Showing posts with label Dogs have no religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dogs have no religion. Show all posts

Friday 30 May 2014

Does God Exist?

Richard Dawkins is challenging the idea that a Deistic God created the universe and set it in motion and then keeps aloof. In other words, according to him we believe in an absentee God who seems to be indifferent to what is happening in the world. But if He in fact does create individual souls ‘off and on’, then he should face the problem of evil that exists in the created universe in the form of sorrows and sufferings, injustice, exploitation, birth-based deformities. Why should there be any birth-based differences that make some more privileged than others?
Besides, aggressive atheists who deny the existence of God do so because believers have been committing horrible acts of commission and omission in the name of religious creeds and God. Despite this, it is said that the so-called all-powerful, all-good, and all knowing God remains silent. Therefore, God’s silence is equated with God’s non-existence by materialists and atheists.
Howeveer, the wonderful structure of the universe and of the things and beings in the universe does seem to suggest the existence of a Grand Design, which needs explanation. Can it be due to matter and motion? Though human reason is capable of understanding a lot, it points to the existence of Universal Consciousness or Cosmic Intelligence, and this, say nay-sayers, is more faith than fact.
The theistic world view gives cosmic support to the believers. After all, the question of all questions is whether the universe is friendly or inimical to life in general and human life in particular. Long before the ‘Sun’ in the solar system was seen as the friend of humans. So the believer bowed before the Sun and said, “Aum Mitrya Namah” – O Lord, I bow to you, our friend. Darwin’s theory of biological evolution is a grand hypothesis to explain the origin of species on this planet. He never claimed that he could explain the ‘arrival of life to evolve in favour of the fittest’ in the world. How did the rudimentary amoebas evolve; out of nothing? Biologists aver the principle ‘life begets life’. Can they reduce biology to physics? Can they accept biology as a branch of physics? The usual and answer to this is ‘no’. Moreover, physics itself is becoming a science of the minute following the discovery that atoms can be split! The concept of God is not a stupid idea. It cannot be done away with so cursorily. It was the agnostic H Spencer who applied the concept of evolution to the evolution of the cosmos. Later philosophers formulated different ideas of evolution, as did S Alexander in the idea of Emergent Evolution, H Bergson in the concept of Creative Evolution.
The tiny logic and intellect of man should not be elevated to the status of God or the Cosmic Intelligence; perhaps its role in human affairs ought not to be dismissed or underestimated. Such a stand has its own limitations.   German philosopher Kant refuted the traditional rational argument addressed in support of belief in God. Yet he formulated the Moral Argument. For belief in the existence of God – and morality are special to human beings. Unless we accept the moral in the universe it is very difficult to make the universe morally intelligible. The discussion cannot be left in the hands of priests and pundits. Education in humanities will help believers liberate religion from the clutches of the priestly class. For aren’t modern liberation theologians willing to learn from Karl Marx to solve the issue of hunger and injustice?
Courtesy: Speaking Tree

Monday 23 December 2013

Man’s glory is that he is the only animal who grows

Man is born with very weak instincts

Man’s glory is that he is the only animal who grows. Out of his imperfection man has become a tremendous power. The child of man is the most helpless child, and out of that helplessness great things have happened. Man is born with very weak instincts. That’s why he becomes intelligent—he has to become intelligent, he has to substitute his weaker instincts with a stronger intelligence. A dog need not do anything; a dog is perfect. He lives through his instincts; he never allows his intelligence to grow.
What is the point? The instincts are doing far better, more perfectly, than intelligence will ever be able to do. Intelligence is there because you are weak in your instincts. Man has developed all kinds of technologies, science, because man is very weak.
Just watch: he cannot run like a wolf or a dog, he is not strong like a lion or a tiger, he is not swift like a deer. Out of these imperfections he has done great things. He has developed weapons because he is weak physically; he could not have survived without weapons.
Out of imperfection, man blooms. Because he does not know, he has developed philosophies and religions. No dog has developed a philosophy or a religion. There is no need; the dog knows already, knows instinctively. The dog is not ignorant, so there is no need to know. Man is ignorant, it hurts. He tries to know, he becomes curious, he explores, he becomes adventurous.
All animals are satisfied; only man is continuously in discontent. That’s his beauty. Out of his discontent he grows, he finds new ways of growth. Only man is anxious, anxiety-ridden. Just watch: whatsoever you have—in culture, in art, in philosophy—is out of your imperfections. Don’t be bothered about perfection. Replace the word ‘perfection’ with ‘totality’. Don’t think in terms of having to be perfect, think in terms of having to be total. Totality will give you a different dimension.

Be total, forget about being perfect

Whatsoever you are doing, do it totally—not perfectly, but totally. And what is the difference?
When you are angry the perfectionist will say, ‘This is not good, don’t be angry; a perfect man is never angry.’ This is just nonsense—because we know that Jesus was angry. He was really angry against the traditional religion, against the priests, against the rabbis.
He was so angry that single-handed he drove all the money-changers from the temple, a whip in his hand. And he was shouting at the top of his voice, and they became frightened—his anger was so intense, passionate.
Remember, the perfectionist will say, ‘Don’t be angry’. Then what will you do? You will repress your anger, you will swallow it; it will become a kind of slow poisoning in your being. You may be able to repress it but then you will become an angry person, and that is bad.
When I say replace perfection with totality, I mean when you are angry be totally angry. Then just be anger, pure anger. And it has beauty. And the world will be far better when we accept anger as part of humanity, as part of the play of polarities. You cannot have East without having West and you cannot have night without having day, and you cannot have summer without having winter.

Hate and Love are two aspects of the same coin

Just look at life. If there are only men on the earth there will be no more music, if there are only women on the earth there will be no more music. The music is between the polarities: man and woman. Only the stretched souls can create music—stretched between polarities. A man who can be angry and totally angry will be able to be in love and totally in love.
And this too has to be understood, that it is a fact that you love a man and you hate the same man. You love and hate the same person—who else? When you have invested your love in somebody, naturally you have invested your hate too, because hate and love are two aspects of the same coin.

Love cannot exist without fight

There is an inner mechanism. When you love a person you want to come close-to him, you want a deep intimate relationship. But after a deep experience of intimacy you want to separate too, you want to go far away. You have feasted, now you would like to fast, otherwise there will be nausea.
You can love and you can be intimate only for a certain amount of time. You cannot eat for 24 hours, you cannot love either. When you eat, enjoy it totally. But then there is a need for 6 8 hours’ fast—only then does the hunger arise again.

No more closeness is possible

The same is true about love. When you love a person you come close; you eat of him, he eats of you, you participate in each other’s being. You come closer and closer and closer, to a point where no more closeness is possible. Then the reverse process sets in: you have to go away to come back again—you have to fast to feast again.