The Skeptic Guru

The Fast Food God(s)

2011-06-14T14:18:00.000-06:00

India has a wide array of antique literature of Philosophical and metaphysical nature. There is a gambit of Indian philosophy from the origin of the universe (albeit totally non scientific /speculative) to our existence embedded within the broad spectrum of ancient spiritual literature.

Philosophical and metaphysical ideas were not unique to India; the Greeks had a fair share of those too. What is interesting is the fact that such philosophical ides from Europe migrated to become more meaningful scientific ideas. In India, these ideas died -replaced by mindless amount of rituals.

What could be the reason?

Swami Vivekananda blames the Brahmin Priests squarely for this. According to him, the priesthood community stand to loose the most if people moved away from Ritualistic /Superstitious practices to the idea of Supreme Brahman (the eternal fundamental cosmic entity). If everyone started to sit in cross legged position chanting Om and begin their internal realization, the temples and priests will go out of business. He offers no other scientific/archeological proof but the logic seems plausible.

I think the disappearance of the philosophical thoughts from Indian society is more to do with the attitude and life style. (The Brahmin priests might have contributed to this).

Ritualistic practices involve no thinking whatsoever. It is quick and the perceived benefits (from the point of view of the devotees) are huge. Understanding Pathangali’s Yoga Sutras or the Advaita philosophy of Adhi Shankara requires considerable amount of thinking- even to reject some of those to be absurd. Take this for example: "Not the non-existent existed, nor did the existent exist then" (ná ásat āsīt ná u sát āsīt tadânīm)- Nasadiya Sukta (Rig Veda). Whatever this is suppose to mean. My mind goes blank!

Rituals are easy, you pay the priest and he does all the hard work for you. It is all done and over within a mater of few hours and is usually followed by a large feast. On the other hand asking questions such as : “Who am I”, “Where do I come from”, “ What would happen to me after I die”, “ What do I mean by I”, etc. requires considerable amount of thinking. Finding answers to such philosophical questions offers no great benefits. But breaking coconuts to Lord Ganesha guarantees a pass in Math exam!

In the old days, perhaps wandering men had a lot of time to think about such complex ideas. These days the busy software engineers need fast and quick fix to everything. A quick tap in the cheeks, a few half swats before Ganehsa, a quick whiff of the holy fire, and a tiny smother of the holy ash is all the time people have. Paramathama or Para- Brahman (Supreme Soul) has no time and place. Priests will have to work overtime to make up the rest. In a way, Hinduism outsources the spiritual responsibility.

It is therefore not surprising that the only groups that have interest in the philosophical thoughts and can understand complex ideas happen to be the Atheists, Agnostic and the Skeptics! Perhaps these groups have the natural curiosity to browse thorugh these ideas. Or may be if people start to understand philosophical ideas they move more towards skepticism and loose interest in religion and rituals( as in my case).

99% of the Hindus (although they claim ownership of these ideas) have no idea that such complex philosophic texts exist let alone understand what they mean. In reality rituals will continue to serve the hard boiled devotees. The advent of the internet continues to support this cause. All you have to do is give your credit card number and the priests will take care of everything. No you know why the titile-Fast Food God.

3 Men + 1stone = 4 Men

2011-01-23T18:22:00.028-07:00

The lady of the house organised a special pooja every year. It was a big ritual involving a few priests and a lot of Homam ( open fire). Every year before the pooja, the lady would instruct her daughter- in- law to catch their Pet- Cat and secure it in a bamboo box. She didn’t want the cat to run around and cause nuisance (plus the open fire may be dangerous to the cat and the priest). The daughter- in- law followed the orders sincerely for years- catching and securing the cat before the pooja. The lady of the house died and the daughter- in- law took charge of organising the ritual. She continued the task of catching the cat and securing it in a bamboo box. Years passed and the cat died. The next year pooja date was fast approaching. She went to her husband and told him that she needed a cat for the pooja. Puzzled, her husband asked her why on earth she would need a cat for a religious ritual. To which she replied : “Before the pooja, we need to put a cat in a bamboo box. That is a very important part of the ritual, my mother-in-law taught me”!

Millions of the religious rituals and symbols evolved this way. Because religious rituals were passed on without any explanation, a large number of rituals got passed on which doesn’t make any sense today. Yet because we are always told to follow a ritual without questioning the relevance or validity, we simply follow, blindly.

Some of the traditions, customs and rituals might have had some meaning in the old days. But should we really need to carry them around? And why can't you question them?

Here is a run around of some of the superstitions that I have come across in my life and my speculative explanations.

Mr. Cat, Please use the footbridge!

List of Bad Omen – Cat crossing the road, dog hauling, lizard making sound, bull thumping his leg, crow flying low, etc. When our ancestors lived in the jungles, watching animals and birds might be a critical activity. A group of birds suddenly flying out of a lake, a flock of deer running madly, etc might mean there is a predator (Lion or Tiger) around. So they probably categorised certain animal sound and movement of animals as bad omen which mean you wait and you proceed with caution. Is this the root of the belief in bad omen if you see a cat cross your way? . I really see no reason why it should be an issue these days when you are living in a big city like Chennai. The only animals left in Chennai are the poor “”Cow Mother”’ with severe malnutrition living on cinema posters, and a few stray dogs. The only predator that I could see is the 3000 gallons blue water Lorries!

