostles’ Creed, which, though not the work of the apostles, was probably first formulated in the 2nd century. The full version of the Apostles’ Creed, as now used, first appeared about 750. The use of creeds as a mode of combating heresy was established by the appearance of the Nicene Creed, introduced by the Council of Nicea in 325 when Arianism was widespread, and it confirmed the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. The Nicene Creed used, today, is substantially the same as the version adopted at the church council in Constantinople in 381, with a Filioque clause added during the 5th and 8th centuries in the Western church. The Athanasian Creed is thought to be later in origin than the time of Athanasius (died in 373), although it represents his views in a detailed exposition of the doctrines of the Trinity and the incarnation. Some authorities suppose it to have been composed in the 8th or 9th century; but others place it as early as the 4th or 5th century. Defender of the Faith: Title bestowed by Pope Leo X on England's King Henry VIII for the latter’s staunch defense of Catholicism against Lutheran reformation. Later Henry VIII himself broke off with Catholicism and formed his own sect. Nevertheless, he retained the papal title. Deism: Belief in a supreme being; but the term usually refers to a movement of religious thought in the 17th and 18th centuries, characterized by the belief in a rational ‘religion of nature’ as opposed to the orthodox beliefs of Christianity. Deists believed that God is the source of natural law but does not intervene directly in the affairs of the world and that the only religious duty of humanity is to be virtuous. The father of English deism was Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1583-1648) and the chief exponents were John Toland (1670-1722) Anthony Collins (1676-1729) Mathew Tindal (1657- 1733), Thomas Woolston (1670-1733) and Thomas Chubb (1679-1747); in France, the writer Voltaire was the most prominent advocate of deism. In the USA, many of the country’s founding fathers, including Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, were essentially deists. Later, deism came to mean a belief in a personal deity who is distinct from the world and not intimately interested in its concerns. Docetism: An early Christian heresy, affirming that Jesus Christ had only an apparent body. The doctrine took various forms. Some proponents flatly denied any true humanity in Christ; some admitted his incarnation but not his sufferings, suggesting that he persuaded one of his followers - possibly Judas Iscariot or Simon of Cyrene - to take his place on the cross. Others ascribed to him a celestial body that was incapable of experiencing human miseries. This denial of the human reality of Christ stemmed from dualism, a philosophical doctrine
193 that viewed matter as evil. The Docetists, acknowledging that doctrine, concluded that God could not be associated with matter. They could not accept a literal interpretation of John 1:14 that the “Word became flesh.” Although Docetism is alluded to in the New Testament, it was not fully developed until the 2nd and 3rd centuries, when it found an ally in Gnosticism. It occasioned vigorous opposition by early Christian writers, beginning with Ignatius of Antioch and Irenaeus early in the 2nd century. Docetism was officially condemned at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. Dutch Reformed Church: The major Protestant Church in the Netherlands. In theology it follows Calvinism and in government it resembles Presbyterianism. It was first organized during the revolt of the Low Countries against Spanish rule in the 16th century. The Reformed Church spread wherever the Dutch colonized or emigrated, with major centers in Indonesia, the West Indies, Sri Lanka and South Africa, where the church gave theological support to apartheid in the 1930s and was expelled from the world community of Dutch Reformed Churches. Since the mid-1980s it has taken steps to distance itself from apartheid and to seek integration between the black and white churches that had been set up. Eastern Rite Churches: Eastern Christian churches consisting of five rites derived from ancient traditions of Christian churches in the East; they are now in communion with the Western church under the papacy. Distinct from both the Orthodox churches and the so-called Independent churches of the East, neither of which recognize papal primacy, the Eastern Rite churches are also sometimes known as Eastern Catholic or Uniate, churches. Today there are more than 10 million Eastern Catholics in the various rites. The five rites are the Byzantine, Alexandrian, Antiochian, Chaldean and Armenian. Within these rites are further subdivisions according to national or ethnic origins. The largest single group of Eastern Catholics is the Ukrainian church (Byzantine rite); it has about 7 million members, with approximately 70 percent in Ukraine. In the United States there are about 250,000 Ukrainian Catholics. A rite signifies more than a liturgy; it denotes distinctive traditions across a broad front. Noteworthy among these far Eastern Catholics, in contrast with those of the Roman rite, is a married clergy. Distinctive sacramental practices are also found, such as the immediate admission of baptized infants to confirmation and the Eucharist. Rather than Latin, the liturgical languages of the Eastern Rite churches are either those spoken by the original missionary founders or the present-day vernacular. The Second Vatican Council, in its Decree on the Catholic Eastern Churches, confirmed the pledge to preserve the Eastern rites intact. Such a reassurance was welcome because of the repeated criticism by these churches that their traditions were gradually being eroded by their communion with Rome. The effecting of this communion was a long process. After the Great Schism of 1054 between Eastern and Western Christians, some groups, such as the Maronites and Armenians, were united to Rome in the following century. The real history of the development of the Eastern rite churches, however, began in the 16th century. In 1596, by the Brest-Litovsk Union, two Ukrainian Orthodox bishops acknowledged the primacy of the Pope. Other groups followed, such as the Chaldeans (1681) and other churches of the Byzantine rite (the Ruthenians in 1592, the Romanians in 1698 and the Melkites in 1724). The last were the Malankarese (Antiochene rite) of India in 1930. As these various groups of Eastern Catholics grew, Rome established ecclesiastical hierarchies for them. The Eastern churches have their own canon law and are not bound by the Code of Canon Law of the Western church. Each church is governed by a patriarch (the patriarchs of Alexandria, Babylon and Cilicia and three patriarchs of Antioch). A patriarch with his synod has the highest authority within his jurisdiction and is even able to appoint bishops and create dioceses.
194 Nonetheless, the Sacred Congregation for the Oriental Churches, whose membership includes the Eastern Rite patriarchs, has general competence over the Eastern rites. Ebionite: Member of an early ascetic Essene sect of Jews who followed Jesus of Nazareth. The Ebionites were one of several such sects that originated in and around Palestine in the first centuries CE and included the Nazarenes and Elkasites. The name of the sect is from the Hebrew ebyonim or ebionim (“the poor”); it was not founded, as later Christian writers stated, by a certain Ebion. Little information exists on the Ebionites and the surviving accounts are subject to considerable debate. The first mention of the sect is in the works of the Christian theologian Saint Irenaeus, notably in his Adversus haereses (Against Heresies; c. 180); other sources include the writings of Origen and Saint Epiphanius of Constantia. The Ebionite movement may have arisen about the time of the destruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem (AD 70). Its members evidently left Palestine to avoid persecution and settled in Transjordan (notably at Pella) and Syria and were later known to be in Asia Minor and Egypt. The sect seems to have existed into the 4th century. Most of the features of Ebionite doctrine were anticipated in the teachings of the earlier Qumran sect, as revealed in the Dead Sea Scrolls. They believed in one God and taught that Jesus was the Messiah and was the true “prophet” mentioned in Deuteronomy 18:15. They rejected the Virgin Birth of Jesus, instead holding that he was the natural son of Joseph and Mary. The Ebionites believed Jesus became the Messiah because he obeyed the Jewish Law. They themselves faithfully followed the Law, although they removed what they regarded as interpolations in order to uphold their teachings, which included vegetarianism, holy poverty, ritual ablutions and the rejection of animal sacrifices. The Ebionites also held Jerusalem in great veneration. The early Ebionite literature is said to have resembled the Gospel According to Matthew, without the birth narrative. Evidently, they later found this unsatisfactory and developed their own literature - the Gospel of the Ebionites - although none of this text has survived. Encratites: member of an ascetic Christian sect led by Tatian, a 2nd-century Syrian rhetorician. The name derived from the group's doctrine of continence (Greek: enkrateia). The sect shunned marriage, the eating of flesh, and the drinking of intoxicating beverages, even substituting water or milk for wine in the Eucharist. Even the other Christians found them too ascetic. Evangelical Movement in Britain: A 19th century group that stressed basic Protestant beliefs and the message of the four Gospels. The movement was associated with Rev Charles Simeon (1783- 1836). It aimed to raise moral enthusiasm and ethical standards among Church of England clergy. Linked to the movement was the religious education provided by the Bible Society and William Wilberfoce’s campaign against the slave trade; it also attempted to improve the living conditions of the poor and Evangelicals carried out missionary work in India. Gnosticism: An esoteric cult of divine knowledge (a synthesis of Christianity, Greek philosophy, Hinduism, Buddhism and the mystery cults of the Mediterranean), which flourished during the 2nd and 3rd centuries and was a rival to and influence on, early Christianity. The medieval French Cathar heresy and the modern Mandaeans descend from Gnosticism. Fourth century codices, discovered in Egypt in the 1940s, and attributed to the Gnostics, include the Gospel of Saint Thomas (unconnected with the disciple) and the Gospel of Mary, probably originating about CE 135. Gnosticism envisaged the world as a series of emanations from the highest of several gods. The lowest emanation was an evil god (the demiurge) who created the material world as a prison for the divine sparks that dwell in human bodies. The Gnostics identified this evil creator with the God of the Old Testament and saw the Adam and Eve story and the ministry of Jesus as attempts to liberate humanity from his dominion, by imparting divine secret wisdom Great Schism: In European history, the period 1378-1417 in which rival Popes had seats in Rome and in Avignon; it ended with the election of Martin V during the Council of Constance 1414-17.
195 Henotikon: Declaration published by Roman emperor Zeno 482, aimed at reconciling warring theological factions within the early Christian church. It refuted the Council of Chalcedon of 451 and reaffirmed the heretical idea that Jesus was one person, not two. The declaration was not accepted by Rome and led to a complete split between Rome and Constantinople in 484-519. Hooper, John C. 1495-1555: English Protestant reformer and martyr. He adopted the views of Zwingli and was appointed bishop of Gloucester 1550. He was burned to death for heresy. Hugenot: French Protestant in the 16th century; the term referred mainly to Calvinists. Severely persecuted under Francis I and Henry II, the Huguenots survived both the attempts to exterminate them (the Massacre on Saint Bartholomew 24 Aug 1572) and the religious wars of the next 30 years. In 1598 Henry IV, himself formerly a Huguenot, granted them toleration under the Edict of Nantes. Louis XIV revoked the edict in 1685 and attempted to convert them by force. 400,000 of the Huguenots emigrated. Some of the nobles adopted Protestantism for political reasons, causing the civil wars in 1529-98. The Huguenots lost military power after the revolt at La Rochelle in 1627-29, but were still tolerated by the chief ministers Richelieu and Mazarin. Provoked by Louis XIV, the Huguenots left, taking their industrial skills with them; 40,000 settled in Britain. Many settled in North America, founding new towns. The Huguenot church was again legalized in France in 1802. Hutterites: Also called Hutterian Brethren, are members of a North American religious sect who believe in the common ownership of goods. They follow the example of the early Christians who "had all things common" (Acts 2:44). They do not believe in war or violence. They live in Bruderhofs (colonies) of about 85 persons. There are nearly 320 Bruderhofs in South Dakota, Montana and the prairie provinces of Canada. The Hutterites are farmers who lead simple lives. They meet daily for worship. A preacher and a Wirt (boss), who is the financial manager, head each colony. The group maintains its own kindergarten and school. The Hutterites originated in 1528 in Moravia as a branch of the Anabaptists. They were named after Jacob Hutter, who was their leader from 1533 until 1536. He was burned at the stake. The Hutterites were severely persecuted. After 1564, they prospered in Moravia. But in 1595, they were driven to nearby countries and to the Ukraine in the former Soviet Union. They settled in the United States in 1874. Many migrated to Canada in 1918. About 9,000 Hutterites live in the United States and 18,000 live in Canada. Iconoclasm: (Greek eikon, “image”; klaein, “to break”) Any movement against the religious use of images, especially the one that disturbed the Byzantine Empire in the 8th and 9th centuries. In 726 and 730 Emperor Leo III, the Isaurian, promulgated a decree forbidding the veneration of images. This decision was condemned by the pope, but the iconoclastic doctrine was rigorously enforced at Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) by Leo and even more by his son and successor Constantine V, who had the worship of images condemned as idolatry at the church council held in the suburban palace of Hieria in 754. The accession of Empress Irene brought with it a change in policy and the iconoclasts were condemned in turn at the second Council of Nicaea, in 787. A second period of iconoclasm was inaugurated under imperial auspices, in the first half of the 9th century; it ended with the final condemnation of iconoclasm at the Council of Orthodoxy, held in 843 under the patronage of Empress Theodora II. The most serious argument against iconoclasm formulated by John of Damascus, the Syrian theologian and Father of the Church, was that it denied one of the fundamental tenets of the Christian faith, the doctrine of the incarnation. According to the defenders of images, Christ's human birth had made possible his representations, which in some sense shared in the divinity of their prototype. The rejection of these images, therefore, automatically carried a repudiation of their cause.
196 In addition to its theological aspects, the iconoclastic movement seriously affected Byzantine art. Furthermore, the movement weakened the position of the empire by fomenting internal quarrels and splitting with the papacy, which began to abandon its Byzantine allegiance and seek alliance with the Franks. Despite its victory in the theological sphere, the Eastern Church was not successful in its challenge of imperial authority, even with John of Damascus's assertion that the emperor had no right to interfere in matters of faith. Both the introduction of iconoclasm and its condemnation at the councils of 787 and 843 were ultimately the result of imperial rather than ecclesiastical decisions, because the councils met only on imperial orders. Consequently, the authority of the emperor in both the spiritual and the secular spheres and his control of the church, emerged from the controversy perceptibly strengthened. Idolatry: In Christianity, Islam and Judaism, the turning away from God to other objects of religious devotion. In the Hebrew Bible it is specifically forbidden in the second of the Ten Commandments. Islam forbids the use of any pictures or other images of living beings, because of the danger of transferring admiration and wonder from God to the image or the artist. Christianity has interpreted the command variously at different times and places. Some groups, notably in certain Protestant churches, avoid all images, while others, such as the Roman Catholic and Orthodox, encourage the use of pictures and statues as pointers or icons, to God. Immaculate Conception: In the Roman Catholic Church, the belief that the Virgin Mary was, by a special act of grace, preserved free from original sin from the moment she was conceived. . This article of the Catholic faith was for centuries the subject of heated controversy, opposed by Saint Thomas Aquinas and other theologians, but generally accepted from about the 16th century. It became a dogma in 1854 under Pope Pius IX. Index Librorum Prohibitorum: the list of books formerly officially forbidden to members of the Roman Catholic Church. The process of condemning books and bringing the Index up to date was carried out by a congregation of cardinals, consulters and examiners from the 16th century until its abolition 1966. Inquisition: Tribunal of the Roman Catholic Church, established in 1233 to suppress heresy (dissenting views) originally by excommunication. Sentence was pronounced during a religious ceremony, the auto-da-fe. The Inquisition operated in France, Italy, Spain and the Holy Roman Empire and was especially active following the Reformation. It was later extended to the Americas. Its trials were conducted in secret, under torture and penalties ranged from fines, flogging and imprisonment, to death by burning. During the course of the Spanish Inquisition, until its abolition 1834, some 60,000 cases were tried. The Roman Inquisition was established 1542 to combat the growth of Protestantism. The Inquisition or Holy office (renamed Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of The Faith in 1965) still deals with ecclesiastical discipline. The Spanish inquisition was perhaps the most notorious. But the Portuguese were not far behind. Like the lamb that followed Mary in the nursery rhyme, wherever the Spanish and the Portuguese established their colonies the inquisitions were sure to go. The Inquisition in India was as notorious as any. Inquisition, Goan: It was Afonso de Albuquerque that established the first permanent Portuguese base in India at Goa in 1510. Saint Francis Xavier landed in Goa in 1541 for missionary work and soon after in 1545 he wrote to Rome to establish an inquisition in Goa. In 1560 the Viceroy's building was modified to become the palace of inquisition with residence if the inquisitor, torture cells, confinement cells, penitence cells etc - about 200 cells in all. The inquisition was often invested with more powers than the viceroy. Hindus and especially Brahmins that stood in the way of missionary work were the main targets of the Goan Inquisition. The Church of Saint Francis - now a cathedral - was one of the main venues for conducting the
197 autos-da-fes and the inquisitions. Alfredo De Mello in his 'Memoirs of Goa' Chapter 2 narrates “The words Auto da fé reverberated throughout Goa, reminiscent of the furies of Hell, which concept, incidentally does not exist in the Hindu pantheon. On April 1st 1650 for instance, four people were burnt to death. The next auto da fé was on December 14, 1653, when 18 were put to the flames, accused of the crime of heresy. And from the 8th April 1666 until the end of 1679 - during which period Dellon was tried - there were eight autos da fé, in which 1208 victims were sentenced. In November 22, 1711 another auto da fé took place involving 41 persons. Another milestone was on December 20, 1736, when the Inquisition burnt an entire family of Raaim, Salcete, destroying their house, putting salt on their land, and placing a stone padrao, which still existed in the place (at least in 1866)” It is pertinent to note here that the church has lost no opportunity to deride the injustice that prevailed in the first century Roman Empire. But the New Testament, both the gospels and the acts, testify to the fact that the accused were always given a hearing by the Romans. The Roman army even went to the extend of rescuing Paul from the crowds of Pharisees and Sadducees who would have pulled him apart (Acts Chapter 23,10). The Romans again sent a 200 strong posse of soldiers to rescue Paul, when they heard that the Jews had hatched a plot to kill Paul, when he was brought to trial. (Acts, Chapter 23, 23). But the inquisition never bothered with such trivial formalities as a decent hearing. The Bishops and priests, incarnations of the Pharisees and Sadducees conducted a pompous holy mass, delivered a pompous sermon, marched off their victims to a public place, tied them to a stake and set them on fire and it was Amen for the hapless victims. (See Auto-Da-Fe above) Much has been written, painted and sculpted on the passion of Christ and the agony his mother went through. But all these pale before the horrible torture and sufferings the victims of the inquisition were put through. And over a hundred thousand of them were thus disposed off by the inquisitions on flimsy grounds of witchcraft, heresy, blasphemy and for being practicing Jews. It may also be pertinent to note here that Jesus too was tried and crucified for the same crime that the inquisitors charged their victims with – blasphemy, a form of heresy. It would seem that the inquisition vindicated the Sanhedrin who tried Jesus and crucified him. Jacobite Church: An ancient Christian group, named for James (Iakub) Bar Adai, who, in Syria, led the Monophysite opposition (see Monophysitism) to the affirmation of the two natures of Christ by the Council of Chalcedon (451). Officially persecuted by the Roman Empire, the Monophysites received some sympathy from Empress Theodora, who in 543 arranged for the secret consecration of James as bishop of Edessa and as ecumenical metropolitan. This title implied that he assumed the task of perpetuating an initially illegal Monophysite hierarchy in Syria. Supported by a substantial part of the population, the Jacobite church survived Byzantine persecution, Muslim occupation and conquest by the Crusaders. During the medieval period, a number of Jacobites became well known in the Muslim world, particularly as medical doctors and historians. Headed by a patriarch of Antioch, who actually resides in Damascus, Syria, the church is sometimes designated as Syrian Orthodox. The term Jacobite is also applied to the ancient Christian church of Malabar, in India, which affiliated itself with the Syrian church in the 16th century; but is independent today. In Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, the Jacobite faithful number approximately 100,000. Small communities have been established in the U.S. Officially, the Jacobite church, maintaining its opposition to the Council of Chalcedon, confesses the “one divine-human nature” of Christ (Monophysitism). It is separated from both Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy but is in communion with the other Non-Chalcedonian or Oriental Orthodox, churches—the Armenian, the Coptic and the Ethiopian. It uses Syriac as its liturgical language and keeps the ancient liturgical tradition of the church of Antioch. Its entire membership in the Middle East speaks Arabic.
198 Jansenism; Christian teaching of Cornelius Jansen. Jansenists emphasized the predestinatory aspect of Saint Augustine of Hippo’s teaching that people are saved by God’s grace and not by their own will- power, because all spiritual initiatives are God’s. The Jesuits disagreed with this; because they believed their spiritual exercises trained the will to turn towards God. The philosopher Pascal and the theologian Antoine Arnauld who had links with the abbey of Port Royal were supporters of Jansenism. Jansenists were declared heretics in 1653 and excommunicated in 1719. Jehovah’s Witness: Member of a religious organization originating in the USA in 1872 under Charles Taze Russell (1852-1916). Jehovah’s Witnesses attach great importance to Christ’s second coming, which Russell predicted would occur 1914. Witnesses are expected to take part in house- to–house preaching; there are no clergy. Witnesses believe that after the second coming, the ensuing Armageddon and Last Judgment, which entail the destruction of all except the faithful, will give way to a Theocratic Kingdom. Earth will continue to exist as the home of humanity, apart from 144,000 chosen believers who will reign with Christ in heaven. Witnesses believe that they should not become involved in the affairs of this world and their tenets, involving rejection of obligation such as military service, have often brought them into conflict with authority. Because of a biblical injunction against eating blood, they will not give or receive blood transfusions. Adults are baptized by total immersion. The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society and the Watch Tower Students’ Association form part of the movement, which is believed to have about 6 million members worldwide in the 1990s. When Russell died 1916, he was succeeded by Joseph Rutherford (died in 1942). Lilith: Female demon of Jewish folklore; her name and personality are derived from the class of Mesopotamian demons called Lilû (feminine: Lilytu). In rabbinic literature Lilith is variously depicted as the mother of Adam's demonic offspring following his separation from Eve or as his first wife, who left him because of their incompatibility. Three angels tried in vain to force her return; the evil she threatened, especially against children, was said to be counteracted by the wearing of an amulet bearing the names of these angels. A cult associated with Lilith survived among some Jews as late as the 7th century CE. Lutheranism: Form of Protestant Christianity derived from the life and teaching of Martin Luther; it is sometimes called Evangelical to distinguish it from the other main branch of European Protestantism, the Reformed. The most generally accepted statement of Lutheranism is that of the Augsburg Confession 1530. But Luther’s Shorter Catechism also carries great weight. It is the largest Protestant body, including some 80 million faithful, of whom 40 million are in Germany, 19 million in Scandinavia, 8.5 million in the USA and Canada, with most of the remainder in central Europe. Lutheranism is the principal form of Protestantism in Germany and is the state religion of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland. The organization may be Episcopal (Germany, Sweden) or synodal (the Netherlands and USA): The Lutheran World Federation has its headquarters in Geneva. In the USA, Lutheranism is particularly strong in the Midwest, where several churches were originally founded by German and Scandinavian immigrants. Mandaean: Member of the only surviving Gnostic group of Christianity (see Gnosticism). The Mandaeans live near the Euphrates, South Iraq and their sacred book is the Ginza. The group claims descent from John the Baptist, but its incorporation of Christian, Hebrew and indigenous Persian traditions keeps its origins in dispute. Mennonite: Member of a Protestant Christian group originating as part of the Anabaptist movement in Zurich, Switzerland in 1523. Members refuse to hold civil office or do military service and reject infant baptism. They were named Mennonites after Menno Simons (1496-1559), leader of
199 a group in Holland. Persecution drove other groups to Russia and North America. When the Mennonites came under persecution, some settled in Germantown, Pennsylvania. The Hutterian Brethren (named after Jacob Hutter who died in 1536) hold substantially the same beliefs and Hutterian principles, which are the basis of the Bruderhof. Of the 600,000 Mennonites in the world, some 250,000 are in the USA. Methodism: Evangelical Protestant Christian movement that was founded by John Wesley 1739 within the Church of England, but became a separate body 1795. The Methodist Episcopal Church was founded in the USA in 1784. There are over 50 million Methodists worldwide. Methodist doctrines are contained in Wesley’s sermons and Notes on the New Testament. A series of doctrinal divisions in the early 19th century were reconciled by a conference in London in 1932 that brought Wesleyan Methodists, Primitive Methodists and United Methodists into the Methodist Church. The church government is Presbyterian in Britain and Episcopal in the USA. Supreme authority is vested in the annual conference (50% lay people); members are grouped under ‘class leaders’ and churches into ‘circuits’. Expansion in the 19th century in developing industrial areas enabled people to overcome economic depression or change by spiritual means. Its encouragement of thrift and simple living helped many to raise their economic status. Smaller Methodist groups such as the Primitive Methodists and the Methodist New Connexion provided leadership in early trade unionism, in disproportion to their size. Mainstream Wesleyans at first were politically conservative but identified increasingly with Gladstonian liberalism in the second half of the 19th century. Miller, William: 1782-1849.US religious leader. Ordained as a Baptist minister in 1833, Miller predicted that the Second Advent would occur in 1844. Many of his followers sold their property in expectation of the end of the world. Although Miller’s movement disbanded soon after, his teachings paved the way for later Adventist sects. Born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts and raised in New York, Miller later settled in Vermont. Convinced that the Second Coming of Jesus was imminent, he began to preach about the millennium. Modalists: Three tenets, namely, 1. God is one, 2. Jesus is the Son of God and is to be worshipped and 3. The Son is not identical with the Father, formed the basis of the early church Credo. Came a cleric by name Sabellius in 215 to Rome and he relinquished the third of these tenets and taught that Father and Son are but two designations of the one and the same person. His followers were called Modalists. Monarchianism: A Christian heresy that developed during the 2nd and 3rd centuries. It opposed the doctrine of an independent, personal subsistence of the Logos, affirmed the sole deity of God the Father and thus represented the extreme monotheistic view. Though it regarded Christ as Redeemer, it clung to the numerical unity of the Deity. Two types of Monarchianism developed: the Dynamic (or Adoptionist) and the Modalistic (or Sabellian). Dynamic Monarchianism held that Christ was a mere man, miraculously conceived, but constituted the Son of God simply by the infinitely high degree in which he had been filled with divine wisdom and power. This view was taught at Rome about the end of the 2nd century by Theodotus, who was excommunicated by Pope Victor. (See adoptionism above). It was taught somewhat later by Artemon, who was excommunicated by Pope Zephyrinus. About 260 it was again taught by Paul of Samosata. It is the belief of many modern Unitarians. Modalistic Monarchianism took exception to the “subordinationism” of some of the Church Fathers and maintained that the names Father and Son were only different designations of the same subject, the one God, who “with reference to the relations in which He had previously stood to the world is called the Father, but in reference to His appearance in humanity is called the Son.” It was taught by Praxeas, a priest from Asia Minor, in Rome c.206 and was opposed by Tertullian in the
200 tract Adversus Praxean (c. 213), an important contribution to the doctrine of the Trinity. Monophysite: Greek 'one-nature' member of a group of Christian heretics of the 5th-7th centuries who taught that Jesus had one nature, in opposition to the orthodox doctrine (laid down at the Council of Chalcedon 451) that he had two natures, the human and the divine. Monophysitism developed as a reaction to Nestorianism and led to the formal secession of the Coptic and Armenian churches from the rest of the Christian church. Monophysites survive today in Armenia, Syria and Egypt. Monothelite: Member of a group of Christian heretics of the 7th century, who sought to reconcile the orthodox and Monophysite theologies by maintaining that while Christ possessed two natures, he had only one will. Monothelitism was condemned as a heresy by the Third Council of Constantinople 680. Montanism: 2nd-century heretical movement. It was founded by the prophet Montanus in Phrygia, now part of Turkey. About 156, Montanus appeared in a small village, fell into a trance and began prophesying in what he claimed was the voice of the Holy Spirit. With two young women, Prisca and Maximilla, he traveled teaching his doctrine throughout Asia Minor. Montanism held that the Holy Spirit (or Paraclete) appeared through Montanus and his associates. Montanists taught that Christ's second coming was imminent and that those fallen from grace, could not be redeemed. Followers were instructed to seek-not flee-persecution and even martyrdom. Montanism found adherents at the time, when the state's opposition to Christianity was waning. The church was becoming a part, rather than a foe, of the contemporary world. Followers of Montanism shunned the secular, concentrating on preparations for Christ's return. About 177, church leaders, fearing the potentially divisive effects of the movement, excommunicated the Montanists. Thereafter a separate sect, Montanism reached a culmination in 3rd-century Carthage, where it was supported by the Roman theologian Tertullian. By the 6th century, Montanism had all but vanished. Moonites: Also called the Unification Church, officially the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, religious movement founded in 1954 by Korean writer and minister Sun Myung Moon. Moon is known as Reverend Moon to his followers, who are popularly called Moonies. Moon began his ecclesiastical career as a Presbyterian minister, but he was expelled from the denomination in 1948 for his unorthodox teachings. He established the Unification Church in 1954 after fleeing from North Korea to South Korea. In his book ‘The Divine Principle’ (1952), which he wrote after intensive study of the Bible, ancient Korean shamanism and Chinese tai ji lore, Moon maintained that through the agency of a so-called Lord and Lady of the Second Advent - that is, Moon and his wife - a holy kingdom would be established on the earth. Moon taught that the precursor of this kingdom was Jesus Christ, whose crucifixion prevented him from establishing his own kingdom through marriage and procreation. According to Moon, the Lord and Lady of the Second Advent were to fulfill Christ's purpose and save the world from the satanic influence of Communism. During the 1960s, Moon's business interests in Korea and Japan flourished and the Unification Church attracted thousands of followers in Korea and elsewhere despite controversy over its aggressive recruiting techniques. The church moved its headquarters to New York City in the early 1970s. In the mid-1990s the church claimed a membership of more than 2 million and its organization extended to about 150 countries. Moravian: Member of the Christian Protestant Moravian Brethren, an Episcopal church that grew out of the earlier Bohemian Brethren. It was established by the Lutheran Count Zinzendorf in Saxony 1722. Mormon or Latter-day Saint: Member of a Christian group, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-
201 day Saints, founded at Fayette, New York, USA in 1830 by Joseph Smith. According to Smith, Mormon was an ancient prophet in North America; his Book of Mormon is accepted by Mormons as part of the Christian scriptures. Smith said he found the book, inscribed on golden tablets, with the help of the angel Moroni in 1827 and that he translated it from ‘reformed Egyptian’ by using special spectacles. Later on the Rosetta stone was discovered which helped decipher the real Egyptian hieroglyphics and it was found that Smith’s book was another one of thousands of hoaxes down the ages perpetrated by charlatans on the gullible. And true to character, Smith’s gullible followers rationalized that Smith’s hoax was not literal but inspirational. They can rest assured that they are not alone in thus being hoaxed and yet not having the courage to call a divine spade a spade. Every believer in the world is in the same boat as the Mormons. Originally persecuted, the Mormons migrated west under Brigham Young’s leadership and prospered. Today the worldwide membership of the Mormon Church is about 6 million. The book of Mormon describes American Indians as descendants of ancient Hebrews who came to North America across the Pacific. Christ is said to have appeared to them after his ascension to establish his church in the New World. The Mormon Church claims to be a reestablishment of this pure original Christianity by divine intervention. The Church grew rapidly, especially in the Midwest, but its controversial doctrines and rumors that Smith had taken several wives (as allowed in the Old Testament) provoked persecution and Smith was killed in Illinois. Further settlements were rapidly established despite opposition and in 1847 Brigham Young led a Westward migration of most of the Church’s members to the Valley of The Great Salt Lake in what is now Utah. The Mormons under Young openly practiced polygamy, but the church repudiated the practice in 1890, following Congressional pressure related to the proposed admission of Utah as a state. Mormons hold several doctrines not held by other Christians, including the belief that God has a physical body and that human beings may become gods, just as God was once a man. They advocate a strict sexual morality, large families and respect for authority. They forbid the consumption of alcohol, coffee, tea and tobacco. Nestorianism: Christian doctrine held by the Syrian ecclesiastic Nestorius (died ca 457), patriarch of Constantinople in 428-431. He asserted that Jesus had two natures, human and divine. He was banished for maintaining that Mary was the mother of the man Jesus only and therefore should not be called the Mother of God. Today the Nestorian Church is found in small communities in Syria, Iraq, Iran and India. Nestorius and his followers fled from persecution in the Byzantine Empire after the Council of Ephesus in 431 banned him and his teachings. They migrated to Persia and from there launched one of the most significant missionary movements of the churches. By the end of the 8th century they had spread from Persia to China and from Central Asia through Afghanistan to India, probably becoming the most numerous church in the world by the 9th century. The Mongol invasions and the consolidation of Islam through these areas have now reduced this church to its present day numbers of around 100,000. New Church: Also called Swedenborgians. Its members are followers of the theology of Emanuel Swedenborg, the 18th-century Swedish scientist, philosopher and theologian. Swedenborg did not himself found a church, but he believed that his writings would be the basis of a “New Church,” which he related to the New Jerusalem mentioned in the biblical Book of Revelation. Shortly after Swedenborg's death, a group of his followers in England decided to establish a separate church. In 1788 the first building for New Church worship was opened in Great East Cheap, London and was rapidly followed by others. In 1789 a conference met in the London church and, except for 1794–1806 and 1809–14, the General Conference of the New Church has met annually. Nicene Creed: One of the fundamental creeds of Christianity, promulgated by the Council of Nicea
202 325. Old Catholic: One of various breakaway groups from Roman Catholicism – including those in Holland (such as the Church of Utrecht, who separated from Rome in 1724 after accusations of Jansenism) and groups in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Germany and Switzerland - who rejected the proclamation of papal infallibility of 1870. Old Catholic clergy are not celibate. The Old Catholic Church entered full communion with the Church of England in 1931. Anglican and Old Catholic bishops have joined in the consecration of new bishops so that their consecration can be traced back to the time of the old an undivided church. Ordination of Women: many protestant denominations, such as the Methodists and Baptists ordain women as ministers, as do many churches in the Anglican Communion. In 1988 the first female bishop was elected within the Anglican Communion (in Massachusetts, USA). The Anglican Church in England and Australia voted in favor of the ordination of women priests in Nov 1992. The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches refuse to ordain women. Orthodox Church: Or Eastern Orthodox Church or Greek Orthodox Church, a federation of self- governing Christian churches mainly found in Eastern and South Eastern Europe, the former USSR and parts of Asia. The center of worship is the Eucharist. There is a married clergy, except for bishops; The Immaculate Conception is not accepted. The highest rank in the church is that of Ecumenical Patriarch or Bishop of Istanbul. There are approximately 130 million adherents (1990). The church’s teaching is based on the Bible and the Nicene Creed (as modified by the Council of Constantinople 381) is the only confession of faith used. The celebration of the Eucharist has changed little since the 6th century. The ritual is elaborate and accompanied by singing in which both men and women take part, but no instrumental music is used. Besides the seven sacraments, the prayer book contains many other services for daily life. During the marriage service, the bride and groom are crowned. Its adherents include Greeks, Russians, Romanians, Serbians, Bulgarians, Georgians and Albanians. In the last 200 years the Orthodox Church has spread into China, Korea, Japan and the USA, as well as among the people of Siberia and central Asia. Some of the churches were founded by the apostles and their disciples; all conduct services in their own languages and follow their own customs and traditions, but are in full communion with one another. There are many monasteries, including several on Mount Athos in Greece, which has flourished since the 10th century. The senior church of Eastern Christendom is that of Constantinople (Istanbul). Pelagianism: In Christian theology, a rationalistic and naturalistic heretical doctrine concerning grace and morals, which emphasizes human free will as the decisive element in human perfectibility and minimizes or denies the need for divine grace and redemption. The doctrine was formulated by the Romano-British monk Pelagius, a man of considerable learning and austere moral character. About 390 he went to Rome, where, appalled by the lax morals of Roman Christians, he preached Christian asceticism and recruited many followers. His strict moral teaching had particular success in southern Italy and Sicily and was preached openly there until the death (circa 455) of his foremost disciple, Julian of Eclanum. Pelagius denied the existence of original sin and the need for infant baptism. He argued that the corruption of the human race is not inborn, but is due to bad example and habit and that the natural faculties of humanity were not adversely affected by Adam's fall. Human beings can lead lives of righteousness and thereby merit heaven by their own efforts. Pelagius asserted that true grace lies in the natural gifts of humanity, including free will, reason and conscience. He also recognized what he called external graces, including the Mosaic Law and the teaching and example of Christ, which stimulate the will from the outside but have no indwelling divine power. For Pelagius, faith and dogma hardly matter because the essence of religion is moral action. His belief in the moral perfectibility of humanity was evidently derived from Stoicism.
203 Pelagius settled in Palestine about 412 and enjoyed the support of John, bishop of Jerusalem. His views were popular in the East, especially among the Origenists (see Origen). Later, his disciples Celestius and Julian were welcomed in Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) by the patriarch Nestorius, who sympathized with their doctrine of the integrity and independence of the will (see Nestorianism). Starting in 412, Saint Augustine wrote a series of works in which he attacked the Pelagian doctrine of human moral autonomy and developed his own subtle formulation of the relation of human freedom to divine grace. As a result of Augustine's criticisms, Pelagius was accused of heresy, but he was acquitted at synods at Jerusalem and Diospolis. In 418, a council at Carthage condemned Pelagius and his followers. Soon afterward Pope Zosimus also condemned him. Nothing more is known of Pelagius after this time. Pentecostal Movement: Christian revivalist movement inspired by the baptism in the Holy Spirit with ‘speaking in tongues’ experienced by the apostles at the time of Pentecost. It represents a reaction against the rigid theology and formal worship of the traditional churches. Pentecostalists believe in the literal word of the Bible and in faith healing. It is an intensely missionary faith and recruitment has been rapid since the 1960s. Worldwide membership is estimated at mote than 25 million and it is the world’s fastest growing sector of Christianity. The Pentecostal movement dates from 4 April 1906 when members of the congregation of the Azusa Street Mission in Los Angeles Experienced ‘baptism in the Sprit’. From this phenomenon, it is sometimes also known as the Tongues movement. Its appeal was to the poor and those alienated by the formalism and modernist theology of established denominations. It combined a highly emotional, informal approach to worship with an ethical emphasis on sobriety and hard work and it became a way for poor and marginal groups to improve their economic and social status while retaining their religious faith. The services are informal, with gospel music and exclamations of ‘Hallelujah’. The movement spread and took hold in revivalist areas of Wales and N. England, but was less successful there than in Scandinavia, South America and South Africa. In the USA, where the largest grouping is the Assemblies of God, members of the movement total more than 0.5 million. It has been spoken of as the challenge to Roman Catholicism and traditional Protestantism. Plymouth Brethren: Fundamentalist Christian Protestant group, characterized by extreme simplicity of belief, founded in Dublin about 1827 by the Reverend John Nelson Darby (1800- 1882). The Plymouth Brethren have no ordained priesthood, affirming the ministry of all believers and maintain no church buildings. They hold prayer meetings and Bible study in members’ houses. An assembly of Brethren was held in Plymouth 1831 to celebrate the group’s arrival in England, but by 1848 the movement had split into ‘Open’ and ‘Closed’ Brethren. The latter refuse communion with those, not of their persuasion. A further subset of the Closed Brethren is the ‘Exclusive’ Brethren, who have strict rules regarding dress and conduct. In the UK, the Plymouth Brethren are mainly found in the fishing villages of NE Scotland. There are some 65,000 in the USA, divided into eight separate groups. Worldwide membership is about 1.5 million, including members in the Caribbean, India and Burma. Famous members include Dr.Barnado. Presbyterianism: System of Christian Protestant church government, expounded during the Reformation by John Calvin, which gives its name to the established Church of Scotland and is also practiced in England, Wales, Ireland, Switzerland, North America and elsewhere. There is no compulsory form of worship and each congregation is governed by presbyters or elders (ordained or lay), who are of equal rank, Congregations are grouped in presbyteries, synods and general assemblies. Process Theology: In Christianity, an attempt to absorb evolutionary ideas into theology and
204 philosophy by seeing God as part of a wider evolutionary drive towards greater fulfillment. It began in the early 20th century under religious philosophers A. N. Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne and has been influential in the USA and UK in presenting a positivist attitude to modern science, though this has often led to an uncritical acceptance of all scientific developments. Protestantism: One of the main divisions of Christianity, which emerged from Roman Catholicism at the Reformation. The chief denominations are the Anglican Communion (Episcopalian in the USA), Baptists, Lutherans, Methodists, Penetecostals and Presbyterians, with a total membership of about 300 million. Protestantism takes its name from the protest of Martin Luther and his supporters at the Diet of Spires in 1529 against the decision to reaffirm the edict of the Diet of Worms against the Reformation. The first conscious statement of Protestantism as a distinct movement was the Confession of Augsburg in 1530. The chief characteristics of original Protestantism are the acceptance of the Bible as the only source of truth, the universal priesthood of all believers and forgiveness of sins solely through faith in Jesus Christ. The Protestant church minimizes the liturgical aspects of Christianity and emphasizes the preaching and hearing of the word of God before sacramental faith and practice. The many interpretations of doctrine and practice are reflected in the various denominations. The ecumenical movement of the 20th century has unsuccessfully attempted to reunite various Protestant denominations and, to some extent, the Protestant churches and the Catholic Church. During the last 20 years there has been a worldwide upsurge in Christianity taking place largely outside the established church. Quakers: Byname of Friend, member of a Christian group (the Society of Friends or Friends church) that stresses the guidance of the Holy Spirit, that rejects outward rites and an ordained ministry and that has a long tradition of actively working for peace and opposing war. George Fox, founder of the society in England, recorded that in 1650 “Justice Bennet of Derby first called us Quakers because we bid them tremble at the word of God.” It is likely that the name originally derisive, was also used because many early Friends, like other religious enthusiasts, themselves trembled in their religious meetings and showed other physical manifestations of religious emotion. Despite early derisive use, Friends used the term of themselves in such phrases as “the people of God in scorn called Quakers.” No embarrassment is caused by using the term to or of Friends today. Raelians: Founded by the Claude Vorilon alias Raelian, a French, Journalist. Numbering about 55000 worldwide, they believe man came on this earth from another planet. They gained fame on December 28, 2002 by claiming to have brought out the first cloned baby. Rastafarianism: Religion originating in the West Indies, based on the ideas of Marcus Garvey, who called on black people to return to Africa and set up a black-governed country there. When Haile Selassie (Ras Tafari, ‘Lion of Judah’) was crowned emperor of Ethiopia in 1930, this was seen as a fulfillment of prophecy and some Rastafarians acknowledged him as an incarnation of God (Jah), others as a prophet. The use of ganja (marijuana) is a sacrament. There are no churches. There were about one million Rastafarians by 1990. Rastafarians identify themselves with the Chosen People, the Israelites, of the Bible. Ethiopia is seen as the Promised Land, while all countries outside Africa are Babylon, the place of exile. Many Rastafarians do not cut their hair, because of Biblical injunctions against this, but wear it instead in long dread locks, often covered in woolen hats in the Rastafarian colors of red, green and gold. Food laws are rather strict. The term I-atal is used for food as close as possible to its natural state. Medicines should be made from natural herbs. Meetings are held regularly for prayer, discussion and celebration and at intervals there is a large meeting or Nyabingi. Rastafarians use a distinct language, in particular using the term ‘I and I’ for ‘we’ to stress unity. Rerum Novarum: Encyclical letter on the working classes, written in 1891 by Pope Leo XIII in
205 response to the conditions arising from the Industrial Revolution. It condemned socialism as an infringement on the right of the individual to hold private property but advocated the idea of just wages and stated that the place of women was in the home. The principles of Catholic social teaching, which it sets out, have inspired debates and discussions ever since. Roman Catholicism: One of the main divisions of the Christian religion, separate from the Orthodox Church from 1054 and headed by the Pope.. Membership is about 585 million worldwide, concentrated in Europe, Latin America and the Philippines. The Protestant churches separated from the Catholic with the Reformation in the 16th century, to which the Counter-Reformation was the Catholic response. An attempt to update Catholic doctrines in the late 19th century was condemned by Pope Pius X in 1907 and more recent moves have been rejected by John Paul II. Doctrine: The focus of liturgical life is the Mass or Eucharist and attendance is obligatory on Sundays and Feasts of Obligation such as Christmas or Easter. Roman Catholic differ from the other Christian churches in that it acknowledges the supreme jurisdiction of the Pope, infallible when he speaks ex-cathedra (‘from the throne’); in the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception (which states that the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus, was conceived without the original sin, with which all other human beings are born); and in according a special place to the Virgin Mary. Organization: Since the Second Vatican Council 1962-66, major changes have taken place. They include the use of vernacular or everyday language instead of Latin in the liturgy and increased freedom amongst the religious and lay orders. The Pope has an Episcopal synod of 200 bishops elected by local hierarchies to collaborate in the government of the church. The priesthood is celibate and there is a strong emphasis on the monastic orders. Under John Paul II from 1978, power has been more centralized and bishops and cardinals have been chosen from the more traditionally minded clerics and from the Third World. Sabbatarianism: Belief held by some Protestant Christians in the strict observance of Sunday as the Sabbath, following the fourth commandment of the Bible. It began in the 17th century. Sabbatarianism has taken various forms, including an insistence on the Sabbath lasting a full 24 hours; prohibiting sports and games and the buying and selling of goods on the Sabbath; and ignoring public holidays when they fall on a Sunday. Salvation Army, The: Was founded by William Booth, with the assistance of his wife, Catherine Booth. Booth, a Methodist minister, began independent evangelistic work in Cornwall, England, in 1861. In 1865 he began his movement by holding outdoor meetings and revivals in tents and theaters in London. The movement was originally known as the East London Revival Society, shortly renamed the Christian Mission and finally in 1878 designated the Salvation Army. A military form of organization, with uniforms and other distinctive features, was adopted in the interest of a more effective “warfare against evil. On his death William Booth was succeeded by his son, Bramwell, as head of the organization; but in 1929 his removal was voted by the high council of the Army and Edward J. Higgins was elected to that post. Salvation Army work in the United States dates from 1880, when Commissioner George Railton and seven women workers from England founded a branch in Pennsylvania. In 1904, Evangeline Booth, daughter of the founder, was put in command of the work in the United States; in 1934 she became general of the International Salvation Army. Savonarola Girolamo: 1452-1498. Italian reformer, a Dominican friar and an eloquent preacher. His Crusade against political and religious corruption won him popular support and in 1494, he led a revolt in Florence that expelled the ruling Medici family and established a democratic republic. His denunciations of Pope Alexander VI led to his excommunication in 1497 and in 1498 he was arrested, tortured and burned for heresy. Sebellianism: Christian heresy that was a more developed and less naive form of Modalistic
206 Monarchianism (see Monarchianism); it was propounded by Sabellius (c. 217–c. 220), who was possibly a presbyter in Rome. Little is actually known of his life because the most detailed information about him was contained in the prejudiced reports of his contemporary, Hippolytus, an anti-Monarchian Roman theologian. In Rome there was an active struggle between the Monarchians or Modalists and those who affirmed permanent distinctions (“Persons”) within the Godhead. The Monarchians, in their concern for the divine monarchy (the absolute unity and indivisibility of God), denied that such distinctions were ultimate or permanent. Sabellius evidently taught that the Godhead is a monad, expressing itself in three operations: as Father, in creation; as Son, in redemption; and as Holy Spirit, in sanctification. Pope Calixtus was at first inclined to be sympathetic to Sabellius' teaching but later condemned it and excommunicated Sabellius. The heresy broke out again 30 years later in Libya and was opposed by Dionysius of Alexandria. In the 4th century, Arius accused his bishop of Sabellianism and throughout the Arian controversy this charge was leveled at the supporters of Nicene orthodoxy (those who accepted the doctrine of the Trinity set forth in the Nicene Creed), whose emphasis on the unity of substance of Father and Son was interpreted by Arians to mean that the orthodox denied any personal distinctions within the Godhead. About 375 the heresy was renewed at Neocaesarea and was attacked by Basil the Great. In Spain Priscillian seems to have enunciated a doctrine of the divine unity in Sabellian terms. At the time of the Reformation, Sabellianism was reformulated by Michael Servetus, a Spanish theologian and physician, to the effect that Christ and the Holy Spirit are merely representative forms of the one Godhead, the Father. In the 18th century, Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish mystical philosopher and scientist, also taught this doctrine, as did his disciples, who founded the New Church. Seventh Day Adventist or Adventist: Member of a Protestant church of the same name. It originated in the USA in the fervent expectation of Christ’s Second Coming or advent, and swept across New York State following William Miller’s prophecy that Christ would return on 22 Oct. 1844. When this failed to come to pass, a number of Millerites, as his followers were called, reinterpreted his prophetic speculations and continued to maintain that the millennium was imminent. Adventists observe Saturday as the Sabbath and emphasize healing and diet; many are vegetarians. The Seventh-Day Adventists have about five million members worldwide, of which 500,000 are in the USA. Shaker: Popular name for a member of the Christian group of the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing (an offshoot of the Quakers). This was founded by James and Jane Wardley in England about 1747 and taken to North America 1774 by Ann Lee (1736-84), the wife of a Manchester blacksmith, known as Mother Ann. She founded a colony in New York and eventually 18 colonies existed in several states. Separation from the world in self-regulating farm communities, prescribed modes of simple dress and living conditions, celibacy and faith healing characterized their way of life. The name was applied because of their ecstatic trembling and shaking during worship. Mrs. Lee held that God had appeared in his masculine aspect as Jesus and would appear a second time in a female aspect, which her followers identified with her. She held that sex is inherently sinful and Shakers were forbidden to marry. New members were supplied to the colonies through conversion and adopting orphans, but by the 20th century their numbers steadily declined and today there are only a few Shakers left. Shaker design became renowned for pleasing but austere simplicity. Socinianism: 17th-century Christian belief that rejects such traditional doctrines as the Trinity and original sin, named after Socinus, the Latinized name of Lelio Francesco Maria Sozzini (1525- 1562), an Italian Protestant theologian. It is an early form of Unitarianism.
207 His views on the nature of Christ were developed by his nephew, Fausto Paolo Sozzini (1539-1604), who also taught pacifist and anarchist doctrines akin to those of the 19th-century Russian novelist Tolstoy. Socinianism denies the divinity of Jesus but emphasizes his virtues. Torquemada, Tomas de: 1420-1498. A Roman Catholic priest, he was inquisitor-general (chief official) of the Spanish Inquisition for 15 years. During that time, 2,000 people were executed by the Inquisition for heresy (beliefs contrary to those of the Roman Catholic Church). Torquemada used the Inquisition for both religious and political reasons. He believed punishment of Christian heretics and non-Christians - chiefly Jews and Muslims - was the only way to achieve political unity in Spain. He was partly responsible for the royal edict of 1492 that expelled 200,000 Jews from Spain. Many people admired him, but feared his power. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain supported him. Torquemada was born in Valladolid, Spain. He became a friar in the Dominican monastery there and later was prior of the monastery of Santa Cruz, at Segovia, for 22 years. He served as confessor to Isabella after she became queen of Spain. Torquemada became an assistant to the inquisitors in 1482 and inquisitor-general for most Spanish lands in 1483. He laid down rules of procedure and established branches of the Inquisition in various cities. He retired to a Dominican monastery at Avila in 1496, but continued to direct the Inquisition until his death. Would you rather be in heaven with him or in hell with those whom he condemned to the flames? Unification Church or Moonies Church: Founded in Korea 1954 by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon. The number of members (often called ‘Moonies’) is about 200,000 worldwide. The theology unites Christian and Taoist ideas and is based on Moon’s book Divine Principle, which teaches that the original purpose of creation was to set up a perfect family, in a perfect relationship with God. (See Moonites above.) This was thwarted by the Fall of Man and history is seen as a continuous attempt to restore the original plan, now said to have found its fulfillment in Reverend and Mrs. Moon. The unification Church teaches that marriage is essential for spiritual fulfillment and marriage partners are sometimes chosen for members by Reverend Moon, although individuals are free to reject a chosen partner. Marriage, which takes the form of mass blessings by Reverend and Mrs. Moon, is the most important ritual of the church; it is preceded by the wine or engagement ceremony. In the 1970s, the Unification Church was criticized for its methods of recruitment and alleged ‘brainwashing’, as well as for its business, far-right political and journalistic activities. Unitarianism: Christian-derived group that rejects the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, asserts the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of humanity and gives a pre-eminent position to Jesus as a religious teacher, while denying his divinity. Unitarians believe in individual conscience and reason as a guide to right action, rejecting the doctrines of original sin, the atonement and eternal punishment. Unitarianism is widespread in England and North America. See also Arianism United Reformed Church: The name given in 1972 to the united church formed by the union of the Congregational Church in England and Wales and the Presbyterian Church of England. In 1981 the Reformed Association of Churches of Christ also joined the URC. Waldenses: Members of a Christian sect that grew out of a movement that opposed the ecclesiastical establishment. The sect originated with a wealthy French merchant, Peter Waldo, of Lyon, in the second half of the 12th century. Waldo's followers were known as the “poor men of Lyon.” Itinerant preachers under a vow of poverty, they taught a type of religion that has been erroneously associated with the teachings of the Cathari. Their simple, Bible-based preaching proved more popular than the more complex teachings of the Cathari. The archbishop of Lyon vainly forbade them to preach. They were later excommunicated and persecuted along with the
208 Albigenses in southern France. The Waldenses spread through Europe, but a conspicuous group settled in secluded areas in the Cottian Alps, a range that now marks the border between France and Italy. The areas are still known today as the Waldensian Valleys. After the Albigenses were crushed, the Waldenses became the victims of the Inquisition in France. In 1487 Pope Innocent VIII organized a crusade against them in Dauphiné and Savoy (both now part of France). Many Waldenses took refuge in Switzerland and Germany, merging gradually with the Bohemian Brethren. The group became openly Calvinistic during the Reformation. In 1535 they paid for the publication in Switzerland of the first French Protestant version of the Bible, prepared by a French Calvinist scholar, Pierre Robert Olivétan. Persecution was renewed in Piedmont (Piemonte) in the middle of the 17th century and the Waldenses did not achieve full civil and religious liberty in Italy until 1848, under the Sardinian king Charles Albert. In 1855 they founded a school of theology in Torre Pellice, in the province of Turin, their headquarters in modern times. The school was moved to Florence in 1860 and to Rome in 1922. The Waldenses had 22,000 members throughout Italy in the late 1990s, in South America about 14,000. Waldenses are organized into churches in Argentina and Uruguay. Early colonies of Waldensian refugees were established in Delaware and on Staten Island (New York) in the 17th century. A new wave of immigrants in the late 19th century resulted in the foundation of several Waldensian congregations in the U.S., including those of New York City; Chicago; Valdese, North Carolina; and Monett, Missouri. By the 1970s most of these had merged with the Presbyterian church, forming The Waldensian Presbyterian congregations. World Council of Churches (WCC): International organization, aiming to bring together diverse movements within the Christian church. Established 1945, it has a membership of more than 100 countries and more than 300 churches; headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. The supreme governing body, the assembly, meets every seven or eight years to frame policy. A 150-member central committee meets once a year and a 22-member executive committee twice a year.
Islam seems to have been comparatively free from a proliferation of hearsay ‘gospels’ as Christianity is. There is only one Koran, which does not seem to offer any scope for proliferations of hearsay accounts. However this has not prevented Islam too from splintering into sects. Though the first bifurcation of Islam into Sunnis and Shiites was over the issue of succession to Muhammad, both sects further split up into subsects over dogmas and doctrines. Some such dogmatic differences within Islam developed to such an extend that some sects teach that Ali – Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law- was the real Prophet and that Muhammad usurped the prophethood from Ali with the connivance of Angel Gabriel (Gibreel in the Koran). They claim Gabriel betrayed both God and Ali by announcing the prophethood to Mohammad instead of to Ali as God had commanded Gabriel. Below are some aspects of Islam and the entropy losses in the religion. Abu Hanifah Al–Unman: ca.700-780. Sunni religious leader and jurist. He was the founder of the Hannifin School; the earliest school of Islamic law, which dominates Turkey and India. He was born in Kula, Iraq and died in Baghdad. Abu Zayd, Nasr Hamid: Was born in Tanta, Egypt, in the Nile Delta on Oct. 7, 1943. From his studies Abu Zayd realized the importance of socio-cultural factors in the interpretation of the Koran and took the point that interpretation is human, not divine, into his own beliefs. Abu Zayd observed how Islam was being interpreted by fundamentalists in Egypt and elsewhere in ways that served their political ends, a position he opposed in his 1992 book Naqd al-khitab al-dini (“Critique of Religious Discourse”). When in that same year he applied for promotion to full professorship at Cairo University, the tenure committee split over the issue. One of Abu Zayd's colleagues resorted to the pulpit of a mosque in Cairo to denounce him as an apostate for his writings. The Abu Zayd case became a cause célèbre among Muslim fundamentalists and even the newspaper of the ruling
209 National Democratic Party called for his expulsion from the university and execution as a heretic. On June 14, 1995, a Cairo court ruled that Abu Zayd had to divorce his wife, Ibtihal Yunis, a teacher of French culture at Cairo University, because he was a heretic and therefore a non-Muslim and a Muslim woman could not be married to a non-Muslim man. The Court of Cassation upheld the ruling in 1996. Fearful for their lives, the couple fled Egypt and settled in The Netherlands. Ahamadiya: Islamic religious movement founded by Mirza Ghulamahmad (1839-1908). His followers reject the doctrine that Muhammad was the last of the prophets and accept Ahmad’s claim to be the Mahdi and Promised Messiah. In 1974 the Ahmadis were denounced as non-Muslims by other Muslims. They are also said to believe that Jesus died and that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was an incarnation of Jesus Alawi: A small branch of Islam that broke away from the Shiites in the Ninth Century under the leadership of Ibn Nucair Namin Abdi. Almost exclusively found on the Syrian coast plains, the Alawi have 1.5 million members including Syrian President Hafez Assad and his family. Ali: ca 600-661. Cousin and son-in-law of the prophet Muhammad , one of the first to believe in Islam and one of Muhammad ’s closest friends and supporters. Ali married Muhammad ’s daughter Fathima, with whom he had three sons: Hassan, Hussain and Muhsin. In 656 Ali became Caliph with the support, among many others, of the murderers of the third Caliph, Al Uthman. Ayesha the daughter of Abu Bakr, the first Caliph and the favorite wife of Muhammad , opposed Ali's succession tooth and nail and so did the supporters of Al Uthman. Ali was murdered in 661, and Muawiyah, his chief opponent, became Caliph. Ali's son, Husayn, later refused to recognize the legitimacy of Muawiyah's son and successor as Caliph. The Muslims of the Shiite-dominated town of Kufah in Iraq, Ali's former capital, invited Husayn to become Caliph. The Muslims in Iraq generally failed to support Husayn, however, and he and his small band of followers were cut down (680) by the governor of Iraq's troops near Kufah at the Battle of Karbala. Karbala is now one of the most important places of pilgrimage for Shiites. Allahu Akbar: I shall always remember that morning of the 12th of May 2004, when that video clip appeared in all television channels the world over. Nick Berg the twenty-six year old American sat facing the camera in a rundown room in Iraq. He wore an orange dress and his hands were probably tied behind him. Five huge hooded men were lined up behind him, the tallest to the left of the camera and the shortest to the right. The one in the middle was reading out a minute-long message from a piece of paper in a loud and staccato voice. Nick looked composed and obviously he did not have a clue to the meaning of what was being read out in Arabic. The reading done, the five pounced on the American, pulled him to the ground, and began slitting his throat, all the time shouting “Allahu Akbar." The American struggled like any animal, which was having its throat being slit and then lay still. I thought it was only an act for the cameras until they held up the severed head before the single camera. Allahu Akbar, God is great. He is indeed and the cry has meant the death knell for hundreds of thousands of innocents like Nick, down the ages, ever since Muhammad and his followers used the cry for the first time as they fought the Quereysh at Badr Alyaiyya: Shiite sect not only believes that Ali is God, but also maintain that God sent Muhammad to proclaim his divine message to mankind; but that Muhammad instead claimed the prophethood for himself. Assassins: Order of the militant offshoot of the Islamic Isma’ili sect 1089-1256, founded by Hassan Sabah. Active in Syria and Persia, they assassinated high officials in every Muslim town to further their extremist political ends. Their headquarters from 1090 was the Alamut cliff-top fortress in the Elburz Mountains, NW Iran. Their leader, Hassan Sabah, became a missionary and rebel against the Seljuk Empire following his conversion to the sect. As grand master of the Assassins, he ran the order with strict asceticism. The assassins were members of a suicide squad; they remained at the scene of the crime
210 to be martyred for their belief. Their enemies called them Hashishiyun or smokers of hashish and the English word "assassin” is but an aberration of Hashishiyun. Princes, viziers, and also Crusaders were among their victims. Hassan was a scholar and Alamut, held one of the largest libraries of the time. Ayesha or Aisha: ca 614-78 Favorite wife of the Prophet Muhammad. After the death of his first wife Khadija, Muhammad took many wives and concubines. Ayesha was one of them and Muhammad married her in order to strengthen ties with her father, Abu Bakr, his chief adviser, Ayesha was about nine years old and Muhammad was fifty-three at the time of marriage. Even after subsequent marriages of the Prophet, Ayesha is said to have remained devoted to him; she is known among Muslims as Mother of the Believers. Hadhrat Ayesha was jealous not only of those wives of Muhammad who were living at the same time and in the same house as she was, but also of a wife who was long since dead - Khadija. Indeed, she was more jealous of Khadija, the dead wife, than she was of any of her living co-wives. She was so jealous of Khadija that she reserved her choicest insults for her, whenever the Prophet spoke highly of her. The fact that Ayesha was childless only added fuel to the fire. Ayesha transferred her hatred for Khadija onto Fatima, Muhammad’s daughter by Khadija, and to her husband Ali. Ayesha was often livid with rage at the Prophet’s fondness for Fatima and her toddlers, Hassan and Hussein. The Prophet had to grin and bear it, as his links with her father Abu Bakr were too strong to be ignored. After the death of Muhammad in 632, Ayesha, a childless widow of 18, helped her father become the first Caliph or ruler of the Muslims. She remained politically inactive during his Caliphate (632-34), but she later opposed the succession of Ali as fourth Caliph (656-61) and incited an unsuccessful revolt against him, but was defeated in the Battle of the Camel. The engagement derived its name from the fierce fighting that centered around the camel upon which Ayesha was mounted. Captured, she was allowed to live quietly in Medina. Bab: The name assumed by Mizra Ali Muhammad , 1819-1850, Persian religious leader, born in Shiraz, founder of Babism, an offshoot of Islam. In 1844 he proclaimed that he was a gateway to the Hidden Imam, a new messenger of Allah who was to come. He gained a large following, whose activities caused the Persian authorities to fear a rebellion and so the Babbists were persecuted. The Bab was executed for heresy. Babism: Religious movement founded during the 1840s by Mirza Ali Muhammad (‘the Bab’). An offshoot of Islam, its main difference lies in the belief that Muhammad was not the last of the prophets. The movement split into two groups after the death of the Bab; Baha’ullah, the leader of one of these groups, founded the Baha’i faith. Baha’i: Religion founded in the 19th century from a Muslim splinter group, Babism, by the Persian Baha’ullah. His message in essence was that all great religious leaders are manifestations of the unknowable God and all scriptures are sacred. There is no priesthood: all Bahais are expected to teach and to work towards world unification. There are about 3.5 million Bahais worldwide. Great stress is laid on equality regardless of religion, race or gender. Drugs and alcohol are forbidden, as is celibacy. Marriage is strongly encouraged; there is no arranged marriage, but parental approval must be given. A Bahai is expected to pray daily, but there is no set prayer. From 2-20 March, adults under 70 fast from sunrise to sunset. Administration is carried out by an elected body, the Universal House of Justice. Baha’ullah: Title of Mizra Hosein Ali 1817-1892. Persian founder of the Baha’i religion. Baha’ullah, ‘God’s Glory', proclaimed himself as the prophet the Bab had foretold. Batinis: See Ismailis below Bohras: An Ismaili sect found mainly in India, Iran and Pakistan. See Ismailis below for full details.
