No, it’s Halloween again!

For the most part we are not conscious of time flow. We don’t hear the ever cruel tick tick that brings us our undoing . The kind of ignorance that is a bliss. But then there are these cyclic events that disturb our peace and serve as a reminder that hey another year just gone by and we are one step closer to the grave. Today as I was strolling in the market doing grocery shopping I saw these huge, ugly, orange pumpkins and I thought to myself “No it’s Halloween again!”

Now I know why I have come not to like these events. Halloween and Christmas and the rest.  They act like milestones in life. They are reminders that another year has gone by. These events make the time flow in a circle as opposed to a straight line. If our perception of time was a one dimensional flow, a river so to say with an open or unknown end, that would be easier to deal with. Like running a marathon as opposed to running laps. 

On the question of these events that every culture tries to preserve, like Halloween or our tasteful and colorful nonetheless absurd tradition of “Charshanbeh soory” (jumping over fire the last Wednesday of the year) one has to wonder if they are doing us humans any good. I know they can be fun specially for kids but don’t they contribute to the lasting superstitions and stupidities of sort. You can not be promoting and preserving these  traditions and then blame most of the people for believing in astrology, apocalypse or other such unsavory notions!!

Indoctrinating our children. A crime of mercy & passion!

When placed in a torrential downpour, chickens, dogs and worms were able to seek shelter but human babies were not. Based on similar experiments scientists concluded “human babies long thought by psychologists to be inquisitive and adaptable are actually extraordinarily stupid“. I am quoting this rather complimentary passage from the book Descartes’s baby to make a point.

Here is a scenario:

Get someone to do this cruel experiment on a kid (Sadly this is happening everyday all over the world under different names).

Put a painting of an old man with white beard on the wall. Keep telling the 3-4 years old kid to bow to the portrait every morning before breakfast and later on before going to school. At night ask the kid to say some kind of prayer while having that portrait in mind in order to save himself from nightmare, bad and evil. To enforce the belief make a small replica of the portrait, attach it to a necklace and give it to the child. Ask him to hold tight to it when he is feeling insecure and fearful.

What would you think the child would look like and act when he is an adult?!

 During all those years before college keep warning him about people that would try to diminish his faith and question his belief. Tell him to ignore what other kids and teachers say in school because their soul is stolen by an evil spirit. They are in the dark and can not see the truth. Warn him that if he loses his faith he will lose the guidance and light and be submerged in eternal darkness and filth.

If one of those days kid comes back home to find the portrait fallen and broken, explain to him that the “spirit” “Visha” “sixma” or whatever you want to call it has suffered this damage for you. It’s for your salvation. Now you will be redeemed forever and be forgiven!!

Ofcourse chances are that the kid gets hit by a car a week or two later himself but I guess you can explain that away too!!!

Is this all sounds too familiar?!!! I can assure you out of 6 billion kids on this planet only a handful at one point in their life or another would call your bullshit and rebel against that nonsense. Rest of us would live with that myth till the last breath!!  

Intelligent life Who?!!!!

Ours is the only planet we know of that is hospitable to life. We are also the only “intelligent” life in the universe as far as we have searched. Knowing that, as well as we do I want to argue that we are not that “intelligent” after all and in fact our planet is rather a ”dumb” one!

Look around you, your building elevator is missing the number 13, so was the row number 13 in the airplane I took last month. 13 is a very very “bad” number!! Bad things happen to you if you are associated with number 13 in any shape and form!!!!

Of course no one exactly knows why. The poor number is one of the primes, what else is its fault?!!

I am amazed how many different cultures have this “Knock on the wood” concept?! You acknowledge something good about someone an then you knock on the wood! What the hell is that supposed to mean? We all carry laptops, cell phone other high tech gadgets but still keep knocking the wood!! What is the problem with us?

How many people you know who believe in astrology? Man has walked on the moon, robots are landing on the Mars and we still believe in that kind of stuff!! Just because you are born at the time when seemingly sun was in the middle of an illusion across the sky called constellation does not make you any different from others!!! beyond that are you saying we have just only 12 different kind of idiots on this planet not more?!! All of this in the face of Sequencing of human Genome?! Try saying that to thousands of people who look into these stuff to find out clues about their life and future and romance and so on. I read somewhere that coach of French soccer national team crossed out all the “Pisces” players from the roaster to win the world cup!

Not sure what was Zidane’s sign? 

Look further. Not too far though. See people who worship cows, those who are waiting for the “End of the world” and give you exact time and day (They have revised that quite few times already!!). Yet these are folks who live in major cities and centers of the civilizations in the world. I am not even talking about what people believe in forests of Amazon or tribes of Africa. 

Why are we still so ignorant in the face of mind blowing scientific achievements in space science, communication, biology, etc?

If I got you thinking, ask me why?

Beyond Chutzpah!! Zoroastrians’ struggle to survive!!

Here we got at most two hundred thousands people who believe rest of the 6 billion people on this planet are dead wrong!! I am speaking of Zoroastrians. Talk about Chutzpah (supreme self confidence in Hebrew). They are so convinced of their righteousness that the main headache they have is how to avoid inter marriages in order not to dilute their sect. I mean give me a break!! Now, I am not saying these are bad people or anything like that. Most likely they are very decent people with good moral values but again after few thousands years they have to freshen up.

How much mileage you can get out of “Good thoughts, good deeds, good words”? They should have realized by now that “good” is not good enough!! One needs more road maps more guidelines. For starter is stem cell research a “good” thing? If so please send a letter to White house titled “Thus spoke Zarathustra” !!!

Then again there is nothing special about these folks. There are tons of other small sects out there trying to survive the remorseless history at the expense of assuming rest of us being eternally misguided and doomed. Don’t get me wrong ideologies or religions with many more followers don’t necessarily fair better still they make their living by sentencing rest of us to reside eternally in some kind of HELL! I think some kind of modesty is in order for all people of faith! Lets be more inclusive!! For now we are trapped on this spaceship called earth. I suggest we get along!

Here is the article in NYTIMES that started all this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/06/us/06faith.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

Zoroastrians Keep the Faith, and Keep Dwindling

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Published: September 6, 2006

BURR RIDGE, Ill. — In his day job, Kersey H. Antia is a psychologist who specializes in panic disorders. In his private life, Mr. Antia dons a long white robe, slips a veil over his face and goes to work as a Zoroastrian priest, performing rituals passed down through a patrilineal chain of priests stretching back to ancient Persia…….

Veto right (wrong)!!!

    As if you had any doubts we live on a “dumb planet” look at the so called defenders of democracy in United nation using their “right” to veto whatever they don’t like against the wish of the world’s community!! 

Absurdity at its best! As Gene Hackman said in the movie: ” We are here to protect the democracy not to practice it !!”

There is 90% chance, that you are duped by your society!! Yeah you…

       “The fact that stares one in the face is that people of the greatest sincerity and of all levels of intelligence differ and have always differed in their religious beliefs. Since at most one faith can be true, it follows that human beings are extremely liable to believe firmly and honestly in something untrue in the field of revealed religion. One would have expected this obvious fact to lead to some humility, to some thought that however deep one’s faith, one may conceivably be mistaken. Nothing is further from the believer, any believer than this elementary humility.” 

Hum…..must be others not me !!