The Tamil month of Aadi is considered inauspicious. Nobody is allowed to get married during this month. ( It is a good time to get married if you don't mind this, you can get marriage halls at throw away prices and shop keepers offer deep discount this time of the year to keep their stock turnover). Aadi is the month of the year when rice cultivation begins. It falls within the fertile climate window to grow rice. In the past, sowing rice seed was a labour intensive activity. It required the whole village to work on the farm. Marriage functions were labour intensive as well. In those days, there were no A-Z marriage contractors offering everything from underwear for the bridegroom to the right sized banana tree. In the absence comprehensive marriage contractors, the entire village would pull together the resources to organise the functions. So it makes sense to not have any marriage function during the month of Aadi. You don’t want to divert the labour resource away from cultivation, and cause economic downturn. I am speculating here. There may be a simpler explanation - some gray haired priest was too busy to organise marriage ceremonies, so he said “folks don’t get married on the month of Aadi”.

Some ritualistic faiths are plain stupid.
Some of them are beyond any shred of reasoning and goes in to the realm of insanity. For example you cannot go as a group of three for any important engagement. You can go as a group of two, four, five, fifteen, four million, etc, but not 3. If you must, you should carry a stone with you.

So 3 men + 1 stone = 4 men.

Makes perfect sense, doesn’t?.

Mechanism of survival
So why does these rituals and superstitions survive?

If some old uncle says one should break three coconuts on the north corner on a Friday afternoon, subsequent generations follow the marching orders. A few of us like me, the curious ones ask questions and cause trouble! And generally we are ingored and branded as a part of global consperacy to take down the Hindu /Indian spiritual empire!!

A columnist for Times of India writes that sipping water three times boosts immunity. OK, can you please explain how? Let the whole humanity benefit from this- not just the Hindus. We can reduce the antibiotic consumption. All we needs to do is explain the mechanism by which immunity is boosted, and conduct some double blinded studies to prove this. Is it the water or the sipping process that boost immunity? If it is water, should it matter if I sipped it four times instead of three times? Can I fill the equivalent amount of water in an ink filler and drink it? If it is the sipping process then does it matter if I sipped beer three times instead of water?

Asking questions is a sign of disrespect. My Phd friend says I am offending his religious faiths by my comments. This is the age old tactics of religious people and gray haired uncles. When you push them against a wall with reasoning, they resort to this winging tactics ( you are offending my religious faith). I am asking an honest question here. That is how science works. We ask questions to scientists . They don’t get offended. If I ask a scientist about the process by which malaria spreads,they don’t say, “shut your mouth, it is all been figured out by the great sage Ronald Ross”.

Sipping water may well improve immunity (although I doubt very much, I am really making a statement for the sake of argument), but we still need to explain just how.

Quantum Crap
With the advance of science we see emergence of new age gurus like Deepak Chopra. Now the intellectual idiots are offering more scientific explanation ( it is not any scientific but they use science mubmo jumo to justify certain things). I get some weird explanation to my 3men + 1 stone = 4 men problem using quantum physics from my double pHd friend in silicon valley. “3 men’s individual souls combined creates enough quantum energy to cause cosmic vibrations to alter the state of inner consciousness in such a way as to produce synergistic karma which gets negatively charged” .

What the..............?. I just wonder how someone who is clever enough to understand whatever the above sentence means cannot understand the simple concept that a Sone is not equal to a man!

Conclusion
I was watching a programme on India in the CBC news channel. The program covered the state of the art Infosys campus in Bangalore. The achiement of Infosys is commendable. But here was something interesting. The spokesperson from Infosys who was taking the reporter for a tour around the campus, told the CBC reporter that the campus area used to be a burial ground/crematorium of some sort, and so Infosys first organized a grand Pooja to please the spirits before starting any construction. It looks like they had to first relocate the Ghosts to another part of Bangalore!

I wouldn’t be surprised if Infosys’ Project Management manual includes ""Ghost screening and Spirit management"". After all, you need to take care of the ancestral spirits in the same way do with the shareholders.

Someone told me that the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) will not launch rockets on inauspicious times. The moon should be in the right box of the horoscope chart before the rocket launching (to the moon) can begin. I sincerely hope this is a joke!

Odds of Astrology

2010-08-05T13:21:00.001-06:00

If you watch the sky on a clear night, you will see millions of stars. It is hard to contemplate the vastness of the universe. Out of the many billions of celestial objects, astrologers hand pick a few, and claim that these objects have special powers to control human destiny. Why should these handfuls of celestial objects have so much of power? (Why Mars ? Why not Pluto or the Kuiper belts?)The deep dark space is full of objects: billions of stars, planets, comets, satellites, supernovas, black holes etc including manmade objects like space stations, abandoned satellites, bodies of astronauts, etc.
A few celestial objects however seem to decide on every thing from birth to death. Yet no one will explain exactly how these celestial objects control human destiny and why and how they do it. Planets like Mars is unable to control its own destiny but has the power to control the human life on earth! how?. Lifeless planets like Mars are dragged around in a pre-destined elliptical path over and over again, revolving pointlessly by the gravitational pull of the mighty sun. Comparing to Mars, I , a tiny human being, have more control over my destiny. At least I can decide where to eat my breakfast even if I do not have control at the cosmic level.

A friend of mine has a double PhD and his academic credentials are as long as my arm. He is a strong believer in astrology. He struggled to get a job for a while. After several attempts he met with his astrologer. The astrologer told him some mambo jumbo and the double PhD guy did some prayers to please the planets. Bingo! The next week he got an interview and he got a job. How do you explain that? I have heard many stories of this kind. A millions of others follow the same logic. “ We don’t know how it works, but it works for me” is the classical response. Does it really work?

Intuitive Reasoning – Connecting the wrong dots!

Michel Shermer, a skeptic and psychologist, argues that we (humans) are natural pattern seekers. We connect the dots to make patterns. We intuitively assume things without doing a detailed analysis and this has evolutionary advantage. For example, if our stone- age ancestor in Africa heard a rumble noise in the bush, he is more likely to assume that it is a predator ( a lion or tiger), and he will devise his flight (run) or fight response. There is no time for rational investigation. If his assumption was right, then any amount of time spend in rational analysis would result in his own death. Such quick intuitive response is necessary from an evolutionary perspective. But we often connect the wrong dots!