211 Buraq: In Islamic tradition, a creature that is said to have transported Prophet Muhammad to heaven. Described as “a white animal, half-mule, half-donkey, with wings on its sides . . . ,” Buraq was originally introduced into the story of Muhammad 's night journey (isra) from Mecca to Jerusalem and back, thus explaining how the journey between the cities could have been completed in a single night. One wonders why the omnipotent required a queer crossbreed to transport his prophet. Caliphs, struggle for leadership: On Muhammad 's death, Abu Bakr became the first Caliph, with the aid of Al Umar who eventually became the second Caliph. But they were not of the house of Hashim, which from the outset, felt cheated of its rights. Ali, Muhammad 's stepbrother and son-in- law, became the focus of legitimist claims to succeed the Prophet. But Al Uthman who traced his lineage to both the Umayyah and Hashim became the Third Caliph. But Al Uthman was accused of diverting property, revenues, and booty to his Qureysh relatives. Al Uthman was subsequently murdered at Medina by opponents from Egypt. Ali was proclaimed Caliph by the Ansar, but he lost the political battle with Al Uthman's powerful relative Muawiyah, governor of Syria, who demanded retaliation against the murderers. Ali was later murdered by a Kharijite, a member of a dissident group. Ali had quit Medina for Iraq, and the political power centre of Islam left the peninsula, never to return. Ali's posterity, however, played a key role in subsequent Arabian history. Dervish: In Iran and Turkey, a religious mendicant; throughout the rest of Islam a member of an Islamic religious brotherhood, not necessarily mendicant in character. The Arabic equivalent is fakir. There are various orders of dervishes, each with its rule and special rituals. The whirling dervishes claim close communion with the deity through ecstatic dancing; the howling dervishes gash themselves with knives to demonstrate the miraculous feats possible to those who trust in Allah. Druse or Druze: Religious group in the Middle East of around 300,000 people. It began as a branch of Shi’ite Islam, based on a belief in the divinity of the sixth Fatimid Caliph, al–Hakim (996-1021) and that he will return at the end of time. Their particular doctrines are kept secret, even from the majority of members. The Druse group was founded in Egypt in the 11th century and then fled to Palestine to avoid persecution. Today they occupy the areas of Syria, Lebanon and Israel. Fatima, The “Shining One”: Also called az-Zahra, born ca 605 at Mecca, and died 633 at Medina. She was the daughter of the prophet by Khadija, his first wife. Though the prophet had other sons and daughters, they had all died young or failed to produce a long line of descendants. Fatima alone was left to carry forward the Prophet’s blood lineage. Fatima was with the Prophet when he fled to Medina and there she married Ali, the Prophet’s cousin. Though the marriage did not get on well at first, the Prophet was able to reconcile them. She was with the Prophet on his deathbed and nursed him devotedly. Fatima was not on the best of terms with Ayesha and her father Abu Bakr. The relationship queered after Abu Bakr became the first Caliph against the claims of Ali. She also felt cheated by Abu Bakr, of property, which she considered the Prophet had left her. It is said she refused to talk to Abu Bakr till the end of her days six months later. Fatima is accorded a position of prominence in Islam, especially in the Shiite section, and this position is comparable to that of Mary in Christendom. She has been accorded a special position and legendary powers totally out of tune with her real life. Fatwa: In Islamic law, an authoritative legal opinion on a point of doctrine. In 1989 a fatwa calling for the death of English novelist Salman Rushdie was made by the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, following the publication of Rushdie’s controversial and allegedly blasphemous book The Satanic Verses Five pillars of Islam: The five duties required of every Muslim: affirming that Allah is the one God
212 and Muhammad is his prophet; daily prayer or salat; giving alms or zakat; fasting during the month of Ramadan; and, if not prevented by ill health or poverty, the hajj or pilgrimage to Mecca, once in a lifetime. Ghulat: Shiite sect, which attributes deity to Ali. Their most fundamental of beliefs is that Ali is God. "They believe in a trinity - probably the notion is borrowed from Christianity - consisting of God, Muhammad and Ali as composite, which they claim to be the one person." The Ghulat sect also ascribe to Ali divine attributes such as the creation of the world and miracles such as that of speaking in the cradle like Jesus. "Muhammad who had not yet received God’s revelation went to see the new born child, (Ali). Ali spoke reciting from the Koran 23: 1-10, where God says, 'Successful are those believers who humble themselves in their prayers ..." Muhammad responded, 'Surely the believers have become successful through you´. Hadith: Collection of the teachings of Muhammad and stories about his life, regarded by Muslims as a guide, second only to the Koran . The teachings were at first transmitted orally, but this led to a large number of Hadith whose origin was in doubt. The six canonical Sunni collections of Hadith, which date from the 9th century, and the corresponding Shiite collections of the 10th and 11th centuries delineate the various relationships among individuals and between the individual and God. Hassan Eldest: Grandson of the prophet Muhammad . He was the son of Ali bin Abu Talib and Muhammad ’s daughter Fatima. He was Caliph for six months in 661 CE before resigning. It is through Hassan and his brother Hussain that the descendants of the prophet trace their lineage. Houri: Also spelled huri, Arabic Hawra, plural Hurin, a beautiful maiden who awaits the devout Muslims in paradise. The Arabic word Hawra signifies the contrast of the clear white of the eye to the blackness of the iris. There are numerous references to the Houri in the Koran describing them as “purified wives” and “spotless virgins.” Tradition elaborated on the sensual image of the Houri and defined some of her functions; on entering paradise, for example, the believer is presented with a large number of Houris, with each of whom he may cohabit once for each day if he has fasted in Ramadan and once for each good work he has performed. It has also been suggested that Muhammad reinterpreted angels he saw in pictures of Christian paradise as Houris. Hussein: 626-680 He was the grandson of the Prophet and was born in Medina to Ali and Fatima. Shiites revere him as the Third Imam, after Ali, his father and Hassan, his elder brother. After the assassination of Ali, Hassan became Caliph only to abdicate within six months to the Umayyad Caliph Muawiyyah. Hassan and Hussein received pensions from the new Caliph. Hassan died soon after. After the death of Muawiyyah his son Yazyd succeeded him as Caliph (April 680). This was resented by the people at large and Hussein refused to recognize the new Caliph. The people of Kufah promised to help in all ways if Hussein would stake his claim to the Caliphate. Accordingly Hussein set out from Mecca with a small band of relatives and followers. Ubayd Allah, The Governor of Mecca, was ordered by the Caliph to quell the rebellion at Kufah, which he did successfully. He then set out with an army of 4,000 men to arrest Hussein and his small band. They trapped Hussein near the banks of the Euphrates (October 680). Hussein refused to surrender. The governor put him and his escorts to the sword and Hussein’s head was sent to Yazyd in Damascus. Shiites observe the first ten days of Muharram (The date of the battle in the Islamic calendar) as days of lamentation and scourge themselves in memory of Hussein. Revenge for Hussein’s death turned into a rallying cry for the Shiites that helped undermine the Umayyad Caliphate. Hussein became a legendary figure for the Shiites and his tomb at Karbala in Iraq is one of the holiest of shrines for the Shiites. Ibadites: See Kharijites below. Ishmael: In the Old Testament, son of Abraham and his wife Sarah’s Egyptian maid Hagar;
213 traditional ancestor of Muhammad and the Arab people. He and his mother were driven away by Sarah’s jealousy. Muslims believe that it was Ishmael, not Isaac whom God commanded Abraham to sacrifice and that Ishmael helped Abraham build the Ka’aba in Mecca. Ismailis: Sect of Shiite Muslims, most important politically from the 10th to the 13th century. The Ismailis emerged from a dispute in 765 over the succession to Jafar al-Sadiq, whom Shiite Muslims acknowledged as the sixth Imam (spiritual successor to Muhammad , the prophet of Islam). The dispute centered on which of Jafar’s two sons was the seventh imam. The majority of Shiites accepted a son named Musa as the seventh imam. Other Shiites felt that a son named Ismail, who had died before his father, was the Imam instead. Supporters of Ismail also did not count Ali, Muhammad ’s son-in-law, as the first imam, as other Shiites did. Hence they saw Jafar as the fifth Imam, Ismail as the sixth and Ismail’s son Muhammad as the seventh and final Imam. This group became known as Ismailis and also as Seveners, because they accept only seven Imams, rather than the twelve, who are recognized by the majority of Shiites. The followers of Ismail and his son Muhammad believed that Ismail had not died but was hidden by his father Jafar to protect him. Hiding of an imam, thought to be a pious deception, is part of the Ismaili doctrine of taqiyya or tactical dissimulation (concealment) of religious beliefs when it is dangerous to practice them openly. Ismailis believe that Ismail will reappear to usher in the end of the world and establish truth and justice. Although Ismailis subscribe to basic doctrines of Sunni Islam, the predominant branch of Islam, they also accept Shiite belief in the infallibility and sinless-ness of imams. In addition, they maintain esoteric (hidden) teachings for the initiated and believe that the Qur'an, the sacred scripture of Islam, has esoteric interpretations beyond its overt meanings. Ismailis feel that the esoteric knowledge (batin in Arabic) was passed from Jafar to Ismail. Because of their emphasis on this knowledge, the Ismailis are sometimes called Batinis. In the 8th century, Ismailis were forced into practicing their religion secretly by the Sunni Muslim majority in the Middle East. During the 9th century they formed a missionary movement (dawa) that spread their version of Islam. An Ismaili state in eastern Arabia arose from rebellion against the Sunni Caliphate (leadership and realm) after 890. The rebels followed an Iraqi peasant leader named Hamdan Qarmat and so came to be called the Qarmatians. The Qarmatians are most famous for attacking Mecca, the holiest city of Islam in 930 and taking the sacred Black Stone (given by the angel Gabriel to Abraham, according to Islam) from Kaaba, and keeping it in their possession until 951. Another Ismaili group, led by Ubayd Allah who claimed descent from Imam Muhammad , captured parts of North Africa in the 10th century with assistance from Berber troops. They established an Ismaili state with its capital at Cairo and named the Caliphate after the prophet Muhammad ’s daughter Fatima. The Fatimids, who ruled from 969 to 1171, developed a vibrant culture that extended along the Mediterranean coast into Syria. A splinter group of Ismailis, called the Nizaris after their leader al-Nizar, arose from a regional dispute in the 11th century. Forced to flee from Egypt, they established strongholds in the mountains of northern Iran. The Nizaris had a group of religious warriors (fidais) who resisted the Seljuk dynasty, which then ruled Iran, through public murders of prominent Sunnis. Christian crusaders and travelers such as Marco Polo encountered the Nizaris, heard Seljuk tales of Nizaris using hashish and rendered the Seljuk designation of that sect - hashishiyyun - into European languages as assassin (see Assassins). In time, the word assassin came to be associated with political murder. In 1256 the Nizari strongholds in Iran were destroyed by the Mongol army under the command of Hulagu. Ismailis survived in small numbers. Ismailis regained prominence as a mercantile community in Iran during the 19th century. The Nizari Ismaili leader moved the group’s headquarters during the 1840s from Iran to India,
214 which already had an Ismaili community. Since that time the Nizari sect has been led by the Aga Khans. Karim Aga Khan became Aga Khan IV in 1957. Several other Ismaili sects also are based in India. The Bohras, also known as the Mustali Ismailis, derive from early Hindu converts to Ismailism, who split from the Nizaris in 1094. The Bohras themselves split around 1600 into a majority Daudi and a minority Sulaymani sub-sect. Both splits resulted from disputes over succession of communal leadership. The Daudi Bohra leadership has its headquarters in Mumbai (formerly Bombay); the Sulaymani leadership, in Mumbai and Boroda. Yet another Ismaili group, the Khojas, is of Indian origin. The Khojas separated from the Aga Khan’s group over a property dispute in 1866. Members of Ismaili communities spread from Iran and India to Pakistan, Yemen and East Africa as a result of commerce. They have since migrated to Europe, North America and Australia as well. Today, there are more than 2 million Ismailis worldwide. Karmathians or Qarmathians: A Muslim sect of the 9th and 10th cent., similar to the Assassin sect. They were part of a movement for social reform that spread widely through Islam from the 9th to the 12th century. They were organized according to initiation and illumination, like other similar sects of the period. Their doctrine had a great influence on Islamic philosophy and remnants of it are today found in the religion of the Druze. The chief importance of the Karmathians came with their establishment of an independent community in lower Mesopotamia before 900. They were the source of rebellions in Khorasan and Syria and after 900 they conquered all of Yemen. In spite of the efforts of the Abbasid Caliph at Baghdad, the Karmathians continued their career until (ca 930) they created a sensation that rocked Islam by carrying away the Black Stone from the Kaaba at Mecca. Ten years later the Karmathians returned the stone. They were in constant touch with the founders of Fatimid rule in Egypt, alternately at war or peace with them. They ceased to be a political power after 1000. Kharijites (Arabic kharawrij, ”the leavers”): Earliest Muslim sect, originally among the supporters of Ali, the fourth Caliph of Islam. Ali outraged the Kharijites, however, when he allowed his claim to the Caliphate to be arbitrated by his followers and by the partisans of Muawiyah I. The Kharijites claimed that God (Allah) had decreed Ali's Caliphate and therefore arbitration by mortals was sacrilegious. Thereafter, they repudiated not only Ali and Muawiyah, but also all Muslims who did not accept their views. According to Kharijite doctrine, not only descendants of the Prophet Muhammad and members of the Muslim aristocracy, but anyone - even a slave - could become a Caliph if morally and religiously pure. A Caliph, to be legitimate (in accord with God's will), had to be elected as the free choice of the entire Muslim community. An unsatisfactory Caliph could be deposed or put to death. The Kharijites, both extremely pious and puritanical in religious practice and theory, also accepted only a literal interpretation of the sacred Qur'an. They developed their own laws and collections of Hadith - the Traditions or Muhammad 's actions and utterances witnessed by his companions and transmitted by reliable authorities. Today about 500,000 Kharijites, usually referred to as Ibadites, survive, dwelling in North and East Africa, Oman and Zanzibar (now part of Tanzania). Their Puritanism and idealism have greatly influenced the present-day Wahhabi movement, which includes the majority of Saudi Arabians. Khawaarij: Another obscure sect or movement The only thing I have about them is from a “brotherly” sentence in a Salafy site which says a Salafy “… is not of the sects of the Khawaarij who consider the Muslims to be Kaafirs (nonbelievers) due to their committing major sins and make lawful the taking of their wealth and blood” Khoja: A caste of Indian Muslims converted from Hinduism in the 14th century by the Persian missionary Sadr-ud-Din and adopted as members of the Nizari Ismaeli sect of Shiites. To escape
215 persecution, the Khojas adopted Hinduism, Sunny Islam and Ithna Ashariah faiths at various times. The term Khoja has caste connotations rather than religious ones. There are Sunnite Khojas and Shiite Khojas. There are other Nizari Muslims who share the same beliefs as the Khojas. Due to its casteist nature, one cannot become a Khoja except by birth. Khojas are found in India and in East Africa where they migrated from India and settled down in the course of commerce. Koran or Qur’an: See Koran below Maher: The gift (dowry) of money or property from the bridegroom to the bride without which an Islamic marriage is not valid. Normally the amount of the maher is a part of the marriage contract. It becomes payable when the bride demands it. Part of it may be deferred payable in the event of widowhood or divorce. Muawiyah I: Born ca 602 in Mecca and died in April or May 680 in Damascus. In full Muawiyah Ibn Abu Sufyan, Muwiyah also spelled Moawiyah was an early Islamic leader and founder of the great Umayyad dynasty of Caliphs. He fought against the fourth Caliph, Ali (Muhammad 's son-in- law), seized Egypt, and assumed the Caliphate after Ali's assassination in 661. He restored unity to the Muslim empire and made Damascus its capital. He reigned from 661 to 680. Muhrim: The close relatives of the opposite sex, detailed by the Qur’an whom a Muslim may not marry. A Muslim may not mix freely with any member of the opposite sex outside these prohibited degrees. Muqallidoon: An obscure sect or movement The only thing I have about them is courtesy of a Salafy site which says a Salafy “ is not of the Muqallidoon who necessitate that every Muslim adhere to the Madhhab (School of Thought) of a particular Imamor Shaikh, even when that madhhab differs with the clear verses of the Qur'an and authentic hadiths of the Prophet, peace be upon him.” Murjiah: Another obscure sect or movement. Again, the only thing I have about them is from a Salafy site, which says a Salafy “ is not of the Murjiah who claim Imaan (Faith) to be only in words and not in deed.” Muslim Brotherhood: The most prominent Sunni Islamic movement founded 1928 by Hassan al- Banna (1906-1949). Its overall aim is the foundation of an Islamic state governed by Islamic law. The movement also operates under different names, such as the People of the Call (Ahl al-Da’wa) in Algeria and Islamic Party (al Hizb al–Islami) in Tunisia. It is active throughout the Arab world and generally retains strong popular support, although banned in most countries (since 1980 membership has been punishable by death in Syria). The movement has gained political acceptance in Jordan winning 20 out of 80 seats in the House of Representatives in 1989 and joining the government in 1991 Mutah (Arabic: “pleasure”): In Islamic law, a temporary marriage that is contracted for a limited or fixed period and involves the payment of money to the female partner. Mutah is referred to in the Koran (Muslim scriptures) in these words: “And you are allowed to seek out wives with your wealth in decorous conduct, but not in fornication, but give them their reward for what you have enjoyed of them in keeping with your promise” (4:24). Partners who engage in mutah must do so freely and must predetermine the compensation and duration of the contract. The woman, therefore, has no claim for maintenance, and the two do not inherit from one another unless there is a previous agreement on these matters. Any children from a mutah union go with the father. No extension of the mutah is permitted, but cohabitation may be resumed if a new agreement is reached with new compensation for the woman. All Muslim legal schools agree that mutah was recognized and practiced in Prophet Muhammad 's time. Most Sunnite Muslims, however, think the practice to have been forbidden by Al Umar I, the second Caliph and thus to have been abrogated, though the question arises as to where the authority to abrogate Allah's codes in the Koran came from. In
216 consequence, Sunnite leaders have denounced mutah as simple prostitution. The Twelver Shiites, in contrast, consider mutah to be still valid and defend it as a guard against prostitution or license in circumstances in which regular marriage is impossible. Naqshbandiyya-Haqqaniyya: A Sufi sect. Naqshbandiyya means to "tie the Naqsh very well." The Naqsh is the perfect engraving of Allah's Name in the heart of the murid. From the time of Sayyidina Ahmad al-Faruqi to the time of Shaikh Khalid al-Baghdadi it was called Naqshbandi- Mujaddidiyya. From the time of Sayyidina Khalid al-Baghdadi until the time of Sayiddina Shaikh Ismail Shirwani it was called the Naqshbandiyya-Khalidiyya. From the time of Sayyidina Isma'il Shirwani until the time of Sayyidina Shaikh 'Abdullah ad-Daghestani, it was called Naqshbandi- Daghestaniyya It had a following in Central Asia and India in the past, in China and the Soviet Union in modern times and in Europe and North America today. Historically speaking, the Naqshbandi tariqat can be traced back to the first of the Rightly- Guided Caliphs, Abu Bakr Al-Siddiq, who succeeded the Prophet in his knowledge and in his role of guiding the Muslim community. Allah said in the Holy Qur'an "He was the second of two in the cave and he said to his friend: “do not be sad, for God is with us'" [9:40]. Of him the Prophet said, "If I had taken to myself a beloved friend, I would have taken Abu Bakr as my beloved friend; but he is my brother and my companion." In this constellation, we come finally to Muhammad Bahauddan Uways al-Bukhari, known as Shah Naqshband, the Imam of the Naqshbandi Tariqat without peer. He was born in the year 1317 CE in the village of Qasr al-Sarifan, near Bukhara. After he mastered the sharicah sciences at the tender age of 18, he kept company with the Shaikh Muhammad Baba as-Samasi, who was an authority in hadith in Central Asia. After the latter's death, he followed Shaikh Amir Kulal who continued and perfected his training in the external and the internal knowledge. The students of Shaikh Amir Kulal used to make dhikr aloud when sitting together in association and silent dhikr when alone. Although Shah Naqshband, never criticized nor objected to the loud dhikr, he preferred the silent dhikr. Concerning this he says, "… I chose the silent one because it is stronger and therefore more preferable." The silent dhikr thus became the distinguishing feature of the Naqshbandiyya among other tariqats. Nation of Islam - Black Muslims: Followers of a predominantly black religious movement in the United States, who profess Islam as their faith. Its leaders advocate economic cooperation and self- sufficiency and enjoin a strict Islamic code of behavior governing such matters as diet, dress and interpersonal relations. Members follow some Islamic religious ritual and pray five times daily. The Nation of Islam is the most prominent organization within the Black Muslim movement. The origins of the Black Muslim movement are found in two black self-improvement organizations that began shortly before World War I (1914-1918): the Moorish Science Temple of America, founded in 1913 by Prophet Drew Ali and the Universal Negro Improvement Association, founded in 1914 by Marcus Garvey. When Ali died, leadership of his movement passed to Wallace D.Fard. In 1930, Fard founded a temple (later known as a mosque) in Detroit; that was the actual beginning of the Nation of Islam. Fard, who used a variety of names (including Walli Farad and Master Farad Muhammad ), is called God, Allah or the Great Mahdi by Black Muslims. In 1934, after the mysterious disappearance of Fard, the leader of the Chicago mosque, which was founded in 1933, became the Nation of Islam’s leader. He was Elijah Muhammad , known as Holy Prophet and Messenger of Allah, who had originally been named Elijah Poole and was born in Sandersville, Georgia, in 1897. Until his death in Chicago in 1975, Muhammad was the supreme leader of the Nation of Islam. In the 1960s his supremacy was challenged by Malcolm X, head of the New York City mosque, but Malcolm X was shot to death in 1965 by men said to be Black Muslims. Formerly, Black Muslims held that the white person is the Devil, who enslaves all
217 nonwhites. Black Muslims advocated the establishment of a separate African American homeland in the United States. Wallace D. Muhammad , who succeeded his father Elijah Muhammad in 1975, downplayed Black Nationalism, admitted non-black members and stressed strict Islamic beliefs and practices. In the late 1970s, however, a dissident faction, led by Louis Farrakhan, assumed the original name Nation of Islam and reasserted the principles of black separatism. In 1992 the group led by Wallace Muhammad took the name Muslim American Society. No membership records are kept; estimates of membership range widely, from 10, 000 to 200, 000 followers. Purdah: The practice of purdah is said to have originated in the Persian culture and to have been acquired by the Muslims during the Arab conquest of what is now Iraq in the 7th century CE. Muslim domination of northern India in turn influenced the practice of Hinduism, and purdah became usual among the Hindu upper classes of northern India. During the British hegemony in India, purdah observance was strictly adhered to and widespread among the highly conscious Muslim minority. Since then, purdah has largely disappeared in Hindu practice, though the seclusion and veiling of women is practiced to a greater or lesser degree in many Islamic countries. Qadariyyah: Another obscure sect or movement The only thing I have about them is from a “brotherly” sentence in a Salafy site which says a Salafy is “not of the Qadariyyah who deny Qadr (the Divine Decree)” Qadiyani: A messianic movement founded (1899) by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1839–1908), at Qadiyan, District of Gordaspur in the Punjab. His Barahin-i Ahmadiyya, which he began to publish in 1880, was well received by his Islamic community. In 1889, he announced that he had received a divine revelation authorizing him to accept the baya, the allegiance of the faithful; he later also declared himself the Mahdi and the promised Messiah (masih) of Islam (1891). His doctrine, incorporating Indian, Sufi, Islamic and Western elements, attempted to revitalize Islam in the face of the British Raj, Protestant Christianity and resurgent Hinduism. After his death, his followers elected Mawlana Nur ad-Din as his successor. Nur ad-Din died in 1914 and the community split into two branches. The majority remained in Qadiyan and recognized Ghulam Ahmad as prophet (nabi). The basic belief held by the Qadiyani community was and is that it is the sole embodiment of “True Islam.” The founder’s son, Hadhrat Mirza Bashir ad- Din Mahmud Ahmad (1889–1965), was chosen as Khalifatul-Masih [Caliph of the Messiah] by the Qadiyani branch, known today as the Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam (jamaat-i ahmadiyya). His half-century of leadership shaped the movement, operating after 1947 out of the city of Rabwah (which they founded and gave a Qur’anically inspired name) in Pakistan and administering a network of schools and hospitals. His successors have been chosen from among Ghulam Ahmad’s descendants; the leader of the movement (since 2003) is Mirza Masroor Ahmad (b. 1950). The other branch, less willing to distinguish itself from mainstream Islam, recognized Ghulam Ahmad as a reformer (mujaddid) and established what came to be known as the Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ishaat-I-Islam movement in Lahore, Pakistan, also known as the Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement. Both branches engage in energetic missionary activity in Nigeria, Kenya, Indonesia and the Indian subcontinent. Orthodox Islam has never accepted Ghulam Ahmad’s visions and Ahmadis in Pakistan have faced religious and political attacks to the extent that they have been declared apostate and non- Muslim by the country’s religious and political elite. A 1984 Pakistani government decree banned the use of Islamic forms of worship by Ahmadis and the fourth Khalifatul-Masih went into exile in London until his death in 2003. The membership is over ten million worldwide. Qiblah: Direction in which Muslims face to pray: the direction of Mecca. In every mosque this is marked by a niche (mihrab) in the wall. Quran: The holy book of Islam. According to Islam, it is the word of Allah, as revealed to the prophet Muhammad , at times directly, at times through angel Gabriel. The term Koran, means
218 "recitation”. Muslims believe that the oral recitation of the Koran is the most direct approach to God. The art of recitation, known as tajwid or tartil, is consequently highly valued among Muslims. There was no definitive written text of the Koran while Muhammad was still alive, but the structure of the Suras (chapters) and their titles may have been influenced by the Prophet. Muslims generally believe that the authorized version of the Koran derives its text and the number and order of the chapters from the work of a commission appointed by the third Caliph (Islamic political leader), Uthman ibn Affan, during the second half of his reign, roughly 20 years after Muhammad ’s death. Different readings of certain words and verses, however, continued for a long time. This was due to differences among dialects of Arabic and deficiencies in the script used for writing at that time and its peculiar shortcomings. The Uthmanic text was probably not accepted as a definitive text until the beginning of the 4th century of the Islamic calendar (10th century CE). Despite the consensus among Muslim scholars on the authority of the Uthmanic text, seven or more legitimate readings of the Koran prevailed during the early centuries of Islam. In the 20th century an Egyptian edition printed in 1924 became the official text throughout the Islamic world. The Uthmanic or canonical text represents a different sequence than the order in which Muhammad reportedly received the revelations. The chapters, after the short opening chapter called al-Fatihah, are arranged roughly in descending order of length and not in the chronological order. Because the first revelations are the shorter chapters, they are assigned to the end. It is not known why the chapters were arranged in this way, but this order has been preserved since the Uthmanic text was established. The Koran is divided into 114 chapters, or Suras, each of which is further divided into a number of ayat (verses). The chapter titles were taken from images or events included in the Suras. The chapters are customarily classified as either Meccan or Medinan, in reference to the two cities in which Muhammad lived and reportedly received the revelations. On the other hand, some chapters are composite, with Meccan verses inserted in the midst of a largely Medinan chapter and vice versa. For the purpose of recitation the Koran is divided into various schemes, such as 30 equal ajza (parts) so that it can be read in full during Ramadan, the holy month of fasting, by reciting one part per day. As for translating Koran into other languages, there are those who argue that a translation would corrupt the true meaning of the revelations. But there are others who argue that the message of the Koran was meant for Arabs and non-Arabs alike and so translations aimed at people who do not know Arabic are very much in order. Quran—Repetitions: As in the Bible, the Koran too is replete with repetitions. If it was indeed the one and only God that conveyed these messages, he seems to be suffering from acute amnesia. “Then which of the favors of your Lord will ye deny?” is repeated 29 times in Chapter 55. (Verses 16. 18. 21, 23, 28, 30, 32, 34, 36, 38, 40, 42, 45, 47, 49, 51, 53, 55, 57, 59, 61, 63, 65, 67, 69, 71, 73, 75, 77) The story of Adam and the angels who refuse to kowtow to Adam are repeated in Suras 2, 7, 17, 20 and 38. Similarly the story of Iblis is repeated seven times (Surahs 2, 7, 15, 17, 18, 20, 38), Noah’s story in eleven Suras (7, 10, 11, 21, 23, 25, 26, 29, 37, 54, 71) and Abraham’s in nine Suras (3, 6, 11, 14, 15, 19, 21, 37 and 51). The perfect and omnipotent bore goes on repeating and repeating - the story of Lot eight times (Surahs 7, 11, 16, 21, 26, 29, 37, 51), Moses seven times (Surahs 2, 4, 7, 10, 20, 26, 28), Yunus four times (Surahs: 10, 21, 37, 68), Suleiman thrice in suras 2, 27 and 38 and the story of Jesus in eight times (Surahs 3, 4, 5, 19, 36, 43, 57 and 61) Without these repetitions, the Koran would be hardly half as lengthy as it is now. If the
219 Koran were to be submitted to an extraterrestrial book publisher or a literary agent, it would immediately go to the shredder. The Bible too would probably share the same fate. Rafidah: (Arabic: “Rejectors”) Extremist Shiite Muslims who reject (raf) the Caliphate of Muhammad 's two successors Abu Bakr and Umar, condemn Abu Bakr and Al Umar as unlawful rulers of the Muslim community. Salafys: Detailed literature about them could not be found. It seems the sect is spread though sparsely, all over from Saudi Arabia, through the Indian subcontinent to Indonesia. A news item from Washington DC dated January 14, 2002, and titled “Saudi Interior Ministry Removes Website” says, “The Saudi interior ministry ordered the closing of Al Riyadh newspaper discussion forum, the Electronic Journalist January 2nd and the removal of its moderator Nasser Al Sarami. The chat board was attached to Al Riyadh newspaper website and was a venue for Saudis to express ideas. The forum attracted Saudi liberals who discussed issues such as transparency, social bigotry, women’s rights and religious police abuses. Al Sarami was suspended by the ministry from writing his column in the paper since November 17, after he criticized Salafy strong-arm tactics against liberal writers and recently issued women identification cards. The influence of the Salafy religious institution has steadily grown over the past year and is reflected by government crackdown on liberals and religious minorities, such as non-Salafy Sunnis and Shiites in Najran and Al-Ahsa. ...” Shabak: Another Shiite group. They claim Angel Gabriel to be the 'betrayer of the faithful one´ because they believe that rather than delivering God's message to Ali as commanded, he delivered it to Muhammad instead. Shiah or Shi’ite: Member of the smaller of the two major branches of Islam, distinguished from the majority Sunnites. In early Islamic history the Shiiites were a political faction (shiit-Ali, “party of Ali”) that supported the power of Ali, Muhammad ’s son-in-law and the fourth Caliph of the Muslim community. Ali was killed while trying to maintain his authority as Caliph, and the Shiites gradually developed a religious movement that asserted the legitimate authority of Ali’s lineal descendants, the Aliids. This stand contrasted with that of the more pragmatic Sunnite majority of Muslims, who were generally willing to accept the leadership of any Caliph or Caliphal dynasty whose rule afforded the proper exercise of religion and the maintenance of order in the Muslim world. Shiites numbered about 60 to 80 million in the late 20th century, or one-tenth of all Islam. They form the majority in Iran, Iraq, and perhaps Yemen and has adherents in Syria, Lebanon, East Africa, India, and Pakistan. In 656 Ali had been raised to the Caliphate with the support, among many others, of the murderers of the third Caliph, Al Uthman. Ali never quite received the allegiance of all the Muslims, and thus had to wage increasingly unsuccessful wars to maintain himself in power. Ali was murdered in 661, and Muawiyah, his chief opponent, became the Caliph. Ali’s son, Husayn, refused to recognize the legitimacy of Muawiyah's son and successor, Yazid as Caliph, The Muslims of the Shiite-dominated town of Kafah in Iraq, Ali's former capital, invited Husayn to become Caliph. The Muslims in Iraq generally failed to support Husayn, and he and his small band of followers were cut down (680) by the governor’s troops near Kafah at the Battle of Karbala, which is now a pilgrimage spot for Shiites. Swearing vengeance against the triumphant Umayyad government, the Kafans soon gained support from other groups that opposed the status-quo of aristocratic Muslim families of Medina, from pious men protesting a too worldly interpretation of Islam, and from non-Arab Muslims (mawaii), especially in Iraq, who demanded an equality denied them by the ruling Arabs. Over time
220 the Shiites became a distinct collection of sects who were alike in their recognition of Ali and his descendants as the legitimate leaders of the Muslim community. Though the Aliids never won power, Ali himself was rehabilitated as a major hero of Sunnite Islam, and his descendants by Fatima, Muhammad 's daughter, received the courtesy titles of “sayyids” and “sharifs.” The largest Shiite sect is the Twelvers, who recognize the legitimacy of a succession of twelve Aliid claimants (beginning with Ali himself) who are known as imams. Other, smaller Shiite sects include the Ismaailis and Zaydiyah. Submitters: Based at 'Masjid' Tucson, Arizona, USA. The Submitters, claim that their Leader, Rashid Khalifa, was a messenger of Allah. The claim of submitters, that Rashid Khalifa was a messenger, stems from the Holy Koran 3:81. Sufism: Mystical movement of Islam that originated in the 8th century. Sufis believe that deep intuition is the only real guide to knowledge. The movement has a strong strain of asceticism. There are a number of groups or brotherhoods within Sufism, each with its own method of meditative practice, one of which is the whirling dance of the dervishes. Sufism was originally influenced by the ascetics of the early Christian church, but later developed within the structure of orthodox Islam. Tabligh: Missionary movement in Islam, which developed after 1945 to take Islamic revival and reform to the less educated. It is active in Asia, Africa, North America and Northern Europe. Twelver: Member of a Shi’ite Muslim group, which believes that the twelfth Imam(Islamic leader) did not die, but is waiting to return towards the end of the world as the Mahdi, the ‘rightly guided one', to establish a reign of peace and justice on Earth. Wahabi: Puritanical Saudi Islamic group founded by Muhammad ibn-Abd-al-Wahab (1703-1792), which regards all other groups as heretical. By the early 20th century it had spread throughout the Arabian Peninsula; it still remains the official ideology of the Saudi Arabian kingdom.
God is omnipotent and omniscient and knows how to communicate his thoughts to men and animals alike in the simplest and the most congruent style imaginable. He does not need books or preachers, prophets or incarnations to convey his messages; he can very well beam them right into our hearts and minds. The Bible, the Koran and all the so-called sacred texts are redundant and superfluous in the case of the Omnipotent. What is more, if God were to beam his messages directly into our understanding, there would be no need for infallible authorities to interpret or convey his messages to the public, to translate them and to make a complete mess of it as we have seen above. In such a scenario of gods communicating directly to the faithful, there would be no incongruities or entropy losses in revelations and in hearsay as in the Bible or the Koran; there would also be no entropy losses in interpretations and translations of the holy texts. This would in turn eliminate the need for so many religions, heresies, schisms and sects. Humanity would consequently be living in harmony as far as religions are concerned. To make us one flock and one shepherd, as the Gospels envisage, is just a nod of His mind for the Omnipotent. All the sacrifices of the missionaries account for nothing but blah blah. If He uses or rather misuses prophets, preachers and books to create divisions and strife in humanity, then God is the ultimate sadist, and not worth worshipping. So take your pick, either all these prophets and preachers and the light-years of literature churched out by them are all blah blah or God is a sadist. In addition to matters of technology, gods and saints seem to have social and geographical limitations. They always communicate only with the faithful. Thus, Jehovah appears, converses and makes covenants only with the Israelites. If he were the creator of all human beings, instead of being partial to the Israelites, he was duty-bound to nurture the Chinese, the Amerindians and the Aborigines, and all people the world over. Similarly, Vishnu and his incarnations seem to be active only among the Hindus. Mother Mary appears to Catholics alone and ignores Protestants, Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists. It is also evident from the scriptures that gods love those whom the faithful love and hate those whom the faithful hate. Thus,
221 Jehovah makes the same covenant scores of times with Abraham as if once were not enough. God then goes on making the same covenant with Abraham’s progeny, again repeatedly for no logical reason. Jehovah guides the Israelis and protects them. On the other hand, he orders the massacre of the enemies of Israel and stops the sun in its track to help the Israelis slaughter their enemies to the last baby. Since Original State communities were mostly matriarchal, many of the primeval divinities were female, like the Hindu goddess Kali. With the swell of the Agrarian Wave, which gave rise to Patriarchal societies, came male gods and myths of their exploits, especially myths of their military feats and their valor. It has been rightly said that in a democracy people get the governments they deserve. Maybe the principle applies to gods too. Cannibalistic societies had cannibalistic gods and societies that practiced infanticides had gods that endorsed infanticide. Casteist societies like those of India had gods like Krishna who endorsed the caste system. The god of Muhammad sanctioned plunder and slavery, which were then a way of life in Arabia. Ethics and morals as we know them today were the last things that bothered the ancients and their gods. As stated at the outset of this chapter, religions have their origins in the bygone ages of Original State or even before during our evolution. Voodoo is a primitive form of religion and so are the religions of Native Americans and the aborigines of Australia. All modern religions have their origin in the Agrarian Wave, and most concepts of modern religions are in tune with Agrarian Wave institutions and their ways of life. Nonetheless, often there are always remnants of ancient beliefs and customs from the Original State, such as the practices of circumcision, which are carryovers from man’s ancient traditions. The Eucharist is also in its essence a carryover of ancient practices of ritualistic cannibalism. The early concept of God was that of a ghostly spirit. For the Tennessee, a native tribe in the United States, the word for god, means literally a dead man. Similarly, the term ‘Jehovah’ originally meant the ‘strong man’ or ‘the warrior’. He was perhaps a local chief, who after his death, was worshipped as the chief of other ghosts. Such ghosts had to be gratified, and funeral rites grew into worship. Belief in life after death fosters ceremonies and procedures to facilitate the journey to the hereafter. Such ceremonies also play an important part in all religions. Animism and Totemism were also forms of early religion. Animism (in Latin ‘anima’ means “breath” or “soul”) denotes belief in living spiritual beings inhabiting natural forces like wind and lightings. In his work, Primitive Cultures (1871), Tylor defines animism as the belief in invisible spiritual, living beings, and considers it a minimum definition of religion. All religions, from the simplest Original State ones to the most complex Agrarian Wave ones, exhibit some form of animism. The word ‘spirit’ was and is applied equally to ghosts and gods. Some believe that one’s spirit is present in one’s own image and shadow. As a result, some religions or cultures ban photographing people, in the belief that photos absorb the spirit of the person photographed. Totemism is a complex system of ideas, symbols and practices based on an assumed relationship between the individual or a social group and a natural object, known as the totem. The totem may be a particular species of bird, animal or plant, a natural phenomenon or a feature of the landscape, with which a group identifies itself. The term totem is derived from the language of the Ojibwa, a North American tribe. All religions are a hotchpotch of traditions and superstitions. I came across an interesting story of how an absurd superstition emerged and evolved into a tradition. A Pujari (Hindu priest) used to confine his cat in a basket during his pujas (prayers and rituals), so as not to be distracted by it. When the Pujari died, his son took over as priest, and he too continued the practice of shutting the cat up in a basket during Pujas. In course of time, the cat too died. The son continued the pujas for a day or two without the cat. But then he met with an accident, and the accident was attributed to performing Pujas without the cat. So, he started searching for a cat, being quite careful to find one that had the same color as the dead one. After much trouble, he saw such a cat and bought it at an exorbitant price. He then resumed the suspended Pujas after duly installing the cat each time under the basket. What used to be a practice of convenience for the father had thus become a ceremony and ritual for the son, giving rise to a dogma that without a cat of a particular color, kept in a basket of particular shape, Pujas are ineffective and even harmful. Practices such as astrology, Vaastu, palmistry, numerology, crystal gazing and other forms of fortune telling and prophesying also may be included in the realm of religion, as they involve the belief in the influence of unknown supernatural forces or spirits. They may be considered some kind of quasi-religion’ as
222 they do not involve the direct worship of the almighty. (See Chapter Ten of this book, which gives an informative account of many such superstitions) Frogs are married to each other in Assam and donkeys are married to neem trees in Tamilnadu, with much pomp and ceremony to propitiate the rain gods. Come draught, and in the village of Budhelkand in Hameerpur of Uttar Pradesh, women plough the land in the nude at midnight, in the belief that it will bring rain. Even in this day and age, houses are built in certain prescribed designs, in the belief it will bring health and prosperity. Star formations are consulted before taking up any worthwhile project or before setting out on a journey. In South India, the month of Leo is considered auspicious, whereas the month that precedes it, that of Cancer, is considered most inauspicious and ominous. Such beliefs and superstitions also fall under the regime of religion, as they imply powers or spirits behind such manifestations of stars, constellations and other signs. For many people, religion is an organized system of beliefs, ceremonies, practices and worship that center on one supreme God or the Deity. For many others, religion involves a pantheon of numerous gods. Some people have a religion in which no specific god or gods are worshipped. There are also people who subscribe to different cults. But almost all people who follow some form of religion believe in a divine supernatural power that created the world and influence their lives for better or for worse, and in practices to propitiate these supernatural powers, so that they act in a way favorable to the devotee. Many of today’s religions started off with a single preacher or a group of preachers, and later on, they evolved into cults, communities and finally into religions. The main religions today are Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Shinto, Confucianism, Taoism and Sikhism. Their origins can be traced to Asia. Among them, the oldest are Hinduism, Zoroastrianism and Judaism, dating back 3,000 to 5,000 years. Christianity and Islam are offshoots of Judaism, while Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism grew out of Hinduism.
NATURAL RELIGIONS: There are many so-called natural religions, which are religious practices that do not have a crystallized form or dogma. Amerindianism is one such religion. It consists of the religious beliefs of American Indians from Alaska to Argentina. The beliefs are numerous and vastly diverse, as they include inputs from Shamanism, Christianity, Peyotism etc. Such “religions” may be called natural religions, though native faiths may be a more apt term. Voodoo as practiced in Africa, and its variations in the new world are other forms of natural religions. These natural religions cannot be termed religions in the same sense as Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism, Islam, Judaism or Christianity, because they do not impose any definite set of beliefs or dogmas; nor do they claim origin from a founder or founders. These native cults evolved naturally over the ages. Hinduism is the most prominent of these natural or native religions. Hinduism is the sum total of all beliefs, myths, cultures, customs, traditions, legends and taboos, which prevailed in the Indian subcontinent, prior to the arrival or evolution of the religions like Sikhism, Jainism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. A Hindu is a person who subscribes to that original culture and to any of the myriad myths associated with that culture. The original people of India had a variety of religious beliefs and practices. But with the arrival of the above religions with well-defined founders and religious dogmas, the word ‘Hindu’ was used to denote people subscribing to the old beliefs or set of beliefs. Unlike the religious texts of Israel and Islam, wherein the terms Israel and Islam are liberally used to distinguish them form other ethnic religious groups, no ancient text of India uses the word Hindu. This is because the word Hindu did not indicate a particular group and had no ethnic significance whatsoever at the time these texts were written. Even atheists may be called Hindus, if they have their origins in the subcontinent or if they subscribe to the Indian culture. This cannot be said of the well-defined, dogmatic religions. Even to this day, there is no legally valid definition for the word Hindu. Instead, the Indian Jurisprudence defines the other religious groups, such as Muslims, Christians, Jews, Jains and the likes, and then it defines a Hindu as anyone who does not conform to the other definitions. Consequently, if an Amerindian or an Australian Aborigine who has not been baptized or circumcised were to settle down in India, legally he would be a Hindu. The word Hindu is of ancient Persian origin. The Persians used the word to describe people who lived beyond the river Indus, called Sindhu in the ancient Sanskrit language. The word Hindu could just as
223 well have arisen from the Hindu Kush, the mountain ranges that separate Afghanistan from India and Pakistan. There is a tendency to mix up Hindu religion with caste. It may be pertinent here to note that caste is an economic system of professional specialization based on births whereas religion is about myths and the supernatural. Caste is a social reality whereas religion is mostly fiction. The religious situation in India was and is comparable to those in Europe or Arabia some two thousand years ago, where they subscribed to various superstitious and religious beliefs. It was heterogeneous from the religious point of view. Then came Christianity and Islam, the two propagandist missionary religions, and Europe became predominantly Christian and Arabia became predominantly Muslim. There were no such homogenization of religious beliefs and dogmas in India and heterogeneity of beliefs has remained the 'religion' in India to this day, even after Christianity, Islam and other well-defined religions made dents in the Hindu scheme of heterogeneous beliefs. So logically speaking, 'Hindu' is a term more akin to the descriptions like 'European' or 'Arabian' than to terms like Christian and Muslim. The term Hindu has geographical connotations rather than religious ones, and is more akin to ethnic terms like Arab, Amerindian, European and French, than to terms like Christian, Sikh, and Muslim. All those living in the subcontinent are called ‘Hindi’ in Arabic and other ancient languages even to this day. Hindi is also the main language of India. Hindu is just another form of Hindi or may mean a speaker of the Hindi language. Hindus may have disparate and often incompatible beliefs when it comes to the Hindu pantheon. Thus, there are Hindus who worship the Devas as well as those who worship the Asuras, the archenemies of the Devas. Even the same man may worship such mutually antagonistic mythological characters as the Kauravas and the Pandavas. On the other hand, no Christian or Muslim may worship the one God and the devil at the same time. Each Hindu is a religion unto himself, both in the narrow as well as in the broad sense. There are Hindus; there is no clear-cut Hinduism. The caste system is more central to the Hindu culture than any pantheon, dogma or ceremony. These natural religions are purely personal affairs, and uniformity of beliefs is not mandatory. Caste, tribe and other social considerations are of far greater significance than the tenets or beliefs. People in the same family often worship different deities and may even hold divergent religious views. Members of different ethnic groups may hold identical religious beliefs and yet may be incompatible socially as in the different castes. Natural religions like Hinduism, Shinto and Amerindianism are fairly well known and documented. But the Australian aborigines and other indigenous people have their own religious beliefs and practices. For these indigenous people, religion is just another social phenomenon with little or no political dimensions. But since these natural religions do not seem to possess a definite form or dogma, it is not possible to discuss them here. This discussion centers mainly on the dogmatic religions and especially on Christianity and Islam, the two universal dogmatic religions. The Semitic religions are basically aggressive. Killing, rapine and looting are considered fair, if done in the name of God or religion. Martyrdom during Crusades or Jihads is the surest way to attain Paradise. Their intolerance and aggression extends not only to other religions, but also to sects and sub-sects of their own religions. Thus, Catholics would shed Protestant blood as readily as they would Muslim blood, and so would a Sunni shed Shiite blood as readily as Hindu blood. Unlike the natural religions, these religions have political dimensions too, in that they always try to increase their strength and political influence by conversions, whereas natural religions did not have such aspirations until recent times, and that too, to counter the aggressive, highly politicized, Semitic religions. In contrast with these Semitic religions, some religions of Indian origin like Buddhism and Jainism, are pacifist to the extent of banning the killing of animals even for food. They promote absolute vegetarianism. Jainism even goes to the extent of advocating the covering of mouth, so that insects do not go into the mouth inadvertently. Many Jains sweep the ground before them as they walk, so that insects are not trodden on. It may be due to these differences in socio- religious psyche that India has taken to democracy like a duck to water, in spite of its illiteracy and
224 divergences, whereas Pakistan and the other countries of the Red Crescent, still grope in the dark when it comes to democracy and democratic institutions. Nonetheless whether violent or non-violent, whenever a religion goes public Michels’s Iron Law Of Oligarchy as recounted in Chapter 2 of this book on violence takes over. Subsequently, the oligarchs rule the roost as God’s representatives, threatening the faithful with divine wrath if the faithful dare as much as raise their eyebrows against the oligarchic ‘divine representatives’. But in such politicization of religion god himself is often the first casualty as he is always pushed aside by the religious power-mongers with sanctimonious apologetics.
ARGUMENTS ABOUT GOD'S EXISTENCE: Let us now consider in depth the phenomenon of religion. A god, spirit or supernatural being, endowed with omnipotence, forms the core of all religions. Theists argue that the proposition “There is a God” cannot be disproved and so should be accepted as true. From the dialectical point of view it is the other way round. The issue of whether there is a god or not is like the question whether there is extraterrestrial life. The fact that no one can prove that there is no extraterrestrial life does not mean that there is extraterrestrial life and vice-versa. Until there is concrete proof that there is life or that there is no life out there, a logical answer to the issue is that we do not know either way about the existence of extra-terrestrial beings. It is the same when it comes to the existence of a god or other supernatural beings. Until we can prove or disprove to everyone's satisfaction, the rational answer to the question whether there is a god or not is a plain “I do not know.” Even so, there is a possibility that one day an extraterrestrial life form may be discovered and everyone convinced of its existence. The supernatural, on the other hand, is beyond perception and so the question whether there is a god or not can never be resolved in the light of clear thinking. A proposition that cannot be proved on every count - even if there is an iota of doubt - cannot be accepted as true, and is liable to be rejected. There have been men of great intelligence like Ambrose, Aquinas and Augustine who have gone to great lengths to defend their faiths. But the cleverest defenders of faith are often its greatest enemies, for their subtleties in arguments generate doubts and stimulate the mind and spur it on to more inquiries and more doubts. What is more, these men would, in all probability, have defended with the same ardor, another faith and system of dogmas, were they born into it. In early Judaism and in primitive societies, the existence of gods and spirits was taken for granted and the need for a proof of god’s existence was not called for. As man became more and more rational, the church felt the need to produce some proof of god’s existence, in the face of doubts raised by atheists and agnostics. The main arguments raised in support of God’s existence are three: the ontological, the cosmological and the argument from design. It would be out of place here to go into all the details of these averments. A selection of these arguments, summarized from ‘The Encyclopedia Britannica’, is given below. The ontological argument of Anselm of Canterbury (c. 1033–1109) picks a phrase, “that than which nothing greater can be conceived.” This phrase is used as a technique for disclosure, directing one without limit to an ever-increasing perspective. The hope is that at some point the light will dawn, whereupon the phrase, “necessary being," will be used to describe God. According to this argument we may ask who made the watch, who made the steel, needles and gears that go into the making of the watch etc? Then come another series of questions, as to who made the makers of the watch and its components. The questions go on, each answer giving rise to another question. Ultimately the questions and answers come to a point where we are forced to conclude that there is a necessary being who initiated the process of creation. The cosmological argument uses as a technique for disclosure such questions as “Why is it thus?” or “Why is there anything at all?” Replies to these questions are received in causal terms. The cosmological argument builds up an ever-increasing causal spread until a disclosure occurs. Thereupon the phrase, 'first cause', specifies what is disclosed and advocates certain ways of reasoning. The argument from design takes a story with acknowledged disclosure possibilities. Thus a watch works only because its parts are designed and positioned in a certain way by an intelligent being, which is absolutely necessary, if the watch is to exist and function. The universe and everything in it, is far more complex than a watch and so must have a designer, infinitely more sophisticated than a watchmaker. This ultimate designer is designated the term ‘god’
225 Atheists, on the other hand, maintain that there is no god. Agnostics, on their part, assert that it is not for us to talk about things that are beyond our comprehension and experience, and so we really do not know whether there are supernaturals or not. However Bertrand Russell, the doyen of agnosticism asserts that agnosticism is only an idealistic stand. In reality agnosticism tends towards atheism. Whether gods exist or not is only the first step in diagnosing any religion. Most religions swirl around incarnations, prophets, priests of every hue, and of course the indigestible dogmas and doctrines. As we shall see later on in this treatise, these considerations regarding the divinities and their spokespersons as well as the doctrines and dogmas projected by the different religions do not stand up to the light of reasons. Consequently the concepts of the god/gods projected by the different religions of the world are unviable in rational terms. These gods simply cannot exist and so even if there are gods, the nature of these gods is not in line with the concepts of gods projected by any of the religions. Consequently, there is no god in accordance with any of the religious precepts on earth, and so for all practical purposes, agnosticism boils down to atheism. Apart from god, the other aspects of a religion are beliefs, dogmas, doctrines, tenets and creeds about the nature of the particular god or goddess, and about the means of propitiating him or her Most of these dogmas and doctrines are mere personal interpretations, sans logical backing as illustrated in the Pujari’s story.
DOGMAS AND DOCTRINES: All religions are agreed in the existence of some form of supernatural omnipotent being. It is only with regard to the nature of these supernatural beings and ways or ceremonies of propitiating them that differentiate one religion from another, one sect from another. The question arises as to what beliefs and ceremonies, and of which particular religion or sect, are viable and proper. They cannot all be simultaneously true, as they contradict each other in one aspect or another. In 1529, Ulrich Zwingli of the Swiss reformation and Martin Luther met in Marburg, Germany, to sort out their differences over the interpretation of Christ's presence in the Eucharist. Luther regarded this sacrament as a means by which God gave people His grace. He believed in the real presence of Christ in the bread and wine. But Zwingli considered the sacrament a thanksgiving to God, for grace already given in other ways, especially through the Gospel. To him, the bread and wine were mere symbols of Christ's body and blood. The quarrel between Luther and Zwingli led to the first major split in Protestantism. Which way is the truth, Luther’s or Zwingli’s? It is a matter of Luther Vs Zwingli and has nothing to do with verifiable objectivity or logic. The same can be said about all cults, religions, their sects, and the differences between them and their interpretations of the divine. Most of these dogmas and doctrines are most irrelevant, like the above one on Eucharist. So too is the debate on whether Jesus is man or God or both, or whether Mary is the mother of God or of only the human Jesus. These things cannot be resolved by logic, as they are beyond common perception or comprehension. Either way, these dogmas do not make any difference when it comes to the question of a peaceful, prosperous life in this world and in the next - the professed goal of all religions. Yet, these irrelevant arguments have led to much strife and bloodshed. In his celebrated work, ‘Gulliver’s Travels’, Jonathan Swift likens these irrelevant disputes of no consequence whatsoever, to the generations-old controversy and wars between the puny Lilliputians and their puny neighbors, over which end of the egg should be broken - the large end or the small one. The Lilliputians and their neighbors were aggressive and martial by nature and the issue of which end of the egg is to be broken only provided them an excuse for warring on each other. The same can be said of religious dogmas and doctrines and the blood spilled over them. Let us now consider some of these dogmas in depth. The argument that for a thing to exist there must be a creator or designer, as stated in the ontological and other arguments described above, is self- contradictory. Inquiring about the cause of things becomes meaningless after a certain point. Ultimately comes the question: “Who created the creator?” If nothing can exist of its own without a creator, then the creator too cannot exist of his own. If god can exist on his own from infinity, then so can matter, time, space and events. Early civilizations believed that the Sun, Moon, mountains etc were eternal and so they worshipped these celestial bodies as eternal beings. It was only later on that the concept of a Creator and his creation arose.
226 According to the law of conservation of mass in Thermodynamics, matter can neither be created nor destroyed, and that can be considered the last word on the matter of creation and design. The only difficulty here is that we see a beginning and end in all things, and so it is difficult for us to comprehend eternity, as all our comprehensions are based on our experience. But on second thoughts, it is only the form, in which we perceive matter that has a beginning and an end. The matter or the essence that makes the form is eternal and has no beginning and no end. Thus, the table may have a beginning and an end and so too the wood that forms the table. On the other hand, the atoms and the molecules, the real matter or essence that makes up the wood and the table, have neither a beginning nor an end. Even if there were a god as claimed by religions, he is totally beyond our experience and comprehension, and as such, his nature and ways of propitiating him are not amenable to discussion, debate or verification. Gods and their attributes are in the realm of speculation. Our concepts and descriptions of god as projected by religions are totally illogical. Some of the conventional Christian concepts such as one god, perfect god and eternal soul are downright absurd, as will be shown later. If religion were based on science, if Christianity were scientific, Einstein would have been the first to convert to Christianity; so would Freud and all Nobel Laureates and scientists. The same goes for all religions. According to anthropologists, there are mainly two genres of gods: theriomorphic (animal shaped) and anthropomorphic (human shaped). Many theriomorphic beings appear in Egyptian mythology. For example, the Egyptians sometimes represented their god Anubis as a jackal or a dog. Mythologies in general have considerable theriomorphic content. Snakes, wolves, sun, moon, wind and the like were thus accorded human characteristics and worshipped. In the Hindu pantheon, the sun, the wind, the river Ganges and many an inanimate things are worshipped in human form. Some of the gods have both human and animal characteristics like the Sphinx in Egyptian mythology. Ganesh, the elephant-headed Hindu god and Hanuman, the simian deity in Indian mythology have both human and animal characteristics. Hanuman in turn is the son of the wind god. In Indian mythology, there are instances of the river Ganges and even a pot giving birth to mythical figures. Drone, the man who trained the Kauravas and Pandavas in the martial arts, is thus conceived, and his name means ‘the son of the pot.’ Other gods, like Karna in the Indian Epic The Mahabharath, and Hercules in Greek Mythology, as well as Jesus, have a divine father and a mortal mother. Gods of primitive societies were not ‘designed’ on the lines of more advanced sociopolitical figures like kings. Animal gods were impersonated from local fauna. Thus, elephant or lion headed gods were never part of the religions of the Americas or among the aborigines of Australia, as there were no lions or elephants on those continents. Unicorns and centaurs were worshipped only in places where there were horses. The Bible says God created man in his own image. On a closer look, we see it is the other way round. We have created gods and goddesses in our own image (anthropomorphism). We projected our own nature, fears and paranoia on to gods just as we moderns now project these human frailties on to animals in cartoons like Mickey Mouse, and Tom and Jerry. What is more, like life itself, religions and their concepts, dogmas and doctrines have often evolved into local variations over the centuries and millennia.
EVOLUTION AND DIFFUSION OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS AND CONCEPTS: The concept of God has evolved with societies. Probably the primordial concept of God was not as creator but as a chief or an elder. Gods were referred to as father, mother or elder brother. Tamil is one of the most ancient of languages, and appendages meaning father (Appa), mother (Amma) are more often than not, attached to the name of every god or goddess. As described above, Original State societies were mostly matriarchal. Accordingly, primitive religions have prominent female or mother goddesses like Kali in India. As we enter the pastoral or agricultural Agrarian Wave, Patriarchal societies dominate, and gods, like the God of Israel, take on Patriarchal forms and roles, like leading the Israelites from Egypt. The presumed nature of gods changed as man stopped wandering and took to agriculture, and started building kingdoms and empires. Agricultural societies had kings as gods. Following the Egyptian and Roman Empires, gods began to be referred to as the ‘king of kings’. The role of god as ruler and protector was stressed as in the Bible, where God guides and protects the people of Israel through Sinai. The very usage of masculine gender, ‘he or him’, in relation to God confirms the conclusion that man created god in his own image, contrary to what is held by the scriptures. Greek mythology is an Man Created 227 God in His Own Image excellent study of the creation of anthropomorphic divinities, of gods in man’s image. In Homer’s Iliad we see gods behaving and conspiring like kings and nobility in any royal court. We have Jupiter or Zeus for king and other gods in a hierarchy or pecking order, similar to that in a court. Jupiter is king of gods and Juno is his queen. We also see Mercury the messenger of gods, Mars the god of war, Athena the goddess of crafts and learning and so forth. The practices and customs of the Greek societies were reflected in the lifestyle of their gods. Incidentally, Jupiter has Juno, his sister, for wife. His father Cronus too had married his own sister Rhea. If Jupiter were a modern, western god, the idea of having a sister for wife would have been considered detestable. What is more, Jupiter had overthrown his father Cronus to acquire power, just as Cronus had overthrown his own father. The Greek pantheon reflected the Greek society where marrying one’s own siblings was common, and kings and chieftains acquired power by doing away with their own parents and siblings. Similarly, Lucifer’s rebellion and fall from grace is the rerun of many a court intrigue. An article in ‘The Encyclopedia Britannica’ on religious beliefs in Africa says, “In general, however, these religious beliefs are broadly compatible with the type of society in which they are found, so that there tended to be complex pantheons of gods in hierarchical and stratified kingdoms such as Dahomey, but small-scale, stateless societies lacked that kind of complexity among their deities.” Here we have societies living side by side and yet having stratified system of gods in one society and classless gods in another, reflecting the two societies – one classless and the other hierarchical. It was no different in India. There was Brahma the king of gods, and then a whole hierarchy of gods, with messengers and courtesans such as the Apsaras. In Japan the emperor was worshipped as god until the Second World War. In early Egypt too, the king was worshipped as god along with a host of other deities. Everyone was free to worship his own favorite deity. A common belief was not required of the common man. There was freedom of worship. There was the Egyptian; there was no religion called Egyptianism. Then came the Egyptian emperor, Amenhotep IV (c. 1367 to 1350 BCE.), who declared that Aton alone was the one, true god. Aton had been a little- known sun god, worshipped in Thebes. Amenhotep was so devoted to the worship of Aton that he changed his own name to Akhenaton, which means ‘the servant of Aton’. It is probable that Amenhotep transferred his own megalomania, xenophobia and paranoia, the universal traits of kings and Amenhotep, One God emperors, on to his god when he decreed that Aton alone be worshipped. In the Concept and process, he destroyed the temples devoted to Amon, the reigning god of the Religious Bigotry Egyptian pantheon. The original idea or concept of a one, jealous, supreme god may be attributed to Amenhotep or Akhenaton and his manias and phobias. The Egyptians stopped worshipping Aton after Akhenaton died and reverted to Amon. But scholars believe the idea of a one, supreme god lingered even after Akhenaton, especially among the Hebrews who had settled in Egypt as slaves. Over the centuries, the one-god concept became an essential and integral part the Hebrew religion. It was probably Akhenaton that planted the seeds of religious dogmatism and its undesirable offshoot, religious bigotry in Egypt and its hinterlands. By ensuring that people worshipped only one god, the rulers and the priests ensured that they alone were entitled to the allegiance and the tithes received in the name of the one God. Monotheists claim there is only one God. But by ordering that the people worship no other god or goddess, it is implied that there might be other gods and goddesses than the one God. The Biblical God declares that he is a jealous God. If there is no other god, this anxiety or jealousy on the part of God seems to be irrational and misplaced. Incidentally, the first five books of the Bible – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy - are called the Pentateuch or the ‘Five Books of Moses.’ It is doubtful that Moses was directly involved in writing them. Biblical scholars believe that the Five Books of Moses were passed orally from generation to generation, until they were written down between about 1000 and 400 BCE, a few centuries after Akhenaton. In addition to gods, we also created devils, ghosts, goblins and spirits in our own image. We have numerous special effect movies depicting demons, rejuvenated mummies of Egypt and so on. These supernatural devils, demons and evil beings have already surpassed death and so cannot be injured or killed by man, and as such they need not fear anything that a man can throw at them. So there is no sense in ghosts or demons attacking us only at night and when we are alone. What prevents these ghosts from frightening or
228 injuring men in a crowd, in broad daylight? However, we have projected our own fears and limitations onto these ghosts and demons, and so they attack us only under circumstances a man would choose to attack - in the dark when the victim is alone. In the final analysis, these demons and evil spirits merely project our own aspirations, fears and above all our sense of utter insecurity. Newborns and infants, on the other hand, are not aware of their aspirations and fears and so cannot project these feelings on to others. Naturally, babies and infants are immune to being possessed or threatened by ghosts, spirits, demons or devils. The process of projecting human nature – our fears and aspirations - onto animals and nature is much in evidence in old fables like Red Riding Hood and in modern cartoons like Tom and Jerry. Cartoon characters like Superman, Batman and Spiderman nearly take on mythical dimensions like the gods themselves. God mirrors our aspirations and inspirations - he is jealous of other gods, fights and sends his rivals to their doom, and wants an obedient following. Gods also create dramatic situations such as speaking from a burning bush and handing over tablets from the top of the mountain. In the Bagavath Geetha of India, we have Krishna taking on a ‘viswa roop’ or ‘universal form’ of frightening proportions. I wonder why a god has to resort to these gimmicks or to have intermediaries to transmit his messages. After all, making an impression on crowds is just a matter of willing for the omnipotent. Or, why did he have to write the Commandments on a tablet, only to be broken immediately by an angry Moses? God has no time constraints. To convey a message or to impress his people, he could just as well have used modern technologies or future technologies, of which we moderns do not even have any inkling. As for those claiming direct and exclusive communication from God, As described above many believe that myths are rooted in historical events. Others think that myths helped to explain natural occurrences that people could not understand or explain in logical terms. There are also other theories and speculations about the origins of myths and other religious concepts. None of these theories answers all the questions about myths and religions; but each contributes, in its own way, to an understanding of the subject. Man is by nature an inquisitive animal and we have to form patterns, associations and cause-effect relationships between events and incidents. Primitive man was not in a position to answer his own questions regarding many of the events in life, such as wind and storms, lightning and thunder, rain and drought, health and disease, scarcity and plenty, victory and defeat - events, that were a matter of life Religion Is and death to him. Supernatural interaction and interference provided simple answers to Primitive Form such complex questions. For example, early human beings lacked the scientific Of Science knowledge to explain how thunder and lightning occurred. So they decided it was caused by a god using a hammer or by heavenly beings fighting or playing with each other. Malinowski believed that such myths helped relieve the tension brought on by their inability to explain, in physical terms, why something happens. We saw in the introductory chapter about valid and invalid associations in the thinking process. Invisible spirits provided the wildcard that would fit anywhere in validating associations – like the joker in a game of rummy. Gods, demons, angels, devils, elves, goblins, ghosts and a whole array of spirits provide simple explanations to the complex and the inexplicable. Spirits of opposing natures like gods and demons account for the good and bad things in life. In a way, religion is a forerunner of science in that it answers many a question for which our ignorant ancestors had no answers. Even in these present days of enlightenment and knowledge, the faithful resort to incredibly simplistic and naïve explanations of causes and effects, based on gods and supernatural beings. ‘Theory’ is a scientific term used for explaining cause-effect relationships. Theories are accepted as true if and only if they agree with observations and experiences. Like science, religion is meant to explain cause-effect relationships and to bring about desired results. Dogmas are to religion what theories are to science. The only difference is that dogmas do not have to conform to observations and so are liable to be used as a tool of exploitation. On the other hand if observations do not conform cent per cent to theories, the concerned theories are rejected outright. For our ancestors, the wrong answers were always better than no answers, just as the wrong decision is often better than no decision, for relieving tension in our everyday life. Thus, they had difficulty in finding an explanation for the blue sky. The Bible gave a simple explanation. It came in 1:1 of Genesis: “At first God made the sky and earth.” That one sentence filled up an intellectual need of our ancestors. We now know that
229 there is no such thing as the sky, and what looks like the blue sky is just an optical illusion, caused by the limitations of our own sight. Our ancestors were puzzled about how the cycle of day and night and the seasons came about. Moses figured it out in the Bible - Genesis 1:3-5 states that God created light on the first day and then he separated the light and darkness into day and night. Later on, only on the fourth day, does God create the Sun to rule the day and then the moon and stars to rule the night. (Genesis 1:14-16) But we now know that it is the Sun that is the primary source of light, and that day and night are caused by the spin of the earth - the earth’s side facing the Sun has day while the side facing away from the Sun has the night. Our ancestors also did not know that the earth went around the Sun and that is what gave rise to the seasons. Obviously, the Sun had to be created first, before day and night and the seasons. Light and darkness, day and night are mere ‘illusions’ of our senses and caused by the Sun and the movements of the earth. Nonetheless, the Biblical explanation satisfied our illiterate ancestors. We are told that the Bible is divinely inspired, and God is omniscient. If so, God was misleading us, and it took Copernicus and Galileo, to straighten things out. Whether God knew of these phenomena or not, He did not bother to disclose the truth to any of his dozens of incarnations and prophets, including Moses, Jesus and Muhammad . And, if God disclosed half-truths and falsehoods in Genesis, can we trust the rest of the Bible as true, or is the Bible another set of kindergarten tales? Most if not all cultures have one version or another of creation myths, which gave very simplistic answers to our simplistic ancestors. Many of the primitive creation myths assume that the sun, moon and much of nature are eternal living spirits, because they move around forever. Therefore, people worshipped the sun, moon, wind and other moving elements of nature. But later creation myths, like the one in the Bible, Space-Time in dated creation and proposed a creator God, distinct from the sun, moon and nature. Creation Myths However the ancients who spun these creation myths were only vaguely aware of time and space as separate entities. Most creation myths, therefore, seem to take time and space as granted at the time of creation. As a result, there is no narrative about the creation of time and space in the Bible or in the other creation myths, for the simple reason that we cannot imagine - nay we do not even have the words to describe - a state of affairs where there is no space or time. Even the word ‘void’ assumes that there is empty space in the void, and that the void exists in time. Though all religions claim divine origin, we see that many of the religious dogmas and concepts rose from diffusion of ideas and concepts, from one society to a neighboring society or societies. The best example of such a symbiotic relationship is between Greek and Roman mythologies. Diffusion of The Romans came into contact with Greek culture during the 700's BCE, and afterwards Religious Ideas some of the Roman divinities began to reflect the qualities of Greek gods and goddesses. They identified Juno with the Greek goddess Hera, and Minerva with Athena. These Roman divinities, with their Greek names in parentheses, included Bacchus (Dionysus), Ceres (Demeter), Diana (Artemis), Mercury (Hermes), Neptune (Poseidon), Pluto (Hades), Venus (Aphrodite) and Vulcan (Hephaestus). In like manner, mythical figures like Brigitte, Agatha, Agnes and scores of others were canonized by the church. Later on, Pope John Paul II set the record straight and decanonized many of these ‘saints’. Not only mythical figures, but also ancient customs and festivals also were thus adopted by Christianity. Christmas was adopted to fall in with the ancient celebrations of the winter solstice festivals. Such adoptions of mythical figures and ancient customs and festivals, made amalgamation and integration of pagan converts easier. (A long list of such accommodations by the Church can be found in ‘The Dictionary of Mythology’ by William Harwood) Zoroaster, the founder of Zoroastrianism, the Parsee religion, lived probably about the 1200's BCE. Zoroaster's people inhabited the steppes of central Asia before moving to Persia (now Iran). The heart of Zoroastrianism is the belief in a struggle between good and evil, a concept obviously borrowed from the yin and yang principle, the essence of ancient Chinese Philosophy. Ahuras were the supreme gods in the Persian pantheon. Zoroaster came and taught there is only one God, the Ahura Mazdah. Like yin-yang concept, which diffused from China, the one-god concept too must have been borrowed from Emperor Akhenaton of Egypt It is also interesting to note that both Persian and Indian mythologies speak of Devas or Daevas and Asuras or Ahuras. In the Indian version, Devas are the epitome of virtues, and they vanquish the Asuras in a long drawn out struggle. In the Persian version, it is the other way round. The Ahuras represent all that is 230 good, and they vanquish the Daevas. The contradiction between the two versions of the same story is mainly one of bias, from the point of view of two ethnic groups, Devas of India and Ahuras of Persia. A growing society may develop a particular myth. Later on, when the society breaks up into several separate societies, each develops its own version of the original myth. These myths have a genetic relationship. Myths about the Greek god Zeus and the ancient Indian god, Indra, have such a congenital relationship. Each is a sky god and uses a lightning bolt as his main weapon. Narada is the messenger of the gods in Indian Mythology, and Mercury serves a similar function in Greek Mythology. Then there are the gods of the sea, Varuna and Neptune; and the gods of love, Cupid and Kamadeva both with flowery arrows. The similarity between Krishna and Achilles, both invincible except for their heels, is also a case in point. Like royal lineage, virginity was another Agrarian-Wave obsession. The desire in Patriarchal societies to hand over their wealth to their own bloodline was the prime cause for the virginity-fetish. Our forefathers did not know that a woman who is in menstruation cannot have an embryo inside her. They thought that once fertilized, the embryo could lie dormant for any number of years until it was born. Therefore, they often killed or sacrificed the first-borns to ensure that the woman’s womb was cleared of embryos other than their own. The all-knowing Lord God of Israel was no more wiser than his devotees to menstruation, ovulation, conception and other factors related to childbirth, and so he too endorsed the heinous practice of the sacrifice of the first-borns and thereby the erroneous beliefs of the Israelis in Ex. 22:29. Some societies went to even greater lengths to ensure their lineage. Women were thus virtually incarcerated in harems with muscular eunuchs to guard them against alien impregnation. The purdah was another device to hide the women from the gazes and desires of other males. This Incarnations of obsession with virginity was particularly strong in the predominantly patriarchal Semitic Royal Blood societies. As a result, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, which have strong Semitic roots, lay extraordinary stress on virginity, whereas religions like Hinduism, which have matriarchal roots, are not so prudish. As a result, Christianity and Islam treat virginity as the highest virtue in any woman, however wicked she be. Sexual morals often have predominance over ethics in these societies, and an unwed mother bears a heavier social stigma than hardened criminals. The concept of virgin-birth evolved from this obsession with virginity. It started with myths of gods copulating with ordinary women. As gods took on ethereal forms, impregnation occurred without physical Virgin-Birth contact. Thus, Zeus copulated with Danae in the form of a sunbeam. Kunti, an important matriarchal figure in Indian mythology, conceives Karna, with the Sun himself as the child’s father; subsequently the Sun restores Kunti’s virginity. Such restoration of virginity after copulation is a popular theme in Indo-European mythologies. There are many mythological characters such as Osiris, Adonis, Atthis, Tammuz and so on who were touted as born of virgins. Jesus was the last in line for such a status, though it is seen in some gospels that Mary had six or seven children. Karna is born of the relationship between the Sun and Kunti as mentioned above. In order to cover up the shame of an unwed mother, she then puts her newborn Karna in a basket and floats it down the river. The baby is consequently rescued from the waters and grows up into a formidable warrior. One does not have to be a genius to compare the Karna and Moses myths and to conclude that the two stories are of much Karna & Moses the same origin. In the same vein, mass infanticides are ordered by the ruling kings in Krishna & Jesus the case of Krishna as in the case of Jesus; but both the incarnations come through the massacre unscathed at the expense of thousands of other babies. These similarities are explained by the theory that the ancient Greeks and the people of India descended from an Indo-European community, who lived several thousand years ago in the area north of the Black Sea as narrated above. One group of these Indo-Europeans migrated westward to what is now Greece. There, they developed their pantheon. Another group, the Aryans, migrated south into India. There they developed the Indian version of the same pantheon and their myths. Let us now turn to some other features of religion. The idea of incarnation is not unique to Christianity. In Hindu mythology, there are the twenty-two avatars or incarnations of Vishnu. The idea of God revealing through prophets also had its origin long before Moses. Most societies believe Incarnation in spirits possessing people, who then gesticulate or dance violently and speak in strange 'tongues' as in voodoo. This must have been the origin of the idea of spirits and gods speaking
231 through the prophets. Zoroaster was one of the first to promote himself as the messenger of Ahura Mazda, the one god. The Semitic religions followed suit. It may be noted that having a messenger or intermediary is a practice found in royal courts. One fails to understand why the omnipotent god needs an intermediary to talk to his friends or foes Divine when he can just as easily write his message in fire and lightning across the firmament or Messengers instill his commands deep into the hearts of friends and foes alike, by just willing it. The myths of heaven and hell too has evolved over the millennia. In simple societies, the concept of life after death was substantially that of a shadowy continuation of life on earth, as in Egyptian mythology. The Old Testament too does not give importance to heaven or eternal life as a reward for good deeds on earth. Instead, we see God punishing the guilty in this world itself, as in Sodom and Gomorrah and in the Great Deluge.
Incidentally, the story of the Great Deluge is not exclusive to the Bible. The Babylonian version of the flood is narrated in the Epic of Gilgamesh, which was written long before the Bible. In this version, Utnapishtim plays the part corresponding to that of Noah in the Bible. Even the dimensions of the ark are identical in the two versions. Obviously, the Bible borrowed heavily from the Epic of Gilgamesh and plays it up as a revelation from God. The only difference in the two versions is that in the Babylonian version the flood is the result of a conflict between two gods, whereas in the Biblical version the flood Gilgamesh & takes place to cleanse the earth of wickedness. This difference was obviously due to the Noah polytheistic society of Babylon and the monotheistic society of Israel, which could not put up with the idea of two gods fighting each other on an equal footing. The principle of the necessity for vindication of divine justice in the after-life came later. This principle is illustrated in the distinction between Elysium (a place of reward for the virtuous dead) and Tartarus (a place of damnation where the wicked were punished) in the Greek and Roman religions, and in the various depths of Sheol (abode of the dead) in the Jewish Scriptures. Later Jewish theologians regarded the heavens as located in one of the seven spheres of the firmament, and they found in the Persian doctrine of resurrection a hope of release from Sheol to a new life on earth or in the heavens. This, in turn, might have evolved from or given rise to the Hindu concept of rebirth. The concept of angels too is not unique to the Bible, but has diffused and evolved from all around the Middle East. After the period of Israel's Babylonian exile (597-538 BCE), Jewish thought about angels Angels was considerably modified. Drawing on Babylonian iconography, artists and writers began to paint in wings, even for anthropomorphic angels. Interest developed in the angels' garments, names and relative ranks. The Persian or Chinese dualistic tradition of good and bad, of yin and yang added another dimension to the Jewish conception of angels by creating hostile and destructive angels, who under Lucifer, rebel against God. As for the evolution of the concept of heaven, in many mythologies, gods dwell atop mountains so that they can watch over their subjects below in the plains. The Greek gods lived on Mount Olympus. Siva, the primordial Indian god, lived on the Himalayas with his consort Parvathy and sons Subrahmania and Ganesh. Siva was the leading deity in India before the Aryans came, with their version of the pantheon, centered mainly on Vishnu. In the case of Siva and his sons, we can also see accommodation between many myths. Ganesh was a deity revered in central India and Subrahmania was a god in South India, known under several names such as Murugan, Arumugan and Senthil. After the advent of other religions, especially that of Islam, an attempt was made at unification of the divergent Hindu pantheon and related myths. As a result Subrahmania and Ganesh were depicted as sons of Siva, thereby insinuating that the gods of North, Central and South India were originally of the same stock. Reverting to the evolution of concepts of heaven and hell, like the way the idea of gods evolved, from earthly persons to the ethereal spirits, the idea of heaven too evolved from the mountaintop abode to that of the present day ethereal concept of heaven and then hell. What is more, a human-god or Heaven a mountain-heaven has geographical limitations and time constraints, whereas an ethereal god & Hell and a universal heaven have universal appeal. We now talk of heaven as an ethereal domain. Nonetheless, we still look up when praying, as if the gods and their abodes are above; all the while maintaining that they are omnipresent, and as such it does not make any difference whether we lift our faces 232 up or cast them down when we pray. By the same token, ascension into heaven, as depicted in the Bible and the Koran, could just as well be a descent or even a horizontal movement. And, if heaven is everywhere, I wonder how and where hell can be accommodated. In the same vein, God is omnipresent and so is the devil. Obviously, they cannot be mutually exclusive and have to coexist as a sort of intimate amalgam. Hence, either god, and the devil are the same entities, known by different names, or they are complementary - two aspects of the same entity like the two sides of a coin. (Every year millions of Pilgrims converge on Mecca and pelt tons of pebbles and stones at the devil. Since God is also omnipresent, these stones batter God as much as they strike the devil. And every year or so the devil and his omnipresent companion God hit back causing pandemonium and stampedes that result in heavy casualties among the pilgrims.) In their quest about the beginning of things, our ancestors came out with numerous creation myths. In addition to the beginnings, they also thought about the end of days and again created myths to satisfy their endless curiosity. Just like creation myths end-of-the-world myths are also universal. The Hindus thought that time moved in a circular track and after eons or yugas, things would start all over again and repeat endlessly. On the other hand, most other civilizations reasoned in the context of a linear time with a definite beginning and an end, and created myths about it. Thus, even remote tribes in the Andamans, the Pygmies of Africa, The Aborigines of Australia and the native Indians of America have somewhat similar myths about the end when the dead will be resurrected. The Egyptians believed that after death the souls would go to the next world where they would have to face judgment. There would be seven persons to the right of the judge-god who would depose in favor of the soul while seven others to the left of the god would depose against the soul. If the god could not come to a firm decision, the soul would be weighed against a feather. If the soul was lighter than the feather, it would be admitted to heaven where beautiful virgins would administer to them. If the soul was heavier than the feather, it would be thrown into everlasting flames. The current Christian and Islamic myths, about the just being on God's right hand side and the wicked being on God's left on judgment day are obviously derived from the Egyptian myths. One wonders how an ethereal God can have hands, let alone a right hand and a left one. In addition to these judicial procedures, the concept of virgins administering to the souls of the dead gave rise to the concept of the Houris in the Islamic version of heaven. (See box below)
Houri: Also spelled huri, Arabic Hawra, plural Hurin, a beautiful maiden who awaits the devout Muslims in paradise. The Arabic word Hawra signifies the contrast of the clear white of the eye to the blackness of the iris. There are numerous references to the Houri in the Koran describing them as ‘purified wives’ and ‘spotless virgins’ Tradition elaborated on the sensual image of the Houri and defined some of her functions. On entering paradise, for example, the believer is presented with a large number of Houris, with each of whom he may cohabit once for each day if he has fasted in Ramadan and once for each good work he has performed. It has also been suggested that Muhammad reinterpreted angels he saw in pictures of Christian paradise as Houris. What is more according to tradition the Houris’ virginity is restored immediately after the copulation. Obviously God has only a limited supply of Houris. Islam boasts that it is a religion that respects women. However this is sheer rhetoric.. The Koran itself acknowledges that prisoners of war, whether men or women or children, were sold into slavery. Thus the men of the Bani Quereysh, who betrayed Muhammad in the war of the trenches, were all put to death and their women and children were sold into slavery with the blessings of Allah. The Prophet’s attitude to women as sheer objects of pleasure is also evidenced by his descriptions of heaven where Houris or courtesans were in good supply as seen above. What is more for each good deed and for each day of fasting, the faithful males would receive bonus Houris in heaven. In contrast women who did good deeds or observed fasting were probably left in the cold, with none to warm them up.
233 Besides the diffusion and evolution of such myths and mythical concepts, some practices also diffused widely from one area to another. One of the most prevailing practices to diffuse thus was the practice of renunciation and austerity. This is perhaps the most widely practiced of all religious traditions. In the Original State renunciation had no meaning as people had nothing to renounce and austerity made no sense, as they lived almost a hand-to-mouth existence, and hunger was their constant companion. It was in The Agrarian Wave that we began acquiring wealth – property, cattle, gold, slaves, Asceticism women and so on. Society became stratified, and a man was judged by the wealth he owned. In those days wealth was difficult to generate, as it depended mostly on human resources, supplemented by animal power alone. The easiest way to acquire wealth was to grab it from your neighbors or to exploit their labors. Kings and emperors did that on a large scale. Ordinary men kept slaves, encroached on their neighbors' properties or took them over by guile or wile. Nevertheless, for every man or king that succeeded in this endeavor, thousands perished. In The Agrarian Wave, ambition was more often than not, doomed to failure, and it led to despair and depression. Slowly a ‘sour-grapes’ syndrome evolved. Gautama, the Buddha was one of the first to take up this attitude. He was a prince and probably an ambitious one at that. He saw that his ambition took him nowhere and so he renounced his wealth and became an ascetic. This idea spread fast to other areas and almost all religions now extol renunciation and asceticism. Jesus was one of its most aggressive proponents and preached of the lilies of the field and the birds of the air. Indeed, in those days, asceticism had meaning, as one could often grow rich only at the expense of another. For some that grew richer some others grew poorer almost by the same amount, as little or no incremental wealth was generated. With the Industrial and Digital waves increases in wealth-generation has taken on almost exponential dimensions, and while the rich grow richer, the poor also grow richer. As a result, even the common man on the street is now better off than Solomon in all his glory (except for Solomon’s seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines as described in Kings 11:3.) Consequently, at present asceticism and austerity are no more virtues, and a life of indulgence is no more a sin, as long as it does not come at another’s expense and does not affect one’s health. There are many other facets of world’s religions, which have evolved and diffused over the centuries. According to Toffler, terrorizing was the original form of power. Divine and supernatural powers too are founded on fear of god’s omnipotence. As human relationships evolved, so did our attitudes - real or declared ones - towards god. Thus, Moses advocated fear of god. Later on, Catholic saints began advocating love of god, all the time maintaining that displeasure of god leads to damnation. Fear or love, the ultimate sentiment as regards gods and religion is fear and the ultimate aim, propitiation. We can find a parallel development in politics. Imperial power is based on intimidation. However, sycophants took to praising kings and promoting love of king and kingdom. This is mere lip service. The basic attitude is fear, and the basic aim is propitiation of the imperial power. Love and fear seldom go hand in hand. What is more pertinent is the question, as the Bible asks, how can we love a vaguely known god when it is so difficult to love our own neighbors? Another interesting idea that evolved was with respect to the devil. Early gods, including the Biblical one, were seldom bothered with the rights and the wrongs of their actions. They were capricious monarchs and did whatever they thought, suited them and their people - in that order. Ends justified the The Devil means. There was the idea of devil or Satan from ancient times. Thus, he is mentioned in Job, chapters 1 and 2, but he is not regarded as an enemy of God. It was only later on that the idea of a good and just God evolved. Then rose the question “If God is good and just, who is responsible for the evil and injustice in the world?” Our ancestors settled the issue by handing over that portfolio to the devil, thereby absolving God of all that is undesirable in God’s creation. Another concept, which is important and central to Christianity - is the Trinity, the concept of three entities in one God; it too has thus evolved as a compromise between monotheism and polytheism. (Freud Trinity postulates that we have special fixation with the number three, as three is associated with the male sexuality for obvious seasons. The Trinity is perhaps one of the many manifestations of our sexual fixation with the number three) Angels, devils and other spirits were also invented in order to accommodate polytheism in the monotheistic scheme of things. Many of the erstwhile gods and divinities were renovated as saints, spirits, angels and devils, subordinate to the one omnipotent God of monotheism.
234 THE ETERNAL BODY: Let us now consider closely some of the other religious concepts, described in the different myths and especially in the Semitic traditions of the Bible and the Koran. In the Biblical and Koranic traditions there is only one God. It is really absurd to attribute the word ‘one’ to a god who is supposed to have no body whatsoever. How can we count liquid or gaseous material, which do not have a concrete and definite form? We do not talk of one water or two chlorines. Instead, we One God say a glass of water or 5 Kg of Chlorine. Only solid things with definite shapes can be counted: one table, five computers and so on and so forth. God, according to the Semitic religions, is far more ethereal than any liquid or gas. Therefore, it is as or even more absurd to speak of `one god’ than it is to speak of seven milks or ten oxygens. Yet, so many people have been crucified or burnt at the stake on the issue of the number of gods. Similarly, describing the creator god as perfect is self-contradictory. A perfect being has no wants or aspirations whatsoever, and so only a lifeless being can be perfect. A perfect being that has Perfect no needs whatsoever cannot and need not act; he cannot create, speak, issue orders, reward God the good or punish the wicked. All actions, even the slightest and involuntary ones, spring from some need or imperfection. A perfect god has no such needs, and so he can neither create nor work miracles, as his state of eternal perfection does not leave any scope to act in any way. A perfect god cannot be jealous or cruel, pleased or displeased, let alone send messages from a burning bush or take on a ‘Viswa Roop’ or send messengers, flying around to announce the 'annunciation'. Though the Bible boasts of God's perfection, it states in Ex. 32:14, 1 Sam. 15:35 that God often repented which a perfect God could not have done. What is more, such deviations, aberrations and contradictions abound throughout the Bible, which its writers boast were inspired by the perfect God. As a result, we have to conclude that either the God who inspired these writers is not perfect or that these books are the figments of some cantankerous imagination. The same goes for all religious texts. As for the dogma of god’s omnipotence, Stephen Hawking poses the challenge, Omnipotent “Can god create a stone he cannot lift?” Either he cannot create such a stone, or he cannot God lift it after creating it. Either way, his omnipotence is the casualty. In the same vein, an omniscient God cannot think as stated earlier. If God were omniscient, if he knew everything and if he were a benevolent God, he would have disclosed all that knowledge to benefit mankind. The world would have been a better place for it. Nonetheless, neither God nor his prophets went to such troubles. Neither Jesus nor Muhammad disclosed the ‘zero’ and the early Christians and Muslims continued the laborious usage of Roman Omniscient numerals or its equivalents. It probably took some unknown Indian to introduce the zero. The God same goes for other discoveries like the wheel, electricity, steam engine etc, which have had a far more useful impact on humanity than all the gibberish in the Bible, the Koran or the other sacred texts. On the other hand, God’s agents like the Pope, the Ayatollahs and the Mullahs, tried to turn the clock backward by imprisoning the likes of Galileo and ridiculing the likes of Darwin. In this context De Bono the originator of the idea of lateral thinking notes that we think to infer new knowledge and since God has all knowledge laid bare before him he does not have to think at all. As for God being just, Epicurus (341-270 BCE) pointed out that either god can prevent Just evil and injustice in this world, but he will not, or he wishes to prevent the evil and injustice in God the world, but he cannot. Obviously, he cannot be just and omnipotent at the same time when there is so much evil in this world. Let us now consider the Eucharist, one of the most solemn and holy concepts, central to many of the Christian sects. It presumes that during mass the bread and wine are transubstantiated into the real flesh and blood of Christ, and that by partaking of it one becomes divine like Christ. The idea of transubstantiation has been the cause of much contention in Christianity down the ages. Even assuming that the Divinity bread and wine are transubstantiated into the real flesh and blood of Christ, the implication, From The that the partaking of it will impart divinity is as absurd as saying that eating fish would Eucharist impart the fish’s qualities to the consumer. Many of the Crusaders and Inquisitors set upon their unholy errands of rapine, murder and loot, after partaking of the Eucharist in solemn ceremonies. What is more, if the Eucharistic Principle were tenable, then it opens up numerous vistas in real life. Cannibalizing the likes of Einstein and Newton would create a world full of Geniuses in a few generations. Cheetah stew
235 would be the best diet for 100 Meter runners and shark fin soup would make for excellent swimmers. The whole idea is absurd and preposterous, yet repeat it a million times, and it becomes solemn and divine. A serious point of contention relates to the concept of the eternal soul and mortal body, a theme found in all religions of the world. Soul and spirit are subjective matters beyond the ken of Eternal common experience, and so discussing them without any verifiable data will only be Soul meaningless or illogical. For all practical purposes, soul might just as well be a four-letter word. Instead, we can take soul and spirit to represent form, which is reasonably objective and so worthy of discussion. What is soul? It is a quality associated with life. Spirit, consciousness, and mind are words, which amount to the same thing. Semitic philosophy maintains that though all animals have souls, only man has an immortal soul. This idea was not always there. Early Egyptians believed that only kings and emperors had immortal souls while ordinary men had no such immortality. Therefore, they built pyramids and monuments only for the kings. However, immortal kings had to have immortal nobles and servants to wait upon them in the afterlife, and that is how the idea of universal human immortality was accepted. The belief that only some humans had immortal souls while others had transient ones was not in anyway limited to the ancient Egyptians. According to the additional commentary by Bart D.Ehrman in ‘The Gospel of Judas’ published by the National Geographic, some of the Gnostic Christian sects of 2nd and 3rd century CE believed that only some humans had the divine spark in them. Only these ‘Gnostics’ or ‘the people with the knowledge’ could escape the profane or evil body in which the spirit is entrapped and they alone would attain eternal bliss. The others had transient souls like any animal, souls, which perished in death. Jesus was one of the men in the know of how to help the soul escape from the body. By his betrayal Judas helped Jesus to liberate his soul from his body. So, according to the Gospel of Judas, Judas had a divine mission and is not the treacherous disciple he is made out to be in the four Gospels. Another question in context arises in the light of evolution of man from primates to Hominids and Homo sapiens. At what stage of evolution did perishable souls give way to the Evolution & scriptural form of eternal souls? Did the Neanderthal man have an eternal Eternal Soul soul? What about the Peking man? How about Lucy, whose million years old skeleton Leakey, the famous archeologist and anthropologist, discovered in Africa? Will Lucy turn up on judgment day? Hindu philosophy believes in rebirths, which, in turn, implies that animal and human souls are eternal. If animals have souls too, how about plants? There are animal-like plants and plant-like animals especially among sea anemones. Do they have souls? If soul is consciousness or mind or a data processing system, then it is obvious that plants have minds too, though their minds do not seem to be Souls in located in a brain. Plants process data and make decisions. Thus, if moist sand is kept some Plants distance away from a plant, and dry soil is kept in the opposite direction, the plant senses the humidity gradient and sends its roots only in the direction of the moist soil, even when the moist soil is farther away than the dry soil. It is obvious that all living matter has some sort of mind or consciousness or what may be called a soul. As the color red is an integral property of blood, mind or soul is an integral property of a living body. As soon as the living mechanism dies, the mind or soul also probably disappears with it. Besides, we have discussed in the chapter on clear thinking that debating on events outside of common experiences are futile exercises in semantics. Therefore, questions such as whether there are souls or whether souls are eternal or transient are matter of futile speculations. Now consider a corpse or carcass kept in an airtight box. The total weight of the contents of the box is bound to remain constant forever - until heaven and hell freezes over. I kept a dead fish in an airtight box for over three years, without any apparent loss in weight of the total contents. So we can Conservation say it is the body that is eternal. It only changes form. The law of conservation of mass and of Body energy confirm this. On the other hand, the form or the soul goes on changing from moment to moment. We discharge carbon dioxide, feces, urine, sweat and other solid, liquid and gaseous emissions. These emissions – wholly or in part - are absorbed by other living beings and become their body. The elements of the cells on the lips of a Hollywood heartthrob may transform tomorrow into the sores of a
236 leper or into the refuse of a worm. Obviously, it is not the soul that unites all life forms; they are the elements of the body - the carbohydrates and minerals - that connect all living beings. The soul or form is fleeting; the body transforms, mutates, undergoes metamorphoses, but remains forever. The resurrection of the body on the Last Judgment day is scientifically impossible for the above reason. For Christianity and Islam, the Last Day of Judgment and the resurrection of the dead is a vital Resurrection dogma. It is believed that on that day everyone will appear for judgment with the body he or of the Body she died in. However, in the light of the bio-transfer described above, our body is not a constant entity and molecules of one man may be transmuted into the body of many other men over the entire period of human existence. Besides, all the organic biomass on earth, may not be sufficient to reincarnate the millions of billions of men and women born in the hundreds of thousands of years of human existence. The universal resurrection on judgment day is an arithmetical impossibility. A third factor that deserves our attention in this context is related to the transplantation of organs. Which organ does one have on the last day, his own or the donated one? Suppose the eye or hand of a good man was transplanted onto a criminal; and the criminal used the eye or limb to commit a crime or a mortal sin, and died unrepentant. In such a scenario, will the transplanted hand or eye also go along with him into hell, despite the good deeds to which these limbs might have contributed, in their original owner? How about blood transfusion, especially if two or more blood donors are involved? Which blood goes to heaven and which to hell? The cells of our body are steadily falling off and being replaced, cell for cell and a total replacement of all our cells takes place in about fourteen years, with not a molecule or ion remaining, of the body we had fourteen years ago. As a result, when you meet someone after fourteen years of separation neither you nor the man you meet are the same in material terms. They are not the material - the cells and particles - of the body themselves, but the relative positions involved of cellular, molecular, atomic and subatomic particles of the body involved that contributes to the identity of a person. In addition, mental processes of recognition, perception, thoughts, fears, hatred and so on and so forth spring not from material particles, but from relative positions of the particles. Our body is not the same from moment to moment. In my fifty-eight years of life on earth, I must have worn out and discarded four entire bodies - legs, hands, brain and all - like a snake or fly that molts inside and outside. Many, if not most of the atoms and molecules that make our body, would have been parts of cells of many men and women down the generations, and these atoms and molecules would have contributed to both good and evil down the ages. It would be impossible even for an omnipotent god, to sort out the myriad upon myriad of atoms and molecules, and to determine which molecule should be on a God’s right hand side and which on his left. Cells electrons, protons and neutrons would have to dart from heaven to hell and back. What is more, it has now been recognized that the genes we are born with has much to contribute to human wickedness or virtuosity. If so, should a man be punished for his genetic defects? Another factor that counts is the concept of good and bad, which change with time and place . The genocides committed by Moses, Joshua and other Biblical figures as well as the plunder and slavery practiced by Muhammad and his followers are the most heinous of crimes by modern moral standards. Accordingly, come judgment day, and these prophets and messengers of God are sure to end up in hell, if God were to act in accordance with modern ethical concepts. Reverting to the body, life is a porous system of matter that continuously lets in and lets out biomass, minerals, water and other ingredients. There is equilibrium between the matter entering the system and exiting it. Death is the final breakdown of this equilibrium, ending in the irreversible disintegration of the body. My body cells die out continuously, but I remain. In the same way, every one of us dies, but the human specie lasts for millennia. If so, which is the real life form - the cell, the individual or the specie? Or, are these forms, in their turn, part of a larger scheme of things? It seems there was no death in the beginning. There were only unicellular life forms, which constantly split up to give rise to more members, as the amoeba does. This considerably restricted the scope for mutation and change. So multi-cell life forms evolved to facilitate specialization, which is essential for increasing the chances of survival. The productive age of the individual was curtailed to facilitate mutation and change and death came into the picture. With death, the speed of mutation and change Soul In increased as change could be introduced into every new generation. Death of the individual The .Species is necessary for the efficient evolution of the species. The workers among many of the 237 social insects are sterile and do not reproduce. Nonetheless, they work themselves to death for the survival of the nonsterile members and the offsprings of their group. This also points to the conclusion that it is species and its survival that has preeminence over the survival of the individual. So it seems the species holds the essence of life, as it has primacy over the individual, just as the individual has primacy over the cells. This brings us to the question, “Where does the soul reside?” Does the cell have a soul? Does the soul reside in our body? Or does the real soul reside in the species? Heraclites said, “We step and do not step into the same rivers; we are and are not”. Yes, both the river and we are mere frames in a movie, constantly changing and yet remaining the same. The river is defined by its banks, and we are defined by our outward appearance and actions. Just as the waters of the Jordan evaporate, and drops of the condensation may fall into the Thames in the form of rain, and eventually become part of the Thames, we too transform and get incorporated into other life forms. The only thing permanent about the river is its name. The waters, the banks and the river bed are in a state of constant flux. It is the same with us. Our body and its elements are in constant flux and in this ever- changing scenario, it is our name alone that remains the same. Even the relative arrangements of our body elements change, though not as drastically as the elements themselves. Shakespeare asked “What is in a name?" Maybe there is much to it. Another allegory for the relationship between body and soul (form) is a roll of film on Mickey Mouse. Each frame in the cartoon is drawn with different inks and yet we call it Mickey Mouse. It is the same and yet it is not the same. The ink goes on changing from one frame to the next; Mickey Mouse remains. In time, the ink is sure to be degraded, but will remain mass for mass. Hypothetically, we can convert it back to ink and make other pictures of animals, men, trees, insects and so forth. We are like that Mickey Mouse. Biomass keeps on changing forms but not its essence of atoms. As seen above, the sun, moon and stars were considered eternal and worshipped as gods by primitive societies and even by later civilizations, because these celestial bodies retain their substance and their shape or forms for infinite lengths of time and because they seem to move across the firmament as if alive. Unlike the sun and moon, which are made of eternal matter in eternal forms, life is made up of eternal matter in transient forms. This is what led our ancestors to conclude that the Sun and Moon were eternal whereas our body is transient. There are substances like rocks and mountains on earth, which retain their form for infinite lengths of time. However, they do not move and so, were not considered as alive and were not worshipped as the sun and moon were. Another important theme of all religions that does not stand upto close scrutiny is the precept that man is the supreme creation, and all else was created to suit his needs. Were the dinosaurs created for men, if they never ever met a man? There were billions of species; there are now millions of species of flora and fauna, which never come across a man in a lifetime. How did they serve man? We now know that all life, including ourselves, evolved in tune with nature. There was a Russian sci-fi novel, in which cosmonauts from earth meet an alien spaceship, far out in space. The cosmonauts are delighted to find that the aliens look and behave exactly like earthlings and the two parties hit it off right away. Finally, they decide to get together for a drink only to find that impossible. The aliens have evolved in an atmosphere of chlorine and find the cosmonauts’ oxygen atmosphere lethal and vice-versa. Ultimately the two spaceships part ways in utter despondency. Our universe, our earth and its environment have not been created to suit human beings. Instead, we evolved in accordance with the environment. Thus if earth’s atmosphere had chlorine instead of oxygen, we would have evolved to breath chlorine and to drink hydrochloric acid. Our boast that all nature is made to suit our needs is as absurd as a shirt boasting that the purpose of man being created with two hands is to suit the shirt.
ETHICS OF RELIGIONS: In pre-Biblical times, it was possible for people to believe in a god of their own choice, and yet live with others of differing beliefs, in peace and harmony. God and beliefs had neither political aspirations nor moral pretensions. It was probably in Egypt, under Akhenaton, as described above, that uniformity of beliefs was insisted upon, and religion took on political and dogmatic dimensions. The Israelites carried this politicization of dogmas to the extreme. All those who believed in the ancient system of many gods were treated as pagans. Among the Jews, those who worshipped idols were liable to be executed as heretics and blasphemers.
238 Repeated a million times, a lie becomes eternal truth. This is a basic principle of all marketing and propaganda as we have seen. This is all the more so when the lie is perpetrated by the very people we trust most - our own parents - though they did it with the best of intentions. They did it, because they were themselves in their turn, taken in by their own parents and elders and so on. We find that people would normally abhor as most heinous, the idea of eating human flesh or drinking human blood. Nonetheless, declare it solemnly time after time, year after year for centuries and generations, and the act becomes holy and sublime in the Eucharist. All mythologies and religious dogmas have many preposterous and ridiculous propositions, such as resurrection and births from virgins. These become sacred and inviolate truths with repetition over the millennia by people of known integrity, like our own parents and grand parents, teachers and priests. In addition to repetitions, the oligarchs in religions also use every trick in the trade such as argument ad hominem, and argument ad verecundiam, which we have seen in chapter three in the section on propaganda. We often erroneously identify theology with philosophy, religion with ethics and apologetics with logical expositions. This again, is another instance of conditioned or programmed thinking. Theology is a house of cards built of one indecipherable doctrine on another, of one absurd dogma on another, of one unquestionable act of faith on another, regarding the nature and attributes of an unknown and unperceivable God. Because of their irrationality, dogmas, doctrines and acts of faith can be enforced only by other equally absurd doctrines like the doctrine of infallibility or by the right of might. Equally incoherent, but conflicting dogmas and doctrines often go under for the sheer lack of violent forces that can back them up. Thus, Arius denied the divinity of Jesus. He was exiled under pressure from his protagonists, led by Athanasius, who put forward the equally unverifiable doctrine that Jesus was divine. Athanasius was able to bring about Arius' exile, because he had the backing of Emperor Constantine and because it served Athanasius' private agenda of overturning Arius' power and influence. If Constantine had taken a fancy to Arius, it would have been Athanasius, who would have been exiled instead of Arius. If it would have turned out to be so, maybe Christians would have thought of Jesus as just a prophet in the same way as the Muslims venerate Muhammad. (See Arianism in the box above on Christianity). It was the right of sheer might alone that enabled the Church to imprison Galileo and to ridicule Darwin for the simple reason that their theories repudiated the absurd doctrines and mythical fictions promoted by the Church and its oligarchic hierarchy. There were other ridiculous doctrines like the 'Divine right of kings', which the Church espoused for fear of falling out with the kings, on whom the Church depended on for its survival. It was again the right of might alone that was behind Ayatollah Komeini's fatwa against Salman Rushdie, Taslima Nasreen's exile by the Bangladesh Government and Abu Zayd Nasr Hamid's expulsion by the Egyptian government. In the process, these religious oligarchs ignore the fact they are committing the same crime as the Quereysh who persecuted Muhammad, and the Sanhedrin who crucified Jesus, for contradicting the ridiculous doctrines of the establishment. Nonetheless, a positive thing that can be said of theology is that it in trying to systematically rationalize the irrational, theology helped in the development of formal logic. We have demonstrated above that religion is the forerunner of science in that religion answered many questions to which our forefathers had no answers. Just as religion is the forerunner of science, theology is the forerunner of philosophy and above all of logic. Philosophy & Unlike theology, philosophy is a rational discipline that tries to unify all the Theology various branches of scientific knowledge into a wholesome entity. And unlike theology, all philosophical precepts are open to debate, criticism and change. Whereas theology is enforced, philosophy is accepted willingly. The different world religions are based on theologies, which often conflict with each other, and when their supporters are equally strong, the acceptability of the concerned doctrines can only be resolved on the battlefields with bloodshed, plunder, rapine and misery. Philosophy, ethics and their principles on the other hand, are open to debate and criticism and are formulated to reduce conflicts, to avoid the use of force and to promote peace, harmony, and the ensuing prosperity. Theology and religion depend on the right of might for their very subsistence. Ethics and philosophy depend on the right of reason and consensus. Religion and theology serve vested interests; ethics and philosophy serve universal interests. Because of our thus erroneously identifying ethics with religion, it is often said that were it not for religions, we would have been like animals, and there would be no respite from wars and conflicts. It is also claimed by religions that god and his incarnations are the embodiment of all virtues. On close scrutiny, we 239 see that this is mere propaganda. The mythologies as well as histories of all religions are written in blood, gore and deceit. Gods waged wars on each other for material benefits, according to their own holy books. We have seen above, how in Greek mythology, gods overturned their divine fathers and took over the reins of power and the privileges that go with it. Cronus not only deposed his father, Uranus, but also castrated him and threw the proceeds into the sea. Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of Love, is supposed to have arisen from the foam, into which the genitals had fallen. Hindu Mythology depicts wars between Devas (gods) and Asuras. Virtually every one of those conflicts was over power, as the squabbling Devas and Asuras were cousins, descended from Manu, the son of Brahma, the Originator. The great Hindu epics, The Ramayan and The Mahabharath, are essentially chronicles of military exploits that resulted in much bloodshed and misery. The mythologies also show up some of the callous morals of the gods. The Ramayan centers on Ram, one of over twenty incarnations of Vishnu. As in many such Ram’s mythologies, Hinduism boasts that Vishnu incarnated as Ram when wickedness in the world got Ethics out of hand. Ram was the eldest son of Dasarath, the King of Ayodhya who had three wives. One of the younger wives had once saved the King’s life, and in return the king had promised her that he would fulfill her one wish, whenever required, however difficult the wish be to grant. Life goes on; Dasarath grows old and decides to coronate Ram, born of his first wife, and the rightful heir to the throne. Came coronation day and the younger wife springs a surprise; she reminds the king of his promise and demands that the king banish Ram to the forests and that he crown her own son, Bharath, instead. Ram rises to the occasion like an ideal and dutiful son, and offers to go into the forest. Ram’s wife Sita and his half-brother Laxman accompany Ram into the forest. There, a woman, named Surpanaka, makes amorous advances to Laxman. Laxman has no heats for her, is angered by her persistence, and wrathfully chops off her nose and breasts. It so happens that Surpanaka is the sister of a mighty king, named Ravan. Ravan is forced to retaliate and to defend his honor and reputation. Ravan abducts Sita when no one is around, and carries her off to his island kingdom of Lanka in the south. Ram decides to rescue his wife and gathers an army to attack Lanka. The story of The Ramayan is this rescue mission by Ram. We see Ram as an astute tactician, taking undue advantage of a conflict between two brothers, Bali and Sugriv, of the royal family of a simian kingdom. Ram steps in and aggravates the conflict, plots with Sugriv and draws Bali into a duel with Sugriv, and coolly shoots the unsuspecting Bali in the back. Sugriv becomes Ram’s staunch ally and deputes his lieutenant, Hanuman, to help Ram. Later on, Hanuman plays a prominent and critical role in Sita's rescue mission. Once on the island of Lanka, Ram takes advantage of another sibling rivalry between Ravan and his brother Vibheekshan, plots with Vibheekshan and destroys Ravan after a long drawn out war and rescues Sita. Before long Ram begins harassing Sita with allegations of infidelity, though after siring twins. Sita swears by the fire that she is as chaste as the snows of the Himalayas and volunteers to walk through fire to prove her chastity. Ram gives his nod and Sita walks through ten or a hundred meters of roaring fire. She emerges unscathed from the fire. Even this trial by fire fails to allay Ram’s unfounded suspicions, which amount to little more than “delusions of infidelity," as psychiatrists call it now. Ram banishes the pregnant Sita into the forest, where she gives birth to the twins, Lav and Kush. Ram is said to have taken on human form to banish evil. Nevertheless, on analysis of The Ramayan, we see that all Ram does is serve his own interests. First Bali is shot in the back, then Lanka is burnt down, and in the war countless deaths occur on both sides - all these immense sacrifices for rescuing a single person, Sita. She too is then banished to the mercy of the wild animals of the forests, with her unborn twins. We have to ask a question here: if he were really Vishnu, what difference did it make to the Lord of all things whether the unborn twins were his or not? He should have protected them even if they were Ravan’s. The whole conflict of The Ramayan is sparked off by Laxman’s dastardly act of cutting off Surpanaka’s nose and breasts. (And Laxman is worshipped as the embodiment of chivalry, loyalty and bravery!). Ram should have chastised Laxman and made amends, if he had an iota of justice in him. The British are decried by Indians for turning Muslims and Hindus against each other for gaining political mileage and power in India. However, the dastardly acts of the British pale before the callous opportunism of Ram in exploiting the conflict between the brothers Bali and Sugriv as well as between Ravan and Vibheekshan. In addition, the banishment of his faithful wife for alleged infidelity is a 240 reprehensible thing to do when, if there were any infidelity at all, it was in part due to Ram’s failure in guarding her. And Ram is an honorable man, considered to be the epitome of justice and virtues, as is his essence, Vishnu. And so are they all honorable men and women, the gods and goddesses of all pantheons. Comparing Ram and Ravan might be an excellent exercise for the Adult in us. Ravan was a mighty king, with a mighty army. His sister’s top-front assets had been chopped off, by a refugee. What would you have done in Ravan's shoes? Surely, any ruler in Ravan’s place would have sent a commando force to do away with the refugee trio. Even better a thing would have been to chop off Sita’s Bs & N as Laxman had done to Surpanaka. But Ravan was a king and a gentleman. Therefore, he takes his royal aircraft and flies into the forest and carries away Sita, without touching a hair of hers. If the widely respected TV serial of Ramanand Sagar can be believed, Sita is then put up comfortably under a sprawling tree, near a swimming pool, and in idyllic and trim condition. Ravan also makes sure she gets a fresh supply of chaste-white saris every day, and blouses to match the saris. Sagar also shows Ravan making advances to Sita. But every time an invisible force foils his advances. But, that seems improbable. If there were such a force, it could have defended Sita in the forest itself at the point of her abduction, unless that force did not have the technology to cross the seas to India. If that were so, Ravan could well have raped Sita in the forest itself, or in the plane in which he abducted her. Instead Ravan treats Sita much better than Ram ever treated Sita. As described above, Sugriv had deputed his lieutenant Hanuman to help Ram and Hanuman plays the most crucial role in the Lankan war. Hanuman was the son of the sky-god. He was powerful, he could fly through the air and could take on any form big or small. It was he that burnt down Lanka almost single- handedly. In the war, Laxman was critically wounded and the doctors prescribe a herb that could be found only on a mountain in the Himalayan ranges. Hanuman is dispatched to fetch the herb and in one leap north, he reaches the Himalayas. However, since he was not able to identify the herb, Hanuman uproots the whole mountain and carries it over to Lanka for the doctor to identify the herb. The Ramayan depicts this same Hanuman appearing several times to Sita in her captivity. If Hanuman would carry a mountain, what prevented him from carrying away the prison in which Sita was incarcerated? Hanuman could also have carried Ravan along with his palace and handed him over to Ram, to do with as he pleased. In such a scenario the whole Lankan war was a waste of time, energy and lives. The holy Ram seem to have had no compunctions whatsoever in the matter and goes about massacring the innocent Lankans, caught in the crossfire. Coming to the Lankan war itself, there are too many questions left unanswered. Ravan had a state- of-the-art army with combat aircraft, possibly bombers, as attested by The Ramayan itself, whereas Ram had only a rag-tag army of monkeys and squirrels. Ravan also had Sita as a hostage for bargaining. The odds were stacked heavily in Ravan’s favor and yet he was defeated. If it were a normal defeat in battle, Ravan could have finished off Sita. So we have to deduce that Ravan was not defeated in a normal war; it was probably treachery and an inside job that did Ravan in. After all, Ram was a past master at treachery, as evidenced by his machinations in the simian kingdom. In all probability, Ram had got Vibheekshan, Ravan’s brother, on his side, then took Ravan by surprise and did away with him before Ravan had time to kill Sita. If it were not for Ram’s treachery Ravan could have won the war with his hands tied and we would have had The Ravayan instead of The Ramayan, and Ravan would have been worshipped as a divine incarnation in the place of Ram, because they are the winners who always make history, epics and myths. Ethics and morals have little to do with it. Hindu fundamentalists have been clamoring for Ramraj or Ram’s Reign in India. The Ramraj Ramayan does not describe how well Ram ruled after he became king. Nevertheless, if he can or be judged by his actions, we can assume that in Ramraj, you can expect brother to turn against Ravanraj brother with the blessings of the monarch. Women will have to walk through fire, and yet be turned out, whether they are innocent or not. Rape victims will get no justice whatsoever. If The Ramayan is to be believed Ravanraj would have been much better than Ramraj, for the Ramayan itself attests that Lanka was a prosperous and powerful kingdom under Ravan. The Mahabharath, the biggest Hindu epic and compendium of mythology, is no different - with gods taking sides in power struggles between cousins, irrespective of where justice lay. In this epic we see the heroes, the Pandavas - the five sons of Pandu - gambling away all they have to their cousins, and as if that were not enough they put up their common wife, Panchali, as the stakes and lose her too to their cousins and their treacheries. What a despicable thing to do! 241 Another of the greatest works of Indian philosophy is the Bhagavath Geetha. Its message of Karma Yoga, the need to do one’s duty with all application, regardless of the outcome, is indeed great and sublime Ethics of philosophy. Nevertheless, in the same scriptures, Krishna, its proponent, also upholds the The caste system with its inherent inequalities, as the perfect system. Krishna was another Mahabharath incarnation of Vishnu, and all that he does is get engaged in court intrigues and chase women - sixteen thousand and eight of them - in mostly adulterous affairs with wives of other men. Other incarnations are just as silly and self-serving. Vaman, the fifteenth avatar of Vishnu, perhaps takes the cake in context. Mahabali was a popular and generous king. Equality, peace, prosperity and the other ideals of modern democracies prevailed in his kingdom. Mahabali's only fault was that he belonged to the Assura clan, the archenemies of the gods. The gods feel insecure and resent the growing power and Vishnu’s prosperity of Mahabali’s kingdom. They designate Vishnu to finish Mahabali off. Ethics Accordingly, Vishnu incarnates himself in the form of a poor Brahmin, named Vaman. Vaman then approaches Mahabali with a begging bowl and asks for alms. The generous king invites the Brahmin to state his wish. Vaman asks for three measures of land for his body to be buried, the three measures to be made with Vaman's feet. Mahabali promptly grants the wish. Suddenly Vaman grows to enormous and universal proportions. With two measures of his huge feet, the wily Vishnu covers the earth, heavens and the underworlds. Then he asks Mahabali for the third measure. The valiant king bows down and asks Vishnu, oops Vaman, to place his feet on Mahabali's head. Vaman does so and in one deft shove banishes Mahabali to the underworlds. What evil did Vishnu eradicate in his incarnation as Vaman? What good did the other avatars of Vishnu promote on earth except jealousy, greed, megalomania, adultery, and delusions of infidelity, treachery, intrigues and sundry vicious pastimes of insecure royalty? But we are told that the incarnations were designed to eradicate evil and we have no choice but to say amen to that, because that is what we have been taught generation after generation. Let us now examine the ethics of the God of Israel, His people and their leaders. Abraham is the ultimate Patriarch as far as Judaism, Christianity and Islam are concerned. His Saga Abraham’s is set off in real earnest in Exodus Chapter 12, when God commands him to leave his folks Ethics after promises to make him the father of a great nation. Genesis Ch.12: 5 goes on “Abram took his wife Sarah, his nephew Lot, all the slaves and all the other things he got in Haran. Then Abram and his group moved to the land of Canaan.” He was then seventy-five according to Genesis. Later on, in Genesis 12:10 there is draught and famine and Abraham decides to leave the others behind and moves to Egypt with his extremely beautiful wife, Sarah. Before setting out, he tells her that the Egyptians would kill him to get her if it were made known that they were husband and wife. Therefore, she is to tell them that she is his sister. In the subsequent verses, we see Abraham taking Sarah to the Pharaoh of Egypt who promptly takes her to bed. In return, Abraham receives much wealth. When the Pharaoh learns that she is Abraham’s wife he is remorseful and offers Abraham even more riches and so Abraham returns to his folks a very rich man. If a man can be judged by his actions, Abraham was a pimp in plain language and a high level one at that. His statement that the Egyptians would kill him if it were known that Sarah was his wife, was a blatant lie and a ruse to get Sarah to go along with his plans of getting rich quickly; for the Egyptians do not harm him even after the truth is known. What is more, the Pharaoh himself showers him with more gifts when he learns the truth. On second thoughts, the whole story about the draught and famine itself seems to be a lie. Abraham, being the leader of the group and the owner of the sheep or cattle, which was their life-line, would have been the last to leave the group. In addition, he would certainly have taken Lot along to Egypt if there were a famine as the Genesis describes. He is upto the same old profession again in Chapter 18 of the Genesis when he entertains the three visitors at his home. This is confirmed in Chapter 19 when the strangers visit Loth’s house and the neighbors surround the house and threaten to kill the visitors. Even to this day, in our part of India, if strangers come to the homes, where women of questionable character are put up, the neighbors surround the home and call the police who promptly charge the strangers and the women with immoral trafficking. This is exactly what Lot’s neighbors did. That Lot was a man of incredibly low morals is further confirmed in Genesis 19:6-9 242 when he offers his ‘virgin’ daughters to the angry mob, to do with his daughters as the mob pleased. (Later on these daughters get their father drunk and then mate with him. What abomination! What debauchery!) In chapter 18, it is implied that Sarah was too old to bear children. However, it does not seem to be so. Later on in Chapter 20, Abraham takes Sarah to Abimelech, king of Gerar and tells him that Sarah is his sister. Again, as with the Pharaoh, Abimelech learns that she is Abraham’s wife and rewards Abraham generously for services rendered. (According to Genesis 17:17, Abraham was over a hundred years old and Sarah was over ninety at the time, which is improbable. This leads us to suspect that the ages of Adam, Noah and others as mentioned in the Bible may not be all that accurate) This also gives rise to a suspicion whether it was really Abraham that begat Isaac or whether the others, who had a go at Sarah, had something to do with Isaac’s conception. However, Isaac proves himself the true son of Abraham in Chapter 26 of Genesis, when he takes his wife Rebecca to Abimelech, king of Gerar - the same man Abraham had taken Sarah to – and plays the same game as his father had played, saying that Rebecca was his sister. Considering the fact that the pharaoh, Albimech and all wayfarers had a go at Sarah and Rebecca it is indeed doubtful that the Israelites are descended from Abraham and Isaac. On the other hand the Arabs have a more genuine claim to Abraham's lineage as no doubts whatever has been cast on Ishmael's lineage through Hagar the slave-girl. In addition to the above abominations on the part of Abraham and Isaac, from Chapter 20:12 of Genesis we learn that Abraham has indeed married his half-sister, a reprehensible act of incest by modern standards. So much for the ethics and morals of the man and woman, specially chosen by the just and omnipotent God, to father and mother his chosen people. Further on, in Exodus, we see the Israelites wind their way, under Moses, from Egypt to the Promised Land, over the blood and corpses of other tribes en-route. We see the cruel and insane face of the “God of Israel” in The Book of Numbers, Chapter 31. The Israelite army goes to war against Moses & the Midianites at God’s behest. The Israelites slay all the Midianite men and capture their Ethics women and children, and return triumphant, to their camp. On their triumphant way home they see Moses coming out to meet them, his face contorted in rage. He rebukes the soldiers for not sticking to God’s instructions, which were to slay the married women and all the male children of the vanquished Midianites. How much more cruel was the “God of Israel” than the war-calloused soldiers? If it were in modern times, both Moses and his god would have gone before the War Crimes Tribunal. The history of Israel and its god is brutal and gory by any standards. The Bible says that Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s orders and that we humans, as the God’s children of Adam and Eve, are consequently put to so much trouble in this life. In spite of all Unethical our shortcomings, human jurisprudence does not punish children for crimes committed by Vendetta their parents. It is obvious therefore that the God, who punishes us for Adam’s disobedience, does not have a drop of justice in him. If posterity can be punished for crimes of an ancestor, it is only just and fitting that posterity be rewarded as well for the good done by forefathers, irrespective of the actions of the posterity. The Bible states that we are as much descendants of Noah as of Adam, and that Noah was a good man. So, we should be rewarded for Noah’s virtues, irrespective of the merits of our own actions, just as we are punished for Adam’s disobedience. The tradition that sons should suffer the consequences of their parents' crimes has its origin in ancient times when feuds and vendettas were a way of life. If a man were killed, even if in the course of war or justice, his clan and especially his sons were honor-bound to take vengeance on the killer or murderer. Therefore when a man had to be killed in the course of justice, several clans would gang up and each clan would designate a representative to kill the culprit so that all the clans would be held responsible for the killing. In such a scenario the kin of the victim would have to take on many clans together which would prove formidable. Thus when the Quereysh of Mecca were peeved at Muhammad's teachings against their gods at the Kaaba, they decided to kill Muhammad. But Muhammad hailed from the powerful Muttalib clan and the Quereysh feared that killing Muhammad would invite certain reprisal from the Muttalib, for in those days blood was thicker than justice or religion. So the different clans of the Quereysh elected a representative from each clan to kill Muhammad so that even though powerful, the Muttalib would find it difficult to take on all the other Quereysh clans. (Muhammad got wind of the plot and fled to Yathrib or Al Medina where he is said to have instituted Islam) 243 Another custom to fend off vendetta was to kill all the kin of the victim and especially his sons. Wives of the victim were also killed for fear that if unborn sons if any would grow up to avenge their father's death. It was from this custom that the rationale arose that progeny be punished for the crimes of their fathers, that we be punished for Adam's misdemeanor. This is also why in the Bible, Moses and his God commanded the Israeli army that it kill all male children and married women of those vanquished in battle. A third factor of all jurisprudence anywhere is that all punishments or penalties are commensurate with the seriousness of the offense or crime. The punishments for minor theft is not the same as for brutal homicide. Turning a child out of its home into the freezing winter night for eating chocolate against parental orders would be a crime more serious than the disobedience of the child. This is what God seems to have done in turning out Adam and Eve and their progeny into the wide bad world for all eternity for a juvenile infringement. If God is omniscient, He issued the trivial order against eating the fruit with the full knowledge that the order would be disobeyed and this in turn would enable Him to punish the duo and their progeny for all eternity. If God can be judged by his actions, He is the quintessence of infinite sadism rather the epitome of justice as made out to be. In his inimitable style, Thomas Paine declared “Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God...” The Bible chronicles the megalomania, paranoia, xenophobia, treachery, bigotry, debauchery, lust, cruelty and other evil deeds of God and his ‘chosen people’ The same can be said of other gods and mythical figures, the world over. I would rather worship any Satan, Beelzebub or Iblis than any of these gods, their incarnations or their representatives on earth. We all know in our innermost consciences that what the Hindu god Ram did to Bali and Ravan was treachery; we know too that the caste system is akin to slavery and a reprehensible sin against humanity. We know that massacring women and children amounts to the most heinous of crimes. We know also that punishing mankind forever for the first man’s trivial disobedience is gross injustice. Nevertheless, we dare not call a divine spade a spade for fear of incurring divine wrath, for fear of offending the Patriarch in us. All this has come about because we dare not free ourselves from the shackles of dogmas and religions. Let us now turn to Christianity, the religion of love. It was Saint Paul who planted the real seeds of the cult of Christianity, which has grown into the colossus, as we know it today. But even this Christianity achieved its real growth long after Paul’s time, and Christianity that too after a bloody war. The bloodshed was over conflicting claims to the Roman Empire. & Ethics The rival claimants were Emperor Constantine and his brother-in-law Maxentius. The war was fought at its fiercest at the Milvian Bridge in 312 CE. It is said that the army of Constantine was led into battle, by the miraculous appearance of a Cross in the sky. The rest is history. Constantine won the battle, converted to Christianity and was the first Roman emperor to do so. It was Constantine who laid the firm foundations of temporal Christianity. Harking back to Constantine, winning a war under the sign of the Cross was the ultimate in absurdity. Jesus was the prophet of love, peace, forgiveness and brotherhood. How could a man (or god) who taught his disciples to turn the other cheek, behave so brazenly out of character? How could a messiah who prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” help an army in a fierce and bloody battle over temporal gains? Nonetheless, the battle at Milvian Bridge marked the resurrection of Christianity and was a portent of what was to come in the name of god, in the name of love. The Saxons, now spread over much of Germany, England and Northern Europe were not Christians until Emperor Charlemagne (742-814 CE) subdued them and converted them to Christianity by force. After Charlemagne was defeated by the Basques, the Saxons rebelled. The Emperor retaliated. Charlemagne’s 4,500 Saxons were executed en masse in 782. In the end, Charlemagne succeeded in Brutality subjugating the Saxons to his rule. He also decided that the Saxons be converted to Christianity, by fair or fowl means, for the total integration of his empire. The violent methods, Charlemagne used for the conversions, had been unknown to the earlier Middle Ages and it shocked even his own advisers and confidants. If it was Constantine that laid the foundations of Christianity in Southern Europe, it was Charlemagne who laid its foundations in Northern Europe, foundations of blood, slaughter and torture. Had it not been for Charlemagne and his highhanded conversions, Martin Luther,
244 Henry VIII and others may have not been born Christians at all, nor would they have founded Protestantism and Anglicanism. Though Christians were vociferous about the persecutions meted out to them by Nero and other Roman and non-Roman emperors and kings, they have been tactfully silent on the persecution Charlemagne dealt out to the Saxons. Instead of condemning him and his inhuman persecutions, which surpassed any Roman emperor, the Pope crowned Charlemagne the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. The unholy alliance between the Pope and the Emperor ruled happily thereafter. This brings us to the Pope, who claims he is Christ’s vicar on earth. The Pope’s claim to primacy is that he is the direct successor of Saint Peter. Nowhere in the recognized gospels or in the Acts of the Apostles is it mentioned that Peter ever went to Rome. There was one ‘Acts of Peter’ a Manichean document of ca 200 CE, which was the one book that claimed that Peter had gone to Rome and was crucified there, head down. Nevertheless, this book was so full of contradictions and apparent falsehoods that the church was forced to ban it. It is this book of fabricated lies, which the Pope himself has banned, that forms the basis of the Pope’s claim to primacy. The story of Papacy, the longest surviving political institution in the world, is one that would put to shame any honest Christian. Thus Alexander VI, Pope from l492-1503, had a child by his own daughter, Lucretia Borgia. He first acknowledged the paternity and then retracted when the acknowledgement did not go down well with the faithful. We have also seen how the great schism in the church took place over the ‘filioque clause’, which the reigning Pope first opposed and then supported in the face of political pressure, against all norms of fidelity required of a divine representative. (See filioque clause in the box in the chapter on clear thinking) The Pope Before that, there was the case of Emperor Constantine’s will, which came to be & Ethics known as the 'Donation of Constantine.' There was a ecclesiastical tiff between the bishoprics of Rome and Constantinople on one hand, and the corresponding political one between the Roman and Byzantine empires on the other. From the times of Constantine the Great in the fourth century CE, Byzantine Church exercised power over much of the West, including Sicily and parts of Italy. Then from nowhere appeared this document by Constantine, bequeathing both temporal and spiritual power to the Pope - Pope Sylvester I (314–335) - in all the areas of the West. Popes used this document to exercise their power over the West. It was regarded as genuine by both friends and enemies of the papal claims to power over Western Europe until 1440, when Lorenzo Valla, a historian, noticed that the document had been signed at Constantinople several years before there was any Constantinople. Even popes now acknowledge that the Donation of Constantine was a forgery. Obviously some Pope was behind this forgery, as only a Pope had enough motivation for such a dastardly act. The Acts of the Popes, if it were written, would cause immense shock and dismay to the faithful sheep, as to the true nature of their shepherd. Religious fervor has often been the cause of the most heinous of crimes. Torquemada presided over the inquisition, which burnt thousands of men and women at the stake, after accusing them of heresy and witchcraft. (See Inquisition in the box above on Christianity) This was done at the instance Torquemeda of the Pope and the church. According to Torquemada, he was furthering God's cause by his inhuman acts and so he led his victims to their stakes after an elaborate religious ceremony called the Auto-Da-Fe, which also included a solemn high mass. His religious convictions went opposite to basic ethics and compassion, once again establishing that religion has little to do with ethics. If we look at history, there have been many ardent believers like Torquemeda right from the days of Akhenaton whose religious zeal spelt doom for many innocents. There were and still there are many such Torquemedas in all religions who give priority to religion over ethics and human rights as proved by massacres in Serbia, Somalia and other trouble spots of the world. As illustrated, religions are one of the main promoters of unethical massacres and pogroms, rather than champions and promoters of peace, ethics and morality as projected. Religious hypocrisy is evident in the Catholic Church's condemnation of Nero and other Roman emperors who persecuted Christians. Even by the Church's records, Nero accounted for less than a thousand Christian deaths. On the other hand, hundreds of thousands of professed Christians suffered worse fate at the stakes during the inquisitions which were sanctioned by the respective Popes themselves – the self proclaimed shepherds of the faithful. It is an irony that Nero is decried whereas the Popes who sanctioned the inhuman Inquisition-massacres were hailed as champions of Christendom. 245 The Inquisition was directed by the Church against its own kind – Catholics. The Crusades were another saga of inhuman cruelty against the Muslims and the Christians of the Eastern Church. See box below!) Crusades: Christian military expeditions organized mainly to recapture Palestine from the Muslims. Palestine, also called the Holy Land, was important to Christians because it was the region where Jesus Christ had lived. Palestine lay along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea and Muslims had taken control of it from Christians. The Crusaders, who came from Western Europe, organized eight major expeditions between CE. 1096 and 1270. This was a period when Western Europe was expanding its economy and increasing its military forces. The Crusades were a part of a broad Christian expansion movement. Kings, nobles and thousands of knights, peasants and townspeople took part in the Crusades. They had two stated goals: (1) to gain permanent control of the Holy Land and (2) to protect the Byzantine Empire, a Greek Christian empire centered in southeastern Europe, from the Muslims. But many Crusaders also fought to increase their power, territory and riches. The Crusaders won some battles and for a time were able to establish a Crusader kingdom along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, but their victories had no permanent effect. In typical religious fashion, the Crusades were originally called armed pilgrimages. The word Crusade comes from the Latin word crux, meaning cross. Members of the many expeditions sewed the symbol of the cross of Christ on their clothing. .To take up the cross. meant to become a Crusader. During the CE 500's, the Byzantine Empire controlled much of the land bordering the Mediterranean Sea. This area included southeastern Europe, Asia Minor (now Turkey), Palestine, Syria, Italy and parts of Spain and North Africa. In the 600's, Arab Muslims conquered Palestine, which included Jerusalem and other places, sacred to Christians. Most of the new Arab rulers allowed the Christians to visit the shrines. During the 1000's, fierce Seljuk Turks from central Asia invaded the Near East and conquered Asia Minor, Palestine and Syria. The Turks crushed the Byzantines in the Battle of Manzikert in Asia Minor in 1071. The Turks had become Muslims. But unlike the Arab Muslims, they made it difficult for Christian pilgrims to reach the holy places. In 1095, Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnenus asked Urban II, Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, for assistance in fighting the Turks. Urban agreed to help. He wanted to defend Christianity against the Muslims and to recover the holy places. He also wished to gain power and prestige for himself at the expense of a rival claiming to be Pope. Urban believed that a military expedition against the Turks would unite the Christian knights and nobles of Western Europe and end their continual internecine fighting. In the autumn of 1095, Urban held a meeting of church leaders in Clermont, France. At this Council of Clermont, Urban called for a Crusade. He gave a stirring sermon, urging European Christians to stop fighting among themselves and recapture the Holy Land from the Muslims. He promised the Crusaders both spiritual and material rewards for their work. The crowd enthusiastically responded with shouts of "God wills it!" An intense desire to fight for Christianity gripped Western Europe and thousands of people joined the cause. Not all the Crusaders joined the expeditions for religious reasons. The French knights wanted more land. Italian merchants hoped to expand trade in Middle Eastern ports. Many priests and monks wanted valuable religious relics. Large numbers of poor people joined the expeditions simply to escape the hardships of their normal lives. Following Pope Urban II's call for a Crusade, an enthusiastic preacher known as Peter the Hermit and a knight called Walter the Penniless led a group that rushed ahead of the official expedition. This group, known as the Peasants' Crusade, was untrained and undisciplined. Its members demanded free food and shelter as they traveled through Eastern Europe toward Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey). Because these Crusaders often stole what they wanted, 246 many of them were killed by angry Europeans. The Turks slaughtered most of the rest in Asia Minor. The main armies sent by Pope Urban II, constituted chiefly of well-trained French and Norman knights, formed the First Crusade(1096-1099). The key leaders included Godfrey of Bouillon, Raymond of Toulouse, Robert of Flanders and Bohemond of Taranto. Byzantine forces joined the Crusaders at Constantinople. In 1097, the combined army defeated the Muslims near Nicea, in what is now northwest Turkey. Then the army divided and the Western Europeans marched toward Jerusalem, fighting many bloody battles along the way. The most difficult was the siege of Antioch, in Northern Syria (now in Turkey). Many Crusaders died there, in battle or from hunger and many others deserted. After Antioch had been captured, the Crusaders were attacked by the Turks. Then, the discovery of a lance, said to be the one that wounded Jesus on the cross, inspired the Crusaders and they won a great victory. The Europeans arrived at Jerusalem in the summer of 1099. They recovered the Holy City after six weeks of fighting. Most of the Crusaders then returned home. The leaders who remained divided the conquered land into four states. These states, called the Latin States of the Crusaders, were the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch, the County of Tripoli and the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The Christian forces in the Holy Land grew weak. In 1144, the Turks conquered the County of Edessa. The threat to the other Christian states brought about the Second Crusade (1147-1149). The spirited preaching of the French religious leader Bernard of Clairvaux inspired Western Europeans to defend the Latin States against the Muslims. King Louis VII of France and King Conrad III of Germany led the armies of the Second Crusade into Asia Minor. But their armies did not cooperate and the Muslim forces defeated them before they reached Edessa. The Muslims continued to attack the Christians in the Holy Land. By 1183, Saladin, the Sultan of Egypt and Syria, had united the Muslim areas around the Latin States. In 1187, Saladin easily defeated a Christian army at the Battle of the Horns of Hattin and triumphantly entered Jerusalem. Only the coastal cities of Tyre, Tripoli and Antioch remained in Christian hands. The loss of Jerusalem led to the Third Crusade (1189-1192).The important European leaders of the Third Crusade included the German emperor Frederick I (called Barbarossa), King Richard I (the Lion-Hearted) of England and King Philip II (Augustus) of France. Frederick drowned in 1190 on his way to the Holy Land. Quarrels among Richard, Philip and other leaders limited the Crusaders' success. The Europeans conquered the Palestinian port cities of Acre (now Akko) and Jaffa in 1191. But after the capture of Acre, Philip returned home to plot against Richard. Richard attempted to recapture Jerusalem, but failed. Before Richard left for home, however, he negotiated a treaty with Saladin. As a result of this treaty, the Muslims let Christian pilgrims enter Jerusalem freely. The Fourth Crusade (1202-1204) resulted from the failure of the Third Crusade to recapture Jerusalem. Subsequently, the Crusaders became involved in affairs of the Byzantine Empire, and never reached their original goal. Pope Innocent III persuaded many French nobles to take part in the Fourth Crusade, which he thought should go to the Holy Land. But the Crusade's leaders decided to attack Egypt instead, in order to split Muslim power. Only about a third of the expected number of Crusaders arrived at Venice and they could not pay the costs of the ships. The Venetians stepped in and offered to transport the Crusaders if the Crusaders helped them attack Zara, a city in what is now in Croatia. The Crusaders accepted the offer. Meanwhile, a refugee Greek prince named Alexius claimed that his father, Isaac, was the rightful ruler of the Byzantine Empire. The Crusaders agreed to help him regain the empire in return
247 for money and other aid in retaking the Holy Land. In 1203, they seized Constantinople and made Isaac and Alexius co-emperors. But Alexius could not fulfill his promises to the Crusaders. In 1204, the Crusaders captured Constantinople and put Count Baldwin of Flanders on the Byzantine throne. This Latin Empire of Constantinople lasted until 1261. The Children's Crusade (1212) was one of the strangest and most tragic events in the history of the Crusades. Thousands of boys and girls from about 10 to 18 years old became convinced that they could recover Jerusalem. They believed God would deliver the Holy City to them because they were poor and faithful. Children from France formed one part of the group and children from Germany the other. They expected God to part the waters of the Mediterranean Sea so that they could cross safely to Jerusalem. None of the children reached the Holy Land. Many starved or froze to death during the long march south to the Mediterranean. When the expected miracle did not occur, the youngsters who survived the terrible journey to the sea returned home in shame. Others got aboard ships going to the East and were drowned in storms at sea or sold into slavery by the Muslims. Other Crusades continued in the 1200's. In the expedition known as the Fifth Crusade (1217- 1221), the Christians captured the town of Damietta in Egypt. But other efforts failed and they soon gave up Damietta in exchange for a truce. Emperor Frederick II of the Holy Roman Empire led the Sixth Crusade (1228-1229). To the displeasure of the Pope, he negotiated a peace treaty with the Muslim Sultan. The Sultan then gave Jerusalem to the Christians. Jerusalem remained in Christian hands until the Muslims seized it again in 1244. The fall of Jerusalem caused King Louis IX of France (Saint Louis) to lead the Seventh Crusade (1248-1254). Louis revived the idea of winning the Holy Land by attacking cities in Egypt. But his expedition became disorganized and the Muslims captured Louis and his army. The Muslims freed the king in exchange for a huge ransom. Before returning to France, Louis spent four years in the Holy Land trying to strengthen the Christian forces there. In 1270, he led the Eighth Crusade against the Muslims. He landed his army at Tunis, in northern Africa. Louis died soon afterward when a plague broke out among his troops. Meanwhile, in the East, the Muslims continued to gain Christian territory. They captured Antioch in 1268. Finally, in 1291, they seized Acre, the last Christian center in Palestine. By this time, Europeans were losing interest in the Holy Land. Several weak attempts to organize Crusades during the 1300's and 1400's failed. Europe was turning its attention westward to the Atlantic Ocean and beyond. In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed to the New World. The European countries looked toward America to satisfy their ambitions to expand. They left the Holy Land to the Muslims. Western and Eastern Christians united to fight the Muslims. But relations between the two groups of Christians, especially as a result of the Fourth Crusade, became so bitter that they led to a heritage of hate. The Byzantine Empire fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. In addition, the prestige of the Pope declined because some Popes used the Crusades for both personal and political gains.