I was driving along a highway listening to the radio in my car. I wanted to turn up the volume but I accidentally turned it too loud. Exactly at the same time, my windshield glass broke in to pieces. Since I knew very well that loud noise does not crack car windshields, I looked for other causes (see picutre on the right). If it was someone without any knowledge of car windshields he/she is likely to assume that the glass broke because of the loud music.Increasing the volume was an independent event, it is not the actual reason why the glass broke. Or you can call it as a coincidence. Most people readily agree with this conclusion. However if someone goes to an astrologer and get a job the next day, they are unlikely to agree the astrologer trip as a coincidence, as in the case my double PhD friend.

My double PhD friend assumed that the planet was indeed responsible for getting him a job. How do we know that the astrologer's bla bla is not a coincidence? Easy, my double PhD friend should resign his job and see if it works again! In real life we do not conduct such experiments. You are more likely to turn on the radio again and see if the windshield breaks! We do not therefore spot coincidences. There were several good reasons why my double PhD friend got a job. He ignored all of them and attributed his success to astrology. We connect the wrong dots!

The second question- if my double PhD friend is really talented and got a job becuase of that, why did he not get a job before? He had all the same strategic advantage in the past months, but never received an offer. That must mean that it has to do some thing with astrology, right?.
Well, not actually. There is a thing called Luck Factor in life.

Some time no matter what you do, you never get what you want. Some other time, you may be walking on the street, a lottery ticket will fly into your hands and you might win a million $$s ( yes , I am being a bit dramatic, but you get the point). No matter what you do, whether you kneel down and cry to the almighty or please all the planets in the galaxy, things will not work. In other words, with or without astrology my double PhD guy would have got the job this time , not in the previous attempts. OK, but how can we rationalise something like Luck? I am really using a colloquial term, what I mean in mathematical terms is “randomness”. The odds must be in favour, and that is the next component.

Random Events - we don’t understand- we connect an imaginary dot!

Leonard Mlodinow's book “ Drunkards Walk- how randomness rules our life” is an excellent book for anyone interested in understanding probability. He writes that we often miscalculate odds and most of us do not understand the idea of random events.
Let us take a simple random event like flipping a coin. If you flip a coin and let it fall, you either get “head” or “tail”. The probability of getting a head ( or tail) is 50%. What does it this mean? It means nothing if you are going to flip a coin to decide who will inherit your ancestor‘s estate! It is impossible to predict whether you will get head or tail in a single event. Suppose you flip a coin twice and you get head both times, your natural tendency is to assume that you are likely to get tail next time. "Wrong", says Mlodinow, the probability is still the same 50%. That means bugger all. There is no way to tell if the next flip will be head or tail. This is a random event. In our life, several things that happen are random. There is no reason behind it. Since we have a natural tendency to look for a reason, we assume some reason (act of god or angel or planet). We connect an imaginary dot!

What is this got any thing to do with astrology? Let us take the example of my double PhD guy. He attended the interview in which the company interviewed 6 candidates. Out of the 6 candidates, my double phd friend was the successful one. His odds of getting that job were 1 in 6 or 16.66% ( if we assume that all the candidates are equally qualified and there are no real differentiators). Let us assume that he was in the same position previously. His odds of getting a job in his previous job interviews was also 1 in 6. So why did he get the job this time and not during the previous job interviews? If you role a die, the probability of getting number 6 is 1 in 6. However on some occasions you will find that you get six in the first throw but in some other times you have to roll it again and again. What is the reason? There is none. It is just the way random events work!
So how we do we deal with the randomness or uncertainty or luck factor associated with our real life events. Let us take the coin flip example again. Suppose you flip the coin again and again and noted the outcome in a sheet ( head or tail), and you do this say a million times. You will find that approximately 50% of the time, you get head ( An English mathematician found this the hard way. He was put in a prison by the Germans during the world war when he was lecturing in Copenhagen. He decided to conduct this experiment when he had nothing else to do!). In other words, the larger is your trials, the closer you are to the probability. While you cannot predict the outcome of a single coin event, if you were to bet for a million times, you will probably even out with your friend. This is how Casinos make money, this is how insurance companies make money. The Casino set the odds in its favour, so if a million people play, overall they win, even though once in a while a guy will hit a jackpot and walk out with a suitcase full of money!

So if we are to be successful in anything ( getting a job, getting married etc) , we need to adopt the same Casino strategy. we need to do two things:
a) Increase the trials, roll the dice again and again- Never Give up, the die will roll in your favour. Some time the very first interview, some time after the 100 th interview , with or without an astrologer's help.
b) Increase your odds. If you are in competition with 6 other colleagues for a position, try and think how you can increase the odds in your favour, from 1 in 6 to 1 in 3. Still there is no guarantee that you will get the position. But an odds of 1 in 3 is better than 1 in 6. That is the practical use of probability! The best odds is 100%, that means you are the only person suitable for that job. This is a certain event! Hard to achieve in real life

Surrendering to Astrology and fate reduces human potential. We lose the ability to do a self evaluation. Instead of improvising by learning from our failure, we surrender and rely on random events. Our ability to do a honest and thorough self analysis is lost in the process of surrender. My double PhD friends was downgrading his own talent to justify astrology!

In summary: we connect the wrong dots, and sometime we connect imaginary dots. That is our human nature and that is why astrology, palmistry, tarot reading, etc thrives. Once we attain this realization, we will achieve our true potential.You will see how powerful and mighty we are.
When you look up in the sky you will see how tiny and irrelevant the stars are in your life!

The fasting Yogi- how stupid is the media!

2010-05-17T13:38:00.002-06:00

The story of an Indian Yogi going without food or water is making headlines. First of all they all scream that this Yogi is living without food and water for the past 70 years. As if the reporter lived with the yogi for the last 70 years. How the hell do they know? It is impossible to verify this claim.

The DRDO and other good medical folks decided to put him on observation. He was monitored under the watchful eyes of the decorated medical establishment for 15 days. They then conclude it is a miracle. The DRDO want to hire this Yogi as a consultant to train soldiers fighting war in remote locations. Holy Cow!

All most the entire media is reporting the same story. No one is providing any details - , how did the yogi take bath ? Was someone watching him when he took bath? did they strip search the Yogi to see if he is hiding something under his dress ? Was he always facing the camera? etc.

I searched over 80 news links through Google. I discovered one thing. One reporter writes a story and rest of them cut and paste ! They do that "line for line", including the same quotes from the so called experts who claim that this man is making energy from some other source. Apparently he is doing photosynthesis!

Let me switch gears before coming back to the point. David Blaine is one my favorite magicians. All his magic stunts are in open public space ( not stage shows) with cameras watching him from 360 degrees. His book “A Mysterious Stranger" is truly awesome. It gives a brief history of magic and he also reveals some of the tricks of the trade. In his book, Blaine talks about a Yogi who lived in India during the colonial days. Apparently this man volunteered to be buried six foot below ground in a secured Coffin. They left his coffin underground for 6 months. When they finally dug the coffin up, they found the Yogi alive and well. Breathtaking isn't? . Can we teach solders to survive underground for six months as a part of combat training? David Blaine also explains how easy it is to pull this stunt. Several magicians have since repeated this stunt. When you read it you realize how gullible we are. I am not going to explain how the Yogi managed to stay buried for six months. . Read the book if you want. It is not that I am promoting his book. I simply want you stay wondering how this is possible. The same kind of reaction that you currently have with the fasting yogi!

Let us now switch back and look at the facts. The Yogi apparently lived without food and water for 15 days. That is as far as we can go with the analysis. As stated earlier we cannot verify his 70 year claim.

Going without food for 15 days is no big deal. Anyone with a will and nerve can do it. Mahatma Gandhi's fasting record is something like 21 days, more than this blessed Yogi. An Irish protester apparently lasted for 64 days (then he died) in a British prison. David Blaine did a stunt for 45 days in London sitting inside a Box.

Going without water for 15 days is a big deal. You are likely to severely dehydrate and die. Living without water for extended period is a Medical Impossibility.

We also see the medical establishment puzzled by the fact this man has not used the toilet during the 15 days. Here is a little tip for anyone who wants to control the bowel movement for extended period of time. It is a trick used by Yogis and Magicians ( as David Blaine explains in his book):

Fast for two days taking only clear fluids. (clear soup, juice, Pepsi etc, with no lumpy things or solids). The third day take a laxative (I recommend Dycolex). After you take this, sleep near the toilet for the next 8 hours. It will empty your bowel as hell as clear water! From now on take only fluids. You don't need to use the toilet for number 2! It is a standard magic protocol if you are going to do any stunts like this. it is standard prep exercise for practicing regurgitation ( swallowing a small object like Shiva Lingam and vomiting it back)
However the Yogi still need to urinate. The doctors claim that his bladder is re-absorbing the urine back in to his body. I am no doctor. I am an engineer by profession and I work with Water and Sewage. Here is a little tip to the learned doctors. The bladder is not re-absorbing the urine. He is peeing. Just how? He is taking bath regularly you morons!

After the yogi has taken bath, they could collect the bathed water. ( they need to divert the drained water in to a clean sump). It may be possible to test it for Urine ( like compare level of Urea, Ammonia, Nitrates etc in the collected water against the raw unpolluted water). If this is not possible another less dignified option is to ask one of the DRDO officers to watch him closely ( I mean closely!) when the Yogi is taking bath. Or we can strap some kind of tube to his thing and connect it to a bottle. Attach the bottle to his body so that if he is peeing it will fill up the bottle. To make it a bit more fun, let us attach a moisture sensor in the bottle and linke it to an alarm!

If we are talking scientific experiments let us do the full works. Blessing from Goddess doesn't make it any different.

How is he getting the fluid intake? He is allowed to gargle and take bath! Go back to the list of questions I asked in my article. Who is monitoring what the yogi is doing in the bathroom ? He might be gulping Vodka martini! It is easy for the Yogi to replenish some fluids especially if it is mixed with glucose, minerals and vitamins. He might also be hiding some kind of energy pills similar to the ones used by Astronauts in his Dhoti and dropping it during his ritual bathing. It may be possible to survive for 15 days just by drinking water that he would get from his daily bath. He may also have some accomplish inside the testing team who may be slipping some drink or medicine. We really don't know.

The doctors’ report contradicts basic engineering. There is a thing called Water Balance. In any given system: Water inflow = Water outflow + storage. If the yogi has never sipped any thing in life then, his inflow =0. There cannot be any storage in his bladder. In other words the doctors shouldn’t find any urine in his bladder as there has been no inflow in to his body. It is a direct proof that he is Drinking some thing. The only alternative explanation is that he is making his own water from his alternative energy source. This is an engineering impossibility. Water is a natural raw ingredient, you can only covert it from one form to the other (e.g. sea water to surface water ) or from one state to other ( water to ice). We have no technology so far to produce water. We can only purify (alter the state) existing water found in earth.

Also if he is producing energy from alternative sources, all his digestive system, colon, intestine, kidneys, urinary tract, bladder etc are redundant. They should be bone dry without any fluid. There is rally no need for the yogi to have these parts. Shall we remove them and see if he will live?

The simple explaination is : he is drinking fluids, we don’t know just how.