‘Vandalism’ is a word that denotes indiscriminate destruction of works of arts and literature and is derived from the name of a tribe called Vandals who ransacked Christian Rome in the fifth century and destroyed many works of art and literature. The vandalism resorted to by Christianity all along its history puts any Vandal to shame. As soon as Christianity gained political legitimacy and political favor in imperial Rome, they went on the rampage destroying pagan temples and breaking down idols. The marble blocks from the temples were then used to build churches and monuments, which are visible even to this day. Christians also burnt all scholarly works such as those of Plato and Aristotle. However luckily for posterity, these classical works had been translated into other languages and were retranslated to Greek and Latin. If the Christians had had their way, we would not have even heard of Philosophers like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle to whose works and methods modern world especially the scientific world owes so much. 248 The Church’s unethical persecutions of those who disagreed with its ridiculous dogmas and doctrines have always been a part of its history. Pogroms against the Jews are the best example of Christian magnanimity and forgiveness. Christianity’s ill-treatment of the Jews culminated in the German holocausts in which millions of Jews perished in the concentration camps while the Pope the servant of Persecution the servants of God applauded. Subsequently a modern-day Pope has shed crocodile tears of Jews over it as if such a show can set back history. The Jews have been arraigned and persecuted for the alleged role of their forefathers in Jesus’ crucifixion. However, the Romans –Pontius Pilate and Roman soldiers - were even more involved in the trial and crucifixion of Jesus. What is more, Crucifixion is a punishment meted out by Romans – Jews stoned blasphemers. However Romans have been let off the hook and Jews were persecuted by Christians of whom many claim Roman origins. If we pursue European history, millions have been persecuted and put to death by Christianity. In contrast, the Christians who died under different Roman emperors including Nero were hardly three thousand. Yet the Church is so vociferous about the speck in the Roman eye while ignoring the beam in its own eyes, and it has gone to the extend of even glorifying its unethical acts of murder, arson, rapine, vandalism and what have you. Protestant Not only the mainstream world religions, even their minor denominations took to & Anglican violence, and most of them were propped up by ambitious kings and the strength of their Ethics armies. For example, the introduction of Lutheranism into Scandinavia was largely the work of the Swedish and Danish kings. In the 1520's, King Gustavus I of Sweden confiscated church property and introduced Lutheranism into Sweden and Finland, then under Swedish control. In 1536, King Christian of Denmark made Lutheranism the state religion. They also established Lutheranism in Norway, which was then under the Danes. The fact, that all religions and their denominations are concentrated at different locations, points to the political realities behind the conversions. If there were no political compulsions, most religions and their sects would have been far more evenly spread over larger areas. The story of Anglicanism too is similar. It was Henry VIII and his lust, and Queen Elizabeth and her might that laid the real foundations of Anglicanism. Love and charity had little to do with the spread of Christianity or any religion for that matter. At present, Christianity is perhaps the most widespread and populous of world’s religions, and its devotees boast that this is so, because Christianity is the most authentic of faiths. The fact is that Christianity had more advanced resources including strong colonial military forces at its disposal. It spread fast to primitive and agricultural societies of the world, like wild fire. Conversions were easily effected. Other religions and cults have now adopted these techniques as well as new ones. They are now making inroads into Western societies and getting good returns on their investments. Islam too followed the routes of Judaism and early Christianity. Muhammad had a single-point agenda against idolatry and nothing else. With the chant of Allahu Akbar on his lips and a blood-dripping sword in his hand, he conquered Arabia. According to ‘The Encyclopedia Britannica’, after Muhammad ’s flight to Medina, a few of his followers carried on trade in the local market run by a Jewish clan. Others, with the approval of Islam & Muhammad , set out in normal Arab fashion on razzias or “raids” - highway robberies in modern Ethics parlance. They intercepted Meccan caravans passing near Medina on their way to or from Syria. Muhammad himself led three such razzias in 623. They all failed, probably because informers betrayed the Muslim movements to the enemy. At last, in January 624, a small band of men was sent eastward with sealed orders telling them to proceed to Nakhlah, near Mecca, and attack a caravan from Yemen. This they did successfully, and in doing so they violated pagan ideas of sanctity, requiring that caravans to or from the holy city of Mecca should not be harassed or attacked, in the holy month of pilgrimage. Later on, in March 624, Muhammad was able to lead about 315 men on another razzia, on a wealthy Meccan caravan returning from Syria. The caravan, led by Al Sufyan, the head of the Umayyah clan, eluded the Muslims by devious routes and forced marches. Abu Jahl, the head of the Makhzum clan, however, leading a supporting force of perhaps 800 men, wanted to teach Muhammad a lesson and did not withdraw. The two forces found themselves near a place called Badr on the 15th of March, 624. In the ensuing battle, at least forty-five Meccans were killed, including Abu Jahl and other leading men, and nearly seventy were
249 taken prisoners, while only fourteen Muslims died. To Muhammad , this victory appeared to be a divine vindication of his prophethood. Sura VIII of the Koran is titled, “The Spoils of War”. In the early Islamic communities, booty was taken in battle in the form of weapons, horses, prisoners and movable goods. It was called Ghanimah. In pre- Islamic Bedouin society, where the razzia or raids were a way of life and a point of honor, razzias helped provide the material means of existence. After the leader of the razzias received a fourth or a fifth of the booty, the rest was divided among the raiders according to tribal precedents. Under Muhammad and his immediate successors, the sheer size of the raids and the ghanimah or spoils demanded a more precise distribution of spoils. Accordingly, the commander of the raid or battle received one-fifth of the total ghanimah; every man who was responsible for victory, whether he participated in battle or not, received one share of the remaining ghanimah; the cavalry received one or two extra shares for each horse. A man was always entitled to the equipment of anyone he personally killed; those who distinguished themselves in battle were also eligible for bonus shares, though it is not clear how these were taken out of the general ghanimah. Prisoners taken in battle, including women and children, were treated as movable property and distributed as slaves among the soldiers. Of the leader's share, one-fifth was earmarked for community needs and was originally managed at Muhammad's discretion. Eventually, this fifth was distributed in accordance with the Koranic injunction, among five classes: the prophet, his close relatives, orphans, the poor, and travelers. Muhammad was a warlord by all accounts including the Koranic one. The one factor that probably distinguished him from the other warlords was that he not only regularized the division of spoils but also was quite generous about it. As a result, more and more fighters flocked to him in the hope of better returns on their plunder. This was the one factor – the generous distribution of the spoils of war including slaves and concubines – that contributed to Muhammad’s spectacular success as a warlord and a highwayman, and subsequently as a prophet. We cannot deny that the practice of committing highway robberies and sharing its spoils are the greatest of evils, especially when it involves death, destruction and slavery. Yet, the prophet did not raise his little finger against such raids, or against any other evil Arab customs for that matter. He only endorsed such customs, sanctified them and involved himself in brutal plunder and slavery. All that mattered to the prophet was that idolatry be banished. Robbery, death and misery were of no consequence whatsoever. The true foundations of Islam were laid at the battle of Badr, as those of Christianity were laid at Milvian Bridge. It was the highway robberies and the booty therefrom, that provided the lifeblood to nascent Islam. It was war and bloodshed all through the prophet’s life. He had thus established an empire in Arabia by the time of his death in 632, and this gave rise to a power struggle on his death. Some Muslims elected Muhammad ’s friend Abu Bakr as the first Caliph (successor). They became the majority Sunni branch of Islam. Others supported the leadership of Ali, Muhammad ’s cousin and son-in-law. This group formed the Shia or Shiite branch. A bloody struggle ensued and the two groups remain estranged to this day. We can infer that, like history, religion too is often established by the fiats of victors in war. If the Crusades had succeeded, Christianity would have been reintroduced into areas, which are now predominantly Muslim. Saladin however, dealt a crushing blow at the Crusaders at the decisive battle of Hattin (Hittin) on July 4, 1187 and that sealed the fate of the Christian aspirations of retrieving Palestine to Christianity. The pattern is familiar, and it is a starkly cynical one. Moses was a political organizer, military chief, diplomat, lawmaker, judge and religious leader, all rolled into one. Muhammad and Paul were no different. They were also undoubtedly three of the greatest of leaders and organizers, the world has ever seen. As undoubtedly, they had only the good of their people at heart, even if it meant the ruin of the ‘pagans’ around them. Like all good leaders, they had their strategies for leading their people. Obviously, divine endorsement was the best way to get the full backing of their illiterate, superstitious following. And, what better way was there to get that backing than the cock and bull stories of absurd miracles, voices from bushes and revelations in caves? No doubt these great men and the others discussed above like Ram and Krishna, acted in accordance with the codes of the times and so endorsed them. It is not for us to judge them by our modern standards of ethics and morals. However to boast that they were the icons of ethics and morals is the most naïve thing and amount to carrying things a bit too far. 250 It cannot be denied that some of today’s religions started out as ethical movements, movements directed at reducing the internal conflicts and the decadence in societies. Christianity is a case in point. Jesus set out to refine his own society, the Jews, and to prepare them for the impending Michel’s Law rapture. Jesus identified the priestly classes, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, as the in Christianity symbols of the decay and the hypocrisies and sanctimoniousness that had crept into & Buddhism Jewish society, and it is at these priestly class that Jesus’ choicest diatribes are directed. Forgiveness and the love of neighbor takes centre stage in Jesus’ teachings with the meaning of the term neighbor widened in scope to encompass the inimical Samaritans. Christianity the religion that claims to have evolved from the Jesus’ teachings was quite a different kettle of fish. Priests whom Jesus had despised as a brood of vipers and whitewashed sepulchers, again took central stage and religious wars against all and sundry became a way of life. Heretics were considered more decadent than serial rapists and chronic murderers. Michel’s Law, took over Utopian Christianity as we have seen. The oligarchic hierarchy and their dogmas and ceremonies have since become more central to Christianity than the Jesus’ teachings of fraternal love and forgiveness. Buddhism is another case in point. Buddha was an agnostic to start with, and rejected ceremonies and other trinkets of religions. Ahimsa or unconditional nonviolence even towards animals was the central theme of Buddha’s teachings. In time in Buddhism too, Michel’s factor swept aside the ethical factors that Buddha had laid stress on. The agnostic Buddha began to be worshipped as a divine incarnation and long and intricate ceremonies took central stage. Nations like China and Japan, which swear by Buddhism, became as aggressive and aggrandizing as any imperialist power on earth. As in the case of Christianity, Buddhists too paid lip service to the name of Buddhism while carrying on their activities, which were in direct contrast to Buddha’s teachings. Buddha renounced all his wealth and took to a life of austerity and asceticism. In contrast the rotund and well-fed ‘Happy Buddha’ dragging a bag of money and grinning from ear to ear has become the icon of modern Buddhism. Like all good leaders and administrators, the founders of religions believed in the rule of law. They made laws, which they thought were best for their people and implemented them with a firm hand. Nevertheless, to insist that people the world over, and even future generations should be held to ransom by these outdated and irrelevant dogmas or regional and outlandish laws, is downright lunacy. Thus, that women should cover themselves fully was just an Arab or Persian custom. To say that this is a divine command and as such applicable even to the jungles of the Amazon, where women move around stark naked, is extreme absurdity. The same goes for the Shariat law forbidding interest on capital. Usury was an evil in those days as it often led to the exploitation of those in dire straights. However, in the modern world, interests upon deposits and loans form the real backbone of economies. To ban interests on deposits or loans, on the ground that it was forbidden 1300 years ago in a primitive economy, is dogmatic idiocy. Islam also does not seem to have had the economical insight to see that interest is merely rent on money. Consequently Islam forbids interest on loans and deposits. However convert the money to buildings and you may charge exorbitant rents without any qualms. The same goes for leases on equipments such as cars and lorries. How did religion and ethics get mixed up? With all their mumbo-jumbo and their presumed intercessory powers with the supernatural, the priests and shamans earned fear and respect in the society, and even the chieftains and kings kowtowed to them. (In India, Brahmans, the priestly caste, is above the Kshatriyas, the ruling castes, in the social hierarchy.) As a result, they often took on judicial roles in settling disputes and conflicts in the society. Ultimately religion and ethics became intermingled, as they were often associated with the priests. The mutual association of ethics and religion may also have had to with our parents who were the ones who instilled both ethics and religions into us and in whom we had total trust. That morality should be invested with all the mystery and power of divine origin and endorsement is thus probably natural. Nothing else could provide such strong reasons for accepting the moral law. By attributing a divine origin to morality, the priests and prophets became its interpreters and guardians, and thereby secured for themselves a special position in society. What is more, from ancient times, social and moral revivals were often enacted in the form of religious revivals as in the case of Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Christianity, and Islam. This link between moral revival and religion leads many to think that there can be no morality without religion. According to this view, ethics and morals, traditions and taboos often cease to be independent disciplines. However in the process of arriving at such simplistic conclusions, we overlook the fact that all our basic codes of ethics and morals were in place, hundreds of thousands of years 251 before any of today’s religions or their brands of gods and myths made their appearance, even before we had evolved into Homo Sapiens. Like fear, violence and a thousand other mental phenomena, ethics and morals too are part of our collective unconscious, distinct from religions and superstitions. This is especially so for organized religions like Christianity and Islam which have more to do with Michelle’s Law concerning political hierarchies than with ethics or morals. It may also be noted that past religious ceremonies and practices like human sacrifice, cannibalism, Sati the immolation of widows and the Devadasi system etc were grossly unethical. Consequently to state that religion forms the basis of ethics is the epitome of absurdity. The question also arises as to why we need so many religions in this world if all of them promote the same ethical and moral codes. If all religions had joined forces to promote a common code of ethics, their efforts would have been far more synergic and successful. Instead, religions always try to distinguish themselves from other religions even in contravention of divine commandments. Saturday is the Biblically endorsed Sabbath. Came Christianity and Sunday was ordained as the Sabbath. Then came Islam, and not to be outdone by Christianity or Judaism, Islam proclaimed Friday as the day to be consecrated to God. It is often said that were it not for religion we would be living much like animals. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Take the Ten Commandments. The first three are religious commandments and imply that there is only one God, that his name shall not be used in vain and that the Sabbath be observed. These three commandments are dogmatic ones, unique to the Jews alone. The Christians have the Nicene Creed and its progenies. These commandments too have no ethical or moral dimensions. On the other hand, they have often led to persecutions and massacres. Jesus himself was crucified on the basis of the first commandment, and countless others were later burnt at the stake for violations - real or presumed - of these three dogmatic commandments. When we go on to the other seven commandments they are almost all of them universal. All societies, human or animal, have some forms of these commandments in varying degrees. These may be called ethical or moral commandments, as they are universal. Thus the commandments, “Thou shalt not kill”, “Thou shalt not steal," “Thou shalt not bear false witness” and the like, are ethical commandments and essential for any society to survive and to prosper. Even a Community of atheists has to follow ethical codes if they are survive and flourish as a society. As for the commandment “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife," it is a moral commandment, because, there are societies that practice communal marriages and polygamy, where this commandment is irrelevant. In societies that practice monogamy the commandment does have some ethical dimensions to it. In such societies, observance of the commandment does contribute to the public order. The Christian religious establishment would have us believe that it was God that gave the Ten Commandments to, us through Moses, and that before that people lived lawless lives like the beasts of the jungle. The Jews before Moses, as well as other people who had never even heard of a Moses or his God, had codes of behavior, for them to live by, harmoniously in society. Long before Moses, Hammurabi Hammurabi (1792–50 BCE), of Babylon was the first to codify laws and traditions and to ’s Codes enforce them. Hammurabi was the king of Babylon and did not promote the codes as from God, as Moses did, but because he was convinced of their necessity for peace and prosperity in his empire. No wonder, under his regime, Babylon gained the zenith of its glory. The dictum “Even if a thousand culprits go free, not one innocent shall be punished," was in place in pre-Christian Rome and quite independent of the Ten Commandments. Again, like the Babylonians, the Romans too did not brag about divine endorsements for this most basic tenet of Criminal Laws and procedures. On the other hand, we have seen how the founders of religions and incarnations of gods, gave scant respect to human values in their lust for power and women. This draws us to the conclusion that ethics and morals have little to do with today’s religions or their founders, and are quite independent of them. In the third chapter of this book on Parental conditioning, we have seem that in The Agrarian Wave, in the absence of schools and literacy, knowledge, both useful and superstitious, came from the same source. The Parent, Patriarch and the Adult were inseparably intertwined. It is this intertwining that led to the wrong hypothesis that without religion there cannot be ethics. From the Patriarchal or religious point of view, we should not kill, because God forbids it or the commandments forbid it. From the Adult point of view, violence begets violence and a violent society cannot prosper. Therefore, it is in our own interest that we eschew violence.
252 Because of their irrationality, the Patriarchal outlook often swung to the other extreme like a pendulum. Thus, it began advocating asceticism and abstinence. It even went to the extent of advocating that we turn the other cheek when stricken, and that we sell all we have and give it to the poor. Such Patriarchal Utopianism is alien to the Adult. The Adult knows that there are and there will always probably be a small percentage of people, born with criminal inclinations. Such born criminals will strike the other cheek also, given the chance, and that such people can be held in check only by a corresponding but civilized violence. The Adult knows that selling all you have and distributing it to the poor will only make everyone poor, and the real solution to poverty lies elsewhere, in productive organization and management of resources, especially of human resources.
WOLVES IN SHEEP’S’ CLOTHING: All of today’s organized religions, (What religion is not organized today?), are wolves in sheep’s clothing – moral pretenses at the surface and lust for power and prestige at the core. Instead of being an amalgamating force, as would have been the case if all its different versions had promoted ethics and peace, religion is one of the most divisive social phenomena the world has ever known. Before the advent of Christianity, the area around the Mediterranean, comprising Turkey in the East, and the Atlantic coast in the west and the countries of northern Africa and southern Europe, was for all purposes a single economical cooperative entity. There was considerable political and commercial interaction between the states and the people, even though the different people subscribed to different religious beliefs. The differences in mythologies and religious beliefs did not prevent Julius Caesar and later Mark Anthony, from marrying Cleopatra. The people around the Mediterranean were a tolerant lot and put up with all kinds of mythical beliefs, as irrelevant in cooperating with each other. After the birth of Christianity also the “camaraderie” and interaction between the people of the Mediterranean continued. Saint Paul, the de-facto founder of Christianity, was from Tarsus, in Turkey. The first Christian communities were formed in Turkey, Damascus, Baghdad and other places, now predominantly Muslim. We know of many Christian saints and theologians from Africa, the most prominent among them being St. Augustine (354-430 AD) who was born in Tagaste, Numidia (now Souk-Ahras, Algeria). Places like Antioch in Asia Minor and Constantinople in Turkey played pivotal roles in early Christianity. It was in the former city that the word 'Christian' was formally used first. It was in the latter city, presently Istanbul, that Emperor Constantine laid the real foundations of Christianity. The ancient civilizations of Rome, Greece and southern Europe had far more affinity for Turkey, Egypt, Algeria, Byzantium and other areas on the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean than for England, France, Germany and other countries of northern Europe. These civilizations around the Mediterranean considered themselves civilized and the people of northern Europe as barbarians. The same went for the Egyptians, Syrians, Turks, Iraqis and other people living on the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean. They had far more intercourse with southern Europe than with the other Bedouins and Arabs, who lived far inland on the Arabian peninsula, and whom these civilized people considered uncouth, nomadic ‘highway men’. Came Islam and things were never the same. The Crusades and the conquest of Spain by the Moors drove a wedge into the area, dividing the people of the region into two camps of avowed and irreconcilable foes along religious lines. The feud between the Muslim Arabs and the Christian Europeans, then instituted, lasts even to this day, though both Christianity and Islam pay lip service to peace and the brotherhood of man. Before the arrival of Islam, the area around the Mediterranean formed a single fabric of civilization. After the arrival of Islam, it was torn asunder and cannot be unified as long as the two religions exert their influences. If ever there were any cooperation between the two, it was only in the slave trade - Arabs caught the slaves in the name of Allah; the Spaniards and the Portuguese shipped them off to the American plantations in the name of Christ. If Christianity had ever attempted to practice what it preached there would be no communism, no unions and no inequality, let alone slavery. If every Christian practiced Christian morals of charity – giving one shirt away if you have two -, democracy itself would have been superfluous. In such a scenario, wars would have been relegated to history books and weapons to the museums. But alas! Christianity has been hijacked by the oligarchs and power mongers to suit their agenda in accordance with Michelle’s Law stated earlier. 253 That religions can live side by side in harmony is wishful thinking, especially for the dogmatic Semitic religions. What is holy to one is often profane, blasphemous or sacrilegious to another. Moreover, each of these religions and every one of their sects claim that they alone will inherit heaven, and all the others will burn in hell. This, sure, is another face of their intolerance, fanatically carried over to the hereafter. The Jews have been at war with all around them, right from the days of Moses. Christians were no different. Though Jesus was the champion of love and peace, it did not prevent his so called followers from opting for violence during the Crusades, the inquisitions and the frequent religious wars, not only against the pagans, Jews and the Muslims, but also against Christians of different denominations. It was after the spread of Christianity that religious intolerance became incorporated into politics and ‘pagans’ were loathed for no other reason than their gods and their beliefs. No wonder, this age of intolerance and religious persecutions, ushered into Europe by Christianity and its political power, is known as the ‘dark ages’ of European history. If the Popes and the Bishops had had their way, Europe would have been at it even today. It is only science and sanity that has now brought the West to its senses and to prosperity. Had Copernicus and Galileo promulgated their theories a few centuries earlier, they would in all probability have ended upon the stakes. Darwin would have been sliced up and then barbecued, if he had put forth his theory of evolution at any time before the Renaissance. And some Pope would most certainly have apologized profusely, as Pope John Paul II did centuries later, long after their victims had gone up in smoke. And I wonder whether any Pope can recall from hell all those souls damned to hell by his infallible predecessors. Empiricism is a system of logical reasoning, which says that real-time life experience is the ultimate acid test, regarding the veracity of propositions. Accordingly, the proposition that religion promotes peace can be considered logical and reasonable, only if it is proved that wherever there are religious beliefs running deep, there are no conflicts. Real-time facts and experiences tell us otherwise. Wherever there are two religions or different sects of the same religion in close proximity there are avoidable conflicts and unnecessary bloodshed. Therefore, empirically we can state that religion is one of the most prominent causes, if not the most prominent cause of ill will, strife and bloodshed. Undoubtedly it is the most global cause of ethnic strife today. Repeat a lie a million times, generation after generation, and it becomes eternal truth, immutable, unchallenged. That, religions are the champions of peace and harmony is one such blatant lie. Wherever we look, facts tell a different story. Religions, invariably cause bloodshed wherever and whenever they have the upper hand. They have never contributed to peace. The split of the ancient civilizations bordering the Mediterranean, after the arrival of Islam, described above, is a case in point, demonstrating how religions are a divisive force and not a uniting one. Religions have never prevented wars. Constantine is the doyen of Christianity and its primary sponsor. Had it not been for his patronage and his organizing skills in calling together the first ecumenical councils to sort out the conflicting dogmas of the early Church such as Arianism, Christianity would not have been the monolithic religion it is today. However, Constantine was a warmonger and we have seen that it was his victory at the Milvian Bridge that led to his conversion to Christianity. Though Constantine thus established Christianity and his family turned to the new religion, there was no peace in his own family. The nascent Christianity and its religious fervor did not stand in the way of his four sons from getting at each Violence In other's throats. Christianity did not lead to any letups in the internecine wars that plagued the Christianity empire. There were as many conflicts in Europe after the advent of Christianity as before it - nay, Christianity provided a new reason for many of the wars like the Crusades and the fratricidal wars between the different sects of Christians. In addition, Christianity did not prevent the two world wars, though Christians were pitted against professed Christians in both the world wars. In the American War of Independence, as well as in the civil war, people of the same race, color, religion and sect were pitted against each other. Their identical religious beliefs did not help one bit. Both the warring parties prayed to the same God, for victory. King Louis IX was canonized and made a saint, solely because he led a Crusade against the Muslims. He must have burnt, pillaged and raped on the way, or at least have been a party to such heinous crimes. Nonetheless, that did not make any differences to the ecclesiastical powers, on the propriety of making him a saint and a model for others to emulate. What is more, warring sides and their priests prayed to 254 the same god and made him costly offerings for victory. The same story was repeated in Islam and other religions and their sects all over. Another perspective of religious bigotry and its holier-than-them attitudes was Mary Tudor and her cousin Elizabeth Tudor. The former wanted to bring England back to the Catholic fold. In the process, she massacred many Protestants. Elizabeth, who succeeded Mary, was opposed to Catholicism and massacred as many Catholics or more. Nonetheless, the former was called 'Bloody Mary' for her exploits while her cousin who had as much or more blood on her hands was hailed as the champion of Protestantism. Islam has perhaps the most chequered history of all, when it comes to violence. Not that it was more violent than Christianity or Judaism in nature, but because of the unique circumstances. Christianity had to eke out an existence for three hundred or more years under the Roman Empire and its powerful legions. There was little or no scope for violence for all those centuries. The fact that Christianity survived for three hundred years without political or military patronage, speaks volumes for its inherent strengths, strengths based on human values of love and forgiveness, which attracted many in spite of its Utopian nature. Jesus' Adventist doctrines in Mk: 9:1 and Lk: 21:32-33 that the whole world would be destroyed during the lifetimes of his contemporaries, might also have contributed to the early missionary zeal. With the impending Armageddon that Jesus prophesized, everyone was eager to end up on God's right hand. After all, if after a few years of toil and sacrifice on earth, you can find eternal bliss, who would not put up with even martyrdom? (Even to this day, the Adventists are far more zealous than denominations like the Catholics and Protestants, who have grown immune to repeatedly unfulfilled prophesies of Adventism and Armageddon down the ages.) Once Christianity gained political and regal endorsement under Emperor Constantine, and since the world did not end as Jesus had predicted, Christianity degenerated into just another political entity with spiritual and moral pretensions. Islam on the other hand was, except for a brief period in Mecca, a political power right from its conception and so more prone to violence. The prophet was every bit a Meccan and endorsed all their traditions and taboos. The only differences between Muhammad and the other Meccans were merely doctrinal or dogmatic - the Meccans were polytheistic and adored the idols of Allah and his daughters and Violence intercessors at the Kaaba. The prophet was strictly monotheistic and against all forms of idol In Islam worship. From the human or ethical point of view, it does not really matter either way, because neither monotheism nor polytheism contributes in any way to peace and prosperity in society. The Arab society into which Muhammad had been born was already weakened considerably by factional infighting and the prophet’s dogmas and doctrines only added fuel to the fire. The prophet thus fell out with the Meccans over a non-issue and was forced to flee to Medina, where he and his followers had to depend upon the goodwill of the people of Medina. We have seen how the first Muslims took to razzias or raids on caravans and the resulting booty for their survival. The prophet’s ethical and moral sense did not restrain him from such crimes, because he had grown up in the Meccan society where no qualms were attached to such raids, though they often resulted in death and misery. The Jews were, in those days, an important section of the Medina society, and the Muslim refugees from Mecca had befriended these Jews of Medina. At the outset, the Muslims promoted themselves as a Jewish sect. As the Muslims waxed strong with every successful razzia, and especially after victory in the Battle of Badr, the Jewish hand of help became expendable. The prophet and his followers had so far turned to Jerusalem in prayer. As the relationship between Jews and the prophet soured, the Muslims turned to Mecca for their prayers. The stronger the Muslims grew in military and political terms, the more bitter this relationship grew. The Muslims often took to barricading and starving the hapless Jews and demanding heavy ransoms on the slightest of provocations. Inevitably, the Jews began to plot against the Muslims, and emissaries were sent to the powerful Qureysh tribe of Mecca with an offer of help to subdue the common enemy, Muhammad . The Battle of the Trenches ensued and the Jews went over to the Qureysh forces camped outside the city. The Meccans had to return without joining battle with the Muslims, mainly due to adverse weather conditions and because trench warfare was alien to the Arabs. The weak Jewish forces were totally stranded to the vagaries of the Muslims, who butchered their men and sold their women and children into slavery, all in the name of Allah the Merciful.
255 In a short span of over a decade, the Muslims were involved in over sixty-five battles or skirmishes against one presumed foe after another, and by the time of his death the prophet was the de facto Emperor of Arabia. He had imposed unity, peace and Islam on the hitherto fragmented Arabs by sheer, brute force. According to Harwood, Muhammad was just a war-lord, with no religious pretensions whatsoever. His life and acts confirm this. It was only much later on in his life, that he donned the prophet’s mantle, as it helped him justify his wayward and cantankerous activities. (See Chapter 10, for details about how his revelations came at the most convenient times and justified his lust and his highhandedness) The enforced peace among Arabs was only temporary. On the prophet’s death, the floodgates burst open. There were rival claimants to succeed Muhammad the Emperor. Abu Bakr, Muhammad’s long time ally, and father of the prophet’s wife Ayesha, became Caliph, overriding the claims of Ali, Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, who was more entitled to succeed by the Arab custom of blood lineage. Many of Muhammad's followers resented this wayward succession, but expected Ali to get his due rights when Abu Bakr died. This did not happen as the followers of Abu Bakr under Ayesha conspired against Ali. He was passed over for a second time and Al Umar, who had sided with Abu Bakr in his bid for power, became the second Calif. Ali was again bypassed on Umar’s death, and Al Uthman became the third Calif. By now, the struggle for power among the erstwhile friends and followers of the prophet took on continental proportions, with other external powers arrayed on both sides. The centuries-old infighting among the Arabs was back in full force. Uthman came to a violent end, and Ali who had conspired with others in bringing it about, became the fourth Calif. Ayesha resented it and led a force against Ali, but was captured at the Battle of the Camels. Ali too came to a violent end at the hands of political opponents. Remember that all these people who were involved in this power struggle - Abu Bakr, Ayesha, Ali, Al Umar, Al Uthman and their followers - were without exception close associates of the prophet. All of them were much involved in the founding of Islam. Probably they had wished each other “Salaam Aleikkum” or “Peace be unto you”. It was mere lip service to peace. After Ali’s murder, his son Hassan became Caliph, but was forced to abdicate. Ali’s second son Hussein bid for power, but he and his men were brutally murdered at Karbala, a shrine in present day Iraq. The story of murders and internecine wars continued, with Muslims pitched against Muslims, and almost all of them close relatives or followers of the prophet. After the faithful community or Umma split up into the Sunnites and Shiites, the violent struggles for power became almost a way of life, until the Mongols came and established or rather imposed their peace. Luckily for the Muslims, the Mongols gave little or no importance to religious dogmas and did not try to impose their ‘religions’ on the vanquished Muslims. In time, the Mongols converted to Islam and became its foremost proponents. They then helped convert much of Asia to Islam. But peace remained alien to Islam, as long as it had power, and without power it has no locus standi, as its very foundations are built on dogmas and violence. (See Chapter 3 for the gruesome details) The descendents of the Mongols, the Moguls were Muslims, when they invaded India and established an empire there. Again, Islam failed to prevent bloody power struggles even among siblings. Akbar became emperor after throwing his brother off a high parapet and killing him. Aurangazeb, Akbar’s great-grandson succeeded to the throne after imprisoning his own father Shajehan in the Taj Mahal. Aurangazeb was a very devout Muslim, who helped considerably in spreading Islam in the subcontinent by whatever means, fair or foul, violent or peaceful. Of course, he too must have wished everyone including his father, with the traditional “Salaam Aleikkum” (If the Crusades had succeeded, Aurangazeb would in all probability have been a Christian and would have been canonized for converting India and Pakistan to Christianity as King Louis IX was canonized for leading a Crusade. Aurangazeb would also have been declared a champion of Christendom as Charlemagne was) All the religions of the world boast they promote peace. Nonetheless, they seldom see eye to eye. Therefore, the essence of all religions is not ethics or morals or the promotion of peace and prosperity. Instead, their essence lies in the different dogmas, superstitions, traditions and irrational doctrines that keep men alienated from one another. Spirituality of one religion is heresy and blasphemy to another. The idols originally worshipped at Mecca, were sacrosanct for Prophet Muhammad ’s own forefathers. For Prophet Muhammad their worship represented a hideous sin and blasphemy, deserving the maximum punishment on earth and in heaven. 256 To recap, religions boast that they are the guardians of ethics and morals, and were it not for religion we would be living immoral lives like animals. Religion, traditions, taboos, ethics and morals were instilled into us by the same source - our parents, our elders and our society. So, we tend to mix them up and to confuse one for the other, as all these social phenomena are associated with our parents and ancestors from ancient times. On second thoughts, all of today’s religions are young - hardly 2000-5000 years old. On the other hand, ethics and morals have been around since time immemorial and have their place even among other social animals too, and animals do not subscribe to any of our religions. Religions are one of the major causes of conflict and war from the times of Akhenaton and earlier. Wherever there are two religions in proximity, there are conflicts and bloodshed. In the Philippines and Indonesia, Christians and Muslims shed each other’s blood as if it were cheaper than water. Bangladesh is a country where Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus are not exactly on the most fraternal of terms. They are the differences in religions that lie at the root of the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Arabs in West Asia. Troubles in Bosnia, Cyprus, Russia and other areas of the world too are caused by religions and their basic attitudes of intolerance and political expediency. Religion is the single factor that tore asunder British India into India and Pakistan. Paradoxically, North India can identify more with Pakistan than with South India, when it comes to physical looks, culture, Religious language and other ethnic factors. Nonetheless, religion has made Indo-Pak relations a Violence In India dangerous political game. The bifurcation of Colonial India and the events that have unfolded over the past fifty odd years of independence, are excellent examples of the fruits of religious bigotry and expedience. It also demonstrates how religion becomes a most handy weapon in the hands of ruthless politicians. I do not know how the seeds of dissonance between Hindus and Muslims were sown in the subcontinent. The British are blamed for sowing these seeds as part of their strategy of divide and rule. However, even after fifty odd years of independence from Britain, the divide between the two communities has only grown wider and sharper. In a Agrarian Wave society, with strong illiterate Patriarchal components of age-old suspicions and bigotry, this is only to be expected. Today’s world religions are most of them legacies of the Agrarian Wave, and its Patriarchal culture, and becomes an extremely convenient and lethal weapon in the hands of the power brokers. In a Agrarian Wave society, politicization of religion and religionization of politics is easier carried out, than said or imagined. At the time of the proposal for division of India along religious lines, Abdul Kalam Azad, the freedom fighter, had prophesied: “It is one of the greatest frauds on the people to suggest that religious affinity can unite areas which are geographically, economically, linguistically and culturally different. It is true that Islam sought to establish a society, which transcends racial, linguistic, economical and political frontiers. History has however proved that after the first few decades or at most after the first century [sic] Islam was not able to unite all Muslim countries on the basis of Islam alone” Did things end with the division of Colonial India along religious lines? Did peace prevail thereafter? The Muslims that fled the holocausts on the Indian side to Pakistan, have now become a separate, second- class ethnic group in Pakistan, called the Mohajirs. In spite of the religious homogenization, there was no peace or democracy in Pakistan. The military has virtually ruled the country since independence, except for short stints of democracy, when the military condescended to it, on its own terms and conditions. Erstwhile Pakistan consisted of West Pakistan and East Pakistan (presently Bangladesh), separated by thousands of miles of Indian Territory. Islam was supposed to unite them. Even so, the majority of the country’s population, who lived in East Pakistan, was treated worse than the Mohajirs by West Pakistan. All the power lay in the hands of the army, which was dominated by the Punjabis of West Pakistan, who were unwilling to abdicate that privilege. Matters came to a head when an election was held to reinstall democracy after long years of military rule. Awami League, under Sheikh Mujibur Rahman of East Pakistan, won the majority. However, he was denied the privilege of forming the government, and instead Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) of West Pakistan was given power. This led to a freedom struggle in East Pakistan. Religious affinity did not prevent the Pakistan military from unleashing a reign of terror on the Bengalis of East Pakistan, and hundred of thousands of Bengalis ended up in mass graves, all over the territory now known as Bangladesh. When independence came to Bangladesh on December 16, 1971, it had a Hindu population of around 22%, and they had borne the brunt of the Pakistani holocaust. Religious harmony did not last long in 257 the newly formed Bangladesh. Religion again became a thorn in the flesh of the new state. Muslim fanatics turned on the defenseless Hindu minority at the slightest provocation, especially at provocations from the Hindu fanatics in India, who often turned on the Muslim minority there on one contrived or flimsy pretext after another. And, the fanatics on both sides, though few in number, had the blessings of their political godfathers and their so-called “democratic and secular” governments. Innocents suffered, because they happened to be in the minority. Many Hindus have thus been forced out of Bangladesh and Hindus now account for less than 10% of the Bangladesh population, because of religions and their bigotry. The Muslims and the Hindus of Bangladesh have the same language and culture. Many of the Hindu families that have been forced to flee Bangladesh have probably lived there for hundreds or even thousands of years – maybe even before Muhammad founded Islam.. It is religion alone that has thrown a spanner into the works. The historical events described above in the context of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, illustrate that religion does not help in anyway in promoting peace and harmony between different ethnic groups such as Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, which profess the same religion. On the other hand, religious differences invariably lead to flare-ups and genocides as between Hindus and Muslims of ethnic Punjabis and Bengalis, though they were of the same stock. Either way, religion does not help in promoting peace. Turning to Africa, we see that the Sudan is perhaps one of the most miserable spots on earth. There the Muslims wielding political power from Khartoum have been engaged in a long and bloody struggle with Religious the Christians to the south of the country. Difference in religion is the main wedge that Violence In divides these people of the same stock. Again, both Islam and Christianity are most Africa profuse in their declarations of peace and love, and yet their leaders are most intransigent to the tragedy of epic proportions that unfolds there. Babies starve and total misery and chaos reign in the wretched refugee camps, all in the name of the same one God. These examples show how religions provide killing fields all over the world, though they all religions boast that they champion peace and the brotherhood of man. The most spectacular and conclusive illustration of the diabolic role played by religions is provided by that ancient city, Jerusalem. The five thousand year old city is holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims alike and for this reason no other city on earth has suffered as much agony in the last two thousand years as Jerusalem has. No city on earth has gone through as many wars, sieges, ravages, lootings; no other city has seen as much blood, gore and human suffering as Jerusalem has down the ages. It is religion and religion alone that has turned this holy city into living hell. Accursed are the children of ‘holy’ Jerusalem for they shall never know peace on earth. As if conflicts between religions were not enough, different denominations of the same religions have often wasted no opportunity to slit each other’s throats, in the name of the same God and prophet and for their glory. Calvin's followers in France were called Huguenots. Supported by Spain, France's Huguenot Catholic kings attempted to suppress the Huguenots in a series of religious wars from 1562 to Massacre 1598. Starting on August 24, Saint Bartholomew's Day 1572, the Catholics murdered thousands of Huguenots in Paris and in the French provinces. Because of the persecution from other so- called Christians, many of the Huguenots were forced to flee to the New World. The Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648), between Protestants and Catholics, ravaged most of Europe and it took almost two hundred years for the nations involved to recover. The present conflict in Ireland between Catholics and Protestants too can be laid at the door of religious and sectarian intransigence. Shiites and Sunnis slit each other’s throats and bomb each other’s mosques with gay abandon in Pakistan, Iraq and elsewhere. It is this same differences in sectarian dogmas that lie at the root of the mistrust between Iranians and the Arabs, though both profess the same religion. The story of the Jacobites in Kerala, on the southwestern coast of India, is typical of the games religions and their sects play. It was Saint Thomas of Antioch who is said to have instituted Jacobites Christianity in Kerala in the 300s CE, probably with the blessings of Emperor Constantine or of Kerala his successors. After the Muslims took over the Middle East, this Christian community had little or no contact with Europe. They evolved in isolation and adopted many native customs of worship. Came the Europeans in the fifteenth century and the Christians of Kerala had a contact of sorts with Christians elsewhere. But for reasons best known to history, these Christians in Kerala had split into Jacobites, Catholics and a few other denominations.
258 Though it was Thomas of Antioch who had effected the original conversions in Kerala, later on it was proclaimed by the clergy and vested interests that it was Saint Thomas, the Apostle that came to Kerala shores, thereby boasting of more legitimacy for their Christian pedigree. Then about a hundred years ago, a struggle cropped up in the Jacobite sect, between those owing allegiance to the Patriarch of Antioch and those owing allegiance to the local Metropolitan. The dispute was based on temporal powers, concerning their huge estates. The feud took on such proportions that churches became battlefields. Goons from both sides came to the ‘holy’ mass with unholy daggers and axes concealed in their clothes, and there were murders on both sides. All of this went on with the blessings of the top echelons of the clergy, who often gave sanctimonious and hypocritical orations on loving one’s neighbors, on turning the other cheek, on renunciation of earthly riches and so on and so forth. Consequently, various lawsuits - both civil and criminal - have been pending at all levels of courts in India, even to the present day. It is the credulous laity on both sides that bear the brunt of this conflict and ignominy. All the while, the rival clergy fly around, trying to secure diehard followers with bulging purses. The confused community dares not raise its voice for fear of incurring divine wrath. One of the goons on the Metropolitan side was stabbed to his death recently, in retaliation for the many armed attacks he led on the other side. The Metropolitan has promptly declared him a martyr, though he was termed a traitor and a goon by the Patriarch side. One wonders on which side he will turn up on judgment day - probably neither left nor right, but right in Jesus’ lap. If the flareups and the stabbing had taken place in Catholicism, the goon would have been canonized or beatified. Though marriages among the rival Jacobite fractions are common as of now, a total estrangement between the factions is a distinct possibility in the near future. Here in Kerala, there are also two rites of Catholics. One rite, called the Syrian Catholics, was converted to Christianity by Saint Thomas of Antioch in the third century. However, the clergy claim it was Saint Thomas, the Apostle that converted their forefathers, as in the case of Jacobites, mentioned above. They used to conduct their mass and liturgy in the Syrian language or the Antiochean language. The second rite of Catholics is called the Latin Catholics, as they were converted during European colonization in the sixteenth century and later, by the Portuguese, and their ceremonies conformed to the Latin rite as practiced in Rome. Both these rites owe allegiance to the Pope. The two sects of Catholics have separate hierarchies of cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests and laity with overlapping powers in the same geographical area. Thus, the Archdiocese of Ernakulam and the Archdiocese of Verapoly, belonging to the Syrian and Latin rites respectively, are headquartered next-door to each other in Cochin City and exercise control over much the same area. Nevertheless, the clergy of the two rites avoid all interactions and keep to themselves, though they orate solemnly about neighborly love. Their motto often seems to be "Do as I say, don't do as I do." More often, it is the laity on both sides that behave more like human beings towards each other, rather than the reverend hypocrites. What is more, the faithful often travel far on Sundays to a church of their own rite even when a church of the other rite, recognized by the Pope as equivalent to their own, is situated next door. The clergy on both sides encourage this practice as it provides them a captive market and helps in filling up their coffers. This is an extreme but typical example of how the clergy find excuses for segregating people for political expediency and financial gains under the pretext of God and religion. That reminds me of one of those quickies from the humor mills. The Mother superior was addressing her class of outgoing students. When she was done, she asked each of her students as to what they wanted to be in the future. Each girl spelt out her plans for her future. When it came to Sylvia’s turn, she said cheekily “I will be a prostitute” “What?” asked the shocked Mother Superior. “I will be a prostitute," repeated Sylvia. “Oh! Thank God.” Said the Mother; “I first heard that you wanted to be a Protestant” Though it is only a piece of humor, like all humor, this one too holds a ton of latent truth. A Catholic nun or priest would rather have a girl turn prostitute than turn a Protestant. A Protestant would rather have another turn Muslim or Buddhist rather than him turn Pentecost. Organized world religions pay only lip service to the sanctity of man and life. Hindus venerate monkeys, feed them and tolerate their nuisance and menace, because monkeys resemble Hanuman, the simian god of The Ramayan, who helped Ram in his military exploits. Hindus venerate and Hindu worship snakes and mice for their divine associations; in Indian mythology - the snake is Hypocrisy god Siva’s ornament and the mouse serves as god Ganesh’s transport. But the Hindu 259 militants have not been averse to killing, raping and even torching humans, just because they belong to a particular community, though these hapless men and women resemble the real gods and goddesses - Ram, Sita, Siva and Ganesh - in form. This is religion in its true colors, whatever the name, dogma or doctrine it is bottled in and marketed. Religions - all of them - boast that they are champions of the “brotherhood of man." If the proof of the pudding is in the eating, then performance of religions goes against their boasts. Religion is far weaker than other social or ethnic forces like race, color, language, nationality and so on. Thus, a white man would rather marry a white woman from another faith than marry a black woman from the same religion and sect as his. Nor would a rich Catholic normally marry a poor Catholic, nor an educated Hindu an illiterate Hindu. There are churches in the United States and in Africa, open only to whites and some only to blacks. There was a church in Madras called Kalasathel (trouser-like) church, which had two sections like a pair of trousers - the altar being at the waist of the trousers. This was constructed to separately accommodate converts from the higher and lower castes. The segregation did not cause any qualms in the conscience of priests who preached from pulpits that all were children of God. There are many Christian cemeteries in India, where caste-based segregation is imposed rigidly, separating the high caste corpses from the untouchable ones. The lowly worms seem to have no such qualms. There is so much talk about the Muslim Brotherhood. However among the Muslims too other factors take precedence over religion. There are black Arabs and white Arabs professing Islam or 'submission' to the Almighty. But they seldom intermarry in spite of their professed assertions to fraternity. The Ossans of India are looked down upon by the other Muslims, and there is no fraternal relationship between the Ossans and other Muslims of India, in spite of pious declarations that all are the children of Allah. Any institution, tradition, or code that forbids people from relating to each other, such as in marriage, is immoral and inhuman. Religion is one such diabolic institution. You may transfuse heathen blood or implant pagan organs and receive generously, donations in cash or in kind from any man irrespective of his religion. Even so, thou shalt not marry from or into another faith. The clergy builds walls instead of bridges between people. Their followers, thus hemmed in, provide a captive, niche market for the priests and their Clergy Builds mumbo-jumbo, their hocus-pocus, and their ulta-pulta, of contradicting and Walls And irrational dogmas, meaningless mantras, crazy chants and ridiculous sacraments. This Not Bridges captive market is so programmed that it dares not question the priests and their convoluted rationale, for fear of fire and brimstone in this world and damnation in the next. If priests were only making representations to the almighty, one fails to see why there are so many hierarchies among the priests. Would God favor a Bishop in royal attire in preference to a lowly priest? The layers of power in the hierarchy of priests are a clear pointer to their political and marketing ambitions in sharing the spoils of their deceit and fraud. The two thousand year old marketing setup of the church and its O&M, which is geared to market its products, is the envy of even modern business houses. Peter Drucker the management Guru, is all praise for this three-tier O&M and the church’s inimitable business tactics. A typical religious reasoning goes like this. Why should women wear the purdah? The book endorses it. Why should we obey the book? It is the word of the prophet. Why should we obey the prophet? Circular Logic He was God’s messenger. How do you know God sent him? The book says so. Why & Religions should we trust the book? We have now reached a circular logic peculiar to world religions and their beliefs, and we can go on this illogical merry-go-round for eternity and get nowhere. If anyone dares to point out the irrational thinking behind this circuitous dialectics, he is immediately condemned as a blasphemer or a heretic by the priests. This is further endorsed by the Patriarchal or Parental indoctrination from our childhood. Nonetheless, it is their word against your common sense. The claims of the priests to divine authority are all sham, aimed at frightening you into submission. Take no notice of these threats; pay no attention to the Patriarch in you. Instead, pay heed to your own rationale, to the Adult in you. God, ethics and morals are mere fig leaves to cover up sacerdotal greed. The end is always power and prestige. The attributes common and essential to all religions are their coffers, without which no religion can survive. It is cash endorsement rather than divine authority that props up religions and cults. In India, there are dozens of cult leaders, all professing to bless their followers with peace and prosperity. Obviously, joining forces would synergize their operations. However, they seldom, if ever, even share the same podium, for fear of losing their market segments to competition – market segments, built up with much sweat, wile 260 and guile. Competition for market segments and the devotees' purse strings - that is what all religions and cults are about. In writing this book, I sifted through a mass of literature. Much of it was propaganda stuff by religions and sects. What struck me was that most of the literature – especially those of the minor sects - was aimed more at haranguing the opposition rather than in establishing their own authenticity. Ironically, had it not been for their “generosity” in bashing their rivals, it would not have been possible for me, to collect much of the data in this book. More interesting in this context is the fact that the victims of these harangues were often sects that were almost indistinguishable from the mudslingers themselves. Thus the Salafy literature, I came across, concentrated more on arraigning rival Islamic Khawaarij, Qadariyyah and other sects most similar to them, than on engaging the Pentecost or other sects of infidels remote from them. Because it is easier to market Salafy ware to Khawaarij and Qadariyyah than to others more distant from them, as it is easier for soft drink manufacturers to lure consumers of orange flavored drinks of competitors, with orange flavored drinks of their own rather than with caramel flavored drinks. It is for reasons of this simple marketing technique, that the Pentecost church is able to make inroads into Catholics and Protestants, more readily than into Muslims and Hindus. Islam and Judaism started out with a single point agenda of one God and little else as mentioned earlier. They were dogmatic and partisan in their inception. Belief in the one God seems to have been far more important than ethical or moral considerations in these religions. Ethics and morals came almost as an afterthought in these religions and were to be applicable only to the faithful. The others - the heathens and the pagans - could be disposed of as they pleased. Jesus, Buddha, Jain and most other so called founders of religions, on the other hand, laid far more stress on codes of conduct and justice towards other men and animals than on dogmas or ceremonies. Nonetheless, their religions too ended up in the hands of the minority - the priests and the mullahs - and the majority of us ended up kowtowing to these aggressive felines and canines in bovine attire. The Church boasts that the faithful are the sheep and the clergy their shepherds who ought to herd the sheep to their safety and welfare. Instead, the clergy are wolves, pretending to be shepherds, and wolves can only lead the sheep to their doom. Jesus had admonished the Pharisees saying that hated taxmen and scorned whores are more entitled to heaven than their venerable priests are. Those Pharisees and Sadducees, ‘the brood of vipers,’ as Jesus called them, are still in our midst in different garbs, dispensing different dogmas, but with the same purpose - a quick buck and no sweat. Given the authority and power, they would have crucified us, stoned us, burnt us at the stakes, and imprisoned us on one pretext or another, as they crucified Jesus, as they burnt Joan of Ark as they imprisoned Galileo - with the accompaniment of the Holy Mass. However, since they do not have that kind of power over us any more, they resort to threatening us with divine wrath if we follow our reason, if we follow our conscience. Their greatest enemy is free thought, free expression and free debate, and they will obstruct freedom of thought and freedom of conscience at all costs. We know that knowledge is power in modern times. It was not always so. Power used to come ‘from the barrel of a gun’ or from bank balances. All world religions, especially the dogmatic ones, belong to this bygone age and their power has its origin in superstitious beliefs and in the fear divine vengeance and retributions. Knowledge is their enemy and they will prevent the spread of science and knowledge, whatever the costs. A much bandied-about word, closely related to religion, is spirituality. What is spirituality? No one has an exact definition. For many Malayali Hindus, spirituality is bathing early in the morning, going round the temple with a wet towel round the shoulders, and then receiving the Prasadam or offering and putting on a sandal-paste mark on the forehead. Probably, when on this routine, the Hindu devotee identifies himself or herself with his or her Parent and is at peace, with the sense of ‘security’ provided by the Parent. For a Christian, the peels of church bells constitute spirituality; for a Muslim, it is the call to prayer and for Hindu Sanskrit chants stir up something in him. In the same vein the smell of incense is spiritual to a Christian while Hindus and Buddhists find solace in the smell of burning sandalwood. Often what is spiritual to one is profane to another. For Hindus, lighting the ceremonial lamp and smearing the sandal-paste mark on the forehead constitute spirituality. For a Muslim, these Spirituality & things are associated with idolatry. The pig is considered holy by many in Peru and Abominations elsewhere, in the same way, as the cow is holy to Hindus. In contrast, for Jews and
261 Muslims, pigs are most unholy. The idols in the Kaaba had spiritual dimensions to the Qureysh; Mohammad held them abominable and destroyed them at the first opportunity. The River Ganges is almost a holy institution for the Hindus, and a dip in it means salvation. I went once to Rishikesh on its banks, after the rains. The river was muddy with human feces floating on the surface. There were also many monkeys on the banks, which had grown fat on the food offered by the pilgrims. The monkey refuse too was washed into the river by the rains. Nonetheless, to the devotees nothing mattered. They were taking up the water in their cupped hands and drinking it reverently. In Benares, further down the Ganges from Rishikesh, live the Aghori, a peaceful and deeply religious people. The Hindus bring their dead to the banks of the Ganges and cremate them there, in the belief of immediate salvation. According to The National Geographic, the Aghoris wait in the shadows until the cremators of the dead are gone, leaving behind the partly burnt corpses. The Aghoris then move in reverently and solemnly and eat a morsel or two of the barbecued corpse. To the Aghoris it is the most spiritual thing, as they believe that consuming human flesh would liberate them from the endless cycles of births and rebirths, and that it would unite them with the divine immediately after their death. The whole thing would make anyone throw up. But the Eucharist too is based on the same cannibalistic notion that eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood would unite the devotee with the divine. Reprehensible or not, most of the Aghori children will follow in their Parental or Patriarchal footsteps. Spirituality is a personal matter, and if religion were just about spirituality each one would choose his own religion. The fact that most of today’s religions try to propagate themselves, shows that there is more to religion than spirituality. It shows that, for all practical purposes, today’s religions have more political dimensions than spiritual ones. What is more, pure politics is a risky and laborious game. It takes many long years of slogging, caddying and sycophancy to reach anywhere near real political power. Even after acquiring power, it is tough going for a politician, and few can last in power for over a decade, especially in a democratic setup. Priests on the other hand, have no such risks. Right from ordination and donning the robes of priesthood, they have power and it lasts till death, with no challenges whatsoever.
SCIENCE, RELIGION AND MIRACLES: In the third chapter of this book on Parental conditioning, we have discussed nanocosm, microcosm and macrocosm. A novel or a play is a nanocosm in the hands of the author or the director. The microcosm is the world under human control such as in science and politics. Macrocosm is the universe and the forces of nature out there, which are beyond human control. The President of the United States though the most powerful man in the microcosm, is helpless against the macrocosmic forces like the Typhoon Katrina. Science studies the nature of macrocosm and tries to bring more and more of the infinite number of elements of the macrocosm within the limits of the microcosm so that these macrocosmic forces can be put to human use. Religion on the other hand, treats the macrocosm as a nanocosm in the hands of supernatural beings. Accordingly, in religion supernatural beings control events in the macrocosm, as an author or a script-writer controls events in a nanocosmic novel or cinema Thus in a thriller movie the hero is shot at by dozens of machine guns and yet escapes unhurt whereas every shot from the hero's outmoded pistol finds its target. We know this goes against natural laws of probability. However we accept the outcome. It is the same with religion. It presumes that supernatural forces can bring about events that vitiate the laws of nature. This is the difference between science and religion. Science treats the macrocosm as infinite in scope compared to the microcosm, whereas religion treats the macrocosm as a nanocosm in the hands of supernatural forces and their microcosmic agents, to do with as they please, regardless of the laws of nature. In science, events develop in accordance with prescribed and immutable laws of nature, whereas in religion the whims and fancies of the supernatural have the final say in all matters. Science is based on these laws of nature while the very existence of religions is based on miracles. Without miracles there is no priest, shaman or religion. As mentioned above, the macrocosm is infinite in space, time events and their interrelationships and science treats it as such. Consider a block of hard granite a thousand miles long, a thousand miles wide and a thousand miles thick. A tiny sparrow lands on the block of stone every thousand years to clean its beak and in the process the granite block suffers some wear and tear. The time taken to thus wear the huge block of granite completely down to fine dust is but a fraction of a second in the infinity of time. This is impossible for us to comprehend as our comprehension is limited by the limits of our experience. Infinity of space and 262 infinity of number of events and their interrelationships too are as incomprehensible to us as infinity of time. Science breaks up these infinities into manageable parcels of time, space, events and their interrelationships. On the other hand, religion treats the macrocosm as a nanocosm, limited in space and time and under the direct management of the 'Almighty' who in turn is managed by shamans, incarnations, prophets, swamis and hierarchies of priests. Religion tries to set limits to the limitless macrocosm and sets a beginning and an end to time and space resulting in 'creation' and 'end of the world' myths. It is also in tune with this trend to limit the limitless that the Bible spun the yarn about Noah taking pairs of all animals on earth into a tiny ark and many such mythical yarns. Maybe religion and man’s belief in miracles arose from his innate tendency to find the relationship between events as causes and effects. Science is concerned with the exact sequence of events under controlled conditions. As such, religion is a rudimentary and simplistic form of science. The main difference between science and religion is that science contends that each event has a unique cause event and a unique effect event, under identical conditions and such sequence of events are immutable in space and time. Religion on the other hand assumes that there are supernatural beings at work and they can change cause- effect relationships of events at will. Science demands cent-per-cent validation for all its premises, propositions and conclusions. Religion has no such constraints. Religion says that thunder is caused when Titans fight or play with each other. Science says it is static electricity in the clouds being discharged. Religion says that the embarrassment at Eden gave rise to the sense of shame in man. Science says that there are communities that go about stark naked even in these modern days and that shame is a complex issue, and a logical explanation of shame is not possible at present. Science says that any two bodies, left unsupported, will fall to the ground with the same speed due to earth’s gravity, which, in turn, is explained by Newton’s law of mutual attraction of bodies. Religions on the other hand, propagate that the spirits or gods or other supernatural beings can interfere at will with such natural sequence of events. As such, an unsupported body can go up or down or sideways if the supernatural force wills it. In like manner, virgins can give births; the Sun can stop in its tracks to help a few men in their brutal attacks on their neighbors and to finish them off; battles can be won when the prophet holds up his hands in prayer and lost when he lets his hands down (So his disciples held up his hands until the end of the battle!) and so forth. Religion believes in miracles; science does not. Religion believes that the supernatural is the immediate as well as the prime cause of matter and events whereas science states that each event can have only another unique event as cause and there are no prime, intelligent and capricious causes. Religions, god-men, shamans and their entire ilk boast of their power to work miracles as proof of the omnipotence of their deity, and the authenticity and legitimacy of their beliefs. Miracles are an essential commodity marketed by all religions. Religions, all religions without exception, stand on two legs, fear and favor - fear of the supernatural and belief in its power to grant big favors for small change. There is at Kodungalloor, the ancient trading city of Musiris, on the western coast of India, a deity called Kodungallooramma or Mother at Kodungalloor. She is a matriarchal divinity Kodungalloor & and has her origins in the Original State. She is believed to come into estrus or heat Obscene Songs once every year on a particular day, and the way to placate her is to sing obscene, filthy songs - the more putrid the songs the more pleased the goddess. The goddess specializes in curing small pox and there are numerous miracles attributed to her, which came about by the high degree of obscene content in the songs chanted in her honor. Somayaga is a Hindu ceremony dating back to Vedic times. It lasts over five days and involves Vedic chants by scores of Brahmins. There are also many offerings and sacrifices involved. It is said that Somayaga originally goats had to be buried alive as part of Somayaga. It has now been replaced by goat figures made from rice flour. The whole thing used to be extremely expensive and so was conducted once in fifty years or less. With the newfound affluence, it is now conducted every five years or so. It is normally conducted at the height of the dry season with the purpose of bringing rain. Such one Somayaga was conducted in Cochin in April, 2005. And lo! There were torrential rains in Cochin, the day the ceremonies concluded. But then, that same morning there were media reports that there were low atmospheric pressure conditions around Sri Lanka, and that it would rain as a result of the depression. The depression brought rains not only to Cochin; it brought rains all over South India. The very next day there was a report in a prestigious local daily, quoting from its past reports, that there were heavy showers exactly 263 a hundred years ago, to the day. Obviously, the Somayaga had nothing to do with the rains, as rains had come hundred years ago and as it had rained all over South India though the Somayaga was conducted only in Cochin. Nevertheless, the faithful boast that it was the Somayaga that had caused the downpour. April is also the season in which festivals are held at many temples around Cochin. The rains fowled up many of these festivals, especially ‘Pooram’, the festival of festivals, held at Trichur, 70 Km north of Cochin. Those who boasted of the effectiveness of the Somayaga had no answers, as to why it brought rains that played spoilsport to the festivals held in honor of many Hindu gods. The Catholic Church boasts it is authentic, because it can perform miracles. No doubt, it has its quota of miracles just like any religion. One of its most characteristic miracles is the stigmata by which 'holy' men and women develop wounds and other body-marks corresponding to those of the crucified Jesus Christ. Stigmata From the fourteenth to the twentieth century, more than 330 persons were identified as having been stigmatized; sixty of them were declared saints or the blessed, among them Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Catherine of Siena. Fr.Pio of Italy is perhaps the last in line to have developed such stigmata. The miraculous wounds, which thus appeared, were on the palms of these 'saints'. We now know that during crucifixions the nails were driven through the wrists, and not through the palms as they believed a century ago. Obviously, the stigmata on the palms, if they developed at all, were in the wrong places and this in turn depended upon the belief of those saints. Saint George has been de-canonized by the Pope with the observation that such a character never did live. Nonetheless, we have a church in Cochin, dedicated to St. George, whose specialty is protection against De-canonized snakes. His favorite offerings are chicken, cash and silver and gold figurines. People Saints & Miracles who sight a snake in their home or its vicinity pledge to make St. George an offering of a cock and there are many stories of the snake menace disappearing. There are also many accounts of snakebites and deaths of devotees who failed to deliver on their pledges of chicken or other offerings. In spite of the de-canonization, Saint George continues to thrive at Cochin, raking in the money, chicken and the figurines; because the bishops and the priests cannot forsake the sizeable income. In the process, they ignore the papal edict and hoodwink the ignorant faithful. There have been over a hundred other saints like Christopher, Sebastian, Brigitte and Philomena who have been decanonized by the Pope for lack of historical evidence. Nonetheless they go on working their miracles regardless of the de-canonization. In the African Kalahari, the ubiquitous Shaman is god’s agent in working miracles. One of the customs is for the faithful to whisper all their troubles into the ears of a goat. Immediately thereafter, the ears, nostrils, mouth and other body apertures of the goat are sealed, and the goat is smothered to death. It is believed that all the troubles, whispered into the goat’s ears, die with the goat, and the devotee is freed from all his troubles. The only catch is that the goat has to be the Shaman’s, and it comes at a premium. (The shaman and his believers are ignorant of the fact that the goat-skin has millions of pores and that the troubles, whispered in the goats ear could seep through these pores as easily through its other body apertures, to haunt the devotee again.) Religion is a barter system; something is expected from the spirit or deity worshipped, in return for an offering in cash or kind. In the normal bartering, the goods or services exchanged have real or presumed intrinsic commercial value. In religion, the exchange always favors the devotee. For small change, the spirit is expected to bail out large favors or, sometimes, impossible ones such as cure for incurable diseases. A broker or a go-between, who is in the good books of the gods or has had appropriate training in brokering with the almighty, makes the exchange simple and smooth, and this is where priests come into the picture. They receive the payments on behalf of the gods and everyone is happy. I am now facing the biggest crisis in my fifty-eight years of life. I am in business and have a dispute with a government department amounting to 15 million rupees ($1= 40 Rupees), which can make me or break me. It is an astronomical sum by Indian standards. I have been trying for over an year to wriggle out of the situation by lobbying as well as by law suites, and this has already cost me a tidy sum. Nonetheless, the problem refuses to disappear. In her anguish arising from the problem, my wife went to her favorite church, prayed for a few hours and dropped five rupees in the box, kept in the church for this very purpose. If my crisis takes me down with it, she is sure to find some fault, defect or sin with me or her, which led to the failure of her prayers and offerings. On the other hand, if I survive the crisis, she is sure to credit her prayers for the success. All my lobbying and the expensive law suites will have to play second fiddle to the paltry
264 five rupees, she dropped in the church coffers. As far as gods, religion, priests and miracles are concerned it is always “Heads I win, tails you lose” Even a nonentity like St. George works miracles for a paltry hen; even an ancient hag like Kodungallooramma, works miracles for a cup of wine and a putrid song. The Unknown God, referred to by Saint Paul in the Acts of the Apostles, also probably worked miracles for something in return. Even so, the gods seem to have had their limitations, which depended on the faithful. The Lord God of Israel was powerful against the Egyptians, the Canaanites, the Midianites and all those, that lived in Israel’s neighborhood. The same God does not seem to have been as effective against the Babylonians and the Romans. The hordes of the Hindu Pantheon, many of them formidable warriors and strategists, do not seem to have been effective against the swarms that invaded India through the Khyber Pass nor against the Europeans that arrived by sea. The 26th of Dec 2004, Tsunami tidal waves with the epicenter off the coast of Sumatra, razed to the ground churches, mosques, temples and other structures, both holy and profane. Velainkanni on the east Velainkanni & coast of India was one of the most interesting of these. It is the premier Christian pilgrim The Tsunami center in India dedicated to the Virgin Mother known as ‘Velainkanni Matha’ or the ‘Mother of Velainkanni’. She is said have saved some Portuguese sailors who were shipwrecked off the coast of Velainkanni, in the nineteenth century. A township has since developed around the pilgrimage and the Church itself - the focus of the pilgrimage - has enormous revenues and goes on buying up real estate and on building more and more structures. Things were going well until the ‘Tsunami’ hit the center in full force, and over three thousand hapless villagers, traders and pilgrims were washed off into the sea and thousands of corpses lay strewn all over the beaches of the pilgrim center and its vicinities. The Lady who ‘saved’ a couple of sailors at sea was totally powerless in the case of thousands of her devotees, on land, whom the sea assaulted. Velainkanni is on the East Coast of India. But pilgrims from Kerala on the West Coast throng to the pilgrimage in their busloads. As a result more Keralites from the West Coast died in Velainkanni than in Kerala itself, from the Tsunami. To rub salt into the wounds, to add insult to injury, the Velainkanni Church authorities have a put out a call to the faithful to donate liberally for building protective structures against possible future Tsunami disasters. If it takes donations and concrete to protect the faithful and the church itself, why propagate outlandish tales of the mother saving the shipwrecked sailors? Francis Bacon observed, “All superstition is much the same, whether it be that of astrology, dreams, omens, retributive judgment or the like, in all of which the deluded believers observe events which are fulfilled, but neglect and pass over their failure, though it be much more common”. A retired professor I knew died a couple of years after publishing a book on the corrupt clergy, and many churchgoers said the death was punishment for his blasphemy. However, thousands, many in their prime, die every year on pilgrimages and it is justified as God’s will and such deaths are Disasters described as being fortunate for the victims. If the outcome of a pilgrimage or sacrifice is On favorable, God is to be thanked in the hope of more. If the expected miracles do not come Pilgrimages through or if a pilgrimage proves disastrous, it is god’s will. If you really believe in God’s will, why then try to change it or influence it with prayers and offerings? Do your thing and let god get on with his. It may be appropriate here to compare scientific and religious approach to problem-solving. Religions depend on miracles as the basic means to problem solving. Large ceremonies are conducted in India for rains. If the rains come, the ceremonies and prayers get credit for the rains. If the rains fail, then it is attributed to the man who conducted the ceremonies or the way he conducted it. In a long ceremony such as for rains or miracle cures, errors are inevitable in the recitals or the procedures. Consequently, religions and gods get credit whether prayers and ceremonies work or not. Religions and gods are considered omnipotent and infallible. Failures in fulfillment of prayers and ceremonies are therefore attributed to human causes. In contrast science is ever-ready to accept errors as inherent in complex procedures. Thus weather forecasting consists of innumerable variables and observations as well as complex calculations. Errors are therefore inevitable in meteorology. Science accepts these errors as inherent and tries to improve knowledge and procedures involved. Because science accepts that nothing is perfect, it is possible to improve things. Religion on the other hand does not accept errors and claims perfection. As a result, religious procedures can never improve and so religions shall for ever remain superstitions. 265 The gullibility of the faithful is truly shocking. They know, everyone knows in the inside of their insides that singing obscene songs cannot help in any way; everyone knows that a saint who never even lived, cannot drive out snakes for a cock or figurines; everyone knows that women tilling the field in the nude or marrying off frogs to one another cannot bring rain. Yet, they have been so led by their noses all their lives that they dare not think any different even when the truth is quite obvious. They laugh at other's superstitions and at the same time subscribe to practices and beliefs as preposterous and silly as the ones they ridicule. Thus people who practice such 'ridiculous' practices as frog marriages and obscene songs would in all probability laugh at virgin births and packing of pairs of all flora and fauna in the world into a wooden ark. In the final analysis all articles of faith, beliefs and ceremonies are equally absurd, silly and incongruous, When these credulous sheep hear of something that verifies their beliefs, even in the most remote way possible, they jump at it as if to clutch at straws. When such incidents are discredited or found to be plain trickery, they wait for something else to endorse their beliefs. Thus when remnants of what seemed to be a ship was discovered at Mount Ararat, the Christian public jumped at it as proof of the veracity of the story of the flood in the Bible and this in turn was supposed to vindicate the Bible itself as the true word of God. There is more proof of Akhenaton having lived than of Noah, Abraham or of even Jesus. The mere fact that Akhenaton lived does not mean that his beliefs were tenable; it does not mean that Aton is the one true God. Similarly, the mere fact that Moses or Abraham or Jesus lived does not mean that all they said is the eternal truth. The veil of Turin and other ‘discoveries' of so-called saintly relics are also relevant here. If the Ark at Ararat were genuine and even if it proves that there was a flood long ago, it does not prove the rest of the Bible right. As we have seen, the Bible was neither the first nor the only one myth to have narrated the story of the flood. The Babylonian legend of Gilgamesh spoke of it long before the Bible did. Therefore, the Ark at Ararat, if it authenticates the Bible, it also authenticates the Gilgamesh legend, which predates the Bible by centuries. Which do we trust as true - the Bible or the legend of Gilgamesh? The same goes for the veil of Turin. If anything, it only proves that Jesus lived and that he was persecuted. It does not prove in any way that Jesus died for our sins or that he was the incarnation of God or that his mother was a virgin and immaculate, that the Pope is infallible or even that the Gospels are true. Thus if a work of fiction, written with the Vietnam War as the background, describes some events that really took place, it does not prove that the fiction is fact. If it were so, bits true events would authenticates large tracts of untruth and fiction. Ambiguity is another method that is used by charlatans and prophets to snare the gullible and to render credibility to the incredible and the impossible. Like the prophesies of Nostradamus, many of the prophesies and predictions are clothed in so vague and ambiguous terms that they can be construed as describing almost any situation. What is more, incidents conforming to such vague and ambiguous terms are bound to take place, given sufficient time. When this happens the Ambiguity believers jump at it and proclaim that their faith has been vindicated. Thus, prophecies regarding the birth of Jesus was applied to John the Baptist. As a matter of fact, some early Essenes believed that John the Baptist was the real messiah and there were many stories such as virgin birth and annunciation attributed to him as to Jesus. If the Johnites or Baptists had acquired political power, Johnism or Baptistianity would have ruled the day and Jesus would have been touted as John’s disciple or acolyte. Such prophesies and predictions as applied to Jesus can be applied to the birth of Krishna or Hitler, they can be applied to your birth and mine, given a naïve and credulous following as the Church has. According to Voltaire when a rogue meets a fool, miracles are wrought, cults are set up and divinities are born. Today’s world religions and religious practices are political setups with marketing aspirations, but with alluringly moral, ethical and divine frontages. They market god and miracles in the most ingenious ways; the results speak for themselves. The lifeblood of these absurd faiths and beliefs is the credulity and gullibility of their followers. Without willing followers who are capable of believing in anything they are told, there cannot be prophets, incarnations, cults or religions, let alone priests, ceremonies, chants and miracles. Rasputin (1872?-1916) offers the best illustration of how far the gullible faithful can be manipulated by the power of suggestion and miracles. Born in Siberia, Rasputin’s original name was Grigory Yefimovich Rasputin Novykh. The name was changed to Rasputin, Russian for the “debauched one or seducer,” because of his licentious ways. Though he was illiterate like all swindlers he had winning ways and a gift of the gab. He managed to get a small following with his teaching that the easiest way to God was thorough the state exhaustion after prolonged sexual orgies. 266 News of his miraculous powers reached the ears of the empress, who summoned him to cure her long-suffering hemophiliac son Nikolayevich and the heir to the Russian throne. Rasputin was successful in curing the boy. This was construed as a miracle by everyone and further more Rasputin convinced Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra that without his magical powers disaster would befall them and their family. Rasputin became a centre of power in the Russian court. The empress venerated Rasputin as a saint and emissary of God who would save the throne. Rasputin's influence with the empress grew to scandalous proportions, but Alexandra chose to ignore the implications. Emperor Nicholas was lorded over by his wife and he too chose to dance to her tunes and to accommodate Rasputin. After Nicolas left for the front in August 1915, the empress capriciously dismissed capable ministers and replaced them with Rasputin’s cronies. The empress was so much under his spell that she even agreed to sleep with Rasputin for the welfare of her son and the throne. Rasputin used his influence to the full to promote himself and to do away with his critics and adversaries. He became so much of a menace that his adversaries poisoned him with cyanide-laced tea cakes. Though Rasputin consumed enough cyanide to kill a couple of elephants the miracle-man seemed none the worse for it. He hopped around singing bawdy songs as if he had taken some elixirs. So one of the conspirators shot him. Though Rasputin collapsed, he got up again as if by another miracle, and managed to run into the street outside. The assassins followed him and shot him again and to make the outcome certain they bundled him up and threw him into a hole in the frozen Neva River where he drowned. The murder merely strengthened the Empress’s resolve to defend the principle of autocracy at all costs. The Russian revolution, a few weeks later, put an end to her resolve and to the monarchy. The emperor, the empress and their children were shot dead by the revolutionaries. The ‘holy man’, the gullible empress and their misrule only brought about their own downfall as well as that of the royal family and the throne of the Czars, and plunged Russia into the most devastating phase of its history. Eucharist The Catholic Church claims sole legacy to the real God and His miracles. They also & SARS tout the Eucharist as the flesh and blood of God. If so, the Eucharist should have been the ultimate panacea for all ills and misfortunes as well as the best preventive for all diseases. But in the 2003 outbreak of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) we see, in the Philippines and elsewhere, the Eucharist being received in the hand instead of on the tongue, because of the priests’ fear of contracting the dreaded disease. Many of these priests are faith healers for all we know. Yet, they leave nothing to chance or to blind faith when it comes to their own fate, though the devotees are expected to toe their line blindly. Mother Theresa is said to have cured a woman of an incurable cancer and this led to the Mother’s beatification. One wonders why the Mother did not cure Pope John Paul II of his Parkinson’s disease. Mother Theresa is an excellent study in context. No doubt, she was deeply religious, with many superstitious beliefs imbibed in her childhood, from her parents and from her society. Nevertheless, she was a saint in the true sense. The immense infrastructure the church has at its command, helped Mother Theresa do all that she did. There have been other saints like Father Damien who followed the teachings of Jesus, almost to the letter, and there is no doubt that The Church too has benefited considerably from the good deeds of such real-time saints. For every Mother Theresa or Father Damien, there are hundreds of thousands of priests and bishops who lead parasitic lives, riding on the goodwill brought about by these saints. The Father Damiens and the Mother Theresas are essentially human saints. The church makes them cult figures and exploits their saintliness to its advantage. It has been reported by Transparency International that only about 12% of international aid to Third World countries reach their target. The balance ends up in the pockets of unscrupulous politicians and greedy bureaucrats. In the same manner, all religions and cults do spend money and service on the poor. Yet, only about 12% of their income helps the poor through the likes of the Mother Theresas and the Father Damiens. The lion’s share- the 88% - end up in the pockets of the clergy and their cronies. The Catholic Church baled out millions of dollars in America, in out-of-court compensations for the sexual misadventures of the bishops. Who paid for these misadventures in reality? These millions of dollars were accrued from the small change donated by the faithful. In fact, the box with a slit at the top for dropping small change is the lifeblood of all religions and the most essential common factor for cults, sects and religions. Without the box no god or religion, no prophet or godman can last long. Reverting to miracles, all religions are cults in essence and vice versa, centering round a leader or leaders or a saint or saints. Powers to work miracles are the essence of religions and cults. India is a land of 267 cults with a cult leader for every square hundred kilometers or so. Of course, their following depends on the power of the leader or leaders to work miracles. These devotees point to the large and often highly literate following their leader has mustered, as proof of his authenticity. But then there are few cult-leaders who can match the reverend Jim Jones of the US, for the sheer diehard loyalty of their following. More than 900 followers of Jim Jones' Peoples Temple, including over 200 children, committed mass suicide in 1974, probably as a sign of their faith in him. Many of these were well educated. Incidents like this, of blind and unthinking submission vindicates Voltaire’s words “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” The corollary of this statement “Those who can be coaxed into believing in absurdities can be coaxed into committing atrocities” might be even more relevant for they are the blind followers and submitters who commit most of the crimes and atrocities in the world, as in the Crusades, the Jihads, the inquisitions, the pogroms and the massacres down the ages. True, most, if not all, of these cult leaders are highly charismatic in character. Sathya Sai Baba and Amrithananda Mayi, both of India, have put their huge resources to the welfare of their respective societies. As such, it is not the end result they bring about, which are objectionable; but the means they use to build up a cult following. All of them depend on superstitions and the credulousness of their followers to gain their ends. This can only lead to long-term repercussions though they may be beneficial in the short term. Besides, however well intentioned these religious or cult leaders, their movements or cults invariably end up in the hands of unscrupulous elements, on the death or incapacitation of the original leader or leaders. Most goods and services are now in the buyers’ market. Religions and cults, on the other hand, have always been and will always be in the sellers’ market, selling intangible benefits for tangible Religions offerings. Religion makes the best business. Consequently, religion is the biggest business In Seller’s worldwide considering the turnover on pilgrimages, ceremonies, donations and other Market supernatural-gratification plans marketed by religions, shamans, astrologers, cults and others of that ilk. What is more, unlike other businesses, there is little or no credit involved. It is cash-down all the way. If you want to make a fast million, the surest and easiest way to do it is setting up a religion or cult or sell some form of the occult. The followers of religions dare not question the quantity or quality of their benefits for fear of short term and eternal consequences. Marxism has often been called a materialistic religion. Though it does not believe in the supernatural, Marxism, like religions, is replete with dogmas, schisms and intolerance. Nevertheless, Marxism slipped up in offering tangible benefits in this world itself, to its subscribers and ended up as a fleeting pipe dream. Religions on the other hand, offer intangible returns and miracles and go on reaping in the benefits for millennia. As a corollary of their beliefs in miracles, religions also promote practices to placate or propitiate the supernatural beings, so that the desired miraculous results are brought about. Ceremonies, chants, offerings, sacraments and other practices are conducted to appease the supernatural and gain one’s ends. There is no religion without miracles and ways of bringing about miracles. Indeed, there cannot be any. No god has any locus standi unless he can bring about miracles, the more sensational the miracle, the stronger his credentials. The truth about miracles and such practices as alternate medicine, Reiki and other dubious practices is simple. All animals including man are exceptionally robust and resilient by nature, and over 80% of all our diseases get cured on their own, even without any medication. In the same vein, over 80% of our major problems get solved in time without any interference. Naturally, prayers, ceremonies, alternate medicine and other dubious practices have the same percentage of success as the natural ones, of over 80%. But the gullible attribute this high percentage of success to god-men, prayers, ceremonies and what have you. The quacks and the priests reap in the fruits of this credulity. It is time that cures most of our diseases, it is time that solves most of life's problems. All the powerful gods and spirits seem to have been limited in power by time and place. Stone-age spirits were brought down by stone-age tools, agrarian spirits were vanquished by Agrarian Wave weapons like stakes and swords. Modern ghosts and poltergeists are not so easily put off by swords or knives. It takes guns and ammunition to ward them off. Similarly evil spirits in Europe are put off by the cross. But the cross does not seem to hold any power over evil spirits from China, India and other civilizations. Sanskrit mantras alone can control Indian spirits and Chinese chants and scripts alone can control Chinese spirits. The simple fact is as Shakespeare said in All’s Well That Ends Well ‘Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, which we ascribe to heaven.’ 268 We are told to put our trust in God. How do we trust a god who claims he is omnipotent, but cannot create a stone he cannot lift? How do we trust a god who can prevent all the evil on earth but will not? How do we trust a god who boasts he is merciful, but starves millions of infants to death? The Bible says that man’s misery started with his fall from grace in the Garden of Eden. What sin did all the now-extinct animals commit that they be so capriciously and mercilessly wiped off the face of the earth? Another tactic used by religions is denigrating and lampooning other religions. I do not remember the exact circumstances. A temple and the idols therein were destroyed by lightning, fire or enemy attack. And it was either Moses or Paul, who is credited with the taunt: "How can a god who cannot save himself save others?" This is a typical example of the sarcastic attitude of most religions to other religions. Romans razed the temple of Jerusalem and while God of Moses looked on helplessly. Millions of Jews perished in the German concentration camps, while their omnipotent God looked the other way from churches, mosques and synagogues. The Vandals and Goths vandalized hundreds of churches when they overran the Roman Empire. Pope Gregory I had to organize an army of ordinary mortals to defend the houses of the omnipotent God. Churches, temples, mosques and places of worship of every kind are equally prone to vagaries of nature like lightning, thunder, storms, floods, fire etc. And people die on pilgrimages to all sorts of gods. The number of such deaths or accidents is proportional to the number of pilgrims, other factors remaining constant, and does not depend on the beliefs of those pilgrims or their particular god. Every pilgrimage and every pilgrim center get their full quota of accidents, mishaps, enemy attacks and natural disasters, irrespective of the deity installed there. The same goes for priests too, irrespective of the god they minister to. How can a God, who cannot protect his own places of worship, his people or his priests, protect us with miracles?
THE DIVINE REPRESENTATIVES: Priests are a law unto themselves, and they interpret the scriptures to their advantage. As a result, they are often at variance with themselves. Bible, according to them, is the word of God and as such should be obeyed cent percent. It is said that God gave us the Ten Commandments and so we are bound to obey them. The Ten Commandments were given through Moses and we have to take Moses’ word for it. On the other hand, according to the Bible itself, there are three commandments, which God gave the first humans, without any intermediaries. The First was “Thou shalt not eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil” (I have often wondered at the utter banality of this commandment, though I am sure the sacerdotal establishment will have an explanation. They always have and no questions please!) Adam and Eve flouted this commandment, as they deserved to be flouted. The Second and Third Commandments were issued as a result: “Thou shalt live by the sweat of thy brow” and “Go into the world and increase and multiply." These two commandments are defied by the priests themselves. Celibacy is a direct infringement of God’s own direct commandments and so are the luxurious and ostentatious lives of the clergy. Speaking of interpretations, the clergy orate solemnly on all subjects, in and out of the Bible and quote profusely from the scriptures to suit their ends. The proclaimed purpose of the church is the attainment of heaven for the faithful. But the priests often choose to ignore the single instance in the New Testament, when Jesus himself shows the way to heaven, in response to the rich young man’s question: “Go, sell all you have, give it to the poor and then come and follow me.” I am yet to hear an ecclesiastical authority discourse at length on this most direct of Jesus’ recommendations to attain heaven. Instead, they speak of plenary indulgences, payable in cash or kind, as the best means to attain heaven. When it suits them, the priests are not averse to adopting canons, which are not authenticated by the scriptures. Celibacy is a case in point and so is the Holy Spirit concept, the Assumption of Mary, the concept of Purgatory and so on and so forth. We have seen how primacy of the Pope is based on the Acts of Peter, and that this document went so much against the Church’s teachings that the Church was forced to ban it as heretic. Although they swear by the Bible and especially by the Gospels, Christian priests are not averse to praying in crowds and at street corners, repetitious prayers like the litany and the rosary, addressing a priest or the Pope himself as father, amassing of wealth, all of which go against Jesus’ tenets in the Gospels. Likewise, one of the most self-serving dogma is the infallibility of the Pope, which is tantamount to granting the Pope arbitrary powers. The most damning case of sacerdotal duplicity took place in the case of the filioque clause described in a foregoing section. During the filioque imbroglio the Pope first endorsed the original version of the Nicene Creed and then turned tail and endorsed the opposite version. Obviously the Pope could not have been infallible on both counts. 269 Though Jesus preached around for three years, the Bible does not once mention his conferring the sacraments on anyone - neither on his mother nor on his disciples. Yet, sacraments now form the most important function of the Catholic Church for obvious reasons. All organized religions are political setups at heart. The Roman Catholic Church has a following of over a billion. Taking a conservative 75% of these members as active participants, the Pope has a following of a staggering 750 million people worldwide. Although many kings and governments have tried, time and again, to cut into this following, their efforts have come to naught. The main reason for this is the Sunday mass and the sermon. Every Sunday, year in and year out, fifty-two weeks a year, year after year after year, the Pope has a captive audience of 750 million who will listen to whatever is told them without questioning, without answering back for fear of hell and damnation. This is more, far more, than any political or commercial dispensation can organize in spite of all the modern media and communication facilities at their disposal. No wonder, the Catholic Church is one of the most powerful political forces in the world, if not the most powerful. Jesus had exhorted the poor and the downtrodden to come to him and that he would comfort them. But his followers and so called representatives on earth turned exploiters and wallowed in wealth, luxury, lust and sin. As a result, the clergy were identified with the exploiters and the nobility. And whenever the oppressed rose up, as in the French and Russian revolutions, the people associated the clergy with the nobility, as gross exploiters and ruthless parasites. As a result, as many holy heads rolled off the guillotines as noble heads. If they had served the poor, as their vows endorse them to, they would have fared well and so would have everyone else. Even so, they always have an answer to justify all their deeds and misdeeds, “It is written, you shall have seventy times seven in this world.” (A priest, who quoted this to me, later on forsook his vows and married a rich woman where again he got ‘seventy times seven’). A decade ago a priest in Kerala bid over a hundred thousand Rupees for a specific registration number, he coveted, for his luxury car for numerological reasons. The ostentatious nature of this vicar of god becomes evident only when we consider the fact that less than one in half a million Indian households had cars, let alone luxurious ones at the time, and the average per-capita Indian income was less than five hundred Rupees per annum. The list of sacerdotal greed and extravagance can go on and on. A priest put things in the right perspective when he declared, “Have a sumptuous dinner and you feel good for a few hours. Fall in love, marry and go on a honeymoon and you have a good time for a couple of months. But don the robes of a priest and you can party all your life - seventy times seven. Pope Leo X (1513–21), upon his accession, is said to have quipped, “God has given us the papacy, now let us enjoy it.” Others may not be so flagrant about it. Nonetheless, the clergy seem to have the best of this world and the next at the expense of the toiling faithful. According to Thomas Paine “… the Church has set up a system of religion very contradictory to the character of the person whose name it bears. It has set up a religion of pomp and revenue, in pretended imitation of a person whose life was humility and poverty.” Ever since the various Christian denominations acquired political power, the churches they built and go on building are palatial structures, with the ostentation that would put many a royalty to shame. No wonder, Bishops are called ‘princes’. In their extravagance they overlook the fact that Jesus, in whose name these extravaganzas are splashed around, was born in a manger; preferred to spend his days on the street with the sick and the needy and preached poverty and asceticism. I am sure he feels like a fish out of water in these palatial churches when, as they teach, he comes down in flesh and blood during the Holy Mass. How much more Jesus-like would churches have been if they were functional structures with optimum comforts. With every palatial church built today they could build an ordinary church, with a small health center or educational institution attached, or a small commercial enterprise, providing employment to the poor parish members. In third world countries reeling under deceases, illiteracy and unemployment, every church would then be providing the service that Jesus desired them to provide. Instead, religion is an institution of the faithful, instituted by the priests and for the priests. Unlike Judaism, Christianity or Islam, natural religions, have been more tolerant, though in recent times many of the natural religions have adopted aggressive attitudes, to counter the holier-than-thou attitudes of the dogmatic religions. Right from the days of Saint Thomas, Christians came to India and they were given title deeds to lands to set up their own churches and places of worship and so were the Jews. Almost immediately after Islam became a force, they too came to the Indian shores and they too were 270 allowed to go about their business of trading and worshipping. They were treated as guests. But if it were the other way around - if a Hindu or a Buddhist were to go to lands under Judaism, Christianity or Islam - they would be punished, as criminals of the lowest order. That is the frightening face of dogmatic religion. For the Semitic religions, a blasphemer is the biggest criminal, worse than serial killers, worse than chronic rapists. The Romans, in their wisdom, were a tolerant lot. They bore with Judaism and Christianity as well as with all types of mad “‘philosophies’” that existed in their empire. If it were not for their tolerance, if they had dispensed with Christianity the way Christianity had dealt with other faiths, the way Islam deals with other faiths, the Christianity of Saint Paul would have been stillborn. All religions in their original forms are supposed to be a means to an end, a means to health, wealth and prestige on this earth and in the hereafter. With the dogmatic religions, religion became an end in itself. I do not see any reason why one may not marry from other faiths and indeed it has happened in every faith. Prophet Muhammad was given a slave concubine, Mary, who was a Copt Christian. Later on, Muhammad freed her and accepted her as his legal wife in the hope she would provide him an heir. He did not insist that she change her religion. Most, if not all, religions, in their initial stages, have not been averse to marrying from or into other religions. Only when they grow in numbers over a critical or threshold strength in political and temporal powers, do religions begin to build fences between the faithful and outsiders. The reason for this is that such segregation serves the political and commercial aspirations of the priests and the Mullahs. My wife is deeply religious and does not miss a Novena. The differences in religious outlooks between us have not affected our mutual love in any way. On the other hand, I have come across church-going couples, who are not even on speaking terms. If persons of differing political, economical or social views can live in the same family as husband and wife, why cannot persons of differing religious faiths live in love, under one roof?
THE FAITH OF OUR FATHERS We have seen in the introduction to this book, how modern psychology teaches that each of us has three personality components – parent, Adult and Child. Transactions between these three components is a never-ending process and our actions are determined by which component gains the upper hand. We have also seen that for the smooth functioning of the individual, the Adult in us should be making decisions, even overruling the irrational nagging of the Parent or Patriarch if necessary. Nevertheless, often we dare not do this when it comes to religious practices, for fear of incurring the wrath of the gods. Remember, this fear of the wrath of the gods too is irrational and ‘Child’ ish and was instilled into us by our parents, who themselves were, in turn, taught to fear the wrath of the supernatural. We have been programmed and conditioned in our childhood with such irrational fears of divine vendetta. Take a break and give the Adult in you a chance. Let your life and its actions be dictated by the rational Adult in you and not by the irrational Patriarch. In spite of my professed agnosticism, an involuntary prayer goes up from the Child in me every now and then, especially when the going gets tough. I do not think I can ever get over it, though I would like my Adult to have better control over my Child. Nevertheless, my Adult has total control over my voluntary actions. I do not waste any time, energy or resources on ceremonies and priests, unless I have no choice in the matter for propriety’s sake. Even more important, I never let religious considerations or any ethnic factors for that matter, have any say in my dealings with others. Religion gives peace of mind; only because it gives the Child in us security in the form of strokes of approval by our Patriarch. Nonetheless, facts speak truer than words. The goodness of a religion can be Religion & gauged, both by the good it has brought about in the community in which it is practiced, as Prosperity well as by its contributions to humanity at large. The ultimate aim of religion and science is to get maximum prosperity and utilization - health, wealth, prestige etc. - from minimum resource inputs in accordance with ‘The Law of Optimum Efficiencies’. If religion contributes to prosperity and peace, we would have found greater prosperity and peace in societies, which practice religion more earnestly and vice versa. On the other hand, we see religions and superstitions often going hand in hand with abject poverty and strife. The Hindu culture is steeped in religion, and is notable for religious and superstitious practices. Not a single endeavor is initiated without religious ceremonies and Pujas. Auspicious times and signs are sought even for ordinary mundane tasks such as going on a journey. Houses are built according to Vaastu principle, which says that, the shape, dimension and positioning of the dwelling we live or work in, influence our health, wealth and reputation. The ubiquitous astrologer is well respected in India. 271 If religions and quasi-religions have the power to generate health and wealth, India would have been the healthiest and wealthiest of nations. Instead, these superstitious practices have made India one of the poorest, most illiterate, most disease-ridden nations on earth, which, in turn, encourages and reinforces superstitions. India is thus caught in a vicious circle of astrologers, fortunetellers, cult leaders, poverty, illiteracy, strife and more superstition. Egypt was once a thriving civilization, until religious frenzy took over in the shape of pyramids. The construction of the pyramids ate into Egyptian economy giving nothing in return. The pyramids were of no direct use whatever nor did it generate wealth. The result was that the Egyptian economy collapsed slowly Renaissance but steadily under the weight of the pyramids, and Islam gave it the finishing touches. Like & Prosperity India, Egypt too sank from one of the most thriving economies on earth to one of the poorest, thanks to religion and superstitions. We have seen how the countries of Europe, Asia and Africa, bordering the Mediterranean Sea formed a uniform, ethnic and cultural entity, and how Islam tore it up into two groups of feuding nations. The Islamic side was then under the rule of the Caliphs, and subsequently under the Mongols, who overran the area but were later converted to Islam. The European side remained under the Pope and the Holy Roman Empire. Except for the differences in religion and the irreconcilable hostility between them, the ways of life on the two sides continued to be identical. Then came Renaissance, tolerance and free thought, but alas only to the European side. A study of countries like Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Libya and Morocco and their contrast with their erstwhile equals in the West, like Italy, France and England demonstrates at first hand how progressive science and free thought are vis-à-vis religion and dogmatism. But for the discovery of oil and the ensuing vestiges of prosperity and education on the Islamic side, the contrast between a theocracy and a free society would have been truly and tragically striking. Even if there were a supernatural world and supernatural beings, that world is like a two-dimensional or a four-dimensional world as far as we are concerned. We can only speculate on such worlds, which are outside of our perception and experience. What is more, the existence of a supernatural world or being does not make any difference to us in the way we conduct our lives. We have to conduct ourselves well; we have to empathize with our fellow beings, because we ourselves stand to gain more from such cooperation than from a life of strife and confrontation as has been reiterated time and time again in this book. Whether we believe in a god or not, whether we subscribe to different dogmas or not, we can still live in harmony as good human beings and responsible members of the society, and that is what matters more, than making an offering at the altar or chanting a meaningless or irrelevant mantra or psalm. It is not for god’s sake that we have to conform to moral laws; we have to do it for our own good. A society whose members are forever at each other’s throat simply cannot survive. A society of thieves and robbers who do not trust each other, simply cannot cooperate and prosper. God or religion has nothing to do with the need for a righteous and honest society. Ethics and morals are a matter of expediency and pragmatism and form a vital social infrastructure, a crucial prerequisite for peace and prosperity. In conclusion, the most tangible features of religion are gods, their prophets and incarnations, superstitions, miracles, ceremonies, chants, priests, their political aspirations, Jihads, Crusades and of course the ubiquitous cash box with the slit on top. Why are you a Hindu? Why are you a Christian or a Muslim? Most of us are what we are, vis-à-vis religion, because of our parents. For each of us our religion is just an accident of birth. In infancy and childhood, our parents seem tall, omnipotent and omniscient to us and we trust them as the ultimate in security and knowledge. Later on, it becomes evident that they themselves feared the supernatural and prayed to deities for security and prosperity. This rubs off on us and we shift our trust from our mortal parents to the supernatural beings as the ultimate in security and power. Hypothetically, we have the freedom to choose our own faith, except in some of the Arabian countries. In practice, we have little or no choice, and we are forced, though with the best of intentions, to adopt the faith of our parents, right from our childhood. To facilitate this, doubting or Faith Of questioning the faith of our predecessors is considered a crime against our forefathers, Our Fathers against our heritage, against our tribe. If our faiths were not forced on us from our childhood, if we had a real freedom of choice, I wonder how many of the present day religions would have been around. Today’s religious scholars would have written scholarly books or delivered solemn sermons
272 with the same zeal and fervor on another religion, were they born into it. Today’s religious fanatics would have gone on suicide attacks with the same ardor for another faith if they were brought up in it. Religion has been with us in one form or another, for hundreds of thousands of years. Against this, most of today’s practicing religions and their gods are hardly 5000 years old. In the millennia before present religions were instituted, many a god and goddess, many a dogma, cannibalistic sacrifice and other mythological and religious gibberish have fallen by the roadside, forsaken and forgotten. If all those generations, through 65,000 years and more, had stuck to the faith of their fathers, as we are urged to do now, none of the present religions or gods would have been around to preach their mumbo-jumbo. Instead, we would have been practicing animal sacrifice and cannibalism. The Japanese, like the Egyptians, believed for generations that their emperor was an immortal god and so could not be defeated. It took the two atomic bombs to jolt them out of their irrational beliefs. We do not consult oracles any more when we set out on wars or important ventures as Alexander the Great did, as our other ancestors did. Moses’ God commanded that the Jews massacre the men, married women and male children of enemies defeated in battle. However, not even the most ardent Zionist today would even think of such a thing. Krishna promoted the caste system. Hindus also had ‘Devadasis’ or sacred prostitutes attached to temples. Nevertheless, no Hindu would now openly subscribe to these and other heinous Hindu customs as ‘Sati’ (The immolation of widows). Jesus extolled poverty and the birds of the air. He commanded that we sell all we have, give it to the poor, and then follow him. Nonetheless, even the Pope is not foolhardy enough to obey Jesus in letter or spirit. Muhammad raided caravans and traded in slaves. Even so, not even the staunchest of Muslims would follow suit or even justify such practices now. We accept evolution as more probable than the cock and bull stories narrated in the Bible, the Koran and other creation myths. A majority of the Catholics and a sizeable proportion of Muslims adopt birth control measures in defiance of Papal decrees and the Shariat. Clearly, we have already learnt to pick and choose between what we think is right and what we think is wrong in such matters. We have done away with ceremonial cannibalism and even animal sacrifices, and the god or gods of our ancestors do not seem to have been chagrined one bit over it. We have even cast into the dustbin of history ancient gods like Jupiter and Varuna and we do not seem to have been any the worse for it, though our ancestors believed firmly that the disrespect to these gods was the sure way to ruin. It is a matter of a few generations, before all present day gods and prophets follow suit into the same dustbin. It is a foolhardy thing for educated and knowledgeable moderns to fight over religions, just because our ancestors, less fortunate and less educated than us, believed in these gods and their charlatans. One of our forefathers, hundreds or a thousand years ago rebelled against his Patriarch and embraced our present faith, just as Zoroaster did, as Jesus did, as Buddha did, as Muhammad did, as Luther did, as all founders of today’s religions and sects did. If your forefathers and all these founders of present day religions and sects defied their Patriarchs and followed the dictates of their respective Adults, why cannot we too give in to our Adults and forsake the irrational and wasteful practices of religions? The world will be a much better place for it. The Greeks and Romans forsook Jupiter and Venus and all the gods of their forefathers and took to the Biblical God. Long before that our ancestors practiced human sacrifice and cannibalism as part of religion for tens if not hundreds of thousands of years. However such practices have now been discarded as evil. Obviously, mankind has all along been discarding many religious practices revered by ancestors and adopting new religious practices as we deem fit. If our ancestors could forsake the faiths and ceremonies of their ancestors, why cannot we forsake the superstitious and parasitical ways of today’s religions and adopt a more rational, a more Adult way of life? The Buddha, Jesus and Mohammad revolted against the faith of their fathers and instituted new religions. Their disciples and adherents too veered away from the faith of their own immediate parents, and adopted the new religion in accordance with their conscience. What is more these religions further splintered into tens of thousands of sects with Christianity alone accounting for over 38,000 sects. The founders of all these tens of thousands of sects veered away from the faiths of their immediate parents when they set up their own sects. Why is it then arrogant of us to follow our own conscience without fear of retribution? We are now far more educated and knowledgeable than our forefathers a thousand or two thousand years ago, when most of them might not have even seen a book, much less read one. We have forsaken their 273 stone tools, we have forsaken their medical practices, and adopted what we think are more effective and more efficient ways. We adopted the zero because it was far better than the system our ancestors used. Our forefathers practiced slavery and caste. We condemn these practices as illegal and inhuman. We have forsaken our parents’ ways of dressing, grooming, traveling and so on and so forth. We have adopted change in all walks of life. Nonetheless, when it comes to fake and concocted divinities and senseless and wasteful superstitions, it is a pity we have no choice but to ape our fathers and forefathers. Fighting and shedding blood in the name of these silly accidents of birth is senseless and inhuman. The individual's experience and wisdom increases with his years on earth. Thus I am far more worldly-wise at fifty-eight than I was at twelve or thirty. Like the individual, the species too is an organism and it advances in knowledge, wisdom technology and so on with each generation. We have discussed how at the individual level there is technological obsolescence with age as the younger generation is better adapted to absorb new wave technologies. On the other hand, when it comes to the species, each generation is a step ahead of the preceding one in all aspects including technology. Nonetheless, if I were to say that mankind is far more advanced and knowledgeable now than it was two or five thousand years ago, I seem to have uttered some abomination against our ancestors, whereas if I were to say that I am much wiser and knowledgeable at fifty or sixty than at twenty or thirty, it does not seem to raise any eyebrows. At sixty, I am now old enough to have sons and daughters in their late twenties or thirties, the same age my parents were, when they instilled all their parental and patriarchal teachings into the child that was me. And thanks to my parents, I am far more educated and experienced than my parents ever were. It is weird that, in spite of my advancing years, and my experience and education, I am asked to obey without question what my parents told me, when they were hardly thirty - that too fifty or more years ago - when they did not have as much knowledge as we have now. Remember! Blind obedience under these circumstances is not respect, but naiveté of the worst kind. What would you say of a fifty-five year old, highly-placed executive if he were to consult and obey his janitor or driver without questioning on all matters? We do much the same when we blindly obey the Parent in us. Such blind obeisance to the Parent in us is even more pathetic and ridiculous in religious matters,. What would you say of the President of America, if he were to obey a fisherman or carpenter of Galilee in all matters? A present-day fisherman or carpenter in Galilee is far more sophisticated and knowledgeable than his ancestors two thousand years ago. So when the President of America swears blindly by religious precepts formulated by fishermen and carpenters two thousand years ago, he is being even more pathetic and ridiculous than his blind obeisance to a present day carpenter or fisherman. In the same vein, some other religious precepts and practices are of much older vintage, and entailed obnoxious practices such as human sacrifice, cannibalism, sati – the immolation of widows, child marriage, slavery, the devadasi system wherein women were forced into prostitution in temples etc Trust your parents by all means, if they are worthy of it. Nevertheless, you do not have to believe blindly all the gibberish they promoted in their illiteracy, ignorance and the resulting fear. Trust and Belief are different. We have trusted our parents from our birth and we are sure they have only our interests at heart. But though we trust them, we do not have to believe them blindly, for they had their own limitations, the main one of which was that they were born before us and so did not have access to the quality of education and knowledge and the resulting analytical skills we have. You too may now be a Parent and a Parental figure to your children, who look up to you for proper guidance. By telling them to obey traditions and taboos and superstitions of yester-generations, you are passing on your Parental responsibilities to your Patriarch. You are thereby shirking your responsibility to your children. Instead, pass on only Adult instructions to your children. Parental information if any, should be passed on only after an Adult-editing of such information. Listen first to your internal voice and try to make out the Parental and Patriarchal content in you, then analyze it with the logic of your Adult talk. You are no more the crybaby or the child of five or six, which you were, when most of that Parental conditioning was programmed into your psyche. You are now as much or more of an Adult than that Patriarch in you who goes on harping at old dogmas, old fears and fictional gods. Einstein was the most brilliant of men. Should he have followed, at fifty, his own rational counsel, his own logical Adult; or should he have stuck to the illogical utterances of his parents, utterances encrypted into him when he was a child and his parents were in their twenties or thirties? 274 Prophet Muhammad belonged to the tribe of Qureysh. As his father had died before Muhammad ’s birth, it was his grandfather that brought him up. On his grandfather’s death, an uncle adopted him. His grandfather, father and uncle worshipped the idols at the Kaaba, as did all of their forefathers. Nevertheless, that did not prevent Muhammad from turning against idolatry. If he could forsake such well-entrenched beliefs, why cannot we imitate the Prophet? Jesus hurt the religious sentiments of the Jewish establishment. Muhammad hurt the religious sentiments of the Meccans. They did it because they thought it their duty to do so. If you really want to follow Jesus, Muhammad and other religious leaders like them then remove the cataracts of dogmas from your eyes. Discard the ravings of the Patriarch in you if they go against the dictates of your Adult. Love, trust and honor your parents and your ancestors by all means. But that does not mean swallowing everything they told you in their ignorance, illiteracy, fear and superstition. Ethics, religion, music and dance are some of the most universal traits, universal in the sense that they are found in all societies, including animals. They are found everywhere; they have always existed. Of these, ethics is a matter of duty. Music and dance are entertainment. We can enjoy music on our own. But when it comes to dance, though we can dance alone in a closed room, dancing in a group makes a big difference. Dancing in a group seems to have existential dimensions to it. In a group, we feel bigger and stronger than when all alone. Religion too seems to have a similar existential dimension to it. We have seen in the chapter on fear that unlike in the Original State and Agrarian Wave, the emotional isolation resulting from the nuclear families and the boredom arising from the meaningless and repetitious tasks of the Religion & assembly lines of the Industrial Wave, as well as the reports in modern media of Nuclear Families natural disasters in far-away lands magnify our feeling of insecurity many fold. According to Erich Fromm and other psychologists, the mass movements, collective actions and religious and spiritual revival movements we witness today offer a mental escapade from the feeling of personal isolation and powerlessness that people experience in the vast and intricate bureaucracies of modern life. Many of the fads and revolutionary movements of modern age arise from the social needs of man in the face of the alienation and isolation from family and community as against the holistic, economic activities of the Original State and Agrarian Wave. We have seen that in the face of the overwhelming stresses in modern life some take to over eating while others go on shopping spree. The modern revival we witness in ancient practices is just such an escapade as eating orgies and shopping sprees. Just any activity takes the pressure off new age blues albeit momentarily. This is especially so when the activity involved imitates the activities of our parents who are the ultimate in security and wisdom as far as we are concerned. Until a century or two ago man lived in isolated societies, which were also pretty well insulated from distant societies. In this isolation and insulation, languages evolved into their own dialects and subsequently into distinct languages with their own unique characteristics. Likewise, technologies and cultures evolved, metamorphosed and crystallized into different forms with their own flavors and colors. Religions and religious beliefs were no different. We have seen how various religious concepts such as one god evolved in the same way as many cultural and technological aspects of societies evolved. Therefore, to claim that Christianity is superior to Hinduism is as absurd as claiming that Bharatanatyam is superior to the Flamenco Dance or the Tango. The only factors that distinguish religion from other cultural phenomena is the fear of the supernatural involved with every superstitious belief, and the strong Patriarchal component associated with religions compared to other cultural factors. Thus few parents forbid you from adopting pop or rock or eastern music and dance. On the other hand, when it comes to religion, the Patriarchal establishment is obstinate and insists that its own version of an accidentally evolved socio-cultural aspect be adopted as the absolute truth. In the Original State of man as well as in the Agrarian Wave, everyone knew each other quite well. However, in this modern age we are in the constant company of others whom we have never met in our life nor are likely to meet again. This causes personal zone problems and the ensuing mental strains. Churches and religious gatherings provide a venue where strangers with common aims and beliefs can gather together as if they were kin and thus provide solace to each other. In the absence of other institutions that can provide such camaraderie or 'kinship' religion might be useful in providing succor to the lonely. As such, piety, devotion and even ceremonies are admissible. However, when religions insist on homogenization of beliefs
275 and on degrading other beliefs and religious practices, it leads to politicization as Them and Us and this spells trouble in a society especially when it is heterogeneous as regards religion. There seems to be a difference in engaging in religious practices all alone and in a group, like the difference between dancing alone and in a group or drinking alone or with friends. Religion has its origin in ancestor worship, which in time incorporated spirit worship too. In time, most ancient, natural religions integrated alcohol, drugs, songs and dance into worship as these take the faithful into a state of ‘ecstasy’. Inebriation and dance form an essential part of voodoo and other ancient religious and superstitious traditions. King David hopped around before the Tabernacle in intoxicated ecstasy. This religious combination of ecstasy and mysticism is now being revived by the Pentecostal movement, wherein the faithful work themselves into frenzies with rhythmic chants and clapping of hands. Repetitious chanting, alcohol, drugs and dancing, whether individually or in combination, help the devotees work themselves into a state of mystic or ecstatic experience, which I think is the essence of all religions. It is this mysticism or ecstasy that accounts for the curative power of religions, as during such mystic experiences palliative concoctions are released into our system as by alternate medicines. And these concoctions can indeed work miracles. If religion were to be confined to such mystic experiences, they would indeed have been of considerable use to the believers. However in time some religions especially the Semitic ones developed dogmas and doctrines which were at odds with other religious beliefs and practices, especially the preposterous dogma of the one God. They are such intolerant and bigoted dogmas that make religion more of an ethnic factor rather than a mystic experience. It is this ethnic and dogmatic dimension of religion that has led to its subsequent politicization and the ensuing violence. Like experiences of pain or pleasure, mysticism too is a personal thing. We do not debate on whether the pleasure an Indian gets from listening to a Hindi song is superior to the pleasure an Englishman gets from listening to an English song. Pleasure and pain cannot be measured and so cannot be compared. Like experiences of pleasure or pain, matters of mysticism and religion too are purely subjective and not amenable to measurements or to debates as to which religion is superior. Just as one enjoys Chinese music and Chinese cuisine mostly because he is born into a Chinese family, religion too is a matter of birth for most. If religion were confined to its mystic dimensions of personal ecstasy, people of differing faiths could live side by side in harmony. Indeed this was the religious scenario in many parts of the world until the Semitic religions came and taught that their religion alone was the true one and their adherents alone were entitled to the kingdom of heaven. After a dance and the existential experience it provides, we go our separate ways. Religion too used to be that sort of thing, but not any more. Present-day religions retain their hold on the devotees for political reasons and that makes religions dangerous. We do not try to influence others on matters of dancing nor do we make a difference as to ethically correct and incorrect dancing. Many religions, on the other hand, try to establish hegemony over others of differing faiths and to picture themselves as being superior to others. This is what makes religion dangerous. Superstitions are universal and are in essence naïve or simplistic explanations of many of the cause-effect relationships we come across in everyday life. In the final analysis, every religion is a make-believe bouquet of superstitions. It is when people boast that their bouquet is better than other bouquets, it is when they try to impose their own superstitions on other superstitions by unfair means that religions become dangerous. Familiarity gives peace of mind. When I was on a three-week business tour to North India- totally unfamiliar territory to me- I was under duress and stress. If it were necessary my reserve energies could have held out for a few days or weeks more on tour. However, as soon as I got home I felt rundown and exhausted as my reserves were not called upon and my sense of security let me relax. The next day I felt even more secure as I relaxed into my chair with the local daily in my hands, with the same familiar species of editorials, features and other columns. Familiarity may breed contempt, but it also breeds security, and religion provides one of the most familiar and ubiquitous of institutions, and it sure gives a sense of security and peace. This feeling of security and peace may be just an illusion, a mirage. We have seen that over 80% diseases disappear of their own, without prayer or treatment. In the same vein over 80% of our problems get sorted out. All we have to do is put our shoulders to the wheel and then wait it out. Time and hope form the essence of success and good health. It is during this time phase that quacks and priests step in, and take the
276 credit for the solutions and the cures. Nevertheless, for every problem, which disappears, another problem or set of problems takes its place. This goes on till death do us part with problems. As for the 20% of unsolvable problems and incurable diseases, we have to learn to live with them. There is no absolute security as long as we are alive. It is better to put up with reality and danger than to be ‘opiumed’ into a feeling of false security by chants and mantras and the smell of incense or sandal sticks. I have no quarrel with this sense of false security that religion provides. It is the politicization of religions and the religionization of politics that I object to. And in modern times religion is doomed to politicization and there is no modern religion without its politics. Like most humanoids, man and especially the male of the species is a political animal by nature and is ever on the lookout for reasons to organize themselves into groups of “us” and “them”. Color, tribe, clan, caste etc. often provide excuses for such political opportunism. Alas, religion too provides that fig leaf for man’s natural propensity to organized aggression. We turn on each other in the name of religion when that is expedient. Where there are only Christians, they turn on each other as Protestants and Catholics; Hindus turn on each other in the name of different castes; Muslims turn on each other as Sunnis and Shiites. No religion or sect is an exemption. Religions and their sects provide outlets for man’s innate proclivity to violence and aggression.