If the DRDO is interested in testing this seriously, then they should strip this guy naked and make him sit in a glass box and attach cameras all over him. He cannot take bath, neither allowed to gargle. At the most, we can permit giving him a sponge bath once a week. He should be observed for at least more than 3 months under this condition. And make sure there is an emergency response team on site, The yogi will go pale after a few days without water!

If we talk science let us talk proper science.

I am still not telling you how the Indian Yogi managed to stay buried under ground for 3 months. It is a miracle!

Phislosophically Speaking - Killing a Cow is a Sin, taking birbe is not!

2010-03-25T13:06:00.002-06:00

Our idea of “right” and “wrong” or “Good” and “Bad” stems from a combination of our upbringing and the environment in which we grow up.

People in general (religious or not) want to do “good” or do what is considered as “right”. The justification for doing “good” may vary between a religious person and a non-religious person.

Religious people follow their Moral values (the idea of what is right and wrong) because it is stipulated in the religious scripts or by the holy prophet(s). So a person may not steal because it is prohibited by the religion, or he/she is afraid that God will punish (or alternatively God will reward him/her for the good behavior). Every religion has a list of “dos” and “don’t”. Violation of the religious code will result in some sort of punishment or suffering (usually after death!).

The motivation for doing some thing “good” or “right” in this case is either personal benefit or out of fear.

Non Religious people derive the idea of right and wrong through reasoning and logic. In this context, “Non religious people” are those who are not motivated or guided by religion (they may or may not believe in God). For example a non religious person may not steal because they have come to a conclusion that stealing is wrong through the following analysis:

• How would the victim feel? (Sympathy)

• How would I feel if some one stole my stuff? (empathy)

• What would happen to the society if every one steal stuff from every one else? (sense of belonging)

Through a logical process such as the above (Reasoning), the person concludes that Stealing is wrong.

The moral codes (to a large degree the basis of modern justice system) were largely derived from` religious principles. They served the purpose of organizing the society and moving mankind from animal to human behavior. However the moral code of conduct derived from religious principles/prophecy has many problems in modern society.

1. Religious codes of conduct are not consistent nor universal

One part of the Holy Scripture might say “do good to others”, while another part of the holy script might encourage you to kill a fellow human being because he/she is not following the same system of god(s) or faith as you. So the moral value “you shall not kill any one” in this case, means more like “you shall not kill any one as long as they are practicing the same religion”. The Holy Scripture that says “Love your neighbors” might equally stipulate that your neighbor will go to hell because he is not following the same god as you.

What is considered as good by one religion may not be considered as acceptable by another religion. Buddhists, Jains and Hindus (some) consider killing animals as a sin, Hindus (some) are OK with killing animals as long as it is not a Cow, Christians are OK with killing animals as long as it is for Human consumption, Muslims and Jews follow the same Christian logic but the animal need to be killed in a certain way.

2. Religious codes of conduct are not comprehensive

The list of things that you are allowed to do (or not allowed to do) is incomplete considering the society in which we live. For example most middle class people do not steal, murder, rape, or rob a bank. So if you apply the religious code to them, they might qualify for heaven! However the same middle class person may sell a faulty product or enroll some one in a pyramid scheme knowing the person will loose money! They also have no problem in exploiting the poor, needy and vulnerable.

3. Religious codes are rigid and do not provide solutions to our every day ethical dilemmas.

The religious codes were developed thousands of years ago, and since then our society has moved on. We don’t’ get up in the morning, brush our teeth and kill our neighbor and eat his heart! We get up in morning and sell sub- prime mortgage and hide it in hedge funds!

4. Religious codes distorts our moral sense of right and wrong

If we take India for example, it is the most religious place in the world, yet it is also one of the most corrupt places in the world. I am not stating that Religion leads to Bribery; I am merely stating that Religion has not prevented Bribery. Government employees in India will gladly take bribes and don’t think that it is wrong (every one is doing this so what?). The same person will visit a Temple and drop a large donation (a share of bribe to God?).

Bribery is widespread and common, because people do not feel guilty or bad. There are more punishable offenses in religion such as missing a morning prayer, or eating a prohibited food!

The ratio of “holy places” to “human being” has increased steadily over the years. Yet the gap between the rich and poor is also increasing steadily. There are more Gods than Compassion!

A person, who worships three times a day and follow the food restrictions stipulated in the religious code strictly, may not consider receiving bribe or Dowry to be a sin.

What is good and what is bad? Can we establish this through a religious check sheet?

No!!

We must Reason, apply logic, compassion, sympathy and empathy. We then arrive at a conclusion. It is the next level of Human intellectual evolution.

Ethical reasoning provides a frame work for arriving at a moral conclusion. Ethical reasoning is not perfect. It is subjective and relative. However it helps us to understand and shape the society in which we live. Failure of logic and reason will lead to the destruction of man kind. Society as a whole should develop a sense of fairness and morality based on sound reasoning and logic.

The personal conscience should be the guiding light of behavior and not spiritual motivations or fear.

If the human society does not make the giant leap from “Moral values based on Religion” to “Ethical vales based on reasoning and logic”, the society will fail, for sure.

My Evolution - Travel through Holiness (or Holy Sh*#T)

2009-11-05T13:12:00.000-07:00

"He who does not allow his miracles to be investigated is a crook,he who does not have the courage to investigate a miracle is gullible,and he who is prepared to believe without verification is a fool"- Dr Abraham T. Kovoor

I often wondered why I drifted in to Rationalism despite my spritual upbringing. Here is my spirtual journey!

The Street Magician became God!