FAITH, BELIEF AND PASCAL'S WAGER: Faith has been defined, half humorously, by Harwood, as “ … the belief in something which we know cannot be true, or the disbelief in something, which we know is true.” All doctrines and dogmas are of the same breed. Everyone knows that the political doctrines of the sovereignty and integrity of nations often go against the principles of human rights. Yet, we go on vouching for these dogmas. We know that virgin birth is an impossibility, and yet we subscribe to a belief in it and that is called faith or belief. We know that the concept of the trinity is just an indecipherable jugglery of words, and yet we swallow the whole thing, just because we have been told to do so. That is faith- our faith as well as the faith of our fathers, which we exalt. In his Dictionary of Mythology, William Harwood says “The difference between faith and insanity is that, faith is the ability to hold firmly to a conclusion that is incompatible with the evidence, whereas insanity is the inability to hold firmly to a conclusion that is compatible with the evidence …” The vice-versa could also be true. Thus, faith is the inability to hold firmly to a conclusion that is compatible with evidence. We know that many things in the Bible and the other myths cannot be true, like day and night, being created before the creation of the Sun, and as such these myths cannot be inspired by an omniscient God. Yet, we go on believing that these impossible stories are the words of God. That is faith, faith that does not become a Homo Sapiens. Like faith, belief is another word that is much in usage in relation with religions and dogmas. Take the two statements: 1. It is raining. 2. I believe it is raining. The first sentence is categorical and leaves no room for doubts. On the other hand, the second sentence has an element of doubt in it. Psychologists say that slips of the tongue give us away as to our inner, subconscious thoughts and intentions. The words we use, however innocuous, are even more incriminating. The Nicene creed, which forms the very foundation on which Christianity is built, is packed from end to end with the words 'I believe' and this definitely gives away the uncertainty of the venerable fathers of the church who formulated the creed as well as of those who profess it from the housetops. If they were certain of the precepts of Christianity, the statement should have been "There is a God who has a son called Jesus Christ who was incarnated to atone for our sins. Jesus was born of a virgin …" We do not say "I believe the earth is round" Instead we say "The earth is round" And since the fact that the earth is round is universally accepted we do not go round preaching it nor do we try to convert anyone to our point of view. Our views on the subject of earth's shape is irrelevant and even if all the people on earth believe, as they once did, that the earth is flat, it is not going to affect reality one bit. On the other hand, when we are uncertain as on many economic, political and religious issues, we try to lobby others and convert them to our point of view. We are social animals and find comfort and assurance in consensus and groupthink. Thus, an element of uncertainty and a social need for consensus are the main psychological forces that drive organized religions, dogmas and their propagations. 'Pascal's Wager' is a famous argument forwarded by Blaise Pascal in favor of believing. Pascal knew that it was impossible to prove the existence of God. So he forwarded a theory of utility, which states that 277 you stand to gain more from believing in god than from disbelieving. According to him, we have two options – to believe or to disbelieve. Each of these in turn, has two suboptions- your belief may be true of false; your disbelief may be true or false. Thus there are a total of four possibilities. If your disbelief turns out to be true, you stand to gain nothing from it. If your disbelief turns out to be false and there is a God, you stand to lose much as you will then find yourself at the wrong end of God’s wrath for your disbelief. On the other hand if you believe in God and it turns out to be true, you stand to gain much, whereas if your belief in god turns out to be false, you stand to lose nothing except the chants and the nickels. So according to Pascal there is nothing to be gained from disbelief whereas there is a fair chance of gain in believing. (Though Pascal proposed this principle with regard to religion, the method has been widely adapted to various decision making processes) I think that it is this principle that people use innately, when they subscribe to religions. The argument involved in Pascal’s Wager presumes - in tune with the beliefs of the times- that God is a vicious, vindictive megalomaniac despot, just waiting to punish us for our beliefs. In such a scenario, whatever you do you are sure to end up on his wrong side of God. On the other hand if God is just and merciful as touted, then it is not going to make any difference as to our beliefs. What is more, real-time religions are not solely about whether there is a god or not. Every religion is a chain of dogmas and we have to apply the four options of Pascal’s Wager to every link in the chain. Thus the Catholic Church has a chain of dogmas, as expressed in the Nicene Creed. Even if a link in the chain is invalid, the whole chain breaks. We will have to apply the principle of Pascal's wager to every proposition and article of faith involved and ultimately the chances of gains in this world and salvation in the next from believing, fritters down to zero. It may even be counter-productive. Thus if we apply the four options to the question whether Muhammad is God's prophet and if we answer no, as Christians are bound to, and if Muhammad is indeed God's prophet, and if God is angered by our rejection of Muhammad, where does that land us? What is more, belief invariably leads to propagation for reasons stated above - an element of uncertainty and a social need for consensus. Propagation of contradictory dogmas and doctrines lead to polarization and politicization of the issues involved. This in turn has always led to conflagrations and bloodshed. Thus in the final analysis, despite Pascal's wager and its original intentions, it only proves that belief can be a losing proposition, especially if there is no hereafter and our life on earth is expended in bloodshed over which end of the egg is to be broken. Most religious people believe in a life after death. However it would seem they are not convinced of it. That may be the reason why we condole deaths. There is the oft-repeated story about a mass-prayer held for bringing rain during a prolonged dry season. Only one in the crowd came with an umbrella. He alone was convinced about the efficacy of the mass-prayer. Many believed; only one was convinced. It is no different in all religious matters – many believe; few are convinced. Even fewer have the courage to air their convictions for reasons of groupthink and superstitious fears. As a result, we often profess our beliefs rather than our convictions. Even if it is God that gave us intelligence, it is for sorting things out on our own. Instead we hypothecate our intelligence and reasoning powers to myths and mythical characters and their proponents on earth such as the priests and mullahs. The true mark of intelligence is doubt and verification of ideas and propositions. Only a fool swallows whatever he is told whichever be the source. In the first chapters we have described the phenomenon of the collective unconscious such as fear and violence, which were instilled into us by evolution itself. Such psychological or mental phenomena as fear and violence are essential to life. If belief in God were as essential to life and existence as primordial fear and violence, then God himself would have instilled the religious myths, doctrines and dogmas into our collective unconscious itself just as in the case of fear and violence. For an omnipotent God such a thing is a matter of mere volition. Instead God seems to have left such a vitally significant thing as the indoctrination in religious matters to arrogant priests, ignorant mullahs and conniving politicians. What is more such beliefs are irrelevant to life, which has as its prime motive, the efficient use of resources as stated in the beginning of the book. The fact that people attain economic gains and cures in life in spite of supplicating opposing gods go to prove that it is not the gods that answer our prayers, but sheer luck – the 80-20 factor repeatedly alluded to in this book.
278 As for fear of God, such fear springs form our belief that he is a despot on the lookout for the flimsiest of reasons, such as not putting a cat under the basket during Poojas, to take offense and to wreak vengeance on us. A God who takes offenses at the drop of a hat just cannot be perfect. Instead he would be a tyrant of the worst genus. What is more if God were so excitable then no matter what we do, he is sure to take offense and vengeance on us. In fact our basic ideas about gods are those of cantankerous despots who are just waiting for an excuse to take it out on us. Thus in India people are wary of building homes on plots adjacent to temples for fear of incurring the wrath of a despotic neighbor. This is especially so if the home is bigger than the temple for that would surely incur the wrath of a jealous tyrant. Let us leave such a fickle and capricious oppressors to their own devices and go about doing our duty to ourselves and to our fellowmen. According to Prov. 1:7"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." The proverb must have been formulated by some self-appointed 'representative' of God who wanted people to fear God and respect God's representative. As far as I know fear elicits three responses - fight, flight or submission. Fear cannot induce you to think or to make wise decisions. Only skepticism and an open inquiring mind can lead to wise and good decisions. It is not in belief but in disbelief that wisdom lies Alexander the Great once came across a lazy and incompetent soldier bearing the same name as his own. The king told the other Alexander “Either change your name or change your ways.” We could say the same to the faithful “Either stop calling yourself Homo Sapiens or rational men, or change your faith.” Your childhood is like being on a ship, where you are quite safe and secure. As you grow older, you are pushed or fall into the sea. Before thus being pushed into the sea you have been instructed by your parents that you will find a rope in the sea and holding onto it will save you. Accordingly as soon as you fall into the sea, you search for that life-saving rope and find it floating on the waters and you instinctively grab at it and cling to it for dear life. If you were to see the other end of the rope, you would know that it is not tethered anywhere and so cannot really provide you any security. Nonetheless, you do not sink, because the waters you are in, are so dense like that of the Dead Sea that you would float any way on its waters. Those who see the loose end of the rope let go off the rope, float around on the sea and explore it. Those who do not bother to look for the other end of the rope, cling to it all their life, in the belief that it is what saves them. The rope is two thousand or more years long and that is why you cannot see the other end of it without really searching for it. This rope is your faith and you cling to it because you see thousands of people you know and trust, clinging to it. Our life's problems are related mainly to three things - health, wealth and relationships. Over eighty percent of our problems disappear of their own, like the problems of the people in the above example, who float whether they cling to the rope or not. Pray or not, eighty percent of all your problems will disappear in time. As for the balance twenty percentage or less, you have to learn to live with them problems. No god, religion or quackery can save you from these insurmountable problems of life. Religion remains the biggest business worldwide which profit the religious establishment at the expense of the faithful who waste so much time and resources on pilgrimages, scriptures, prayer books and sermons, and on the paraphernalia that that constitute religious claptrap. Faith and reason are as incompatible as oil and water. The antidote to fear and superstition is Emulsions knowledge. However, I have seen many men of scientific and mathematical leanings, of Religion subscribing to different faiths, myths and cults. Though oil and water are immiscible, & Science they can be blended together by adding emulsifiers and surfactants, to give what are called emulsions. In like manner, faith and reason are blended together in an irrational concoction, in these men of scientific temper, by fear - a primordial fear of a despotic and cantankerous God -.instilled into them from their infancy by hundreds of thousands of years of myths and Patriarchal indoctrinations. It may be appropriate to consider the fear factor involved in religions. Despite the lip service to God’s mercy and sense of justice, it is fear of God that takes the spotlight in all religions and superstitions. The basic message of all religions is that God is a cantankerous despot like Stalin or Saddam. In a despotic realm like that of Stalin, it pays to placate the despot. Invariably there are sycophants and toadies in any regime and especially in a despotic one. However in the case of a mortal despot there is always a limit to the fear that the despot can invoke. In contrast a religious regime involves fear of an omnipotent, immortal and 279 despotic god from whom there is no escape. Submission is the only alternative left to the believer whatever the outcome of his prayers and supplications. Flattery and sycophancy are the only choices left even when you feel let down cruelly by God. Religion is nothing but flattery, sycophancy and toadying for getting one’s way with the despotic omnipotent. This fear of the supernatural is further augmented by peer pressure and fear of ostracism by the herd. This social phenomenon is called ‘groupthink’. Studies show that decision-making groups often fall victim to groupthink, and group members excessively seek group concurrence, suppress dissent to maintain group harmony, and blindly convince themselves that the group’s position is correct. Religions, trade unions, political parties, business organizations and other socio-political groups are prone to this Group-think groupthink, and individuals acquiesce blindly to the groupthink, even though in their In Religions individual capacity, in their heart of hearts, they know that the groupthink is immoral. In some cases, every individual in the group may be in opposition to the group-thought and thus the collective group-thought may be quite opposite to that of the individual thoughts. Thus thoroughly honest men of high moral standards take to persecution and lynching when in a group; they conform and acquiesce to mass holocausts and illegal arm-twisting tactics, engaged in by their party, union or group. In like manner, men of a scientific temper subscribe to religion out of fear and out of groupthink. These men are ready to admit that what is written in all myths and scriptures is sheer nonsense and gibberish. Yet, they go through the motions of religion and its practices like dumb- driven cattle. While we are at this subject pf group-think, it may be pertinent to note that the truth of a proposition has nothing to do with the number of people subscribing to it. Even though the whole world, including omnipotent emperors and the infallible Popes believed that earth was flat and that the Sun went around the earth, it did not make any mark on reality itself. Instead the earth went on being a globe that went around the Sun. The emperor may be omnipotent and the Pope may be infallible in our microcosm. But in the macrocosm of multidimensional reality, our collective beliefs and we are insignificant, and so is group-think. There are innumerable theories and dogmas in the world of religion, and it would be safe to say that every man has his own unique permutation-combination of beliefs and superstitions, which are as unique as fingerprints - and as such, every man is a unique religion unto himself. However, political and religious leaders as well as the media give us a false or contorted picture of the whole thing. Thus, the Pope claims he represents over a billion Catholics worldwide and world leaders as well as the media parrot his claim. If so, does the Pope represent the millions of Catholic-born agnostics and atheists? The original Mafiosi are all Catholics by birth. Does the Pope represent their interests? Does the Pope represent the millions of criminals and scoundrels, who are born into Catholic families? The same goes for Muslims and the other religious groups. When religious leaders speak on behalf of a billion Catholics or million Hindus, which they have no right to, they are clearly insinuating that religions are political entities rather than spiritual ones. Religion is only an approximation. No one subscribes cent per cent to all the beliefs and precepts, dogmas and doctrines of any established religion or sect. Even the Pope has his limitations and can only be less than hundred percent Catholic. It is to sort out the differences between established doctrines and plausible doctrines that ecumenical councils are held and ex-cathedra pronouncements are made. If the pope or the Catholic Church were cent percent Catholic, change would not be warranted and ecumenical councils and papal decrees would be superfluous. What is more such changes are invariably met with opposition and consensus has to be reached for reasons of political feasibility rather than for reasons of divine infallibility. Maybe, religion per se has its plus points. A belief in an immortal, omnipotent, omniscient and ubiquitous, supernatural being provides a straw to hold on to, in the face of life’s trials and tribulations. Religion provides simplistic answers to complex questions, though it cannot provide real-time solutions to problems except in an oblique and tangential way. Many religious ceremonies are based on chants like the litany, which involve repetition of one word or group of words. Such repetition has a hypnotic and soothing effect on the devotee. Modern meditation methods are based on similar repetitions. However, religion becomes more of a political phenomenon than an existential one, when anyone insists that his god alone is almighty and all others are sham. Religion becomes a dangerous game when it enforces its dictates with violence, massacre, excommunication and persecution or harassment of any sort. Religions and religious authorities should not judge others lest they be judged. 280 The Pharisees and the Sadducees persecuted Jesus for preaching the Gospel, against the establishment. The Meccans persecuted Muhammad and forced him to flee to Medina for preaching against the idolatrous establishment. If the Jews were wrong in persecuting Jesus, if the Meccans were wrong in plotting to murder Muhammad , then it is equally wrong and immoral for established Christianity or Islam, or any religion for that matter, to persecute those who dare challenge their establishment. They are such challenges against the establishment that take humanity forward.
“Religion is the opium of the masses” – Karl Marx
281 Chapter Ten
Superstitions and Superfads
“Ignorance is the soil in which belief in miracles grows and superstition is the religion of feeble minds.” Edmund Burke
n the introductory chapter to this book, we have discussed how our mental or cerebral activities can be likened to that of a computer. Religions and superstitions as well as other unfounded doctrines and Idogmas can then be likened to computer viruses that distort logical or rational thoughts and actions. This book is an inquiry into how economic forces and parental conditioning shape most if not all of our social institutions. Of the many such institutions, we have given religions a special treatment. We have exposed religions for what they are. As with other social institutions, the purpose of all religions is to get economic favors – health, wealth and prestige - by divine intervention and miracles. The dogmatic religions, Christianity and Islam boast that it is their God alone that can deliver such favors, provided the devotee believes the respective dogmas and conform to the directions of the priests who brag that they are the representatives and emissaries of their almighty God. Fear of God is said to be the beginning of wisdom. But more often than not, this fear leads to superstitions, ceremonies and fear of priests. This makes one suspect that the dictum was formulated to serve sacerdotal greed. We have seen that there are many natural religions such as Hinduism and Amerindianism that give much allowances in matters of beliefs. Nevertheless, the purpose of such natural religions is also the same as those of the regimented ones - economic gains. In addition to religions, there is a wide range of other irrational beliefs and practices that promise to deliver large economic returns on nominal inputs in prescribed forms. They are generally termed 'superstitions'. In their arrogance and holier-than-thou attitude, the Church and other organized religions look down with disdain on such 'superstitious' practices, much like the kettle calling the pot black. Both religions and superstitions assume that invisible forces are at work in our day-to-day lives and that these forces can be propitiated to attain one’s ends. We have seen in the chapter on religion that there cannot be force – either static or dynamic – without mass, and that all concepts of forces divorced from matter are superstitious. Another term in vogue in the realm of superstitions is ‘energy’. Thus we often hear talk of vital energy especially in the field of alternate medicines. According to fundamentals of Physics, energy is force multiplied by the distance traveled by the force. Obviously there cannot be energy without force, which in turn cannot exist without mass. Consequently there cannot be energy also divorced from mass or matter and all concepts of energy independent of matter too are superstitious. In this section we shall discuss many such superstitious or pseudo-religious practices that ensnare millions of people the world over. Along with the apparently superstitious practices such as astrology, we will also discuss some covertly superstitious practices such as alternate medicines, which often take their subscribers for a ride.
282 Superstition is a traditional belief that a certain action or event can cause or foretell an apparently unrelated event. For example, some superstitious people believe that carrying a rabbit’s foot will bring them good luck. Others believe that if a black cat crosses their path, they will have bad luck. To yet other superstitious people, dropping a knife or fork on the floor means company is coming. Such beliefs are superstitions because in each case the action and the event it foretells are traditionally thought to be connected. For instance, the rabbit’s foot is associated with fertility because rabbits are one of the most fecund of animals. According to Cicero, the word ‘superstition’ is derived from the Latin word supersisto, which means ‘to stand in terror of the deity’. Cicero drew the distinction: "Superstitio est in qua timor inanis deorum, religio quæ deorum cultu pio continetur", i.e. "Superstition is the baseless fear of the gods, religion and pious worship." (Credits to Catholic Encyclopedia) Faith and superstition are much the same. Like faith, superstition can be categorized as believing without evidence or disbelieving in spite of evidence, as accounting for one mystery by another, as believing that the world is governed by chance or caprice, as disregarding the true relation between cause and effect. Like religion, superstition also manifests itself in putting thought, intention and design behind nature, in believing that mind created and controls matter, in believing in force apart from substance or in substance apart from force, in believing in miracles, spells and charms, in interpreting dreams and in prophecies. Superstition involves a belief in a supernatural being or force. Like religion, the foundation of superstition is Patriarchal ignorance; the superstructure is faith and vain hope. Most if not all of us subscribe to one superstition or another. There are hundreds of thousands, who believe in lucky and unlucky days, numbers, signs and jewels. Many people regard Friday as an unlucky day and as a bad day to set out on a journey, to marry, to make any investment. We hold our superstitions sacred; but laugh at such beliefs and practices in others. Probably they find our superstitions as absurd as we find theirs. Superstitions become sacred with repetition. I wonder who was the first one to decide that opening an umbrella in a house is bad luck? Who was the first to walk under a ladder and suffer the consequences? Who hung a horseshoe the wrong way up, smashed a mirror and spilled the salt? Who first branded Friday 13th as a day on which luck would run out? Life was hazardous through most of man’s existence on earth and the central feature of day-to-day existence was a preoccupation with finding explanations for fortune and misfortune. In the complexity of life’s situations superstitions provided simple explanations and panacea for all problems - a drowning man clutching at straws. Many human activities such as eating, sleeping, working, playing, getting married, having a baby, becoming ill and dying may have superstitious overtones. There are also many superstitions about animals; crows and ravens are considered ominous from time immemorial whereas pigeons and doves are considered auspicious and so are eagles soaring high. Superstitions also may involve clothing, lakes, mountains, names, numbers, the planets and stars, the weather and parts of the body According to the Church there are four species of superstitions, improper worship of the true God, idolatry; divination, and vain observances, which include magic and occult arts. On second thoughts, proper worship and improper worship are equally superstitious as are beliefs in possession by evil spirits and its exorcism. What is idolatry to one is divine worship to another. Belief in one God is as superstitious as belief in many gods. Religion and superstitions are inextricably intertwined and have existed from time immemorial. Undeniably, religion may be called organized or well disciplined set of superstitions. Religions are the most general form of superstitions though no religion would admit it. One man’s religion is another man’s superstition. Most superstitions fall under the following categories according to the following webpage: http://www.stanford.edu/~ryanx/catholicdef.html Aeromancy, divinations by means of the air and winds Alomancy, divination by salt Amulets, things worn as a remedy or preservative against evils or mischief, such as diseases or witchcraft. Anthropomancy, by inspection of animal viscera Astrology, the reading of the future and of man's destiny from the stars Belomancy, by the shuffling of arrows 283 Capnomancy, divination by the ascent or motion of smoke Cartomancy, by playing cards Catroptomancy, divination by mirrors Chiromancy or palmistry, divination by the lines of the hand or by features of the face, fingers etc Evil eye, spells, incantations etc. Geomancy, by points, lines or figures traced on the ground Hydromancy, by water Idolatry, religion and the worship of the supernatural including worship of god, gods and the devil Lucky and unlucky days, numbers, persons, things, actions Necromancy, the evocation of the dead, as old as history and perpetuated in contemporary Spiritism Omens or prognostics of future events Oneiromancy, the interpretation of dreams Potions or charms intended to excite love Sabianism, the worship of the sun, moon and stars Witchcraft and magic in all their ramifications Worship of abstract notions personified, e.g. Victory, Peace, Fame, Concord, which had temples and a priesthood for the performance of their cult Zoolatry, Anthropolatry and Fetishism, the worship of animals, man and things without sense. The source of superstition is, in the first place, subjective. Ignorance of natural causes leads to the belief that certain striking phenomena express the will or the anger of some invisible supernatural power and the objects in which such phenomena appear are forthwith deified as in Nature-worship.Conversely, many superstitious practices are due to an exaggerated notion or a false interpretation of natural events, so that effects are sought which have little or nothing to do with the physical causes. Curiosity also with regard to things that are hidden or are still in the future plays a considerable part, e.g. in the various kinds of divinations. Like religion, such beliefs have only local relevance. Thus, evil one asks for quick-lime only in places, where chewing the betel with quick-lime is a common practice. In Peru, pregnant emus are ripped open and the fetus taken out and dried and this is said to have especially potent magical powers. Guinea pigs are also torn up with bare fingers and the viscera examined as diagnosis for the illness of believers. If the guinea pig has a swollen liver, the patient is also suffering from it. Emus and guinea pigs have no magical manifestations in places where there are neither emus nor guinea pigs. Side by side with the Rationalistic philosophy and the rigorous scientific methods, which are characteristic of modern thought, there are still to be found various sorts of superstitions. Many superstitions deal with important events in a person's life, such as birth, entering adulthood, marriage, pregnancy and death. Such superstitions supposedly ensure that a person will pass safely from one stage of life to the next. For example, a person born on Sunday will always have good luck. A bride and groom will have bad luck if they see each other on their wedding day before the ceremony. After a person dies, the doors and windows of the room should be opened so the spirit can leave. A cracked grave cover means that the person in the grave was buried alive and his breath or soul had broken through the crack. Some superstitions involve a type of magic. One form of such magic comes from the belief that similar actions produce similar results. Many people believe a newborn baby must be carried upstairs before being carried downstairs. In this way, the child will be assured of rising in the world and having success. The same principle appears in the custom of putting money in a purse or wallet being given as a gift. The giver wants to make sure the purse or wallet will always contain money. For the same reason it is often thought inauspicious to empty the cash box completely. Other beliefs are symbolic. Thus washing the body with water is symbolic in most religions of a clean start in life. This symbolic washing is often further symbolized to mere sprinkling as practiced in Christianity, Hinduism and other religions. A number of superstitions involve someone's taking a deliberate action to cause something to happen or to prevent something from occurring. Most of these causal superstitions involve ensuring good luck, 284 avoiding bad luck or making something good happen. For example, some people will not start a trip on a Friday, especially if it is the 13th day of the month. Friday and the number 13 are both associated with bad luck. Such superstitions vary from country to country. The number 13 is considered lucky by some in India According to a Japanese belief, the number 4 is unlucky. This is because shi, the Japanese word for 4, sounds like the Japanese word for death. As a result, many buildings in Japan have no fourth floor. According to another superstition, wedding guests throw rice at the newlyweds to ensure that the marriage will result in many children as is traditionally expected of marriages. However, the newly-weds may then resort to birth control as is normal in modern times. Other superstitions foretell an event without any conscious action by the person involved. Some of these sign superstitions foretell good or bad luck. For example, finding a horseshoe or a four-leaf clover means good luck. Breaking a mirror or spilling salt brings bad luck. Other sign superstitions foretell a certain event or condition. A ring around the moon means rain will soon fall. A howling dog means death is near. A person with red hair has a quick temper. Some sign superstitions may be changed into causal superstitions. If a person hangs a horseshoe over a door, witches cannot enter. If a young woman pins a four-leaf clover to her door, she will marry the first bachelor who comes in the door. In some cases, a person may avoid the bad luck involved in a sign superstition by taking immediate action. For example, someone who has spilled salt may cancel the bad luck by throwing a pinch of salt over the left shoulder. Some superstitions have a practical origin. For example, many people believe that lighting cigarettes for three individuals from one match will bring bad luck. This superstition may have originated among soldiers during World War I. At night, a match that stayed alight long enough to light three cigarettes provided a target for the enemy. Most people have fears that make them insecure. Superstitions help overcome such fears by providing security. They reassure people that they will get what they want and avoid trouble. For example, millions of people believe in astrology and base important decisions on the position of the sun, moon, planets and stars. Superstitions will probably have a part in life as long as people feel insecure. A couple of decades ago my cousin was in the gunpowder manufacturing business. He then bought some land with a run-down house, near his manufacturing facility and moved in with his wife and kids. His business flourished by the day and the month and the year. He and his wife decided to build a new modern home as befitted their new financial status. He demolished the old rundown home and moved into a temporary shack and began building a palatial home at the site where the old one stood. The construction took over a year and the lion’s share of his savings. But just a couple of weeks before he was to move into his new home, his gunpowder facility caught fire and nine of his workers were blown up. He had probably been manufacturing more quantity of gunpowder than he was licensed to. So he had also stashed away some of the illegal and excess stuff in his home under construction. In one night of thunderstorms, this stashed-away gunpowder too caught fire and brought down the RCC roof of the new construction. Overnight my cousin had become a fugitive from the law and most of his savings had gone down with the roof. One of the know-alls in his locality affirmed that the vaastu dimensions of the old rundown home had been auspicious and that is how he had flourished there (See vaastu in alphabetical section below). The dimensions of the new palatial home spelt disaster according to vaastu. My cousin retorted that there was nothing to vaastu. He pointed out that had he not flourished in his old home, he would not have gone in for the new home, and as such the old home was as responsible for his downfall as the new one. How right he was. Maybe we can apply the same logic to astrology and other methods for divining the future. If our life’s fortunes are determined by the stars then what matters most is the moment of our birth and that in turn is determined by the birth and fortunes of our parents and so on. Either everything in predetermined eons ago at the ‘beginning’ of time and no amount of peering at astrological charts or gazing at crystals can make any difference to what is thus predetermined, or nothing is predetermined and as such vaastu and astrology and signs cannot determine the future in any way. Listed below, in alphabetical order, are some of the most common superstitious beliefs and practices of the species, called Homo Sapiens: You might feel like laughing at some or most of them. Before you do
285 so, remember the verse “Judge not lest thou be judged!” and the verse “He who has not sinned, let him cast the first stone” Alchemy: According to ‘The Encarta Encyclopedia’, alchemy is an ancient art practiced especially in Europe of the Middle Ages, devoted chiefly to discovering a substance that would transmute the more common metals into gold or silver and to finding a means of indefinitely prolonging human life. Although its purposes and techniques were dubious and often illusory, alchemy was in many ways the predecessor of modern science, especially the science of chemistry. Amulet: A charm that supposedly has magic powers. It may be worn around the neck or tied around the arm, wrist or waist. Some people believe that amulets protect them from evil, sickness and witchcraft. Amulets may be made of any material, but many are made of stone. Others are small cloth bags filled with a supposedly powerful object. A tooth or a piece of horn or wood can also serve as an amulet. Tiger claws, worn around the neck on a string or chain, were supposed to make a man brave. Some amulets have a symbolic shape, such as a crescent. Amulets may also be kept in the place that is the desired sphere of influence, e.g., on a roof or in a field. The terms, amulet and talisman, are often used interchangeably, but a talisman is sometimes defined as an engraved amulet. Natural amulets are of many kinds: precious stones, metals, teeth and claws of animals, bones, plants and so on. Man-made amulets, equally varied, include religious medallions and small figurines. Among believers amulets are thought to derive power from their connection with natural forces, from religious associations or from being made in a ritual manner at a favorable time. Neanderthals and other prehistoric peoples used natural amulets in burials and so-called Venus figurines dating to about 25,000 BCE may be among the earliest of man-made amulets. The Macgregor papyrus of ancient Egypt lists 75 amulets. One of the commonest was the scarab beetle, worn by the living and dead alike. The scarab symbolized life, perhaps because it pushed a ball of dung that was identified with the sun and was believed to contain the beetle's eggs or perhaps because its hieroglyph was the same as that for the verb “to become.” In the Middle Ages Christian amulets included the traditional relics of saints and letters, said to have been sent from heaven. Christians may wear crosses or crucifixes, scapulars, medallions etc as amulets. Among Jews the preparation of amulets became a rabbinic function. Muslims today often carry verses from the Koran , the names of God or associated sacred numbers, especially the number 786 within small satchels. These verses and numbers may also be written on important documents or on account books. Another popular type of amulet is the “good luck charm” such as the birthstone or rabbit’s foot. Amulets (charms) have been used for protection in all ages and in all types of human societies; they persist today even in industrial societies. The purpose of most amulets is not so much religious as it is for protection against danger, sickness and bad luck. The same is true of talismans. In India, Arabic or Sanskrit mantras are inscribed on copper foils, which are then rolled and encased in brass and worn around the neck, arms or waist to protect the person. Other such scripts are buried on paths frequented by enemies and stepping over such charms is sure to bring ill luck and destruction to the enemy. Angel: (Greek: angelos,’messenger’) Celestial being, believed to be a messenger or intermediary, between God or the gods and humankind. An angel can function also as a protective guardian, as a heavenly warrior and even as a cosmic power. Moreover, the line between a good angel and a bad angel or demon, is sometimes unclear. Hence, angels can be broadly described as personified powers mediating between the divine and the human. Even in its commitment to monotheism, ancient Israel was able to embrace the image of a council of gods by turning all but one of them into angels who serve the one God, much as earthly courtiers serve one king. This acceptance of a belief in angels was a development made relatively easy because both lesser gods and angels could be called sons of God. In traditional Israelite thought, angels were assumed to have the form of human males and as a consequence they were sometimes mistaken for men. After the period of Israel's Babylonian exile (597-538 BCE), Jewish thought about angels was considerably altered and enriched. Drawing on Mesopotamian iconography, artists and writers began to provide wings even for anthropomorphic angels and an interest developed in the angels' garments, names and relative ranks. In addition to the Mesopotamian influence, the Persian dualistic tradition added another
286 dimension to the Jewish conception of angels by positing hostile and destructive angels who are rebellious against God. Later developments in both Judaism and Christianity show a remarkable growth of angelic folklore, in part as the result of continuing the ancient practice of absorbing the gods of polytheistic religions by turning them into angels. Although belief in angels is amply attested in both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, many biblical scholars nevertheless suggest that the concept was adopted not only as a literary device to personify the divine presence but also as a means of subordinating the gods of polytheistic religions. It is said that the great Michael Angelo, in decorating a church, painted some angels wearing sandals. A cardinal looking at the picture said to the artist: "Whoever saw angels with sandals?" Angelo retorted: "Whoever saw any angel at all?" Astrology: A type of divination of earthly and human events by means of observing and interpreting the positions and movements of astronomical bodies, particularly the sun, moon, planets and stars. Astrologers believe that the position of astronomical bodies at the exact moment of a person’s birth and the subsequent movements of the bodies reflect that person’s character and, therefore, destiny. As a pseudo-science, astrology is considered to be diametrically opposed to the findings and theories of modern Western science. Astrology is an ancient practice that different civilizations seemed to have developed independently. The Chaldeans, who lived in Babylonia (now Iraq), developed one of the original forms of astrology as early as 3000 BCE. The Chinese were practicing astrology by 2000 BCE. Other varieties formed in ancient India and among the Mayas of Central America. The primary purpose of astrology was to inform the royal court of impending disaster or success. These often take the forms of meteorological or epidemic phenomena affecting entire human, animal or plant populations. Frequently, they involved the military affairs of the state or the personal lives of the ruler and his family. Since the celestial omina or signs were regarded not as deterministic but rather as indicative - as a kind of symbolic language in which the gods communicated with men about the future and as only a part of a vast array of ominous events - it was believed that their unpleasant forebodings might be mitigated or nullified by ritual means or by contrary omens. Astrologers of that time knew of five planets - Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Saturn and Venus. They believed that the sun, moon and planets sent out different forces, which had certain characteristics. For example Mars appeared to be red. Astrologers linked it with anger, aggression and war. Originally, astrologers presupposed a geocentric universe in which the Sun, Moon and stars revolve around the earth in a geocentric orbit. At first, astrologers studied the heavenly bodies in making general predictions about the future. But between 600 BCE. and 200 BCE, they developed the system of casting individual horoscopes. By the 17th century, with the displacement of the Earth from the center of the universe in the new astronomy of Copernicus, Galileo and Johannes Kepler and with the rise of the new mechanistic physics of Descartes and Newton, astrology lost its intellectual viability and became increasingly recognized as scientifically untenable. Scientists declare that the whole basis of astrology is unscientific. They point out, for example, that the relative position of the earth with the constellations has changed in space since ancient times. As a result, the signs of the zodiac used by astrologers of yore no longer match the constellations for which they were named. The basic principle of astrology is that the heavenly bodies influence what happens on the earth. Special relations were believed to exist between particular celestial bodies and their varied motions, configurations with each other and the processes of generation and decay apparent in the world of fire, air, water and earth. These relations were sometimes regarded as so complex that no human mind could completely grasp them; thus, the astrologer might be readily excused for any errors. Astrologers create charts called horoscopes, which map the position of astronomical bodies at certain times, such as when a person is born. A horoscope is illustrated by a circle, called the ecliptic. The ecliptic is the plane on which the earth orbits around the sun in a year. It is divided into twelve sections, called the signs of the Zodiac, which include Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces. The role of the divine in astrological theory varies considerably. In its most rigorous aspect, astrology postulates a totally mechanistic universe, denying to the deity the possibility of intervention and to 287 man that of free will; as such it was vigorously attacked by orthodox Christianity and Islam. For some, astrology is not an exact science like astronomy; but merely indicates trends and directions that can be altered either by divine or by human will. Catarchic (pertaining to beginnings or sources) astrology determines whether or not a chosen moment is astrologically conducive to the success of a course of action begun in it. Basically it is in conflict with a rigorous interpretation of genethlialogy, which says that the position of the stars at birth alone determines a person’s future. Interrogatory astrology provides answers to a client's queries based on the situation of the heavens at the moment of his posing the questions. This astrological consulting service is even more remote from determinism than is catarchic astrology; it is thereby closer to divination by omens and insists upon the ritual purification and preparation of the astrologer. Other forms of astrology, such as iatro-mathematics (application of astrology to medicine) and military astrology are variants on one or another of the above. Tablets that have survived - mainly from the Assyrian library of King Ashurbanipal (7th century BCE) - indicate that a standard version of astrology never existed. Each copy had its own characteristic contents and organization designed to facilitate its owner's consultation of the omens. Discrepancies were observed and corrections and amendments were made to the original Babylonian scheme of astrology. Before this development, portions of the older scheme of astrology were transmitted to Egypt, Greece and India. The transmission of Mesopotamian omen literature to India, took place in the 5th century BCE during the occupation of the Indus Valley. The original Mesopotamian material was modified so as to fit into the Indian conception of society, including the system of the four castes and the duty of the upper castes to perform the ceremonies. Astrology is now big business in India and astrologers are a respected lot. Prime Ministers and ministers of India have been known to consult astrologers as to the best time for taking oath of office. Nehru and the other leaders of the independence movement chose the midnight of the 14-15th August 1947 to hoist the tricolor of independent India for astrological reasons. Astrologers are also consulted on the laying of foundations as well as for setting up or inauguration of all sorts of enterprises such as making movies. In modern age women are going in for Cesarean operations instead of natural births, so that the birth takes place at the most auspicious time as far as horoscope is concerned. There are a number of local or vernacular calendars in use in India. Some of these calendars use the names of the Zodiac signs for their months. Thus the months of a South Indian version of the calendar, used in Kerala start with Chingam (An aberration of Simham for lion), Kanni (for Virgo)...etc. exactly in the same order as in the original zodiac signs. The month of Cancer called, “Karkadakom” in Kerala, is considered most inauspicious. Marriages are taboo in the month and people do not enter into agreements of importance such as sale or lease of land and buildings, marriages, inaugurations etc. The next month Leo makes up for Cancer and Leo is considered most auspicious. If there were any substance to astrology’s claim to authenticity, India should have been the most productive and prosperous nation on earth, with the help from the stars. Instead it is one of the poorest, illiterate and disease-ridden nations on earth and the laughing stock of nations, thanks to astrology, vaastu and such superstitious practices. Birthstone: A gem associated with a month of the year. According to tradition, a birthstone brings good luck to a person born in its month. Each birthstone also corresponds to a sign of the zodiac. The birth dates for each sign do not often match the beginning and end of each month. The belief in birthstones may have come from a Bible story about Aaron, the first high priest of the Israelites. The story describes Aaron's breastplate, which was decorated with 12 precious stones. Early writers linked these stones with the 12 months of the year and the 12 signs of the zodiac. Today, many people wear their birthstones in jewelry to bring good luck. The stones now associated with each month, as listed in a table, have only slight relationship to the ancient beliefs, for the list is tempered by availability and cost. Before mineralogy had progressed to the point of chemical analysis, color was of greater importance than some of the other physical characteristics and little distinction was made between emerald and chrysoprase, for example or between ruby and garnet or between citrine and topaz. When it came to the ability to heal or bring good luck, the actual stone and the 288 look-alikes were regarded as equally effective. Even the names used in ancient times do not necessarily refer to the stones that go by those names in the 20th century; the sapphire of the Bible is much more likely to have been lapis lazuli than what is now known as sapphire and adamas (diamond) was probably white sapphire or white topaz. The various birthstones and the qualities they symbolize, as specified by the Jewelry Industry Council in New York City, are given in the accompanying table below:-
Month Stone Associated Quality Jan Garnett Constancy Feb Amethyst Sincerity Mar Aquamarine, Bloodstone Courage Apr Diamond Innocence May Emerald Success Jun Pearl, Alexandrite, MoonstoneHealth & Longevity
Jul Ruby Contentment Aug Peridot, Sardonyx Happy Marriage Sep Emerald Clear Thinking Oct Opal, Tourmaline Hope Nov Topaz Fidelity Dec Zircon Prosperity
Circumcision: The operation of cutting away all or part of the foreskin (prepuce) of the penis. The origin of the practice is unknown. The widespread ethnic distribution of circumcision as a ritual and the quite wide use of stone tools in the ceremony suggest a great antiquity of the operation. Wherever the operation is performed as a traditional rite, it is done either before or at puberty and sometimes, immediately before marriage. Some form of genital surgery was ritually performed on males or females among certain South and Central Native American groups. In tribal settings, circumcision is nearly always associated with traumatic puberty rites. Occasionally the severed part is offered as a sacrifice to spirits. The operation certifies the subject's readiness for marriage and adulthood and testifies to his or her ability to withstand pain. Circumcision may also distinguish cultural groups from their uncircumcised neighbors. Among the ancient Egyptians, boys were generally circumcised between the ages of 6 and 12 years. Among the Ethiopians, the Jews, the Muslims and a few other peoples, the operation is performed shortly after birth (among Jews, on the eighth day after birth) or perhaps a few years after birth. Among most other peoples who practice it, the operation is performed at puberty. At any age the ritual operation is regarded as of the profoundest religious significance. For the Jews it represents the fulfillment of the covenant between God and Abraham (Genesis 17:10-14), the first divine command of the Pentateuch, that every male child shall be circumcised. That Christians were not obliged to be circumcised is first recorded biblically in Acts 15. The operation at puberty represents a beginning of the initiation into manhood and the leaving childhood behind. Clitoridectomy: Female circumcision or Excision, a ritual surgical procedure that may range in degree from the drawing of blood to infibulations (also called Pharoanic circumcision), which consists in removal of the clitoris, the labia minora and the anterior two-thirds of the labia majora, the sides of which are joined leaving a small posterior opening. The practice of female circumcision dates to ancient times and was traditionally performed to guard virginity and to reduce sexual desire. It is widely practiced in such places as New Guinea; Australia; the Malay Archipelago; Ethiopia, Egypt and other parts of Africa; Brazil; Mexico; Peru; and by various Islamic peoples of the Middle East, Africa, western Asia and India. Infibulations are common particularly in The Sudan, Somalia and Nigeria. The operation is usually performed by a midwife, often under unhygienic conditions. Especially with the more radical excision, consequences sometimes include severe bleeding,
289 tetanus and other infections, exquisite pain and death. Even with normal healing, urination and sexual intercourse can be quite painful and menstrual blood can back up. Where the practice of infibulations is common, women are re-infibulated after the birth of each child. Groups in which clitoridectomy is practiced also usually practice male circumcision and view the ritual as part of a religious or ethnic tradition and as a necessary stage for passage into responsible adulthood. Creation Myths: Every clan, tribe and people on earth seem to have their own creation myths and it would require volumes to describe even a fraction of all those thousands of myths. Creation myths are excellent examples of how our fathers found answers to complex questions. Things have a beginning and an end and they wanted to know, where it all began and myths of creation provided them easy answers and relieved them of their anxiety of not knowing things. But probably they were asking wrong questions. Only forms have beginnings and ends, the matter is eternal, mass for mass. Our forefathers knew that one dead organism provides manure for a living one and as such the body only percolates or transforms into other forms. Yet they did not have the analytical capability to notice the invalidity and illegality of the questions “How did it all begin?” and “Who made all these” It may also be noted such stories and myths raised more questions than they answered. Thus if Adam and Eve were the first man and woman and they had only Abel and Cain for offsprings, how did mankind multiply? Another version of the Bible says that Adam had a wife called Lilith before Eve came into the picture. Lilith seems to have abandoned Adam and refused to return though all the angels in heaven asked her to. According to this version of the Bible Abel and Cain married the daughters of Lilith. This one answer raises more questions. How did Lilith come into being? How did she conceive her daughters? Were Abel and Cain, and the daughters of Lilith, step siblings? If so, was it all right for brother and sister to marry? Our forefathers did not have the mental stamina and agility to probe that deep. They were satisfied with the simple stories and the superficial answers. Death Related Beliefs and Superstitions: Life is obsession with death and it seems there are many superstitions connected with death. Here are a few: Bird: A bird in the house is a sign of a death. If a robin flies into a room through a window, death will shortly follow. Candle: Light candles on the night after November 1. One for each deceased relative should be placed in the window in the room where death occurred. Cemetery: You must hold your breath while going past a cemetery or you will breathe in the spirit of someone who has recently died. Clock: If a clock, which has not been working suddenly chimes, there will be a death in the family. You will have bad luck if you do not stop the clock in the room where someone dies. Corpse: If a woman is buried in black, she will return to haunt the family. If a dead person's eyes are left open, he will find someone to take with him. Mirrors in a house with a corpse should be covered or the person who sees himself will die next. Dog: Dogs howling in the dark of night, howl for death before daylight. Dreams: If you dream of death it is a sign of a birth, if you dream of birth, it is a sign of death. If you touch a loved one who has died, you will not have dreams about them Dying: A person who dies on Good Friday will go right to heaven. A person who dies at midnight on Christmas Eve will go straight to heaven because the gates of heaven are open at that time. All windows should be opened at the moment of death so that the soul can leave. The soul of a dying person cannot escape the body and go to heaven if any locks are locked in the house. Eye: If the left eye twitches there will soon be a death in the family. If a dead person's eyes are left open, he will find someone to take with him. Funeral: Funerals on Friday portend another death in the family during the year. It is bad luck to count the cars in a funeral cortege. It is bad luck to meet a funeral procession head on. Thunder following a funeral means that the dead person's soul has reached heaven. Nothing new should be worn to a funeral, especially new shoes. Pointing at a funeral procession will cause you to die within the month. Pregnant women should not attend funerals. Grave: If the person buried lived a good life, flowers will grow on the grave. If the person was evil, weeds will grow. 290 Mirror: If a mirror in the house falls and breaks by itself, someone in the house will die soon. Moth: A white moth inside the house or trying to enter the house means death. Photograph: If three people are photographed together, the one in the middle will die first. Thirteen: If thirteen people sit down at a table to eat, one of them will die before the year is over. This belief has its origin in the Last Supper where there were thirteen men and one of them, Jesus, died a horrible death. It is not clear why the Crucifixion of Jesus is considered as an ominous event when the Church itself says that it was an event that redeemed mankind from the Devil’s domain. Umbrella: Dropping an umbrella on the floor means that there will be a murder in the house. Devil (from Greek diabolos: “slanderer,” or “accuser”): The spirit or power of evil. Though sometimes used for minor demonic spirits, the word devil generally refers to the prince of evil spirits and as such takes various forms in the religions of the world. In the monotheistic Western religions, the devil is viewed as a fallen angel who in pride has tried to usurp the position of the one and only God. In Judaism and later Christianity, the devil was known as Satan. In the Old Testament, Satan is viewed as the prosecutor of Yahweh's court, as in Job, chapters 1 and 2, but he is not regarded as an adversary of God. In Christian theology the devil's main task is that of tempting man to reject the way of life and redemption and to accept the way of death and destruction. The devil is also known by other names in the Bible such as Beelzebub (“Lord of Flies”), Beelzebub (“Lord of Dung”) and Lucifer (the fallen angel of Light). Islamic theology is rich in references to Iblis, the personal name of the devil, who is also known as ash-Shaytan (“The Demon”) and Åaduw Allah (“Enemy of God”). In the Koran , Iblis first appears in the story of the creation of the world. He alone of the angels refuses God's order to bow before Adam, the first man. He is then cursed by God; his punishment is to come on the Day of Judgment, but until then he is empowered to tempt the unfaithful (but not true believers). John Wesley, the English founder of Methodism, was right when he said that to give up a belief in devil and witchcraft was to give up the Bible. Give up the Devil and what can you do with the Book of Job? How will you account for the lying spirits that Jehovah sent to mislead Ahab? If there were no devil, if he had not tempted Adam and Eve, God would not have had to take on human form and there would be no Christianity or Islam. The old lady who said there must be a devil, else how could they make pictures that looked exactly like him, reasoned like a trained theologian – like a doctor of divinity. Dowsing: The practice of divining or finding water, holding a forked stick, chain or pendulum or analogous objects in such a way that it would give some indication of the presence of water. It has been scientifically established that the whole thing is a swindle and James Randi, has offered a million dollars to anyone who can pick which of several identical barrels contain water and which contain other materials. Dreams: These have had superstitious overtones from time immemorial. Along with prophesies, oracles and possessions, dreams are considered one of the most important means of communication between man and the powers above. Maybe some the most common facets of religion like belief in life after death and ancestor worship might have originated from dreams of the dead. The Bible tells of Joseph interpreting the Pharaoh’s dreams and thus becoming the Pharaoh’s favorite. Here is a dictionary for the interpretation of dreams Acorn: Dreaming of acorns predicts pleasant things and that much gain is to be expected. For a woman to dream of eating acorns denotes that she will rise to a position of ease and pleasure. To dream of shaking acorns from a tree means that you will rapidly attain your wishes in business or love. Airport: In a dream the sight of a busy airport represents the desire for freedom and or travel. If the airport is empty and deserted your own travel plans will be changed or delayed. Almonds:: If you see almonds in your dream you will have a temporary sorrow. If you ate and enjoyed them, you will be lucky, but if they tasted bitter, you should delay any contemplated changes for as long as possible. Angels: A favorable dream forecasting success, protection, happiness and rewarding friendships. Baby: To see a baby in your dream signifies innocence, warmth and new beginnings. A love affair may be blooming for you in your near future. You will also make new friends. If a woman dreams she is nursing a baby, she will be deceived by the one she trusts the most.
291 Balloon: Seeing balloons in your dream indicates a dashing of hope on any and all fronts, business or love, as well as a general falling off of all kinds of businesses you may be involved in. If you are ascending in a balloon this is an omen of especially frustrating conditions in your life. Bear: To dream of killing a bear foretells liberation from entanglements. Bed: To dream of a clean, white bed denotes the end of worries. If a woman dreams of making a bed, there will soon be a new lover in her life. Bicycle: To dream of riding a bicycle uphill signifies bright prospects. To dream of riding downhill calls for care - misfortune is near. Birds: Flying birds are a sign of prosperity to the dreamer. Birth: If you dream of death it is a sign of a birth, if you dream of birth, it is a sign of death. Butterfly: To see a butterfly among flowers indicates prosperity. To see butterflies flying around denotes news from absent friends by letter or from someone who has seen them. Candles: To see candles burning with a clear and steady flame denotes the constancy of those around you and a well-grounded fortune. Cats: Dreaming of a cat is a generally unfortunate omen and it shows treachery as well as a run of bad luck. Cats attacking you represent enemies; if you succeed banishing them you will overcome great obstacles and rise in fortune and fame. Crow: Seeing a crow in your dream means disappointment in everything, grief and misfortune. Crown: To dream of a crown predicts a change in your life. The dreamer will travel a long distance from home and form new relationships. Death: If you dream of death it is a sign of a birth, if you dream of birth, it is a sign of death. Dancing: To dream that you are dancing means that some unexpected good fortune will come to you. Deceased Person: If you should dream of a deceased person and this person speaks only to you, pay close attention to what the spirit is telling you as it could be extremely important to you. To dream of seeing a deceased person is normally a dream of warning and it tells you that the influences around you at this time do not bode well for your affairs and you should not enter into any binding contracts or verbal agreements. Diamonds: To dream of owning diamonds is a promising dream signifying great honor and recognition from high places. Dog: To dream about a dog indicates great gain and constant friends. To hear the barking of dogs foretells news of depressing nature. Difficulties are more likely to follow. Dragonfly: If you dream that a dragonfly lands on your body then you will have excellent news from someone far away from home. If you see a dead dragonfly, then the news will be bad. A dragonfly perched gracefully on some other object shows that you will soon be having guests that may be hard to get rid of. Driving: If you dream that you are driving a vehicle it is a sign that you should be careful to take no chances with your money, such as gambling, in the next two weeks or so. If someone else is doing the driving you will find yourself in luck, money wise. Face: To dream of a smiling face signifies pleasant new friends, experiences and or financial gains. To dream of unpleasant or grotesque (unless amusingly so) faces portend loss. To dream you are washing your face denotes a necessity to atone for some past indiscretion; better make amends! To see the faces of strangers signifies an approaching change of residence. Falling: To dream of falling indicates a loss of emotional equilibrium or self-control. It may represent your insecurity, a lack of self-confidence, a fear of failure or an inability to cope with a situation. If you fall a long distance in your dream and get hurt, be prepared for really hard times ahead; but if you fall and are not injured your upsets will be minor and temporary. Gang: To dream that you are confronted or threatened by a gang signifies circumstances or situations in your waking life, which are overwhelming and you feel being ganged upon. Garden: To see a vegetable garden in your dream symbolizes increased prosperity will come your way through diligence and care. It also suggests of stability and inner growth. To see a flower garden in your dream foretells of tranquility, comfort, true love and happy home in your future. To see a sparse, weed- infested garden denotes that you have neglected your spiritual needs. Gloves: To dream of gloves means that you will have a lawsuit or business troubles, but you will settle them in a manner that satisfies you. To find a pair of gloves denotes a marriage or new love affair.
292 Hair: Dreaming about hair means that you are careless in your personal affairs and will lose advancement by neglecting mental application. Hairdresser: For a woman to dream of going to a hairdresser shows she will soon be entangled in some family scandal concerning the morals of a member of her family. Should she have her hair dyed, she will narrowly escape imprisonment. For a man to dream of a hairdresser will presage much gossip or a need to dominate a beautiful woman. Ham: If you dream of eating ham then you will lose something that means a lot to you. Honey: To dream of eating honey foretells that you will attain wealth and love. Ice Cream: Eating, making, selling or serving ice cream suggests that you are feeling contentment and satisfaction in your life. Jail: To dream that your lover is in jail signifies that this lover is deceitful and untrustworthy. To dream that you are in jail signifies your feelings of confinement and suffocation. Jam: If you dream of eating jam you will suffer embarrassment at the hands of a woman through no fault of your own. Kangaroo: Seeing a kangaroo in your dreams foretells unexpected and exciting trips. Keys: To dream of keys denotes unexpected change. If the keys are lost, unpleasant adventures will affect you. To find keys means domestic peace and success in business. Killing: If you dreamed of killing someone, whether intentionally or by accident, it signifies a period of severe emotional stress during which you must make a heroic effort to control your temper. Letter: To dream of receiving a letter from a friend foretells their arrival or that you will hear from them soon. Lights: A light shining out of the dark or a flashlight beam, shows that you will finally find the truth in a situation or the answer to a personal problem that you have been searching for. If the light is dim, you will only find part of the solution. Magic: Any form of magic in a dream predicts unexpected changes. To dream of being mystified and or amused by a magician indicates a reunion with a long-lost friend or the rekindling of a past love affair. Marriage: Dreaming of a marriage or a wedding, is the sign of a death in the family. If the marriage was between strangers, then the death pertains to a not too close acquaintance or friend. Mice: Dreaming of mice foretells domestic troubles or that business affairs will assume a discouraging tone. If you dream of a mouse jumping on you or getting in your clothing, then you will be involved in a scandal with a friend. Monkey: To dream of a monkey denotes that you have deceitful friends who will flatter you to advance their own interests. Neck: A dream featuring the neck is a sign of approaching money, unless the dream concerned a broken neck, in which case it is a warning against mismanagement of your affairs. Necklace: If you dream of losing a necklace you will soon be suffering bereavement of a loved one. If you dream your loved one places a necklace around your neck or that you are wearing one, it shows an early marriage and a happy domestic life. Needle: To find a needle predicts that you will have friends who appreciate you. To look for a needle foretells useless worries. Oak Tree: To dream of an old, spreading oak means long life and prosperity. If it is filled with acorns you are due for a promotion or some type of ascent in your life. If a newlywed sees many oak trees in a forest it foretells a long marriage and many children. Ocean: If you dream you are standing on the shore and watching the waves foam up as they break over the beach, it foretells that you will have some narrow escape from an accidental injury. If you are far out on the ocean and hear the waves as they lap against the hull of the ship, you will have setbacks in your business and a troubled domestic scene. To sail on a calm ocean is always a good omen for all concerned. Owl: To dream of an owl denotes a narrow escape from desperate illness or death. Raccoon: Dream of a raccoon warns you to be on your guard. To see a raccoon in your dream shows that people are presenting false faces to you in your everyday life. To be chased by a raccoon shows that a person you thought a friend has turned on you and now works behind your back for your downfall. Rape: Take this dream as a warning. Take precautions, protect yourself emotionally and physically and do not engage in careless behavior. 293 Rose: If a woman dreams of receiving a rose and places it in her hair then she will be deceived by someone she thought of as a good friend. If she receives a bouquet of roses in springtime she will find true love but if it is winter her search will be fruitless. To see a rose bush in full foliage denotes a wedding in the family. Running: Dream of running is a sign of a big change in your life. Snakes: To see a lone snake and feel threatened by it shows that you have a bad enemy that is working against you; it is also a warning against bodily harm from an enemy. To dream of many snakes in a pit is the foreboding of much bad luck in love or business. Should you overcome and kill a threatening snake in your dream it shows that you will overcome your adversary and win out. Spiders: All spiders except tarantulas are signs of good luck, the larger the spider the bigger the rewards. If you see a spider climbing the wall you will have your dearest wish come true. If you see a spider spinning a web you will have an increase in your income due to hard work. Tattoos: If you dream you are a tattoo artist and you are tattooing someone's body you will soon break with friends or family over strange practices. If you dream you are the one being tattooed you will become the target for a stranger’s jealousy. But if you see someone else with tattoos then you will take a long, hard journey from home. Tea: To dream that you are thirsty for tea means that you will be surprised with uninvited guests. Teeth: If you dream of having false teeth, this indicates that you will have unexpected help on a problem. To dream of rotten teeth shows that you have been telling someone a lie or using your smooth words for getting your own way. If your teeth are rotten, crooked and/or falling out this means that your lies are hurting someone badly and that you will soon be found out. If you dream you have swallowed a tooth you will soon have to ‘eat your words.' Umbrella: Carrying a closed umbrella in the rain is highly unfortunate for the dreamer and his business plans. To dream of carrying an open umbrella in the rain, is a fortunate sign that speaks of good luck in most endeavors. A leaky umbrella denotes quarrels with loved ones. Water: Dreaming of clear water is a sign of good luck and prosperity, a dream of muddy water foretells sadness or sorrow for the dreamer through hearing of an illness or death of someone he or she knows well. Dirty water warns of unscrupulous people who would bring you to ruin. Yarn: To dream of yarn shows you will soon become the wife of a wealthy man. Evil Eye: The power of the evil eye is sometimes held to be involuntary. A Slavic folktale, for example, relates the story of a father afflicted with the evil eye, who blinded himself in order to avoid injuring his own children. More frequently, malice toward and envy of prosperity and beauty are thought to be the cause. Thus, in medieval Europe and in popular superstition today it is considered unlucky to be praised or to have one's possessions praised, so that some qualifying phrase such as “as God will” or “God bless it” was commonly used. Measures taken to ward off the evil eye may vary among cultures. For example, some authorities suggest that the purpose of ritual cross-dressing, a practice that has been noted in the marriage ceremonies of parts of India, is to avert the evil eye. Asian children sometimes have their faces blackened, especially near the eyes, for protection. And Africans tribes scar their face for the same purpose. Among some Asian and African peoples the evil eye is particularly dreaded while eating and drinking, because the soul is thought to be more vulnerable when the mouth is open. Thus the ingestion of substances is either a solitary activity or takes place only with the immediate family and behind locked doors. Mouth sores are thought to be caused by dogs casting evil eye on people as they eat and so food is not taken in front of dogs unless the dog is fed first. Other means of protection, common to many traditions, include the wearing of sacred texts, amulets, charms and talismans (which may also be hung upon animals for their protection). In India it is common practice to cover up construction sites to block the evil eye on the prosperity, buildings represent. Scarecrows are often put up at construction sites and on or near yielding farms and trees. Cows with big udders are kept out of sight and people are seldom allowed into stables for fear of the evil eye. In Pennsylvania Dutch country, an agricultural region in southeastern Pennsylvania largely settled by German immigrants, who have preserved their ethnic customs and identification to a high degree, hex designs, usually round, with colorful, simple floral and geometric motifs, are said to protect farm animals from disease and other misfortunes resulting from witches' spells and especially from the evil eye.
294 In India too such hex or floral designs are drawn in front of homes as a morning ritual performed by the women, to attract prosperity. Exorcism: Belief that most illness - especially mental illness - and misfortunes are brought on by evil spirits and the way to normality is through exorcism. In my childhood, the “possessed” were caned and tortured until the spirit in them promised to quit. Another practice is to use charms and mantras, which are nailed to particular trees and the evil spirit is supposed to be nailed too. The Church practices exorcism and exorcism is as superstitious as belief in possession by evil spirits. Feng Shui: Chinese architectural and layout practice, which maintains that there are energy centers and optimum energies and that these can be channeled through out the building interiors in certain ways and thus fortune and good health attained. According to Feng Shui everyone’s energy centers depend on their horoscope. According to science energy, like water, flows from one of higher level to one of lower levels. But Feng Shui says that by arranging curtains, mirrors and hangings, energy flow can be controlled. This is another of those principles without any scientific base whatsoever, but which seems to be catching on, because well-dressed men and good-looking women, with gifted tongues back it up with high sounding words, which often come to nothing. Fetishism: The worship of an inanimate object for its supposed magical powers or because it is considered to be inhabited by a spirit. The practice includes magic, often with many attendant ceremonies and minor rituals. The fetish is usually a figure modeled or carved from clay, stone, wood, glass or other material in imitation of a deified animal or other object. Frequently it consists of fur, feathers, hair or a bone or tooth of a tutelary animal. Sometimes it is the animal itself or a tree, river, rock or place associated with the tutelary in the mind of the devotee. In some cases the belief is so definitely crystallized about the object that the original connection with the tutelary is obscured and the belief merges into idolatry. At one time fetishism was thought to be practiced only in West Africa, but it is now known to prevail among peoples in all lands. Anthropologists of the 19th century limited the use of the term to the doctrine of potencies (or spirits) attached to or conveying influence through, material objects. According to more recent data, fetishes need not be connected with spirits, except to the extent that they are employed to thwart malevolent beings. Fortune telling: The forecasting of future events or the delineation of character by methods not ordinarily considered to have a rational basis. Evidence indicates that forms of fortune telling were practiced in ancient China, India, Egypt, Chaldea and Babylonia as long ago as 4000 BCE. Prophetic dreams and oracular utterances played an important part in ancient religion and medicine. Predictive methods of fortune-telling include astrology (interpretation of the movements of heavenly bodies as influences on earthly events), numerology and the utilization of objects such as playing cards, tea leaves, crystal balls, dice, fire, water and scattered salt. Fortune telling as a process of character analysis can take such forms as graphology (study of handwriting), physiognomy (study of facial characteristics), phrenology (study of contours on the skull) and palmistry (study of lines on the palm of the hand). Funeral customs: These are special ceremonies performed after a person dies. Throughout history, humankind has developed such customs to express grief, comfort the living and honor the dead. The word funeral comes from the Latin word funus, which means funeral procession, death or dead body. Nearly all religions include the belief that human beings survive death. For many people, a funeral symbolizes a passage from one life to another, rather than the end of a person's existence. As early as 60,000 years ago, prehistoric people observed special ceremonies when burying their dead. Neanderthal graves, for example, contain tools, weapons and evidence of flowers. The ancient Egyptians and other early peoples placed food, jewels and other goods in tombs. Such provisions showed the belief that a person continued to exist after death and had the same needs as in life. The Egyptians also developed embalming into an advanced technique called mummification. They believed the spirit would someday return to inhabit the body. Therefore, it had to be preserved to prevent the soul from perishing. The Greeks believed that the souls of the dead had to be ferried across the mythical river Styx. They placed a coin in the mouth of the corpse so it would have the fee to pay Charon, the ferryman. Funeral customs vary from society to society, but many of the same practices are found throughout the world. These practices include public announcement of the death; preparation of the body; religious ceremonies or other services; a procession; a burial or other form of disposal; and mourning.