My earliest encounter with “Miracle men” was at the age of 8. At that time my family lived in a rural village in Tamilnadu. I and my brother were witnessing a “miracle street show” performed by a man who claimed to have supernatural powers. He did various street magic (or miracles if you prefer). He let a snake climb his body and curl around his neck; he irritated the snake and the snake bit him. He took a knife and started cutting his hand. The blood oozed out of his hand and he showed no pain. He later took a piece of cloth and wiped his hand and the wound healed miraculously, and there was no mark of cut or bruise in his hand.
I was really mesmerized by his act.

At the end of the show he asked every one to throw some money on to his blanket. He also cautioned that any one who doesn’t pay him will die after vomiting blood. The crowd obeyed and started throwing currency and coins to him. As I was speechless watching the whole drama unfold, my brother (who was a teenager at that time) did some thing remarkable. My brother announced in a loud voice to this man that he is not going to pay any money. My brother dared this man to make us vomit blood.

The man looked stunned. He cursed us that after we get home we will vomit blood during the night and die. My brother made a funny face, grabbed my hand and dragged me back home.

That night I was really scared. I was not sure what would happen to me.

“Perhaps we should have paid him the money. After all it was a small amount” I reasoned with my brother.

My brother reassured “don’t worry I have done this several times. Nothing will happen to you”.

I was not fully convinced. How did he cut his hand and his hand healed so fast? Would I really vomit blood and die? I couldn’t sleep that night. I woke up the next morning alive! I brushed my teeth and spit my saliva several times. No sign of blood in my saliva. It looked like my brother was right!

Later on, I started accompanying my brother to such miracle street shows, and I joined my brother in daring the street magician. It was good fun. We did that every time. The villagers saw us doing this again and again. Still they always paid money to the miracle man!

The Young Miracle Boy who outsmarted Engineering Students

It was during my second year in college. I came across this young boy (probably 8-10 years old) dressed up like a Monk. He knocked on my door one evening and told me that he would predict my future. I have never seen some one who is so young in this field. I invited him inside my room. He told me that he could predict my future for a small fee of Rs2.50. (it is probably the lowest tariff in “Fortune telling” business). Just for fun, I gave him the money and he started going on bla bla. (“Sir, I see danger coming from the south, you have some unfounded fears, there must have been a terrible incident in your life, etc etc”). Bye now, a group of students gathered around my room and was watching this curiously. I asked this boy if he could do some magic or miracle to prove his credibility. He agreed.

He took out a Pooja Bell from his bag and gave it to me.

“Examine this carefully to see if there is any thing inside” he said.

I looked through the bell carefully, there was nothing inside. He then took a small ball (the size of a Cherry fruit) made out of cloth. He placed the ball on the floor and covered it with the bell. He waved his hand three times and removed the bell. The ball disappeared!

The Second year engineering students were now showing sings of surprise. One of my friends however started teasing this young boy and called him a cheat. The little responded to my friend with an angry look , "If you ever insult me again, I will make this ball stuff inside your nose and suffocate you to death" warned the little boy. I was expecting my friend to challenge the young boy, but instead my friend froze in fear and kept quite. The next second, an idea struck to my mind. I paid the boy 5 Rupees and asked him to make the ball disappear again. As soon as the ball disappeared, I told every one that the ball had gotten in to my ears. I put up an act and dramatized it.

“Please take the ball out of my ear. I won’t doubt your powers” I begged this little boy.

The little boy was puzzled. He knew that this was not supposed to happen! He shook his bell a few times and looked at me in confusion. After this, I told him that the ball has moved out of my ears and thanked the little boy. The little boy acknowledged and produced the ball from his pocket! Everyone in the room was stunned. I and the boy exchanged a glance, and the little boy nodded his head (May be it was a thank you). Later on every one formed a bee line to get their future predictions. He made some good money (thanks to me!)

When he was about to leave, I dragged the boy to a side and asked him to teach me the trick. I promised him that I will pay him generously. He smiled and politely refused my offer. He packed up his bag and left. We never saw him gain. For a long time, the miracle boy was a topic of discussions. Some claimed that such gifted children are only born once in a Yuga (50million years?). Some one swore that he saw the miracle boy floating in the main hostel block and vanished in to thin air. The boy became a legend. The secret stayed with me.

I am Godess Kali’s sole representative!

I was visiting Haridwar (North of New Delhi) with my mother. That place was buzzing with Swamys/Gurus of all kind along the Ganges River. We came across a small hut (looked like a make shift camp) which was supposed to be a kali temple. A Swamy waved to us and asked us to come inside his temple.

The Swamy had various spiritual markings, long beard and a hair that could do with some wash and hair gel. We stepped inside his so called temple. In the center of the hut was a statue of Goddess Kali.

The Swamy sat near the statue with eyes closed in meditative position for a few seconds and then opened his eyes and remarked “Oh, so you have come here at last. I was expecting you”.

I remained silent. He then continued “your heart wanders about your ancestors, and you have decided to offer them the prayers and satisfy their souls”.

I laughed. He assumed that I have come to Haridwar to perform last rites for my ancestors (by the way, many people come to Haridwar for that purpose, so I gauss he took a shot). Unfortunately he has got the wrong guy! I told him that my dead ancestors are doing pretty good, and they have not complained to me so far!

The swamy did not appreciate my sense of humor. He gave a bunch of flowers to my mother and said “Mathathji, I see great things happening to your son. Please mediate upon Mother Kali and make a wish. It shall come true”. He then turned to me and said “Brother, put Rs500 on the feet of Kali”.

I waved my head in dismay “what for?”

“This is a simple dakshna (donation) for Mother Kali to make the wish come true” replied the Swamy.

“First of all, I never asked for the services of your Kali. I don’t want any wish to come true and I am not paying you. That is all” I remarked.

The Swamy got up and shouted in anger “you don’t know what you are doing young man. You are going to inherit the anger of Kali. The last man who showed this kind of attitude to me died in an accident right before the temple. I will curse you for insulting me and my mother Kali. If you don’t offer the money you would see yourself in great danger”. (What about his vision of seeing great things happening to me?)

“I don’t care, curse what you want, I am leaving. If I stay here any more, you will see some danger coming to your life” I replied, and walked out.

My mother whispered to me in low voice “don’t worry son, Mother Kali will not harm you. She is full of love. This guy is greedy and a fraud”. We both agreed that nothing would happen to me although we used completely different logic to come to the same conclusion.

After we walked a couple of feet away from the temple, the Swamy popped his head out and said

“At least could you offer Rs5 to Kali?”

It is all in the Mind!

End of my first year in Engineering College, we were busy organizing the college cultural festivals. The following day was the official inauguration of the cultural festivals and a local Swami (a very powerful and influential spiritual Guru) was scheduled to start the festivals.

I was with a group of boys working overnight to finish of stage decorations, organizing seating etc. We needed some decorative papers. So I and my friend (let me call him Pandi) went to fetch the decorative papers from the college store room. Inside the store room we found the Swmay’s chair.

The swamy’s management committee seemed to have shipped the Swamy’s chair before hand. The chair was present in the center of the room. It was a large mahogany chair, padded with some nice comfortable red cushions. The chair was decorated with a garland. (The Chair seems to have picked up some divinity from Swamyji’s buttocks). Pandi was a great devotee of this Swamy. As soon as he saw the chair, he fell down flat on the ground, prostrating in front of the chair.

“Pandi, you are prostrating to a chair” I remarked with surprise.

“It is not any chair, it is his Holiness’s chair” remarked Pandi.

“Indeed, your Swamy placed his backside on this chair” I remarked with a tone of sarcasm and speculated what else the Swamy would have done sitting in that chair (censored!)

Pandi replied in anger “You change your attitude, you don’t know about the Swamy. He can turn a man in to a pile of ash just by merely looking”

I reacted by climbing on to the chair, “Look what I am doing to your Swamy’s chair. I am putting my legs on this. If your Swamy is God he should know about this, and I dare him to punish me”. After this I sat on that Chair.

My friend was shaken by my act. He left the room quickly without saying a word.

I met Pandi after 10 years in Madras. He was now a married man working for the local government. I asked him if he was still a devotee of Swamy.

“Of course, how can I not? I owe everything to the Swamy. Because of his blessing I am now leading a good life and married. With his blessings I have one boy” he remarked. I don’t’ think the Swamyji contributed directly to his wife’s pregnancy. He must mean Spiritual blessings! (As a side track, the fertility rate of Indian Gurus seems to be pretty good. Their success rate in impregnating women is high. Perhaps it comes as a result of continuous spiritual practice!)

I reminded him of the Chair incident. “Your Swamy seem to have done nothing against my apparent insult to his Chair. I am doing pretty well” I remarked.

“I know. You have to thank me for that. After your foolish act, I prayed to Swamy for forgiveness. I fasted for a day. The Swamy seemed to have shown his magnanimity and has accepted my prayers” replied Pandi

Holy Cow....mother of all gods... , he had a fool proof argument.

Perhaps His Holiness considered my act as silly and stupid, and decided to forgive me in consideration of Pandi’s prayers. Or perhaps His Holiness is not interested in prosecuting people for such pretty crime. I cannot argue with him in that sense.

Nevertheless, I am happy to say that I was probably the only person other than His Holiness to have ever sat in that Holy Chair. So hear this..

My backside is Holy and divine!

Nadi Astrology (Jyosium)- Busted!

2009-05-29T15:44:00.000-06:00

Nadi Astrology - have you heard of it?

The theory is that the Ancient Saints/Rishis through their power of mediation predicted the life of every one in India. This information is documented in Palm Leaves. A group of families living in a place called Vaitheswaran Koil in Tamilnadu have taken possession of these palm leaves, and they are secretly guarding this for the last 1000 years or so. For a small fee they would retrieve valuable information about you from their palm leaves collection!

The buid up from a Beleiver

I learned about this from one of my relatives who was a great follower of this. He told me that a Nadi Astrologer took his finger prints, and based on that he retrieved a bunch of palm leaves which provided a detailed description of his life. My relative showed me a little notebook where they have written his life history. My relative’s name, his age, his wife’s name, number of children, his father’s name etc were accurately written in that note book. The relative swore that he had never been to Vaitheswaran koil in his life and never met any one there. Still they managed to provide so much information about him.

My relative also told me that they gave him information about his Previous Birth. (How on earth would you verify that?) Apparently in his previous life, my relative had been a king (good for him!). But he seemed to have killed a child by poisoning the milk, and the sin has followed him to this present life. To clear his criminal history, he had to perform some special pujas. Without going into the details of the Pujas, it is suffice to say he spend around Rs15,000 towards remedy. God seemed to have amended his criminal records and every thing in life is Jolly good from that point.

I was curious about all this and wanted to get to the bottom of this. So I decided to find out myself. I asked my relative to take us to Vaitheswaran Koil.

The journey and the experience

We landed in Vaitheswaran koil. My relative led us through the narrow street filled with Nadi experts (this is the Wall Street of Vaitheswaran Koil). He took us to a Nadi Astrology center which was a traditional brick house. My relative spoke with the some one inside and we were told to pay the fee and wait outside in the veranda. After about 15 minutes wait, we were allotted a Nadi Reader. My brother aggreed to be their client, I decided to observe the proceedings.

The Nadi Reader initially took an impression of my brother’s thumb, and then disappeared into the back of the house. A few minutes later, he came back with a bunch of dusty palm leaves. He started reading (or blabbering) some thing in what he called as “ancient Tamil”. Even though I am a Tamilian, his so called “ancient Tamil” did not make any sense to me. He then asked a series of questions. My brother was supposed to answer “yes” or “no” to the questions. Apparently the reader was doing this to make sure he picks up the right bunch of palm leaves.