295 Preparation of the body varies among peoples. Typically, the corpse is laid out and washed. Sometimes it is painted or anointed with oils. It is then dressed in new or special garments or wrapped in a cloth called a shroud. In most societies, the body is put in a coffin, also called a casket or other container. Many peoples hold an all-night watch called a wake beside the corpse. They may do so in the belief that the wake comforts the spirit of the dead or protects the body from evil spirits. In the past, another reason for a wake was to watch for signs of life. Before modern tests were developed, an unconscious person might be mistaken for dead. Funeral rites include prayers, hymns and other music. If the body is buried, a final brief ceremony is held at the graveside. If the body is cremated, the ashes are usually scattered at a later date or placed in a memorial wall or garden. Burial is the most common method of disposal in Christian, Jewish and Muslim countries. Human burial developed from the belief that the dead rise again. According to this belief, a body is planted in the earth to await rebirth like a seed. Cremation is customary in Buddhist and Hindu nations and is increasing in most western countries. Orthodox Jews, some Roman Catholics and some Protestant groups oppose this practice. They believe the body is the temple of the soul or of the Holy Spirit and should not be destroyed. Other religions do not object to cremation. Some societies dispose of their dead in other ways. For example, the Sioux Indians of North America place their dead on high platforms. Some groups of Australian Aborigines leave dead bodies in trees. In Tibet, bodies are sunk in water. The Parsis, a religious group who live mainly in India, take their dead to special enclosures called towers of silence. There, birds pick the bones clean. The Parsis believe the earth and fire are sacred and must not be violated by burying or burning a corpse. Ghost: The soul or specter of a dead person, usually believed to inhabit the netherworld and to be capable of returning in some form to the world of the living. According to descriptions or depictions provided by believers, a ghost may appear as a living being or as a nebulous likeness of the deceased and occasionally, in other forms. Belief in ghosts is based on the ancient notion that a human spirit is separable from the body and may maintain its existence after the body's death. In many societies funeral rituals are believed to prevent the ghost from haunting the living. Headhunting: This is the practice of removing and preserving human heads. Headhunting has been rather widely practiced the world over from Europe to the Far East and it was commonplace as late as the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. The practice may even go back to Paleolithic times and has been reported even in present times, though not as often as in the past. We may safely assume that it is one of the most universal of superstitions in time and place. The custom arose out of the belief that the soul was located in the head and the power of the soul would pass on to the man or society, which severed the head. Head hunting has often been associated with cannibalistic rituals in the belief that eating part of the head would be even a better way of imbibing the powers of the slain man. Headhunting was practiced in Europe, in the Balkans, as late as the 20th century and in the British Isles, Scotland and Ireland to the end of the middle ages. The practice was common in Africa as well as in parts of Afghanistan. But the practice found its most adherents in North East India among the Garos, Khasis, Nagas and Kukis, in Burma among the Wa people, in Borneo, in most of Indonesia, and as far east as the Philippines and Taiwan. In the Batak country and in the Tanimbar Islands of Indonesia, headhunting is often associated with cannibalism. Some societies like the Melanese used to stuff and preserve the head and others used to wear it as a mask. The Australian Aborigines practiced it in the belief that the spirit of the slain entered the slayer. The Maoris of New Zealand preserved the heads of their enemies after tattooing them. Such heads were exported to Europe as curios. In South America the head was dried in hot sand and preserved in ceremonies often associated with cannibalism. Incarnation: In religion, the assumption of an earthly form by a god. In early times, priests and kings were often considered divine incarnations. In the ancient Roman and Greek religions, the gods sometimes assumed human form and married mortals. The idea of incarnation is also known in many living religions of the world. In Mahayana Buddhism, Buddha has been adored and worshiped as a divine being who came to earth 296 as a teacher out of compassion for suffering humanity. In Jainism, Vardhamana Jnatiputra or Nataputta Mahavira, called Jina, the founder of the religion, was regarded by his followers as a supernatural being that descended from heaven. After he was incarnated, he grew up sinless and omniscient. In Zoroastrianism, many texts have developed the theme of Zoroaster's celestial preexistence and incarnation. The substance of his body was created in heaven, fell to earth with the rain and passed to his mother through the milk of heifers. In Hinduism, avatars are incarnations of the gods, especially of Vishnu, who seems to have had over twenty-two formal incarnations, and innumerable informal ones, each time to defeat evil. In Christianity, the incarnation or union of the divine nature with human nature in the person of Jesus Christ, is a central doctrine. Incest: This book is against unfounded and invalidated statements, propositions, traditions and taboos. Incest is one set of such taboos, associated with sexual relationship between close blood relations. The reason stated for such taboos, even by many reputed and scientific sources, is that offsprings from the sexual union between siblings and blood-cousins can lead to a higher probability of inheriting genetic deformities and impairments, as these disabilities can be inherited from both sides of lineage. But then so can beneficial traits be concentrated by sex between blood relations and geniuses can be reared. In practice neither seems to have been the case. Such malevolent or benevolent outcomes from incestual relationship seem to be rare. It is regrettable to note that the above-mentioned authoritative sources have not bothered to make a study of animals with relevance to incestual relationships Cross breeding of horses and dogs for performance, cattle and crops for high yields etc are often based on incestual cross breeding. Right from the times of Plato there have been suggestions of similar breeding of better human beings. This too is possible, in part, by cross breeding of blood relatives. But then the problem arises as to what is a better human being. Horses have performance standards like speed, strength or beauty. We have to choose the most preferable single quality. Thus, you have to choose between speed and strength. Similarly for cattle and crops, high yields and resistance to pests are the main criteria. When it comes to humans, such simple choices are seldom feasible and a compromise or a balance between many qualities - looks, strength, health, color, happiness, intelligence, morals, emotions, an optimum balance between fear and fearlessness, and a thousand other factors - is required. This choice between thousands of desirable factors may be impossible. Therefore, Eugenics may remain a Utopian dream when it comes to human beings. Hitler championed such breeding of a superman. But if I were given the choice I would eliminate the looks of Hitler himself as I do not think that he was a handsome man by any standards. The same goes for other qualities too. Who makes the choice in matters of human eugenics? What are the qualities to be chosen? Getting back to incest, mankind has come through three basic stages of socio-economic development - savagery, barbarism, and civilization. As long ago as 60-70 years ago, there were people living in these different stages of development and by studying them we get an insight into the ways of our own ancestors. We learn from studies of such primitive people that promiscuous sex was prevalent among our own forefathers. What does promiscuous sexual intercourse really mean? It means the absence of prohibitions and restrictions in matters of sex. Not only were sexual intercourse between siblings, but also between parents and children were permitted among many peoples. Among the Kadiaks on the Behring Straits, the Tinneh in the interior of British North America; the Chippewa Indians, the Cucus in Chile, the Caribs, the Karens in Burma; to say nothing of the stories told by the old Greeks and Romans about the Parthians, Persians, Scythians, Huns, and so on, sexual intercourse between parents and children were normal. Before incest was invented - for incest is an invention, and a rather valuable one, too - sexual intercourse between parents and children did not arouse any more repulsion than sexual intercourse between other persons of different generations. Conjugal relationships between siblings were practiced as long as a few thousand years ago all over the world. In Greek mythology Jupiter was married to his sister Juno and so was his father Cronus married to his own sister Rhea. In the Bible Abraham declares that his wife Sarah is also his half-sister, born of the same father (Genesis Chapter 20:12). Cleopatra married her own brother. As long ago as a few centuries ago, it was the norm rather than the exception in Hawai that a brother marries his own sister. But then though conjugal relationships between siblings were considered ideal in those days, often there was not much choice among siblings. Thus Cleopatra had to marry a much younger brother for want of 297 a brother of appropriate age. So the next best thing - marriage between cousins - came to be accepted as the most ideal. This form of marriage between cousins seems to be more the rule than the exception in much of the world. Among the Arabs and the Pakistanis the first cousin makes the best cushion and there is no distinction between the types of cousin kinship. Among the Hindus of Kerala, there was discrimination between the types of cousin kinships. Thus children of brothers were forbidden to each other as were children of sisters. On the other hand, children of brothers and sisters made ideal pairs and were duty bound to marry each other until recent times. Incest taboos may also have political dimensions to it. Marrying from outside the family or clan meant a wider spectrum of political alliances. Polygamy provided scope for both endogamous and exogamous relationship. Thus there were incestual marriages for traditional reasons and exogamous marriages for political reasons. Among Solomon’s seven hundred wives, many must have been his own cousins, whom he was duty-bound to marry and many must have been sisters or daughters of other sheikhs and chieftains with whom Solomon desired to forge political alliances. Considering all factors incest taboos are unfounded and not tenable scientifically. Einstein had married his own cousin according to www.cousincouples.com. Darwin, who was and is one the best authorities on genetic factors, too married his own first cousin according to the same website. Marriage itself, whether incestual or otherwise, had relevance only in the original state and the Agrarian Wave, when men and women belonged to permanent families, which formed the basic economic unit. In the Industrial and Digital Waves individuals are much on their own and a permanent marriage and family have lost their economic relevance. Magic: The supposed use of unnatural or superhuman power by a person to try to control human actions or natural events. Magic often seems to achieve results, but the results may actually have other causes. For example, a person might cast a magic spell to make an enemy ill. The enemy may learn about the spell, become frightened and actually feel ill. People throughout the world have practiced magic from the dawn of history. But beginning in the 1600's, science has provided an increasingly greater understanding of the true causes of natural events. This increased scientific knowledge has reduced people's dependence on magic. But many people in non- industrial societies still believe in magic. The practice of magic includes the use of special words, actions and objects. Most magic also involves a person called a magician, who claims to have supernatural powers. Many societies believe the magic will not work unless the magician recites the spells perfectly. Other magic words have no meaning, though they supposedly possess power when spoken by a magician. Magic actions accompany the words spoken in performing much magic. Many of these movements act out the desired effect of the magic. For example, a magician trying to make rainfall may sprinkle water on the ground. The magician's combined words and actions form a ceremony called a rite or ritual. Magic objects include certain plants, stones and other things with supposed supernatural powers. Any such object may be called a fetish. But this term often refers to an object, for example, a carving or a dried snake, honored by a tribe for its magic powers. Many tribes believe fetishes have magic power because spirits live in these objects. Fetus of emus are considered to have special magic powers in Peru. In some societies, nearly everyone knows how to work some magic. But in most societies, only experts practice magic. Magicians may be called medicine men, shamans, sorcerers or witch doctors. In many societies, magicians must inherit their powers. In others, any person may become a magician by studying the magical arts. Many societies believe magicians must observe certain rules and taboos, for their spells to work. For example, they may be required not to eat various foods or to avoid sexual activity for a certain period before the ceremony. Some people divide magic into black magic and white magic. Black magic harms people, but white magic helps them. Witches usually practice black magic. On the other hand, a saint may cure a sick person using white magic. Homeopathic magic is based on the belief that like produces like. In this type of magic, also called imitative magic, magicians act out or imitate what they want to happen. They often use a model or miniature of whatever they want to influence. For example, a fisherman may make a model of a fish and pretend he is netting it. He believes this ritual will assure him a good catch. In some European folk dances, the dancers 298 leap high into the air to make their crops grow tall. People once believed that yellow flowers would cure jaundice, a yellowish discoloration of the body. Many taboos come from homeopathic magic. People avoid certain harmless things because they resemble various harmful things. For example, Eskimo parents might warn their sons against playing a string game, such as cat's cradle, in which children loop string around their fingers. Playing such games might cause the children's fingers to become tangled in the harpoon lines they will use as adults. Contagious magic comes from the belief that after a person has had contact with certain things; they will continue to influence that person. The most common examples of contagious magic involve parts of the body that have been removed, such as fingernails, hair and teeth. A person's nails and hair supposedly can affect the rest of that person's body long after they have been cut off. A person can injure an enemy by damaging a lock of hair or a piece of clothing from the victim. A magician can even cripple an enemy by placing a sharp object in that person's footprint. People who believe in contagious magic fear that an enemy can gain power over them by obtaining parts of their body. Therefore, they carefully dispose of their nails, hair, teeth and even their body wastes. Witches and voodoo magicians often practice a type of homeopathic magic called envoutement. The magician makes a doll or some other likeness of an enemy. The magician harms the enemy by sticking pins into the doll or injuring it in some other way. In some societies, the doll includes a lock of hair or a piece of clothing from the enemy. This type of envoutement is a combination of homeopathic and contagious magic. People turn to magic chiefly as a form of insurance; that is, they use it along with actions that actually bring results. For example, hunters may use a hunting charm. But they also use their hunting skills and knowledge of animals. The charm may give hunters the extra confidence they need to hunt even more successfully than they would without it. If they shoot a lot of game, they credit the charm for their success. Many events occur naturally without magic. Crops grow without it and sick people get well without it. Nevertheless, if people seek the aid of magic to bring a good harvest or to cure a patient, they may believe the magic was responsible for the success. People believe in magic though it succeeds only rarely and they overlook its failures Even when magic fails, people often explain the failure without doubting the power of the magic. They may say that the magician made a mistake in reciting the spell or that another magician cast a more powerful spell against the magician. The use of magic goes back at least as far as 50,000 BCE. There is evidence that around that time, prehistoric people buried cave bears, probably as a magic rite. Scientists believe that much prehistoric art had magical purposes. Hunters, for example, probably used cave paintings of animals in rites intended to help them hunt the animals. During the Middle Ages, nearly all Europeans believed in magic. The clergy considered magic sinful but believed in its power. Alchemists hoped to discover the philosopher's stone, a magic substance that could change iron, lead and other metals into gold. They also sought the elixir of life, a miraculous substance that could cure disease and lengthen life. Many men joined a secret brotherhood called the Rosicrucians, an early version of the present-day Rosicrucian Order. The Rosicrucians studied magic lore and devoted themselves to curing the sick and helping people in other ways. The Masons, another secret group, also had elements of magic in their rituals. Menstruation and Childbirth: Superstitions and religious beliefs vary from man to man, place to place and from time to time. But taboos and practices connected with menstruation seem to be fairly consistent all over the globe. People as different as those of Nepal, India, Portugal, native Americans, the aborigines of Australia, the Headhunters of Borneo and the tribes of Africa.., all seem to have practiced or still practice the isolation of women during the menstruation period. It is also a very widely held belief that if women touch any food during their periods, the food will spoil quickly. Women are widely tabooed from cooking in their period and again this is a very widely held taboo. The practice of celebrating the first menstruation as solemnly as a marriage is also universal. The Bible itself refers to practices connected with menstruation in Genesis 31:35, in the story of Jacob. Laban goes into Rachel’s tent to search for his stolen images. Rachel, who had taken them, sits on them and when Laban enters her tent, tells him that she cannot get up; because “the custom of women is upon me” and Laban lets her be.
299 Among many religions of the world like Hinduism and Islam, women in menstruation are prohibited from entering places of worship. In Christianity, until recently women were prohibited from entering churches for forty days after giving birth. Their first entry into church after childbirth was a ceremony called “Churching” Anthropologists say that the close links between two groups of people can be gauged by the number of common words and practices. Thus Latin and Sanskrit have many similar words in their vocabulary and the respective people have similar practices and beliefs leading the Anthropologists to infer that the Indo- Europeans were one people, thousands of years ago and though they spread all over Europe and Asia some of their words, beliefs and practices remained the same. Taboos, beliefs and practices associated with menstruation seem to be the most universal in time and location and as such these practices must have been practiced by the original man. This phenomenon of widespread practices associated with menstruation lends support to the “Out of Africa” theory of man’s origins in Africa, about 4 million years ago and man’s exodus out of Africa about two million years ago. If so these taboos against menstruation were practiced in Africa 2-4 million years ago. So taboos associated with menstruation is the oldest of superstitions and older than any religious beliefs by about 4 million years. Wow! The mother of all superstitions! Myths and Magic in India: In my childhood there were very strange stories doing the rounds and many of them are believed in even now. Thus the hoot of the owl meant sickness and death for infants. If a toad touched the child, the child would become sick, emaciated and wasted like a tree toad. It is inauspicious to set out on any errand in a group of three. Any number but three is auspicious. If it is three you can rest assured the mission will be a total failure. So if three are to set out, then two go first and the third a little later. Anteaters or armadillos were supposed to be incarnations of pregnant women especially those dead of small pox. There are many stories of people dying of small pox. In those days long ago, when the small pox epidemic came, the people fled, leaving the sick to the care of people who had already been cured of small pox and become immune to it. But these people often got drunk and buried the living in the belief they were dead. These dead reincarnated in different forms and haunted the nights. Pregnant women tuned into blood sucking vampires or ‘Yakshis’. Treasures were hidden underground with the help of “kappiris” or Negroes and then the Kappiris were themselves killed and buried alongside in the belief their ghosts would guard the treasures. It was believed serpents had a yen for treasures and would haunt buried treasures. It was also common practice to kill people and bury them at the foot of bridges in the belief it would strengthen the bridge and that the spirits of the dead would guard the bridge. It was believed that a special type of serpent called the “sarpam” had a precious stone on its head, that when it wanted to bathe, it would take the stone off for a dip in the waters; that if the stone were then covered with cow dung the serpent would not be able to recover it and the serpent would beat its head against stones and die. Once it was dead it was safe to take the stone and once you had it in your hands, you became omnipotent and got whatever you wished for. We have male and female elves. The male ones called “Gandharvans” come at moonlit nights singing beautiful melodies to lure virgins and to impregnate them. Virgins were advised to sleep on their sides on moonlit nights so that the Gandharvans would have a tough time of intercourse with sleeping girls. The female version of the elves called “Yakshis’ had a penchant for drinking human blood. It would approach lonely travelers at nightfall, as a very enticing woman and ask him for quick-lime, an essential ingredient for chewing the betel - a common practice in India. If the unwary traveler offered her lime, she would revert to her hideous form immediately and devour him whole except for the bone, hair and nails. On the other hand, if the quick-lime is offered at the tip of a knife the “Yakshi” would flee into the night. A third option was to draw a cross on the ground and stab the intersection of the arms of the cross with a knife and the “yakshi” would be stabbed too. Obviously, this last practice became acceptable only after the arrival of Christianity. Incidentally Yakshis and Gandharvans spent their days, hidden in different genus of the same tree called “Pala”, which has quite fragrant flowers. Ceremonial or prayer lamps falling down or the flame going out is considered ominous. Brides are expected to put their right foot forward when they enter the groom’s house for the first time. 300 Some days are most auspicious and others are most inauspicious and still others are neither. Each day is further divided into auspicious and inauspicious hours. Important functions like marriages and house warming take place on the most auspicious of days and at the most auspicious of times. When you set out on a journey if you see a broom then it is most inauspicious. If you see a corpse or funeral procession, as you set out on an assignment, it is most auspicious. Sighting the behind of an elephant as you set out and the front of elephant as you return are quite auspicious. Seeing a woman of questionable character as you step out of the home is the most auspicious. So when people set out on important assignments it was the practice to pay such a woman so that she was sure to be seen. Chathan Seva or Chathan service is practiced in Kerala. Chathan is supposed to be a boyish looking spirit, who goes for meat and hooch. If he is properly propitiated the devotee is sure to get rich. The only hitch is that Chathan tests the devotee severely. His main test is that of feces or excrement, appearing in the devotee’s food. The devotee should not reject the food; but consume it, feces and all. If the devotee fails the test he is sure to fall on hard times both in health and wealth. Persistent crowing by a species of crows with ash colored down means visitors. Persistent crowing by another species with black down means death in the family. If you sneeze - someone is talking about you. If your palm itches - money is sure to come by. If a house lizard chirps after a statement it will turn out true. If the right eye twitches, it is auspicious for men and inauspicious for women. If the left eye twitches, things are the other way round. Rainfall during a marriage is considered auspicious Numerology: The use of numbers to interpret a person's character or to divine the future. The theory behind numerology is based on the Pythagorean idea that all things can be expressed in numerical terms because they are ultimately reducible to numbers. Using a method analogous to that of the Greek and Hebrew alphabets (in which each letter also represented a number), modern numerology attaches a series of digits to an inquirer's name and date of birth and from these purports to divine the person's true nature and prospects. Oracle: The response delivered by a deity or supernatural being to a worshiper or inquirer; also, the place where the response was delivered. The responses were supposed to be given by divine inspiration and were manifested through the medium of human beings; through their effect on certain objects, as in the tinkling, at the ancient Greek town of Dodona, of a cauldron when hit by a chain impelled by the wind; or by the actions of sacred animals. Oracles date from the greatest antiquity. Among the ancient Egyptians all the temples were probably oracular. In later days one of the most renowned oracles was that of Amon, in the oasis of Siwa. Oracles were used by the Hebrews, as in the consultation of the Urim and Thummim by the high priest. The oracles in Phoenicia were associated with the deities Baalzebub and other Baalim. Oracles were also common throughout Babylonia and Chaldea. The most renowned Greek oracle was that of Apollo at Delphi. In Asia Minor the most celebrated was the one at Didyma, near Miletus. Other Superstitions: Take anything and invariably there are one or more superstitions attached to it. Below is an encyclopedia of superstitions, which prevail, at various places in the world. Acorn: An acorn should be carried to bring luck and ensure a long life. An acorn at the window will keep lightning out Amber Beads: Worn as a necklace, can protect against illness or cure colds Ambulance: Seeing an ambulance is unlucky unless you pinch your nose or hold your breath until you see a black or a brown dog. Apple: Think of five or six names of boys or girls you might marry. As you twist the stem of an apple, recite the names until the stem comes off. You will marry the person whose name you were saying when the stem fell off. If you cut an apple in half and count how many seeds are inside, you will also know how many children you will have. Baby: To predict the sex of a baby: Suspend a wedding band held by a piece of thread over the palm of the pregnant girl. If the ring swings in an oval or circular motion the baby will be a girl. If the ring swings in a straight line the baby will be a boy. Baseball Bat: Spit on a new bat before using it for the first time to make it lucky. Bed: It is bad luck to put a hat on a bed. If you make a bedspread or a quilt, be sure to finish it or marriage will never come to you. Placing a bed facing north and south brings misfortune. You must get out of bed on the same side that you get in or you will have bad luck. When making the bed, do not interrupt your work or you will spend a restless night in it.
301 Bee: If a bee enters your home, it is a sign that you will soon have a visitor. If you kill the bee, you will have bad luck or the visitor will be unpleasant. A swarm of bees settling on a roof is an omen that the house will burn down. Bell: The sound of bells drives away demons because they are afraid of the loud noise. When a bell rings, a new angel has received his wings. Bird: A bird in the house is a sign of a death. If a robin flies into a room through a window, death will shortly follow. Birth: Monday's child is fair of face; Tuesday's child is full of grace; Wednesday's child is full of woe, Thursday's child has far to go; Friday's child is loving and giving; Saturday's child works hard for a living. But the child that is born on the Sabbath day is fair and wise, good and gay. Birthday Cake: If you blow out all the candles on your birthday cake with the first puff you will get your wish. Blue: To protect yourself from witches, wear a blue bead. Touch blue and your wish will come true Bread: Before slicing a new loaf of bread, make the sign of the cross on it. A loaf of bread should never be turned upside down after a slice has been cut from it. Bridge: If you say good-bye to a friend on a bridge, you will never see each other again. Broom: Do not lean a broom against a bed. The evil spirits in the broom will cast a spell on the bed. If you sweep trash out the door after dark, it will bring a stranger to visit. If someone is sweeping the floor and sweeps over your feet, you will never get married. Never take a broom along when you move. Throw it out and buy a new one. To prevent an unwelcome guest from returning, sweep out the room they stayed in immediately after they leave. Butterfly: If the first butterfly you see in the year is white, you will have good luck all year. Three butterflies together mean good luck. Candle: If a candle lighted as part of a ceremony blows out, it is a sign that evil spirits are nearby. Calf: If the first calf born during the winter is white, the winter will be a bad one. Cat If a black cat walks towards you, it brings good fortune, but if it walks away, it takes the good luck with it. Keep cats away from babies because they ‘suck the breath’ of the child. A cat onboard a ship is considered to bring luck. Cheeks: If your cheeks suddenly feel on fire, someone is talking about you. Chill: If you get a chill up your back or goosebumps, it means that someone is walking over your grave. Chimney Sweep: It is lucky to meet a chimney sweep by chance. Make a wish when sighting one and the wish will come true. Cigarettes: It is bad luck to light three cigarettes with the same match. Circle: Evil spirits cannot harm you when you stand inside a circle. Clock: If a clock, which has not been working suddenly chimes, there will be a death in the family. Clover: It is good luck to find a four-leaf clover. Clover protects human beings and animals from the spell of magicians and the wiles of fairies and brings good luck to those who keep it in the house. Coin: It is bad luck to pick up a coin if it is tails side up. Good luck comes if it is heads up. Comb: To drop a comb while you are combing your hair is a sign of a coming disappointment. Comets: They foretold the death of kings or the destruction of nations, the coming of war or plague. Cough: To cure a cough: take a hair from the coughing person's head, put it between two slices of buttered bread, feed it to a dog and say, "Eat well you hound, may you be sick and I be sound." Cow: Cows lifting their tails is a sure sign that rain is coming. Crack: Do not step on a crack on a sidewalk or walkway. Cricket: brings good luck. Crows: One’s bad, two’s luck, three’s luck, four’s wealth, five’s sickness and six’s death. Dog: A dog howling at night when someone in the house is sick is a bad omen. Door: It is bad luck to leave a house through a different door than the one used to come into it. Ears: If your right ear itches, someone is speaking well of you. If your left ear itches, someone is speaking ill of you. Easter: For good luck throughout the year, wear new clothes on Easter. Eclipse: For many centuries it was believed that eclipses of the sun and moon were prophetic of pestilence or famine. 302 Elephant: Pictures of an elephant bring luck, but only if they face a door. Eye: If your right eye twitches there will soon be a birth in the family. If the left eye twitches there will soon be a death in the family. If the first person, who enters a theater is cross eyed, the audience will be small and the "run" a failure. Finger: Nails It is bad luck to cut your fingernails on Friday or Sunday. Fingernail cuttings should be saved, burned or buried. Fish: A fish should always be eaten from the head toward the tail. Dream of fish: someone you know is pregnant. Fishing: Throw back the first fish you catch, then you will be lucky the whole day fishing. If you count the number of fish you caught, you will catch no more that day. It is bad luck to say the word ‘pig’ while fishing at sea. Flag: It brings bad luck for a flag to touch the ground. Flower: First Flower of Spring: The day you find the first flower of the season can be used as an omen: If it is on Monday it means good fortune; Tuesday means your greatest attempts will be successful, Wednesday means marriage, Thursday means warning of small profits, Friday means wealth, Saturday means misfortune, Sunday means excellent luck for weeks. Foot: If the bottom of your right foot itches, you are going to take a trip. Friday: A bed changed on Friday will bring bad dreams. Any ship that sails on Friday will have bad luck. You should never start a trip on Friday or you will meet misfortune. Never start to make a garment on Friday unless you can finish it the same day. Frog: A frog brings good luck to the house it enters. The dried body of a frog worn in a silk bag around the neck averts epilepsy and other fits. Garlic: keeps evil spirits away Gifts: Do not give your partners the following items as gifts: Shoes - Encourages them to walk out of the relationship Perfumes - Attracts a third party that can break up the relationship Bags - Encourages them to pack and leave the relationship. Good Friday: Cut your hair on Good Friday to prevent headaches in the year to come. A child born on Good Friday and baptized on Easter Sunday has a gift of healing. If a boy, he should go into the ministry. A person who dies on Good Friday will go right to heaven. Shed no blood on Good Friday, work no wood, hammer no nail. Hair: Pulling out a gray or white hair will cause ten more to grow in its place. Hand: If the palm of your right hand itches it means you will soon be getting money. If the palm of your left hand itches it means you will soon be paying out money. Horseshoe: A horseshoe, hung above the doorway, will bring good luck to a home. In most of Europe protective horseshoes are placed in a downward facing position, but in some parts of Ireland and Britain people believe that the horseshoes must be turned upward or ‘the luck will run out.’ A horseshoe hung in the bedroom will keep nightmares away. Knife: A knife as a gift from a lover means that the love will soon end. A knife placed under the bed during childbirth will ease the pain of labor. If a friend gives you a knife, you should give him a coin or your friendship will soon be broken. It will cause a quarrel if knives are crossed at the table. It is bad luck to close a pocketknife unless you were the one who opened it. Knife falls, gentleman calls; Fork falls, lady calls; Spoon falls, baby calls. Ladder: It is bad luck to walk under a ladder. Leaf: If you catch a falling leaf on the first day of autumn you will not catch a cold all winter. Lettuce: Lettuce is believed to have magical and healing properties, including the power to arouse love and counteract the effects of wine. Lettuce promotes child bearing if eaten by young women and certain types of salad can bring on labor in pregnant women. Lizard: To dream of a lizard is a sign that you have a secret enemy. Milk: It is bad luck to let milk boil over. But in India house warming ceremony consists of letting the milk boil over to indicate surplus prosperity. Mirror: To break a mirror means seven years of bad luck. It is unlucky to see your face in a mirror by candlelight. A mirror should be covered during a thunderstorm because it attracts lightning. If a mirror in
303 the house falls and breaks by itself, someone in the house will die soon. In India looking in a broken mirror brings bad luck. Moon: To see the full moon over the left shoulder is unlucky Nose: If your nose itches, someone is coming to see you. If it is the right nostril, the visitor will be a female, if left it will be a male. Onion: An onion cut in half and placed under the bed of a sick person will draw off fever and poisons. A wish will come true if you make it while burning onions. Opal: Unless you were born in October, It is unlucky to wear opals. Owl: It is bad luck to see an owl in the sunlight. Pencil: If you use the same pencil to take a test that you used for studying for the test, the pencil will remember the answers. Pepper: If you spill pepper you will have a serious argument with your best friend. Photograph: If three people are photographed together, the one in the middle will die first. Some people forbid photography of human beings in the belief that photos absorb the soul and vital energies of the person photographed. Rabbit’s Foot: A rabbit’s foot will bring luck and protect the owner from evil spirits, if carried in the pocket. Raven: To kill a raven is to harm the spirit of King Arthur who visits the world in the form of a raven. Red: A red ribbon should be placed on a child who has been sick to keep the illness from returning. Robin: A wish made upon seeing the first robin in spring will come true - but only if you complete the wish before the robin flies away. Rocking Chair: If you leave a rocking chair rocking when empty, it invites evil spirits to come into your house to sit in the rocking chair. Salt: Bad luck will follow the spilling of salt unless a pinch is thrown over the left shoulder into the face of the devil waiting there. Put salt on the doorstep of a new house and no evil can enter. Salty soup is a sign that the cook is in love. Scissors: If you drop scissors, it means your lover is being unfaithful to you. Seagull: Three seagulls flying together, directly overhead, are a warning of death soon to come. Shoes: Do not place shoes upon a table, for this will bring bad luck for the day, cause trouble with your mate and you might even lose your job as a result. It is bad luck to leave shoes upside down. Singing: If you sing before seven, you will cry before eleven. Sleep: You sleep best with your head to the north and your feet to the south. Sneeze: Place a hand in front of your mouth when sneezing. Your soul may escape otherwise. The devil can enter your body when you sneeze. Having someone say, "God bless you" drives the devil away. Sparrow: Sparrows carry the souls of the dead; it is unlucky to kill one. Spider: Seeing a spider run down a web in the afternoon means you will take a trip. A spider is a repellent against plague when worn around the neck in a walnut shell. Stars: All wishes on shooting stars come true. Swan: A swan's feather, sewed into the husband's pillow, will ensure fidelity. Thirteen: If 13 people sit down at a table to eat, one of them will die before the year is over. Tongue: If you bite your tongue while eating, it is because you have recently told a lie. Umbrella: Dropping an umbrella on the floor means that there will be a murder in the house. It is bad luck to open an umbrella inside the house, especially if you put it over your head. Valentine’s Day: If a woman sees a robin flying overhead on Valentine's Day, it means she will marry a sailor. If she sees a sparrow, she will marry a poor man and be quite happy. If she sees a goldfinch, she will marry a millionaire. Veil :A bride's veil protects her from evil spirits who are jealous of happy people. Watermelon: A watermelon will grow in your stomach if you swallow a watermelon seed. Window: All windows should be opened at the moment of death so that the soul can leave. Wish: If you make a wish while throwing a coin into a well or fountain, the wish will come true. If you tell someone your wish, it will not come true. Wood: Knock three times on wood after mentioning good fortune so evil spirits will not ruin it. X: The number of Xs in the palm of your right hand is the number of children you will have. 304 Yawn: A yawn is a sign that danger is near. Cover your mouth when you yawn or your soul can go out of your body along with the yawn. Owl: The owl is almost universally accepted as ominous. Palmistry: Also chiromancy (Greek cheir, “hand”; manteia, “divination”), art of characterization and foretelling the future through the study of the palm. It was known among the Chaldeans, Assyrians, Egyptians and Hebrews and was recognized by such philosophers as Plato and Aristotle. Widely accepted during the Middle Ages, it was revived during the 19th century, especially in France. Since the turn of the century it has been regarded as a branch of fortune telling. Palmistry is chiefly concerned with the mounts of the palm, the lines on the mounts and the lines interlacing the palm. The left hand supposedly reflects inbred and the right hand acquired characteristics. Each mount signifies a certain personality trait. The mount of Jupiter denotes honor and a happy disposition; of Saturn, prudence and therefore success; of Apollo, appreciation of beauty; of Mercury, scientific, industrial and commercial interests; of Mars, courage; of the Moon, a dreamy disposition; and of Venus, an amorous nature. The four most important lines represent life, intelligence, the heart or sensation and personal fortune. Other markings of the palm corroborate or modify by their positions the deductions made from the mounts and lines. Parrotry: A type of divination commonly practiced in India. The diviner has a caged parrot and a pack of cards depicting various Hindu gods. Of late pictures of Christian saints are also included. The parrot is let out of the cage to pick out any card at random and from the picture, thus picked out by the parrot, the fortunes of the client are foretold. Prayer: Prayer is a significant and universal aspect of religion, whether of primitive peoples or of modern mystics, that expresses the broad range of religious feelings and attitudes that command man's relations with the supernatural. Described by some scholars as religion's primary mode of expression, prayer is said to be to religion what rational thought is to philosophy; it is the very expression of living religion. According to the American philosopher William James, without prayer there can be no question of religions. Prayer probably evolved as a higher level of magic in the distant past. Sociologists often explain prayer in terms of the religious environment, which plays an indubitable role in spiritual behavior. Though prayer supposes a personal belief, that belief is, to a great extent, provided by society. Prayer can be classified as petition, confession, intercession, praise and thanksgiving, adoration, ecstasy. The forms that prayer takes in the religions of the world, though varied, generally follow certain fixed patterns. These include: benedictions (blessings), litanies (alternate statements, titles of the deity or deities or petitions and responses), ceremonial and ritualistic prayers, free prayers (in intent following no fixed form), repetition or formula prayers (e.g., the repetition of the name of Jesus in Eastern Christian Hesychasm, a quietistic monastic movement or the repetition of the name of Amit (Buddha in Japanese Buddhism), hymns, doxologies (statements of praise or glory) and other forms. The prayers of peoples of an illiterate society generally are concerned with the self (egoistic) and with well-being (eudaemonic); at the same time they are clearly pragmatic, concerned above all with food, health, protection and posterity. As society developed and grew more complex, prayer too became sophisticated. Supplication, praise, confession, intercession etc are practices that evolved in the courts of kings and emperors. Prayers too seem to have evolved along these lines. Priest: The priest is deemed to be an authority on rituals. He may have secret knowledge of propitiating the deities for gaining favours for the devotee and for wrecking vengeance on enemies. The priest’s repertoire contains various forms of worship, incantations, sacrificial acts, songs etc, which are believed to bridge the gap between heaven and earth, between the natural and the supernatural. The word Pontiff, used to denote the Pope, is derived from pontifex, which means bridge. Priests gain these techniques either from traditional sources such as parents or relatives or from formal schools. The magician, shaman, diviner or prophet, who obtain their positions by means of individual efforts may also have priestly functions. The priest is the accepted religious and spiritual leader in his society. Because of their power to influence the supernatural, priests always command utmost respect in all societies. The priest is often called upon at critical junctures in the lives of individuals (such as birth, puberty, marriage and death) and in the life of a community (such as seasonal changes or at times of flood, drought and famine). Priests have also been known to take over the function of judges mainly because of the respect they command in society. In some societies such as in India, the king was subordinate to the priest. 305 In Catholicism there is a clear-cut hierarchy of priests, whereas in many other Christian denominations, the laity take over the priestly functions. . In Islam there is, technically, no priesthood, though there are local spiritual and community leaders, such as the imam, the mullah, the mufti, the qadi and others. Mostly men are consecrated as priests though women priests were common in ancient Greece and Rome. Personal requirements such as celibacy, asceticism, begging, piety etc may be required of priests. In some religions such as Judaism and Hinduism, priests could be drawn only from certain tribes or castes. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Priesthood has often been accused of siding with the rich to exploit the poor and ignorant and there have been many backlashes against priests. The Protestant Reformation in Europe was a backlash against the avarice and corruption of papacy. In the French and Russian revolutions, the clergy was counted among the nobles and exploiters of society and many ended up on the guillotine or as gun-fodder. Prophets: Religious phenomenon, in which a message is sent by God (or by a god) to human beings through an intermediary or prophet. The message may contain a reference to future events, but it is often simply a warning, encouragement or piece of information. Prophecy in its fullest sense thus includes augury, divination and oracles, which are techniques by which, it is believed, the will of the gods can be made manifest. Prophets have often spoken in ecstasy, a state that may be induced by various methods, including drug, dance or music. Long incantations, rigorous fasting and deprivation or delirious fever may induce prophetic visions. The emphasis of the prophetic message has varied, some prophets stressing the cultic, others the moral and still others the missionary aspect of religious life. Prophets have appeared throughout history and in virtually all societies. All societies have the custom of people going into a trance and uttering vague or incoherent stuff as in Voodoo and Shamanism. All societies credit spirits for speaking through the possessed. Possession by god was just another step away and prophets of scriptures evolved. Prophecy has been the subject of much debate among scholars, whose discussion has often centered on the question of whether or not prophecy derives from some force external to the prophet. One tendency is to view prophecy as an essentially subconscious psychological phenomenon, involving hallucination, wishful thinking, guesswork and often, plain fraud. Somehow all prophets down the ages have been charismatic leaders who built up sizeable followings and stories of their singular connection with God proved useful to them in attracting as well as in maintaining their following. Political backing has also been essential. 'Prophets' who had neither charisma nor political backing were simply forgotten in time. One of the oldest known prophets is Zoroaster. Then came a long line of prophets, especially in the Bible. Prophets and prophecies are most prolific to the Semitic religions. The Old Testament is crammed with them. The New Testament is no different. Starting with Jesus it goes on thorough the centuries to the present day though they use different names as apostles, saints, etc. In Islamic version of the continuation of the Bible there is Muhammad and then Ali and then a long procession of Mahdis claiming to be prophets or messengers. Even in this enlightened Third Wave, there are prophets like the Reverend Moon and his wife, who have amassed fortunes on such cock and bull stories. One wonders why God has to speak to anyone in the privacy of a lonely desert and a burning bush or on the loneliness of a cave. It would have been far simpler and easier for God to speak or use a thousand technologies of conveying his message to the target audience or to humanity as a whole. There would not be distortions of the message if it were delivered direct instead of through a messenger. Some Muslims believe that Muhammad stole the prophetship from Ali through guile. Others believe that it was the Angel Gibreel that fowled things up and anointed Muhammad as the prophet instead of Ali. Such situations could have been avoided if God did away with prophets and messengers, which the Omnipotent could have easily done. Obviously stories of such messages from a lonely desert or cave, with no company whatsoever, serve the interests of only one man, the man who claims to be the prophet or messenger. It serves only his personal, political or economic agenda. The case of Mohammad resorting to messages from God to endorse his whims and fancies is a case as described in the box below is a case in point. Thomas S. Szasz’s words may be pertinent “If you talk to God, you are praying. If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia.”
306 The Prophet and his Messages of convenience: Muhammad was a prophet who manipulated his so-called messages from God to suit him, his moods, his needs and his situations. At the start of his mission he was a weak force and so quite humble and tolerant. This state of his mind is reflected in the following Suras ostensibly revealed to him by the Almighty: 006.108 “Revile not ye those whom they call upon besides Allah, lest they out of spite revile Allah in their ignorance. Thus have we made alluring to each people its own doings. In the end will they return to their Lord, and We shall then tell them the truth of all that they did.” 002.256 “Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error: whoever rejects evil and believes in Allah hath grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold, that never breaks. And Allah heareth and knoweth all things.” After Hijra in Medina we see a different Muhammad and his messages become more and more strident and aggressive as he waxes strong after his military victory at Badr and this aggression is came through in his revelations. Thus 073.010-12 “And have patience with what they say, and leave them with noble (dignity). 11 And leave me (alone to deal with) those in possession of the good things of life, who (yet) deny the Truth; and bear with them for a little while. 12 With Us are Fetters (to bind them), and a Fire (to burn them)” 002.193 “And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah; but if they cease, Let there be no hostility except to those who practice oppression.” 002.191 “And slay them wherever ye catch them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out; for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter; but fight them not at the Sacred Mosque, unless they (first) fight you there; but if they fight you, slay them. Such is the reward of those who suppress faith.” 066.009 “O Prophet! Strive hard against the Unbelievers and the Hypocrites, and be firm against them. Their abode is Hell, an evil refuge (indeed).” At Mecca and at the initial stages of Islam at Medina, Muhammad considered Jews, Christians and Sabians as of one faith as Islam. The messages from on high came accordingly as follows: P003.020 So if they dispute with thee, say: "I have submitted my whole self to Allah and so have those who follow me." And say to the People of the Book and to those who are unlearned: "Do ye (also) submit yourselves?" If they do, they are in right guidance, but if they turn back, Thy duty is to convey the Message; and in Allah's sight (all) are His servants.” 002.062 “Those who believe (in the Qur'an), and those who follow the Jewish (scriptures), and the Christians and the Sabians, any who believe in Allah and the Last Day, and work righteousness, shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.” 002:62 above, is repeated almost verbatim in 005.069 But then after ten years in Medina, Islam and Muhammad were the supreme power and the divine messages take on a menacing tone as below: N009.029 Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued” 098.006 “Those who reject (Truth), among the People of the Book and among the Polytheists, will be in Hell-Fire, to dwell therein (for aye). They are the worst of creatures” In his humble beginnings the Prophet was within reach of everyone. But as he progressed in power and influence he began to move out of reach of his people and the messages from heaven came in accordance: 049.001 “O Ye who believe! Put not yourselves forward before Allah and His Messenger; but fear Allah: for Allah is He Who hears and knows all things. 002 O ye who believe! Raise not your voices above the voice of the Prophet, nor speak aloud to him in talk, as ye may speak aloud to one another, lest your deeds become vain and ye perceive not. 003 Those 307 that lower their voices in the presence of Allah's Messenger,- their hearts has Allah tested for piety: for them is Forgiveness and a great Reward. 004 Those who shout out to thee from without the inner apartments - most of them lack understanding. 005 If only they had patience until thou couldst come out to them, it would be best for them: but Allah is oft-forgiving, Most Merciful” 033.053 “O ye who believe! Enter not the Prophet's houses, until leave is given you, - for a meal - (and then) not (so early as) to wait for its preparation: but when ye are invited, enter; and when ye have taken your meal, disperse, without seeking familiar talk. Such (behavior) annoys the Prophet: he is ashamed to dismiss you, but Allah is not ashamed (to tell you) the truth. And when ye ask (his ladies) for anything ye want, ask them from before a screen: that makes for greater purity for your hearts and for theirs. Nor is it right for you that ye should annoy Allah's Messenger, or that ye should marry his widows after him at any time. Truly such a thing is in Allah's sight an enormity.” This expediency of prophecy extends to many social situations as quoted below: 004.024 “Also (prohibited are) women already married, except those whom your right hands possess (Slaves and those taken in battle whether married or unmarried)” As a man acquires more wealth and power his sexual urges often surge in proportion, and Muhammad was no exception. In his years at Mecca and the early years at Medina, Muhammad was totally devoted to Khadija, his first and only wife of over fifteen years. After her death and with his growing power he began to take on wives, concubines and others at the drop of a hat - over twenty of them in half as many years. Again God gave him all-out support with verses from on high. It grew to such ridiculous proportions that Ayeha, Muhammad’s ‘favorite’ wife remarked sarcastically, “Your God is always very prompt in acceding to your desires.” Ayesha made this remark when the extremely beautiful Umm Sharik ‘offered’ herself to the Prophet and the prophet eagerly accepted her with the following verse purportedly from on high: 033.050 “O Prophet! We have made lawful to thee thy wives to whom thou hast paid their dowers; and those whom thy right hand possesses out of the prisoners of war whom Allah has assigned to thee; and daughters of thy paternal uncles and aunts, and daughters of thy maternal uncles and aunts, who migrated (from Makka) with thee; and any believing woman who dedicates her soul to the Prophet if the Prophet wishes to wed her; this only for thee, and not for the Believers (at large); We know what We have appointed for them as to their wives and the captives whom their right hands possess, in order that there should be no difficulty for thee. And Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful” The verse virtually grants Muhammad alone the divine right to take any woman he pleases, a right unique to him alone and not to the other believers, not even to those who stood by him through the thick and thin of his 'mission'. Again in the next verse Muhammad gets indiscriminate power over his wives, a right denied to other Muslims. Surah 033.051 “Thou mayest defer (the turn of) any of them that thou pleasest, and thou mayest receive any thou pleasest: and there is no blame on thee if thou invite one whose (turn) thou hadst set aside. This were nigher to the cooling of their eyes, the prevention of their grief, and their satisfaction - that of all of them - with that which thou hast to give them: and Allah knows (all) that is in your hearts: and Allah is All-Knowing, Most Forbearing” But his wives would take it no more and Muhammad too felt enough was enough and in accordance came God’s revelations: 033.052 “It is not lawful for thee (to marry more) women after this, nor to change them for (other) wives, even though their beauty attract thee, except any thy right hand should possess (as handmaidens): and Allah doth watch over all things.” It is reported that once a man came visiting one of Muhammad ’s wives. The Prophet ordered him not to visit her again. The man protested that the woman was his cousin and that he was to marry her after the Prophet’s death. This aroused the Prophet’s jealousy and came the message from the Godhead: 033.053” … that makes for greater purity for your hearts and for theirs. Nor is it right for 308 you that ye should annoy Allah's Messenger, or that ye should marry his widows after him at any time. Truly such a thing is in Allah's sight an enormity.” Zainab was the Prophet’s cousin and at the Prophet’s initiative she had married Zyed, Muhammad ’s adopted son. According to the Arab custom adopted sons had all the rights of real sons. As such Zainab was Muhammad ’s daughter-in-law and taboo for him to marry. But in time the Prophet’s lust turned to Zainab too and the affection was probably returned. Zyed was left with no alternative but to divorce her and came another revelation to facilitate things for the Prophet. 033.003 And put thy trust in Allah, and enough is Allah as a disposer of affairs, 004 Allah has not made for any man two hearts in his (one) body: nor has He made your wives whom ye divorce by Zihar your mothers: nor has He made your adopted sons your sons. Such is (only) your (manner of) speech by your mouths. But Allah tells (you) the Truth, and He shows the (right) Way and 037 Behold! Thou didst say to one who had received the grace of Allah and thy favor: "Retain thou (in wedlock) thy wife, and fear Allah." But thou didst hide in thy heart that which Allah was about to make manifest: thou didst fear the people, but it is more fitting that thou shouldst fear Allah. Then when Zaid had dissolved (his marriage) with her, with the necessary (formality), We joined her in marriage to thee: in order that (in future) there may be no difficulty to the Believers in (the matter of) marriage with the wives of their adopted sons, when the latter have dissolved with the necessary (formality) (their marriage) with them. And Allah's command must be fulfilled.” Al hamdilillah! A kind and convenient God indeed, who danced to his every tune! The most famous of the Messenger's expedient messages are the 'Satanic Verses' when he even prostrated himself before the idols in the Kaaba to please his own people the Quereysh on the basis of a purported message from God and then recanted when he was powerful enough to recant, accusing the purported first verses to be 'the Satanic verses'
Rites: Also called rite of passage, any of numerous ceremonial events, existing in all historically known societies, that mark the passage of an individual from one social or religious status to another. Many of the most important and common rites are connected with the biological stages of life—birth, maturity, reproduction and death; other rites celebrate changes that are wholly cultural, such as initiation into special societies or groups. Rites of passage are characteristically rich in symbolism. The transformative process is expressed in several motifs, which have a wide geographical and cultural distribution. In the widespread ritual reenactment of death and rebirth, initiates are ceremonially “killed” to remove them from their former life, treated as infants in the transitional period and made to mature into their new status. Successful passage of ordeals forms a regular feature of the transitional requirements and doorways are often used to signify entry into the new domain. The new status is usually indicated by some alteration of the body (e.g., circumcision, removal of teeth, tattooing, dressing of the hair, etc.) or by the addition of special clothing and ornaments. According to some interpretations, these rites serve to bridge critical stages in the life process and to help the individual confront certain uncontrollable aspects of the world he inhabits. By providing a predictable, communal context for individual experience, rites of passage act psychotherapeutically to alleviate the inevitable anxiety that accompanies change. Sacrifice: The term sacrifice derives from the Latin sacrificium, which means make sacred. Making a sacrifice is the most important form of worship. Prayers, songs and other ceremonies only supplement or at most complement sacrifice. The killing of an animal is the means by which its consecrated life is “liberated” and thus made available to the deity as well as to the dead ancestors and the destruction of a food offering in an altar's fire is the means by which the deity or the ancestors receives the offering. Sacrifice is a gift to the gods to secure their favor or to minimize their hostility. In the ancient past making gifts to chiefs and potentates was a form of gaining favors. Sacrifices were made to placate the supernatural in the belief that these supernatural forces too would be pleased with gifts as men would be. And as in human society, a quid pro quo was expected for the sacrifice.
309 In those days the problems and interests of the individual and the community were identical. So the community as a whole took place in worship and the sacrifice. Just as a mass petition carries more weight than a personal petition, communal worship and sacrifice was considered more effective than individual worship. First born of animals and first fruit of plant were offered as sacrifice. If the sacrifice was intended for a sky god, it was often burnt. If intended for an earth god it was buried and if intended for a water-based deity it was immersed. Sometimes the sacrifice was shared among the community in a feast. It was assumed that ancestors and spirits were also present at the feast and would shower their blessings on the participants. In ancient societies, it was the oldest patriarch or matriarch who offered the sacrifices for the simple reason that they knew many of the ancestors personally and so was in the best position to commune with them and gain favors. Thus we see Abraham making sacrifices to the God of Israel. Society grew more complex and so did religious ceremonies. In time a specialist was and the priest came into the picture. Frequently, special acts must be performed by the sacrificer before and sometimes also after the sacrifice. In the Vedic cult, the sacrificer and his wife were required to undergo an initiation ritual bathing, seclusion, fasting and prayer, the purpose of which was to remove them from the profane world and to purify them for contact with the sacred world. At the termination of the sacrifice came a rite of “desacralization” in which they bathed in order to remove any sacred potencies that might have attached themselves during the sacrifice. Most frequently, the intermediary between the community and the god, between the profane and the sacred realms, is the priest. As a rule, not everyone can become a priest; there are requirements of different kinds to be satisfied. Usually, the priest must follow some training, which may be long and severe. There is always some form of consecration he has to undergo. For communities in which a priest functions, he is the obvious person to make sacrifices. Human sacrifice was common. The custom of human sacrifices points to the practice of cannibalism in our primordial past. In Mexico the belief that the sun needed human nourishment led to sacrifices in which as many as 20,000 victims perished annually in the Aztec and Nahua calendrical maize ritual in the 14th century CE. Bloodless human sacrifices also developed and assumed greatly different forms: e.g., a Celtic ritual involved the sacrifice of a woman by immersion and among the Maya in Mexico young maidens were drowned in sacred wells; in Peru women were strangled; in ancient China the king's retinue was commonly buried with him and such internments continued intermittently until the 17th century. The Eucharist, as understood in many of the Christian churches, contains elements of human sacrifice and cannibalism. In many cults, sacrifices are distinguished by frequency of performance into two types, regular and special. Regular sacrifices may be daily, weekly, monthly or seasonal (as at planting, harvest and New Year). Also often included are sacrifices made at specific times in each man's life- birth, puberty, marriage and death. Offerings made on special occasions and for special intentions have included, for example, sacrifices in times of danger, sickness or crop failure and those performed at the construction of a building, for success in battle or in thanksgiving for a divine favor. The common place of sacrifice in most cults is an altar. The table type of altar is uncommon; more often it is only a pillar, a mound of earth, a stone or a pile of stones. Among the Hebrews in early times and other Semitic peoples the altar of the god was frequently an upright stone (matztzeva) established at a place in which the deity had manifested itself. It was bet el, the “house of God.” Sacrifices are made for health and prosperity. There are some universal traits associated with sacrifices. Thus first-fruit or first-calf offering is universally practiced. Numerous instances are also known of animal and human sacrifices made in the course of the construction of houses, shrines and other buildings and in the laying out of villages and towns. Shaman or Medicine Man: It is the oldest profession on earth. It was based on the belief that the shaman, an ecstatic figure, had power to heal the sick and to communicate with the world beyond. The term shamanism comes from the Manchu-Tungus word šaman and Shaman means “he who knows.” Shamanism is practiced all over the world and is known by various names as voodoo etc. It is generally agreed that shamanism evolved before the development of class society in the Neolithic Period (New Stone Age) and the Bronze Age, that it was practiced among peoples living in the hunting-and-gathering stage and that it continued to exist, somewhat altered, among peoples who had reached the animal-raising and horticultural stage. Opinions differ as to whether the term shamanism may be 310 applied to all religious systems in which the central personage is believed to have direct intercourse through an ecstatic state with the transcendent world that permits him to act as healer, diviner and psychopomp (escort of souls of the dead to the other world). Shamanism is often distinguished by its special clothing, accessories and rites as well as by the specific worldview connected with them. A specialist man or woman is accepted by the society as being able to communicate directly with the transcendent world and thereby also possessed the ability to heal and to divine; this person is held to be of great use to society in dealing with the spirit world. Characteristic folklore texts and shaman songs have come into being as improvisations on traditional formulas in luring calls and imitations of animal sounds. In consequence of his profession, the shaman cannot go hunting and fishing and cannot participate in productive work; therefore, he must be supported by the community, which considers his professional activity necessary. Some shamans make use of their special position for economic gain. Among the reindeer- raising Evenk of northern Siberia, poor families have to pay yearly one animal and rich ones pay two, three or even four, to the shaman for his activities. A saying of the Altai Kizhi illustrates this situation: “If the beast becomes ill, the dogs fatten; if man becomes ill, the shaman fattens.” Among the Evenk, it was the duty of every member of the clan to aid the shaman economically. When distributing the fishing spots in the spring and summer, the part of the river most abundant in fish was given to the shaman and even the fishing devices were set up for him. He was aided in grazing and herding the reindeer in autumn and in winter the members of the clan went hunting in his stead. Even furs were presented to the shaman occasionally. The social authority of the shaman was shown through the honors bestowed on him and the practice of always giving him the best food. Generally, the shaman was never contradicted, nor was any unfavorable opinion expressed about him even behind his back. Such an economic and social position resulted in the shaman attaining political power. The extraordinary profession of the shaman naturally distinguishes him socially. The belief that he communicates with the spirits gives him authority and power. Furthermore, the belief that his actions may not only bring benefit but also harm makes him feared. Priests, bishops and the Pope himself are glorified versions of the Shamans of old and live parasitical lives off the fear and ignorance of the faithful. Sin: In religion, transgression of a sacred or divinely sanctioned law or practice. Some idea of sin is found in most religions. Perhaps the earliest manifestation of it was the strong opprobrium attached to violating a taboo. In the ancient religions Gnosticism and Manichaeism, sin was regarded as a manifestation of the human spirit and its fall from the divine realm and its imprisonment in the evil material world. In Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, the concept closest to sin is that of demerit, the accumulation, through wrong deeds, of evil consequences, which must be purged in the process of transmigration. I have found the Christian concept of original sin really interesting. We are told it has passed on to us from our first parents, Adam and Eve. With all our cruelty and injustice, we do not pass on culpability even from father to son. How much more absurd and preposterous is it for a just God to pass it on generation after generation from the first man on earth to the last one? I for one think that the concept of original sin has its origin in the guilt complex ingrained into us by our parents. In our childhood approval of our actions often come in the form of laughter from our parents. On the other hand censure comes in the form of words and for reasons of nature or nurture or both they are words of disapproval that stick in our minds far longer than gestures of approval. What is more censure often is accompanied by the words “You are always like that.” Slowly our minds get tattooed with the words of disapproval leaving us always wondering whether what we do is right or wrong. Original sin is this tattoo on our mind. The concept of Original Sin is a simple manifestation of the “I'm-not-OK” syndrome, instilled into us in our infancy and childhood by grownups. Spells: Just as there are prayers for every occasion, there seem to be spells too for many occasions. On an internet site, called www.paganwiccan.com, I found the following spells for sale: Appearance Spells, Banishing Releasing Spells, Communication Spells, Healing Spells, Employment Spells, Fertility Spell, Love Spells, Mood Spells, Prosperity Spells, Protection Spells, Psychic Spells, Spells for Pets, Travel Spells. The list is by no means exhaustive. Taboo or Tabu: It is the prohibition of an action or the use of an object based on ritualistic distinctions of them either as being sacred and consecrated or as being dangerous, unclean and accursed. The term taboo is of Polynesian origin and was first noted by Captain James Cook during his visit to Tonga in 1771; he introduced the term into the English language, where it achieved widespread currency. 311 Taboos could include prohibitions on fishing or picking fruit at certain seasons; food taboos that restrict the diet of pregnant women; prohibitions on talking to or touching chiefs or members of other high social classes; taboos on walking or traveling in certain areas, such as forests; and various taboos that function during important life events such as birth, marriage and death. There is an apparent inconsistency between the taboos in which notions of sacredness or holiness are apparent (e.g., the head of a Polynesian chief was taboo and thus could not be touched because of his general character as a sacred leader) and taboos in which notions of uncleanliness were the motivating factor (e.g., physical contact with a menstruating woman may be taboo because it is thought to be defiling and persons who have been in physical contact with the dead may likewise be forbidden to touch food with their hands). Generally, the prohibition that is inherent in a taboo includes the idea that a breach or defiance of the taboo will automatically be followed by some kind of trouble to the offender, such as lack of success in hunting or fishing, sickness or the death of a relative. These misfortunes would ordinarily be regarded as accidents or bad luck, but to believers in taboos they are regarded as punishments for breaking some taboo. A person meets with an accident or has no success in a given pursuit and in seeking for its cause, he or others infer that he has in some manner committed a breach of taboo. In his book Totem and Taboo (1913) Sigmund Freud provided perhaps the most ingenious explanation for the apparently irrational nature of taboos, positing that they were generated by ambivalent social attitudes and in effect represent forbidden actions for which there nevertheless exists a strong unconscious inclination. Freud directly applied this viewpoint to the most universal of all taboos, the incest taboo, which prohibits sexual relations between close blood relatives. Again as in religion, as in superstitions, what is taboo in one society may be the norm in others. In the West incest takes top place in the list of taboos. Marriages between cousins even thrice removed are frowned upon. But in much of the world marriage between cousins is more the rule than the exception. In ancient Egypt, Greece and among the Incas of America, marriages between even siblings were common. Marrying one’s own sister was the norm in Hawaii until recent times. Vaastu: A practice in India based on the principle that the design of buildings, be it home, office or workplace, can influence the owner’s health, wealth and future. The position of the kitchen, dining room, the position of water sources such as wells, position of the doors and windows, entrances and exits, gates and other design factors are supposed to have their effects on those who inhabit the premises. If the design is not right it can lead to misfortunes including death in the family. The Vaastu consultant is as respected as the priest and astrologer. Buildings are modified according to Vaastu principle if the owner has a spell of misfortunes. Strangely enough lessees are not as vulnerable as the owner. Vampire: In popular legend, a bloodsucking creature, supposedly the restless soul of a heretic, criminal or suicide, that leaves its burial place at night, often in the form of a bat, to drink the blood of humans. By daybreak it must return to its grave or to a coffin filled with its native earth. Its victims become vampires after death. Although the belief in vampires was widespread over Asia and Europe, it was primarily a Slavic and Hungarian legend, with reports proliferating in Hungary from 1730 to 1735. Ways of the Gods: Throughout history there is evidence of worship at natural sites as well as at sites constructed for ritualistic purposes. Initially, the objects of this frequently occurring process were sacred trees considered to be the habitats of spirits or gods, such as in Vedic, Brahmanic and Buddhist India or pre- Islamic Arabia. Sacred stones, such as fragments of meteorites, menhirs (upright stones) and rocks like the Black Stone of Mecca in the Kaabah, flowing waters, natural lakes and sacred and purifying rivers, such as the Ganges, crossroads and junctions such as the Triveni in India and other such objects or places of nature also are considered sacred. According to Hesiod, an 8th-century-BC Greek writer, such objects of nature were venerated in the popular piety of the rustic people of Greece in his times. The association on the same site of four natural elements (mountain, tree, stone and water) is supposed to constitute a sacred whole (a quarternity of perfection), a sacred landscape or “geography” similar to the world of the gods. Thus most places of worship have domes or pyramids for top, which represent mountains. Then there are crosses, lamp structures etc which represent trees. Water is an essential part of all places of worship and so is fire in most religions. Whatever its size and form, a sacred area is usually delimited by an enclosure, such as a simple fence around sacred trees or Buddhist stupas or high walls with immense gates around temples. The main idea in delimiting the holy place is to protect the sacred element and its mystery. 312 In Indo-European civilizations the essential element of the sacred furniture is the altar, the site of which varies according to the cult and period under consideration. Tables for sacrifice, burnt offerings and offerings of plants or perfumes have sometimes been placed outside the temple, as at the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem and in temples of ancient Egypt. In early Christian cults, a single altar was placed in the chapel. Later, about the 6th century, the number of altars was increased, with one in each chapel of the larger church building. Then there is the Sanctam Sactorum, the most important place in a church or temple. The Jews keep a replica of the tablets here; Christians have the holy Eucharist and Parsees have a special urn containing fire, which they worship. Then there is the hall of the church, mosque or temple, which serves as a meeting point, and sermons are preached here. Permanent lighting is also required in certain cults. Candles or lamps are lit before the deity in residence. Candleholders and lamps of all forms are necessary to the worship environment. Fans and fly-swatters (Sikhs), parasols and standards, most of them signs of royalty, complete the list. Because of the need to attract the deity's attention, sound-producing instruments are used. Usually they are percussive or shrill, rather than melodic. Drums, gongs, cymbals, bells, conchs and sistrums (timbrels or rattles) are the most common forms. There are festivals of lights such as Deepali for Hindus, Jains, Thais, Tibetans etc, Sanukka among the Jews etc. The lamps, which are lit everywhere (e.g., in temples, in houses, and at crossroads), are also set afloat on streams, rivers and lakes. Some lamps are made of glass, like the votive lights of Roman Catholicism, with a wick dipped in a vegetable oil. Some lamps are made of clay; and others are made of rice paste with a central hollow filled with ritually clarified butter or ghee. Lamps may be cut out of a plant stalk in the shape of a bark or raft. The Jains use earthen saucers containing either wicks immersed in coconut oil or pieces of lighted camphor. Another form of this festival was known in Thailand, where three earthen pots, containing rice, seeds, beans, and an oil-soaked wick, were placed at the top of three poles opposite the temple entrance and the fire was kept burning for three days. Mineral oil is never used in relation to worship though mineral wax candles find favor. The use of incense or the fumes of aromatic substances is especially widespread in the great religions of the world and has many symbolic meanings. It may signify purification, symbolize prayer (as among the Hebrews) or be an offering that rises to the celestial or sacred realm. Holders for burning these also form an important part of the articles used in worship. Werewolf: In European folklore, a man who turns into a wolf at night and devours animals, people or corpses but returns to human form by day. Some werewolves change shape at will; others, in whom the condition is hereditary or acquired by having been bitten by a werewolf, change shape involuntarily, under the influence of a full moon. If he is wounded in wolf form, the wounds will show in his human form and may lead to his detection. Witchcraft: The use of supposed magic powers, generally to harm people or to damage their property. A witch is a person believed to have received such powers from evil spirits. From earliest times, people in all parts of the world have believed in witches. Unlike in the West, witchcraft in Africa and the West Indies and among the Indians of North America does not involve the Devil. Most of the time, such non-European witchcraft seeks to harm people. But it may also be used to help people. For example, a person in love may ask a witch for a love potion (drink) to give the loved one. Drinking the potion will supposedly make the loved one return the love. The word witch comes from the Anglo-Saxon word wicca, meaning wise one or magician. Originally, a witch was either a man or a woman who supposedly had supernatural powers. Through the years, only women came to be considered witches. Men with similar powers were called sorcerers, warlocks or wizards. People who believe in witchcraft think a witch can harm people in various ways. In one form of witchcraft, the witch makes a small wax or wooden image of the victim. The witch may put something from the victim's body into the image, such as fingernail clippings or hair. The witch then destroys the image by cutting it, burning it or sticking pins into it. The victim supposedly suffers severe pain or even death. Sometimes a witch casts a spell by reciting a magic formula or mantra. The spell makes the victim suffer. The witch usually mutters the victim's name while casting the spell. In some societies, people use false names so that witches can have no power over them. 313 People once blamed witches for any unexplained misfortune, such as illness, a sudden death or a crop failure. People accused witches of marrying demons and bearing monster children. Witches might make cows go dry by stealing their milk or cast a spell on a churn to prevent butter from forming. People also thought witches could raise storms and turn people into beasts. Church persecution of witches occurred in England, France, Germany, Italy, Scotland and Spain. In 1431, Joan of Arc, the French national heroine, was condemned to death as a witch by the English and was burned at the stake. From 1484 to 1782, according to some historians, the church put to death about 300,000 women for practicing witchcraft. Many of these women suffered such terrible torture that they confessed to being witches simply to avoid further torment. People used many kinds of tests to determine whether a woman was a witch. For example, they looked for moles, scars or other marks on the woman's body where a pin could be stuck without causing pain. Such devil's marks were said to be places where the devil had touched the accused woman. Devil's marks also included birthmarks. In another test, people tied the suspected woman's arms and legs and threw her into deep water. If she floated, she was considered guilty of being a witch. If she sank, she was innocent.
314 The Conclusion
Economics, Ethics and New Age Blues
"There has never been an age that did not applaud the past and lament the present." Llillian Eichler Watson
ince Toffler expressed his futuristic views in his masterpiece ‘The Third Wave,’ momentous changes have been taking place and we are already in the thick of the fag-end of the Third Wave. If the Digital Swave started by the computer, the fag-end of the wave comes pocket-size in the form of the mobile phone. The mobile phone has drastically changed the way we communicate and finally we are free of fixed telephones and other means of communication, which tie us down to our office or home. Now your office and your home are where you are. This has resulted in quantum leaps in how both personal and business transactions are conducted. If the start of the Digital wave shrunk the globe to a village, the fag-end of the wave has shrunk the globe into your pocket. What will the Fourth Wave be like? I am no futurist of any sort. Nonetheless, I see the Fourth or the Fifth Wave as one based on cooperation. Down the ages, human history has been one of conflicts and confrontations where race was pitted against race, nation against nation, poor against rich, woman against man, man against man, brother against brother and every possible permutation-combination of these and other ethnic, biological and social factors. Milestones of history were wars and battles won or lost. However, conflicts and confrontations are usually as many steps backward as it takes further inputs to restore the status quo ante. Mutual prejudices and suspicions of the past waves often fueled these conflicts and confrontations. Now there is light at the end of the tunnel. For the first time in history, we are cooperating and building win-win situations on a gargantuan scale, a scale never before even imagined. As expressed above, the European Community, ASEAN and other international cooperative movements between historical archrivals are the first signs of this global cooperation that is to spearhead the next quantum leap in productivity. We shall have global cooperation where national borders will become increasingly porous for people to cross and lead to a far more effective exchange of ideas, technology and cooperation. This in turn will reduce social tensions and increase prosperity to higher and ever higher levels. The future, based on cooperation, can only be founded on consensus and sacrifices, empathy and mutual trust. To cooperate we have to do away with traditional suspicions and prejudices, we have to give even our enemies the benefit of a doubt. Sam Pitroda speaks of mental infrastructure or mental attitudes, which are necessary for progress. Mutual trust is one of them. The Fourth Wave has shrunk us into a pocket and there is no room for mental xenophobia, paranoia and claustrophobia. Mutual trust and empathy alone can promote infrastructure cooperation. It is likely that in the beginning of the next wave of cooperation, mutual trust may often be belied. However, as in the case of love, it is better to have trusted and lost than not to have trusted at all.
315 In order to build mutual trust and cooperation, we have to do away with dogmas - political, economic or religious -, as dogmas can only be enforced and force leads to more force and violence. Reason alone can lead to consensus and cooperation. The Patriarch is not interested in consensus; it desires that its dictates be obeyed without questioning or debates. It is the Adult alone that recognizes that every man has much the same wants and aspirations and that cooperation can be brought about only by give-and-take or by a win-win attitude. Problems are events or things that stand in the way of optimizing efficiency and in enjoying the fruits of our labor. We have seen how in the Original State as well as in the Agrarian Wave, problems and fears were common to the society as a whole and how in the Industrial and Digital waves, problems and fears are individualized and as a result, we feel utterly insecure. In primitive and Agrarian Wave societies, hunger and disease were constant companions. There were invariably fellow suffers. In the Industrial and Digital wave societies problems are personal and in our loneliness, even the slightest of problems loom large. We extrapolate things and the problems seem insurmountable. Compared to times past we live in affluence. Death and decease were part of life, a century ago. Death has been held at bay by modern medicine and longevity is a problem unique to our age. Compared to our parents we have far fewer problems and almost no problems of life-threatening magnitude. I would rank our utter loneliness as the biggest of today’s problems and we have not yet learnt how to cope with it. Maybe we will evolve real-time solutions to the problems peculiar to our age. Until then, we have to depend on age- old solutions to modern problems. And this is where religion and dogmas step in.
PACK OF DOGMAS: As narrated earlier, once I attended a class on verbal communication. We were split into four columns of eight students each. Four different short-sentence messages were given to the first student in every column and it was to pass by word of mouth, in whispers, down the column of eight students, in a certain time frame. We found that by the time the four messages had passed down the eight students, all four messages were distorted beyond recognition. So much for verbal communications! All our present religions are based on myths and legends handed down generation after generation by word of mouth and hearsay and it is preposterous to believe that they are in the original form. It is asinine to base all our actions on such distorted tales told by our illiterate forefathers. Even if religion had substance to it, it is just another ethnic factor like language, color, race, tribe etc, which separate man from man. Except for traditionally criminal groups like the Pindaris of India, good and evil men are probably evenly distributed by birth. The proportion of criminals in any ethnic group will probably be the same, other conditions like political environment remaining the same. Religion is no exception. Good men and evil men, criminals and saints, intelligent men and dolts, aggressive and peaceful men and so on, will have probably the same distribution pattern in all ethnic groups, whether color based, caste based or creed based. Religion per se does not help us or deter us from being responsible citizens. Whether you believe in one God or a thousand gods, it does not make any difference in living good and peaceful lives. If you believe Jesus is God and if your neighbor believes that he is only a prophet and a third maintains there is no God at all, it does not in any way stand in the way of empathizing and cooperating with each other and in building win-win relationships. Segregation based on religion and dogmas serve only vested interests of politicians, priests, mullahs and the fundamentalist extremists. Religion has been with us for hundreds of thousands of years, in one or another of its myriad forms and superstitions, and will probably remain with us for centuries to come. Religion has special relevance to societies in transit, from the Agrarian Wave to The Industrial and Digital waves. In the West, this transition took place over centuries and the problems unique to these changes and their solutions evolved in tandem. But in the present Agrarian Wave communities the transition, from one wave to another, moves at dizzying speeds providing little or no time for coping and adjusting with the unique, enormous and unprecedented problems that come in the wake of such rapid change. We have reached turbulent flow speeds now. Problems peculiar to that swift change and the resulting alienation is in evidence. By seeking solace in religion, we are trying to treat turbulent flow problems with laminar flow solutions. Religion would have been harmless had it not been for the political aspirations it has taken on in recent years. Predatory animals form only a minute fraction of animaldom. Nonetheless, they instill fear in 316 others and exploit others by sheer intimidation. In humans too there are all kinds of animal traits. Most of humanity is like cattle, peaceful and unthinking. However, there are humans with strong predatory instincts and they live off others by whatever means they can. This predatory minority is also characterized by their organizing instinct. Though they form less than a miniscule percent of the population they organize into gangs by nature and hold the majority to ransom. Criminals, extremists and fanatics of all shades come in this crucial and dangerous minority. To provide legitimate pretensions for their predatory instincts, they put forward dogmas and doctrines, which are to be followed unquestioningly. The majority falls for their shows like weeds in the wind. Thus, America has a slew of doctrines like the Munroe doctrine, which Predatory prevents other powers from interfering in the Western hemisphere, though America seems to Humans have the license interfere at will anywhere on the globe. Then there is the Eisenhower Doctrine that makes it legitimate to resist communism by whatever means, fair or fowl. And now there is the Bush doctrine that makes it legal for America to pursue terrorists over international borders, though other nations do not have that license. These political doctrines and many like them, for example the doctrine of sovereignty and indivisibility of nations, are not worth the paper they are written on, and are totally unethical and immoral, but for the might and threat of force, which back them up. They justify their illegal and inhuman dogmas by sheer force of repetition, millions of times of repetition. Religion too follows the same patterns of repetition. We have seen that religion is but organized, regimented superstition. We have seen religions are but a hierarchy of unverifiable propositions or dogmas. One religion or sect differs from another only in its dogmas. It might be most appropriate at this juncture to examine the origin and propagation of dogmas, cults and religions. In the Agrarian Wave, once the harvest was in, people had much leisure until the next sowing. Festivals, marriages and other social functions and events were reserved for this season of leisure Origin and idleness. Even then, time lay heavy on their hands, as there were little or no entertainments of Cults available. They stretched out time with what little entertainment, amusement or distractions they had. Marriages were weeks-long events, and so were village festivities and fairs. The same went for cultural forms of entertainment. A story that could be told in five minutes was stretched to five hours. Kathakali is an ancient cultural stage performance form in India in which mythical stories are mimed in exotic costumes. In order to take up time, essentially the same dialogues are repeated over and over again in different rhymes, rhythms and mimes. A story that can be enacted in straight performance of half an hour was thus stretched to a twelve-hour night performance and people used to come with the mats or beds to these overnight performances. Once the performance was over, people talked of it no end for days and weeks. (Now the same stories and plays are packaged in thirty-minute capsules and yet there are no takers. Kathakali now survives mostly on government funding.) It was the same with all sorts of entertainments available in the good old days. Listening to preachers and speeches was one such pastime, and perhaps the most easily organized one. The isolated and illiterate Agrarian Wave communities found speeches and preachers exciting, and of course myths, religions, ethics and morals were most common subjects for such discourses. Thus, all famous philosophers and religious personalities like Socrates, Buddha, Zoroaster, Mahavira and the Sikh Gurus were all preachers; so were Confucius, Moses, Jesus, Paul and Muhammad. These preachers often got a small following first, which then expanded into cults and ultimately the cults grew into religions. Behind every cult, religion or dogma there was or is a preacher. Christianity has over thirty-eight thousand sects and subsects and each one of them had their origin in a preacher like Luther or the Reverend Moon. Sunni Muslims do not have preachers in their scheme of things, and so they are comparatively free from schisms. On the other hand, Shiites, though less than a tenth of the Sunnis in population, have over fifty denominations. The special role Imams have in the Shiite sect and the opportunities, they have for sermons might be the cause of proliferation of subsects among the Shiites. These founders have great charisma and power of persuasion. Once they get their audience in raptures, they themselves are often carried away, and small deviations from the original dogma or doctrine are blown out of proportion, and deviations become heresies. Thus in the final analysis dogmas and heresies are outcomes of preachers being carried away by their own oratory, rhetoric and enthusiasm. What is a dogma or doctrine? According to ‘The Encarta Encyclopedia’, a dogma or a doctrine is “… a formulated statement that is advanced; not for discussion, but for belief” Obviously dogmas and 317 doctrines are not open to rational analysis. A dogma or a doctrine is irrational and an imposition of the Patriarch on the Adult. Such unacceptable imposition was accepted by the illiterate masses of centuries past. It is an insult to human intelligence and modern enlightenment that we should accept without questioning, some irrational proposition, just because it has been believed in for thousands of years or because it comes from some arbitrary authority. We do not have to swallow anything just because a man, in fancy clothes, using fancy gestures, prescribes ex-cathedra, something in fancy words, which boils down to gibberish on deep analysis. He is in all probability not as well educated as many of us, except for his knowledge of his own subjective and partisan version of history and scriptures of a particular religion - history and scriptures, which have in all probability straightjacketed and warped his intelligence. All he is interested in is straightjacketing and warping our own rational faculties, so that he can lord it over us as ‘The Servant of the servants of God’ or in some such guise. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Similarly every dogma and creed has an equal and opposite dissent and heresy. A dogma dies an untimely death, unless it is backed up by brute force or intimidation such as threat of ostracism. Though both are equally irrational, dogmas differ from heresies in that heresies have no such authority for enforcement. Heretics are thus at the receiving end of the iniquities of the dogmatists. It is only by accidents of history that the present scheme of religions thrived with the sanction of various rulers and their armies. Those, who had no such royal endorsements, ended up on the stake as heretics. We have seen in earlier chapters that, had it not been for Emperor Constantine and Emperor Charlemagne and their all-out support, had it not been for the atrocities committed in the inquisitions, Christianity would have fizzled out, a scrap of toilet paper in the dustbin of history. Islam too survives intact by threat of force - heresy and change of faith are punishable by the death penalty in some Islamic countries even to this day. With modern democratic concepts of tolerance and free thoughts, the church and institutions like it are not in a position to enforce their intolerant dictates. Nonetheless, they have found a way to intimidate the faithful – irrational fear of the supernatural in this life and fear of hell in the hereafter. It is time we opened our eyes and grew wise to the wheelings and dealings of these parasitical, cannibalistic scavengers, who fatten themselves on our fears and superstitions. The Radical Hindu politician, Uma Bharati’s statement that conversion is not essential for knowledge of Christianity is applicable to all religions. Conversions are a political process rather than a spiritual one as claimed. I know many Muslims who do not even know the meaning of ‘Salam Aleikum’ or of ‘Allah Kareem’ or of the Kalma, the prayer that Muslims recite five times a day. Maybe these are not intended to be understood. They may be codes of conditionings – those who recite the code are with us, those who do not are against us. As for those who are enticed into conversions by cash or kind, they are good riddance for their original faith and a liability for the new faith, for their faith is up for sale to the highest bidder. Man has been blessed with language. With every wave of development, our glossary and vocabulary have exploded. In its wake, it has also conditioned us to words, which often mean nothing. We have seen how the term ‘one God’ does not hold any water in real terms and is just shuffle of words. Terms like divinity, Holy Ghost, Eucharist, prophet, omnipotence, infallibility etc are words for words’ sake and terms for terms’ sake. If we deliberate deeply on these words, terms and propositions, we see they are mere permutation-combinations of high-sounding sounds and syllables and mean nothing verifiable. Take one of the most inspiring quotes from the Bible “I am the way, the truth and the life”, an astounding statement, which does not give away anything concrete. What is the exact meaning of the terms ‘way’ ‘truth’ and ‘life’.. Ask ten people the meaning of these fancy words and you will get twenty different answers. Take the Bhagavath Geetha, the epitome of Indian Philosophy. It starts with “Gathered on the holy plain of Kurukshetra, O Sanjaya, what did my sons and the sons of Pandu, eager to fight, do?” Ask a thousand men the meaning and they will be well agreed on it except for the word ‘holy’. If you ask a thousand men how or why the plains of Kurukshetra are holy, there will be confusion all around.
318 There are very few sentences of such concreteness in the whole of The Geetha. There are others like Chapter 3:19, which says “Therefore always perform actions, which have to be done, unattached; verily; man attains the highest by performing action unattached” This is ethereal philosophy and yet we can say it touches a common chord in an ethereal way. Now take chapter 4:39, which says “The man of faith, zeal and self-control attains knowledge; having attained knowledge, he immediately attains supreme peace” Ask ten men as to what it means and you will get ten different answers. What is more the same man will give different answers with the passage of time. Most if not all verses in any of the scriptures can be interpreted in many ways. One of the more concrete sentences in the Bible is “He took bread in his hands…this is my body...etc” There is no controversy as to the meaning of “He took bread and raised it”. On the other hand, when it comes to the statement “This is my body”...”this is my blood” there is confusion. The numerous interpretations of these simple-sounding sentences have been the cause of the most number of schisms in Christianity. We have already seen how Luther and Zwigli disagreed on it. Many of the sects of Christianity are the outcome of the differences in shades of interpretation of this one passage in the Gospel. Where does the truth lie? All scriptures are full of such vague utterances, resulting in conflicting interpretations. They are such differences of interpretations that give rise to dogmas, schisms and heresies, to cults, sects and religions. Everyone interprets such ethereal sentences, in his own unique way - as unique as fingerprints or even more so - for fingerprints remain the same throughout one’s life whereas opinions and interpretations vary with time, for the same individual. Such conflicting interpretations form the seeds for dogmas and schisms. Most of these seeds are stillborn. Others sprout to form cults and then wither away. Still others flourish further into sects and religions. Do not think for a moment that they are the scriptures alone that are of such vague and ethereal stuff. We are bombarded everyday with such irrelevant, nonsensical or ethereal stuff from every quarter in speeches, in advertisements and in sermons. Consider this overwhelming sentence “But now a stage comes when the seeker is born into the seer. Because the seeker has discovered that that which the seeker was seeking was the seeker and having sought the seeker, the seeker becomes the seer”. This is from a best-selling management Guru of modern times. I tried to make out the meaning of it standing, sitting, and lying, and in every pose I know of, including standing on my head. It was a futile exercise. Here is another gem found in many of the chic self-improvement books. “Be thyself." If it has to be so, I would not have bought or read any book on personality development or joined a three day, three- thousand-rupee self-improvement program in the first place. Nonetheless, many so-called intellectuals devour such thundering sentences, which signify nothing. One acid test of the usefulness or uselessness or the harm of such articulations is the test of interpretation. If the interpretations of a statement are bewildering in quantity and quality, then you can rest assured that the one who made the statement is either an idealistic, romantic dreamer, or suffers from dementia and drug addiction, or he is a shrewd, scheming charlatan. A second test for the veracity for such sentences is their simplicity. Useful sentences are easy to remember, for they are well linked to other ideas and realties. Take the Guru’s sentence above on seeker and seer. It is a jumble of words and in total vacuum vis-à-vis other ideas and realties. I wonder whether the Guru himself can repeat the sentence without looking up the book. On the other hand in science, especially in Mathematics and Physics, if you know a few fundamentals, you can build up on them to the most complex equations, for science is built on solid foundations. What is more, unlike religions and dogmas, science is ready - it has to be - to admit its mistakes and build anew. We know that every lie begets more lies to cover it up. We call them a pack of lies. Similarly, dogmas come in packs with one dogma supporting another. Thus: Dogma 1. He died on the cross to atone our sins What sin did we commit? Dogma 2a. Creation of Adam and Eve. 2b. Forbidden fruit. 2c. Original sin How can his dying atone for our sins? Dogma 3. He is the incarnation of god. 319 Who says so? The book says so (May be the only logical statement in the pack) Why should we believe in the book? Dogma 4. It was given by God himself. Who says so? The book says so. Why should we believe the book? You are a xxxxxx xxx xxx comes the reply and that is the end of it. Efforts have been made to bring order and credibility to these packs of dogmas and to impart to them the semblances of respectability and the looks of a scientific discipline. Theology is this so called science that is built up top to bottom, wholly of dogmas, lies and what have you. Theology is just a glorified and perverted solemnization of myths, dogmas and blatant lies. We saw in the first part of this book, how the Pope first rejected the ‘Filioque’ clause and then recanted and became a champion of the ridiculous clause in the face of political compulsions. We are expected to toe his line and flip-flop when the Pope flip-flops. The whole edifice of theology is built up on myths and superstitions and held together by illiteracy, ignorance and most important of all, by fear - stultifying, primordial, irrational, Patriarchal fear of an omnipotent despot and his tax-collectors. The whole pack of dogmas is like a house of cards, liable to be blown away by the mere whiff of logic or reason? So no reasoning, no questions, just swallow what we tell you. We will take full care of you and your problems and of course your purse. In return you will attain heaven. Otherwise hell awaits you - another pack of dogmas (lies?) on heaven and hell and retribution and atonement follows. On going through the scriptures and on delving deep into religious literature I came across the most dangerous, perhaps, of the banal dogmatic words - truth. All religions, sects and subsects speak and write What is that they alone are the true ones and they alone are the guardians of truth. I perused a lot of Truth? religious and sectarian literature in compiling this work. Of over hundred propagandist texts, thus covered, every single one of them claimed that they alone had ‘truth’ on their side. Pontius Pilate has been much maligned for condemning Jesus to death. Nevertheless, from the circumstances described in the Gospels, we have to conclude he was a good administrator and a philosopher. He tried his best to save Jesus, even offering Barabas in exchange for Jesus. The Jews and their high priests would have none of it, and as an administrator, Pilate had his limitations. In the course of the trial, he discourses with Jesus only as only a philosopher can. Jesus grows exuberant and talks of his father in heaven and his being sent by Him, which was gibberish to a foreigner like Pilate. Jesus also speaks frequently of the word, we discussed above - truth. Pilate fells Jesus with one simple question “What is truth?” Christian theologians maintain that Jesus did not answer the question due to its banality. I for one think that it was the most intelligent thing that happened at the trial. Jesus was astounded by the import of the question. Even with a gifted tongue, Jesus was taken aback and tongue-tied by the question and its enormity. Another claim, made by all religions, is that they are the custodians of ‘eternal truth’. If eternal truth is one and only one, there can only be one religion. If there are several such eternal truths, it is possible that each religion and sect was entrusted with one or more of these several truths. But these truths often contradict each other and so they cannot all be guardians of truths at the same time. Besides these ‘truths’ if eternal, must have existed for millions of years since creation, whereas all of today’s religions are hardly over 2000-5000 years old. If so who guarded these eternal truths for all these millions of years? Another treacherous word in common parlance is ‘spirituality or spiritualism.’ The word has a nostalgic ring to it and many are carried away by it, as they are carried away by the word ‘truth’ But again it means different things to different people, which in turn means it does not convey any definite meaning and is useless for exact communication. It may even be harmful when there are two or more conflicting interpretations of the word and such other words. What is spiritual to one is often sacrilegious to another. Let us now go on to other dogmas and doctrines and analyze them rationally. Take the proposition we considered above “He died on the cross to atone for our sins." What sin did we commit? Who was offended by our sins; how and why? Specify! How can his dying on the cross atone for those sins? Specify the mechanism of such atonement! How can the same party be offended and at the same time atone for the offense? Crimes and sins are atoned for only after they are committed. Specify, quantitatively and qualitatively how he could have atoned for future sins? Who authorized him to do it and 320 why and how? If he had not atoned, what would happen to us? How about the people who have not even heard of Him or the sins or the atonement? You will come up against a blank wall. Or, take the dogma that He is born of a virgin. What difference does it make to Jesus’ divinity and integrity and his message of love and forgiveness whether he was born of a virgin or of a whore, or born like the rest of us? If he is omnipotent, it was just as easy for him to walk on to the scene one fine day, instead of a theatrical annunciation and an impossible conception in a virgin. And if the account of the Bible is to be believed and Jesus was real human being like us, was it God’s sperm and Mary’s ovum that did the trick? If so, can he be called wholly human? If Mary’s ovum can go into conceiving Jesus, why not Joseph’s sperm? Is ovum holy and sperm unholy? Or is it the act of copulation itself that is unholy? If the act is unholy and sinful, who is to blame for it - God, who designed it to be so, or his creatures, which are compelled to copulate by the Creator? On second thoughts, the dogma of Jesus’ divinity has a deprecating effect on his virtuous deeds on earth. It does not make any difference for an almighty and omniscient God to say, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do," after he was tortured and strung up on the cross. On the other hand, coming from an ordinary man, it means fortitude, integrity and inner strength of the highest order. If Jesus is God, any god can do what he did and forgive his tormentors and so Jesus does not deserve any credit for what he did. On the other hand, if he is an ordinary human being like us with our own frailties and shortcomings, then he deserves to be admired and emulated. By making him a God, the vested interests have taken the shine off the glory of his humanity. Let us now consider the dogma or doctrine that says, “He is the prophet of God” Specify prophet, specify god. If god is omnipotent, why does he need a prophet? If God had his own reasons for appointing a prophet, how do we know, God appointed this particular man as god’s spokesperson? How about thousands of others who claim they are the true messengers of God, how about the many Mahdis in Islam itself, who claim they are the prophets? How about the Muslims who believe that Muhammad stole Ali’s thunder? What about the Muslims who believe that Angel Jibreel was a traitor, who instead of delivering God’s message to Ali, delivered it to Muhammad instead? Go on questioning relentlessly and you will find the original proposition is just another dead end or a pack of you know what. All prophets claim that God revealed the truth to them. If so, as Thomas Paine points out, it is a revelation only to the prophet. As far as others, including our parents and priests are concerned, it is only hearsay for us to accept or reject as we think fit. Naturally, the interested parties hate being questioned. Tell them, God does not need anyone to interpret him or to translate him or to explain him. Omnipotent as he is, God can do anything and all things without any brokers or pimps or tithe-collectors. And he does not require any interceders, intercessors, ministers or translators. He can very well manage on his own without any ambassadors or representatives, prophets, heralds, messengers or harbingers. Nor does he need emissaries, advocates or go betweens. He does not require tablets, books, printers, publishers, preachers, vicars, presbyters, parsons or evangelists to spread his word or to interpret them. Nor does he have to take on human flesh to understand our problems or to eradicate the evils of the world. He does not need any servants and much less does he need any servant for his servants. If he needs any of these services or service providers, then God is not omnipotent; in addition, his being perfect is also called into question. A perfect being does not need anything nor any of the services listed above. If you believe God is omnipotent, if you believe God is perfect then beware of all these scavengers and parasites who prey on you in the name of the almighty and swindle you of your hard-earned cash. You may rest assured they have no authority from the almighty to do him any of the above services. Let them earn their bread by the sweat of their brow as God commanded us instead of swindling us by their cock and bull stories. To hell with these ‘brood of vipers’, to hell with these vampires in human form! Religion and superstitions had their relevance in the Original State as well as in the Agrarian Wave. Our forefathers were illiterate and not in a position to think systematically and logically. Besides they had no answers as to how the world came into being, how rains and draughts took place, what caused lighting and thunder, storms and eclipses or what caused day and night and the seasons. This caused them mental anxiety and apprehension. As wrong decisions are better than no decisions, so also for our forefathers wrong answers were better than no answers. As mentioned, gods, spirits, elves and goblins, angels and devils provided simple answers to these unanswerable questions and relieved our forefathers of their anxiety. 321 OLD VERSUS NEW: In addition, religions as we know them today are Agrarian Wave phenomena and often solved Agrarian Wave problems. The Ten Commandments were believed to have been handed over by God himself and their observance kept the Israelites together. Krishna, another incarnation of God, endorses the caste system as the Agrarian Wave economy depended on the caste system for its survival. In the uniform, laminar Agrarian Wave societies, consensus paid dividends and so unquestioning acquiescence and submission to authority meant quicker response to changing situations. Religions and superstitions were positive advantages in the Original State and the Agrarian Wave. Religions were Agrarian Wave institutions designed to solve Agrarian Wave problems. My father had not traveled more than 70 Km from home and that too just once. Then he took terminally ill and had to be taken to a hospital about 200 Km from home where his days ended. He was reasonably educated by the prevailing standards - he had attended high school. Most of his contemporaries were not so lucky and few of them ever traveled 20 km from home during their lifetimes. Women were even worse. This holds good universally for all Agrarian Wave communities except the nomads. Compared to us, our forefathers had just too many limitations. They had no books, they had no TV; the Internet was beyond the wildest of their dreams. All their knowledge came from first hand experience and from hearsay. They did not know of the Jurassic age when thousands of species of today’s flora and fauna, including today’s crocodiles and cockroaches existed, but man had not yet made his appearance. They did not know of the hundreds of thousands of species on this earth, which had never seen a man. Therefore, in their ignorance of these things, they said that the whole earth and its beings were created to serve man. In their naïveté, they wove the story of Noah taking in pairs of all animals into his ark. But we know that all these stories, all ancient myths and scriptural incidents are mere fireside yarns and have to be taken as such with a pinch of salt. To swear by such cock and bull tales in this age of enlightenment is plane stupidity, unforgivable absurdity and despicable idiocy. It is an unpardonable affront to man’s claim to rationality. One of the best books I read in recent times is I Moved Your Cheese. The author speaks of how it is the trend in the Americas to extol the ancient wisdom of the Mayans, though these Mayans were engaged in death games and blood-sports, and obliterated themselves from the face of the earth for no apparent reason. Revival Of This modern trend of harking back to the ancient wisdom seems to be spreading like wild Ancient fire, especially in the countries of ancient civilizations - countries like Egypt, Greece, Civilizations India, China, Mexico and Peru. And in step with it, there is a rejection, though superficial, farcical and sanctimonious, of everything modern. Someone falls sick and he is advised to seek the ancient methods of treatment and to reject modern medicine, as modern medicines are synthetic, harmful and so on. This superficial, affected rejection of everything modern is chic; it is the in-thing especially among the self-proclaimed intelligentsia of our times. Two of my sisters died in their childhood, of diarrhea and the resulting dehydration and a brother barely survived death of the same. Neither my parents nor the medical practitioners of the time knew how to cope with it. Deaths of diarrhea and dehydration were fairly common, and our forefathers did not have any inkling as to what caused it or how to deal with it. They were not even aware of microorganisms in water and air, which cause most of our diseases. Neither did they know how to prevent diseases arising from these microorganisms nor how to treat them. As a matter of fact, water was denied to both my sisters and the brother, as was the medical norm in those good, old, idyllic days of ancient ‘wisdom’. Now we know that diarrhea is caused by micro-organisms and patients have to be given plenty of water, preferably with salt and sugar. My father had brain cancer, which put his motor functions out of gear and it was diagnosed as rheumatism by practitioners of our ancient system of medicine. Paralysis from blood clots in the brain was also diagnosed as rheumatism and received the same treatment as brain cancer. Malaria, small pox, cholera and a host of other diseases plagued and scourged our forefathers for thousands of years, and our ancient medicines had no remedies. When a bout of small pox appeared, they just evacuated the village, leaving the sick to their own devices, often in the care of people who had survived the scourge and grown immune to it. An oft-heard theme is that there are too many diseases cropping up in these bad, rotten, modern times of pollutants and materialism. These prophets of doom forget that bubonic plague, small pox. tuberculosis, malaria, cholera, polio, leprosy and other deadly diseases, which stalked mankind for thousands of years, have now become virtually impotent, thanks to modern medicine. 322 Modern medicine now realizes that different diseases may cause the same symptoms and vice versa. The ancients on the other hand, often treated symptoms rather than the disease, as they did not have the highly developed diagnostic systems we have. Ancient medicine laid stress only on treatment, whereas in modern medicine, diagnosis is as important as treatment. Physicians of yore did not know of cancer though cancer has been with us for thousands of years as attested by mummified bodies which had been buried thousands of years ago. In their ignorance, the ancients treated cancer as rheumatism as in the case of my father, or as some other ailment, not even closely related to cancer. My father had to be hospitalized at forty-two for high blood pressure. Do you know what they prescribed as nourishment for him? Mutton, deep-fried in coconut oil, sans salt. We now know that high cholesterol is one of the main causes of high blood pressure and fried mutton can only aggravate matters. Cholesterol can lead to clots in the brain and paralysis. Ancients treated such paralytic symptoms as rheumatism or some ailment of the musculo-skeletal system. If the cholesterol led to loss of breath or a heart attack, it was treated as some respiratory disorder. Noah is supposed to have packed pairs of all animals into his ark. The writer was probably aware of only the animals in his neighborhood in spinning this yarn. He would not have spun such stories if he were aware of the thousands of millions of species of animals, birds and snakes on this earth. In the same fashion, it is not that our forefathers had fewer diseases, they did not know of the variations of thousands of diseases. In those days, quacks and shamans treated all sorts of diseases. Now there are specialists and super- specialists in medicine. The more we study diseases, the more variations of diseases will be discovered and more names designated to them. Hippocrates (460?-377? BCE), the greatest physician of antiquity, regarded as the father of medicine, would have swooned at the name of a disease I suffer from ‘familial lipidaemia’ or chronic and hereditary high cholesterol. In fact cholesterol was not known as a major cause of disease in those good old days, and so they did not have a name for diseases arising from high lipids, not that there were no such diseases. Now there are many strains of cholesterol with bewildering names such as primary hypercholesterolaemia, combined hypercholesterolaemia, hypertriglyceridaemia, secondary hyperlipidaemia and so on. Are they new diseases? No! They are mere tags attached to variations of an old disease, our forefathers were not even aware of. I am not trying to disparage or condemn traditional medicine. Downright and irrational condemnation of anything is as absurd as its irrational endorsement. We do not have to accept or reject anything just because it is traditional. All I am trying to drive home is the point that traditions can only supplement modern systems and institutions or at best complement them. Be it in medicine or in anything else for that matter, the traditional cannot replace the modern. If it were possible for the traditional to substitute the modern, change from the traditional to the modern would be a sheer waste of time and energy in the first place. Change becomes inevitable, because there are always better ways of doing things and because the room for improvement is the largest room in the world. The individual's experience and wisdom increases with his years on earth. Thus I am far more worldly-wise at sixty than I was at twelve or thirty. Like the individual, the species too is an organism and it advances in knowledge, wisdom technology and so on and so forth with each generation. We have discussed how at the individual level there is technological obsolescence with age as the younger generation is better adapted to absorb new wave technologies of the Industrial and Digital Waves. On the other hand, when it comes to the species, each generation is a step ahead of the preceding one in all aspects including technology. Nonetheless, if I were to say that mankind is far more advanced and knowledgeable now than it was two or five thousand years ago, I seem to have uttered some abomination against our ancestors, whereas if I were to say that I am much wiser and knowledgeable at fifty or sixty than at twenty or thirty, it does not seem to raise any eyebrows. An oft-heard boast is that there are people now in their nineties and hundreds and that it is because of the ancient robust ways of their past - the clean-air and clean-water stuff. In our wonder we overlook the fact that people now in their nineties or hundreds are only a miniscule percent of people born ninety or hundred years ago, and the rest of them perished over the years. I was born only sixty or so years ago, and for the same reason I cannot be ninety or hundred now. I am certain that a higher percentage of my contemporaries will survive into their nineties and hundreds than the contemporaries of my father and grandfathers. This stuff about ancient wisdom is all sham and hypocrisy. Even the practitioners of ancient and wise methods of
323 medicine, ultimately end up in modern hospitals, when things get out of hand, though they advocate the ancient methods to all and sundry. Newton admitted that he was standing over the shoulders of those who went before him. Had they not invented stone tools and the wheel, we would not have had modern cars and planes nor computers and robots. Ancient and modern ways are not in conflict; they are the ancient ways that paved the way for the modern. Modern wisdom is an improvement of thousands of years over ancient wisdom. We do not treat malaria with quinine anymore since we have discovered better alternatives. If it is so in matters of health and wealth, I do not see why it should be any different in other matters of solving our problems. A thousand years hence, our children would have gone far beyond us and it is no disrespect to us if they outgrow our technologies and knowledge in every field. In the same vein, it is no disrespect or insult to our forefathers of thousands of years ago, if our knowledge and technologies have outgrown theirs. As mentioned, had it not been for their stone tools and their crude technologies we would not be where we are today and as such, we owe it to them. . But does that mean we should follow their book of instructions for solving modern problems when we know it can only prove catastrophic? It might be interesting to examine how and when the present obsession with the past began. The Industrial Wave West had colonized the Agrarian Wave East for a few centuries. Many of these colonized people were the first to emerge from the Original State into the Agrarian Wave, the forerunners of civilizations, at the time when most of the colonial powers had been groping in barbarianism. The dignity of these ancient civilizations was trampled upon by the noveau riche colonialists. After the Second World War, many of these colonies gained independence. With independence came new hope for a better future for these ancient civilizations, to catch up with the West. However, these Agrarian Wave people were not equipped for Industrial Wave status for which an infrastructure of democracy and literacy are an absolute and basic necessity. In these Agrarian Wave societies, with their strong communal and ethnic ties, corruption reigned supreme. The miracle they had hoped for did not come about. Hope gave way to despair. They got disillusioned with their newfound freedom and with other Industrial Wave institutions. India is an excellent case study. It gained independence on August 15, 1947. I was born hardly a month later. In my childhood there was hope all around, especially in my home state, Kerala, the most literate in India. In those days revolution and a break with the ways of the past was the watchword and ‘inquilab sindabad’ (long live revolution) was the universal slogan. Rationalism, communism, equality and fraternity and other Renaissance values were the universal themes. In our land of arranged marriages love marriages, especially inter-caste ones, were looked upon with fascination as the ultimate adventure. In spite of the grinding poverty, we flew high on wings of hope. The universal illiteracy and corruption threw a spanner into the works. India’s newfound pride gave way to despair and despondency. The novels and movies of the years immediately after independence depicted the rich land owners as villains and the political leaders as selfless heroes, who would liberate the poor and the downtrodden from the clutches of the land-lord villains. In the seventies and the succeeding decades the roles were often reversed in the novels and movies. Politicians and elected rulers, in cahoots with the corrupt bureaucracy, began to be depicted as the arch villains. The story was much the same or worse in all other former colonies. It is to India’s credit that in spite of all these adverse conditions, democracy has grown from strength to strength, though true democracy is a long way off. It was on this scene of despondency and near-despair that the archeologists and anthropologists burst in with their findings. It started with Greece and Egypt. The world was treated with fascinating stories of the enormous wealth and sophistry of these ancient civilizations. Similar findings followed in India, China, Mexico, Peru and in other erstwhile colonies. These findings and their eulogies in the west were a big boost to the sagging morale of the newly independent people of the ancient civilizations. The artists, singers and the self-assuming intelligentsia of the West took it up. Old became gold. Yoga and meditation were chic. Then came kung-fu, judo and the other martial art disciplines. Starting with Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon, hundreds of movies emerged, epitomizing the ancients and their ways. The world stayed glued to their enthralling and incredible feats. But all this euphoria stands on quicksand. There is a famous novel in Malayalam Ntuppappaykkoranedarnu (My grandpa had an elephant). It is the story of an orthodox Muslim family on the decline and of their unwillingness to change with the times. It is the aging matriarch of the family that always brags about the elephant that her grand father had. First she brags of one elephant. As they sink deeper and 324 deeper into penury the number of elephants grows in her imagination. Ultimately she goes insane and goes around boasting that her grandpa had ten elephants. All this bragging about the wisdom of the ancients is of the same ilk. The new and independent nations had hoped to catch up with the West and to stand shoulder to shoulder with the ‘sahibs’ and the ‘ferangis’, their erstwhile masters. Alas! It did not come about as expected. Like the Muslim woman cited above, finding solace in past grandeur – both real and imaginary - became national pastimes for all these ancient civilizations, a sort of ‘sour grapes’ syndrome. Nevertheless, freedom blues cannot be wished away by burying the head in the past like an ostrich. It takes courage and disciplined hard work to attain ends. Every age, wave and way of life have their own unique problems and solutions for these problems can be found only in that particular environment. Problems of the agricultural societies cannot be solved with animal technologies of primitive aborigines. Industrial Wave and Digital wave problems cannot be solved with agrarian-age technologies, scriptures or wisdom. Aristotle cannot solve Microsoft's hiccups. Solutions to our unique problems lie in the present or in the future, definitely not in the past. I am deeply indebted to my parents for taking care of me, for giving me an excellent education and for the great sacrifices they took up for our sakes. They could just as well have thrown us out into the street, and have had a great time for themselves. I owe them and their sacrifices for everything I have in life. I deeply respect them and admire them by emulating them in all the things I consider good in them. That does not mean I have to believe everything they told me implicitly. It does not mean I should obey them blindly even at sixty, what they told me when they were in their late twenties or early thirties. The Parent, the real ones as well as the transactional ones have their place. After all, the main purpose of the education they gave me was that I be able to discern good and bad, fact and fiction, science and superstitions. I owe it to them and the sacrifices they made for my sake, to doubt and to question each and everything. We now live in the age of enlightenment, of literacy and knowledge. The turbulence of the Industrial and Digital waves throw up unique problems, which an Agrarian Wave institution like religion was not designed to cope with. Seeking refuge in religion for present day problems is like engaging a blacksmith to repair a computer with a chisel and hammer. Religion has existential value in laminar Agrarian Wave societies. But in today’s turbulent-flow societies, toleration, empathy and cooperation alone can solve our problems and build a better and safer world for all of humanity, present and future. As for the past, as Jesus said “Let the dead past bury its dead.” The Mayans and their cruel practices of slaughter and religious cannibalism, as we know from the hieroglyphics on their temple walls, were probably an improvement on the customs and practices of their own ancestors. Moses slaughtered the men, married women and male children of the Midianites and others whom the Israelis defeated in battle. In doing so, Moses was carrying on the practices of his own ancestors. Muhammad waylaid caravans, looted them and sold into slavery the men, women and children taken in the razzias. Muhammad was probably continuing the Patriarchal practices of his tribe. It is not for us to judge the Mayans, the Israelites and the early Muslims by present day standards of morality. We have come a long way since. We have improved upon their technologies and knowledge base and no longer subscribe to ancient ways in dressing up, in tilling and cultivating the land, in manufacture, in building technology, in music, in arts, in politics, in morals, in carrying ourselves etc. We have adopted new customs and practices, because we know that these new practices are improvements on the old practices and customs of our ancestors. We have mercilessly discarded slavery and the caste system, which formed the economic backbone of the past. We have liberated women and put them on par with the men. Nevertheless, when it comes to the supernatural we dare not experiment for fear of divine wrath and its consequences. Cast aside your fears, for the supernatural forces, if they exist at all, do not stand to gain anything from persecuting us, from punishing us. If they are perfect and omnipotent as we are told they are, then we cannot in anyway needle them or anger them. If they are the epitome of virtues as we are taught they are, then they will not take it out on us for breaking silly customs and taboos. It is only the priests and their cronies, who stand to gain from our superstitions and our fears. The gods, if they exist at all, would care no less whether we turn East or West when we pray, whether we believe Jesus was born of a virgin or in the natural way everyone is born, whether there is only one God or many or whether Muhammad or Ali is the true prophet. Our ancestors believed the earth was flat and was supported by a tortoise swimming in an ocean. They believed the earth was center of the universe and that the Sun, moon and stars went around the earth. 325 We now know that these beliefs, though quite natural, do not hold good in the face of present day knowledge. So why hark back to the past of ignorance and superstitions to solve our present day problems when we have so much more knowledge and tools at our disposal to diagnose and solve our present day trials and tribulations. Religion, superstitions and ancient morals and taboos, ancient methods of medicine and other ancient institutions and technologies cannot provide us real-time solutions to present day problems. Indeed many of these ancient institutions, especially religions and other ethnic factors in their politicized forms, are far more the forms of diseases than cures in the global village we live in. Change is inevitable. We have seen the founders of the scores of religions and the tens or hundreds of thousands of their sects deviated from the ways of their immediate parents. It was their courage in so doing that made them great. If they could strike their own paths, why do we have to follow the ruts without questioning?
THE FAMILY APPENDIX: One of the greatest problems of the new age is our utter loneliness as detailed before. Another colossal problem of the present age is the nuclear family. Biologists say that our appendix is the remnant of a useful organ we had in our previous stage of evolution. At present, the appendix is more of a problem than of any use. Likewise, the nuclear family is a remnant of the joint family, which is becoming more of a liability than an asset. Sex is the main factor that holds men, women and children together. In the Original State, sex came naturally as the means of propagation of the species. There was promiscuity with few taboos attached. With the Agrarian Wave, creation of inheritors, who would carry forward the bloodline and strengthen the clans, became the main objective of sex and marriage. In these two waves, sex had an end; it made up for the death tolls from famine, decease and strife. The family had to proliferate or perish. Fecundity was a high virtue and families produced as many children as possible. Gay and Lesbian marriage had no place in this scheme of things. With the Industrial and Digital waves, death was reined in leading to a population explosion, and birth control became imperative. Sex became an end in itself as more, more couples opted for fewer, and fewer children, and gay and Lesbian marriages became as viable as heterosexual ones. With fewer and fewer children to raise, man and wife have no common task or interests to hold them together in matrimony, especially when both have their own carriers to nurture in preference to the family, which used to be the universal career for our ancestors. All social institutions like family and religion have relevance only in the economic context in accordance with ‘The Law of Optimum Efficiencies’. We saw that in the Original State and in the Agrarian Wave, age was respected for its economic knowledge. Sexual relationships are no different. All relationships, including sexual relationships are forged for maximum economic efficiency and for emotional stability. In the Original State and the Agrarian Wave, we lived in nomadic communes or stationary joint families. The group as a whole, whether commune or family, was involved with the same economic activity. It is economics and its efficiency that held the group together. On the other hand, in the Industrial and Digital waves of transience, there cannot be permanent relationships. What is more marriage has no economic relevance in these modern times. It is an appendix. Unlike in the Original State and the Agrarian Wave, men, women and children are alienated in the Industrial and Digital waves as they are pigeonholed in their own occupations, and often at great physical distances from each other. These economic realities put insurmountable strains on irrelevant relationships. The concept of equality of sexes also puts almost impossible strains on this appendix, waiting to burst. The women’s rights movement further exacerbates things. A coalition or cooperation between individuals cannot last if the members involved are only concerned about their rights in the organization. It is a sense of duty in the members of the organization alone that can hold an organization together. It is no different in a family. A family setup in which the man, woman and children are clamoring for their rights and shirking there responsibilities cannot last in harmony. It has been established that men and women are different constitutionally, emotionally, intellectually and in every which way. Feminists boast that it is their weak physique alone that holds them back from competing with men on an equal footing. If it were so, how come women cannot compete with men in games like chess and bridge, which do not require any physical strength? Women cannot compete efficiently with men in chess, because chess is a game invented by men for men. Chess is designed to suit men’s cerebral specialties, and women stand only an outside chance against men in chess. In the same way, today's 326 economics, politics, religion and the very ways of life are designed by men for men, and women can at best stay on the fringe in this man’s world, except for the lucky few women who get more than a fair share of male hormones and neurons. The computer and the new world it opens up is another field designed by men for men, and most softwares are developed by men in tune with their intellectual or cerebral constitution. The computer is going to make it even tougher for women to compete with men. For this reason, though in the family women can clamor for equal rights at the expense of conjugal harmony, in the work place, in a computer environment, women will have to play the second fiddle whether they like it or not. That man and woman can give companionship to each other in matrimony is just an idyllic dream. We have seen in the introductory chapter that the concept of romantic love, which is now taken for granted, had its beginnings in Arabia ca 1150. Before that, as among all social animals, men and women lived almost in separate groups. Their relationships were built on the firm foundations of economic efficiency. This situation exists no more. Present sexual relationships have no economic or emotional relevance as mentioned. Man has his own unique perceptions of problems and their solutions and women have their own, and never the twain shall meet. What men perceive as problems may not be deemed problems by women and vice versa. Man is a problem solver, and women can live with problems and let problems sort themselves out. In the Original State societies, as well as in the Agrarian Wave joint families, men and women seldom mixed. Men formed their groups and women formed their own. Men are in a better position to solve male problems than women, and men formed male groups for problem solving. With the nuclear family, this pincushion of male camaraderie is gone and a woman can often exacerbate a man’s problems. The same goes for women. The theatrical Draculean kisses and the I- love-you-I-love-you-too routine we see in movies are good only for the cameras. (I wonder whether our great-great-grand parents kissed mouth to mouth like Dracula or repeated that silly I-love-you-I-love-you-too sequence like parrots) Women and men are not meant for regular, constant company. (Read ‘Men Are From Mars And Women Are From Venus’ and other books by John Gray and ‘Why Men Do Not Listen And Women Cant Read Maps’ and ‘Why Men Tell Lies And Women Cry’ by Allan & Barbara Pease and other works on the subject) What is the solution? To start with we have to realize that men and women are not unequal, as those ‘male chauvinist pigs’ put it, nor equal as our bird-brained feminists would have it. Men and women are unique in their own ways and are complementary to each other. They have different functions to perform in nature, and so have different perceptions and perspectives. Instead of trying to compete with men in their world, women have to form a world of their own, different but complementary to a man’s world. There is no multi-headed system - biological, economical, political or social. The nuclear family, based on the concept of equality of husband and wife is a pipedream and looks good on TV ads. The nuclear family, founded on the equality of sexes, is as feasible as multi-headed hydras or Siamese twins and has to give way, sooner than later, to new sexual and family equations to suit our Industrial and Digital wave realities. We have to find a more viable alternative to the nuclear family ‘appendix’. Most animals are evolution led and their socio-economic developments are in tune with their bio- evolution. Man too followed the same pattern until he broke away from nature with the Agrarian Wave. Original State or animal sexual relationships are the most natural with the minimum of internal strains. They evolved in tune with our physique and would have lasted for ever had we not broken away from the original state of things. Thus matriarchal, communal living comes most naturally to the human species. Such life styles became unfeasible in the Agrarian Wave. Women were subdued and everything looked smooth and ripple-free on the surface. With the Industrial Wave, the strains inherent in Agrarian Wave family relationships broke through and, marriages became unfeasible, as marriages were Agrarian Wave institutions, built on the concept of the subjugation of women. If any new and meaningful sexual equations are to evolve now, they have to be in tune with the Industrial or Digital wave economic realities. Such equations have also to make allowances for the fundamental and complementary differences between men and women. Obviously such equations cannot be based on the concept of the equality of the sexes, a concept that we saw is as feasible as Siamese twins. Not only is that the family a redundant appendix, but also our whole way of life seems to be out of tune with our bio-system. For all animals their ways of life are dictated by their DNA or chromosomes or whatever. On the other hand, things have spun out of control with the human being. Our body remains much 327 the same as it was millions of years ago, though our way of life has changed drastically. Thanks to our technology, we can dive to the greatest of depths or soar to outer space where no life can survive. We travel at greater speeds than any other animal or bird, speeds which no organism is designed to travel at. For the other animals, it is the environment that mutates and changes them. In the case of man, we have already changed the environment for better and for worse. Because economic compulsions take precedence over all else, our modern way of life especially our social life is completely out of tune with our evolved biology and psyche, which are still more than a million years in the past. It is this dislocation in our way of social life with what it should be evolutionally that is the main cause of our present-day ills, especially vis-à-vis sex and relationships. Divorced from the natural bloodline societies of the past we live lonely lives in overcrowded cities in the company of others like us who can never replace natural blood relationships based on mutual trust and dependence and with common goals and/or problems. Along with our environment we have changed our ways of lives too, ways, which are not in tune with our body-structure. As with the males of all species, the human male is genetically programmed to sow his sperm as far and wide as possible. However, our Patriarchal laws and regulations have curbed the natural sexual drive and limited it to monogamist relationships. Nevertheless, there is ample scope for fornication and sexual blow-down to release pressure buildups. Whereas sex seems to be an end in itself as far as the male is concerned, for the female sex is the means to an end. The end, the basic purpose of the female reality is to bear and rear children. Her mental, hormonal and emotive set up is all fine-tuned to this one end. As in all animals, the female of our species too is totally programmed to bear as many children as she can, all through her productive years. Nevertheless, with birth control, this basic female function is reined in and with childless families, which are becoming more and more common these days, our women lead an unfulfilled life in terms of her biological drives. In her frustration, she takes it out on the male and invades the male domain in the name of sexual equality. But, these efforts are doomed to failure, as she is not equipped to take on the male in the environment designed by him and for him. She tries to smoothen out her frustration in the best way she knows, by talking about it endlessly. This endless chatter gets on the male nerves, as he thinks that she is blaming him for her ills. He tries to take on the woman word for word, but fails miserably as he is no equal to the woman when it comes to verbal dexterity or to a slanging match. So he resorts to the thing he is good at - he takes on the woman by brute force and the battle of words ends up in violence. Women have to find ways to re-channel their pent-up frustrations into more constructive ways away from the men into women's own self-help groups. It is not the males that are their greatest enemies; it is their own unfulfilled, childless and unnatural lives that need to be addressed for a more biologically meaningful life. Only an environment, providing for plenty of sex for men and numerous kids for women, can provide for a lasting and satisfactory sexual relationship. All else can only be stopgap arrangements.
PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS: Every solution leads to more problems of their own; every knot untied leads to more knots; every loose end tied up leads to more loose ends. Solutions to present-day problems do not lie in the past; nor can solutions to them be found in temples, churches or mosques. Solutions do not lie with priests in comic dresses or in their long-winded sermons. After all, in spite of his mighty miter and his gold scepter, the pope is but a shaman in essence and so are the bishops, the priests, the Ayatollahs and the mullahs in their flowing robes and their imposing beards. Solutions to our problems do not lie in chanting meaningless gibberish or in performing ridiculous and solemn ceremonies. Nor do solutions lie in costly offerings in cash or kind to the creator and de-facto owner of those offerings. All these religious practices, though they are marketed in acceptable forms at present, are as archaic and as futile as voodoo, shamanism, human sacrifices, ceremonial cannibalism and other ridiculous religious practices of yore, which we scoff at. We are rational beings and we have to live with our problems, and at the same time try to sort them out as best as we can. . Problems are the flipside of life and they will always be there with us and damn those prophets of doom and their ‘intelligentsia’ mouthpieces. It takes time and other resources to acquire, accumulate and assimilate information and knowledge. Acquisition of knowledge comes from research. Accumulation and dispersion of information come through libraries, speeches, lectures, the internet and the media. Most of the acquisition and the accumulation of information and knowledge are in the organized sector and is a comparatively speedy process. On the other 328 hand assimilation of the dispersed knowledge is a slow process. Propagandists and politicians have been aware all along that people do not accept ideas and precepts that are far removed from established ideas and precepts. Ancient polytheistic Egyptians found it difficult to swallow Akhenaton's monotheistic ideas. The same went for the Quereysh who rejected outright Muhammad's dogmas of monotheism. It took imperial might to make the dogma of monotheism acceptable. Now that Egypt and Arabia are monotheistic, conversion to polytheism or atheism can only be effected by force. In today's enlightened world, forced conversions have limitations. Similarly assimilation of outrageous and over-deviant postulates and ideas takes times to get accepted. Many of the ideas and propositions in this book too deviate considerably from accepted or established positions. It takes much courage and mental stamina to swim against the current, and most of humanity prefers not to rock the boat even when their convictions tell them clearly what is right and what is wrong. Not only do they not stand up for their convictions, but like dumb driven cattle they choose to be driven by the dogmatists and the charlatans. As such, this work is meant to be a cry in the wilderness against dogmas, doctrines, whether political, religious, superstitious, environmental or those concerning alternate therapies. There is an old set of maxims, which goes like this: Those who know not and know not that they know not are fools, despise them! Those who know not and know that they know not are ignorant, teach them! Those who know and know not that they know are asleep, wake them! Those who know and know that they know are wise, follow them! This work is aimed at awakening the third category who feign sleep – the people who know and know not that they know. It is time to pull yourselves and the world around you from the ruts of established dogmas and doctrines. It is time for humanity – the last three categories of the ignorant, the sleepers and the wise – to stand up to the first category, the fools and charlatans – those who know not and know not that they know not, nor care about the repercussions of their actions. I do not pretend for a moment that this work will eradicate superstitions overnight. Nonetheless, I shall consider myself successful, if this work has sowed the seeds of doubt and reason. I do not imagine for a moment that I can loosen the stranglehold of religious, political and economic dogmas on humanity. But I shall be most contended if I can ease the hold one notch; if I can make people think along proscribed lines instead of only along prescribed ones, if I can make people look to the future than to the past. I shall consider myself accomplished if I can help us behave like rational human beings, which we boast we are. I shall be delighted if this work will help the Adult to dominate the Patriarch. History has often been described as the struggle between good and bad, between yin and yang as the Chinese say it. Even more so, it has been the struggle between ignorance and knowledge, between fear and courage. It is fear and ignorance that leads men to do terrible things. It is this same fear and ignorance and the resulting feeling of insecurity that lead us to superstitions, dogmas and doctrines, whether religious, political, social or otherwise. Cast away your ignorance and attain knowledge. Cast away your unfounded fears! Dare question the unquestionable! Dare think the unthinkable! Dare speak the unspeakable! Dare do the forbidden!
"Clear thinking requires as much courage as intelligence." Thomas S. Szasz
329 Bibliography
Art of Clear Thinking, The by Rudolf Flesch Bhagavad Gita Translated, The by Swami Vireswaranda A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking Das Capital by Carl Marx Dictionary of Mythology, The by William Harwood Encarta Encyclopedia The Encyclopedia Britannica, The Future Shock by Alvin Toffler Games People Play by Eric Berne MD. Gideon's "The Holy Bible" Hutchinson's Dictionary of Ideas I Moved Your Cheese by Darrel Bristow-Bovey I’m OK-You’re OK by Thomas A.Harris MD Interpretation of dreams, The by Sigmund Freud Meaning of The Glorious Koran, The by Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall Men Are from Mars, and Women Are from Venus by John Gray Origin Of Family State and Private Property by Frederick Engels Power Shift by Alvin Toffler Selfish Gene, The by Richard Dawkins Staying OK by Amy and Dr.Thomas Harris Story of Philosophy, The by Will Durant Theory of Knowledge by A.D.Woozley Third Wave, The by Alvin Toffler Wealth of Nations, The by Adam Smith What To Say When You Talk To Your Self by Shad Helmstetter Who Moved My Cheese by Dr.Spencer Johnson Why Men Do not Listen and Women Can't Read Maps- Allan & Barbara Pease Wikipedia the Online Encyclopedia World Book Encyclopedia
330 Ideas, Outlooks and Attitudes
Unlike theories and concepts like The Theory of Relativity, which are hard to digest for the ordinary man, there are other theories, which seem we had known all along, but were not aware of until someone unearthed them from our subconscious mind. Thus humanity had known all along in its subconscious, as expressed in the numerous fables and myths, that humans and animals had a close kinship. Nonetheless, it took Darwin and his Theory of Evolution to unearth this subconscious knowledge and to expose it to our conscious mind, which had all along been conditioned to the concept that we are special creatures made in God’s own image. Like the Theory of Evolution, ‘The Law of Optimum Efficiencies’ is a new concept that has been brought out from the realm of the subconscious into the annals of organized knowledge by this proposed book. The book induces you into uncharted and forbidden territories of politics, economics, religions, sex and relationships, alternate medicines, environmental issues and other aspects of everyday life. The book is brimming over with new ideas and concepts derived from everyday observations. Irrational fears and phobias stalk us during the day and follow us into our slumbers. In the face of such nagging fears, some people go on eating binges and drinking splurges, while others go on shopping sprees and buy up shelves of footwear and wardrobes of clothes. Though not so overt, in the face of our primordial feeling of life’s insecurities and fears, we too amass fortunes and buy up hard-disk space, which we may not need in many a lifetime. Consumerism seems to allay our primal fears and phobias albeit momentarily. This primal urge to consumerism induces us to produce more and more from limited resources. This implies attaining optimum economic efficiencies. All our activities, technologies, associations and institutions are directed at attaining greater and greater economic efficiencies. This may be called ‘The Law of Optimum Efficiencies’. The message of the book is “Think the unthinkable! Question the unquestionable! Nothing and nobody is so holy or sacrosanct that they cannot be evaluated in the light of reason.”
ISBN: Rs.790/-
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