After a series of questions, he told us that it was not the right palm leaves bunch. He then went inside and took out another bunch of palm leaves and started asking questions again (Like: “are you named after any god?”, “your father has more than one child?” etc)

The cyclic sequence: Questioning>> disappearing to the back>> picking up a new bunch of palm leaf>> Questioning - went on for about one hour. After an hour the reader disappeared inside for about 15 minutes and came up with a bunch of palm leaves. He told us that he got the right palm leaf bunch. He started blabbering some thing again in what he called “ancient Tamil” . This time instead of asking questions, he told us the answers- my brother’s name, my father’s name etc.

I was not surprised this time, because by now I have figured out how exactly he managed to pull this trick.

The Logic
It is a variation of COLD READING. I will try to explain in other ways..

Have you ever played a guessing game? . It works as follows:

You will be part of a team consisting of 3 or 4 people. You will go to a person in an other team who will whisper something in your ear. You go and stand in front of your team, and your team mates will then ask a series of questions. You can only answer “yes” or “no”, and you cannot speak or give any other clue. Your team mates should find out what was whispered in your ears based on your “yes” or “no” answer.

If you have played this game, you will understand how the Nadi Reader predicted things about my brother. It is a matter of asking questions, and based on the response, you ask further questions to narrow down the answers.

Observations

During the initial stages, the Nadi Astrologer failed to get my Brother’s actual name (his actual or legal name is “Dilip Kumar” which is a north Indian name). Then some thing interesting happened, my mother started to associate the Astrologer’s questions to my brother’s spiritual name which is “Vaithyanathan”. After my mother started guiding the Nadi reader towards my brother’s spiritual name (without knowing of course), subconsciously both my mother and brother were cooperating with the Reader to make this work. To explain, look at the following questions and corresponding response:

“Are you named after a god?”
“Yes”
“Are you named after Vishnu”
“No”
“Are you named after Shiva”
“Yes”
“Does your name start with any of the following sounds: “ Ka,se, va (க, ச, வா )”
“Yes”

If the above questions were associated with my brother’s legal name, then the answer to all the above questions should be “no”. But to make this work (subconsciously), my family was leading the Nadi Reader towards the spiritual name by answering yes.

The Nadi reader was not asking the questions in the above order to camouflage his technique. So he jumbles his questions around. For example his first question would be related to my brother’s name, the second question would be related to my father’s name, the third question will be related to my mother, and the fifth question will be related to my brother name, and so on.

I reconstructed the whole sequence of questions & answers later on and demonstrated how the Nadi reader established the facts about my brother. I also explained to my family how they volunteered more information in addition to the simple “yes” or “no’ during the process.

The Nadi reader regularly disappears from the room, during which I think he is passing on his clues to some one else. His inside accomplish deciphers the information and provides fresh set of questions, and then they narrow down the clues as they go further. Once they are satisfied that they have learned sufficient information, they compile it in one go to give you this magnificent effect - that the palm leaf bunch has every thing about you!

The Nadi reader showed us the palm leaf bunch that apparently contained my brother’s personal information. In the palm leaf, most of the writings did not make sense (did not resemble any thing similar to the Tamil alphabets that we read in school) except for my brother’s name which was clearly readable. For believers it gives some sense of authenticity (“hey it has got my name so that should be the right “).For a rational person it doesn’t make any sense. Why would the ancient palm leaf writers write the person's Name in modern Tamil but write the rest of the information in the so called ‘ancient Tamil”? .

I realised it would be a hell of a task for this guy to crack unusual names. If you have a name like “Jose Marina de Gonzalis” or “Marvin Attapattu” there is no chance in hell that you would get a Nadi Astrology prediction. I watched the Nadi Astrologer go through the same process with an other man (who looked like North Indian). After one hour of questioning, the Nadi Reader claimed that he couldn’t get the right palm leaf bunch. I figured out that they have failed to crack him. In the end the Nadi Reader gave up and told his customer that the palm leaves will only appear when the time is right!

Let me draw attention to the beginning of this article.

My relative told me this:

The Nadi Reader predicted his past based on reading from palm leaves
The palm leaves were retrieved from a simple thumb impression.

He did not tell me that we would go through one hour of rigorous questioning. Most of the people who had been to this Nadi Astrolgoy never mention the questioning process. When I ask them specifically about the questions they respond like “Oh yah, they asked a few questions to make sure they are picking up the right bunch of palm leaves”. I am surprised that an important element of the whole process goes unnoticed by the people who visit the Nadi center. It is what I call “Unconscious exaggeration”. When you believe in some thing, you only remember and analyse the things that support your belief. It is a classic case of believers in astrology- they filter information to support their faith and leave out other details which provide clue for an objective analysis. I don’t think the believers are doing it on purpose. It is self deception.

Let us assume for the sake of argument that the whole Nadi Astrology was true and that the great Rishis in the past predicted the life story of fellow citizens. How many people’s life they predicted? No one knows.

Assume they predicted the life of say 100,000 people in India (it is less than 0.01% of the total population of India). Going by the data provided by the Nadi Astrologer, for each person they have around 72 pages worth of data. For a sample size of 1 Lakh people, you should have approximately 7.2million page worth of information. If the Great Rishis predicted some thing like this 1000 years back they should have predicted for more than 100,000 people (because you have to consider all the people who lived in India in the last 1000 years). So we are talking about billions and billions of pages worth of data. Even if you assume that the Nadi astrologer has a secret bunker where he is holding billions of palm leaves, there is one more problem. The palm leaves have limited life and you would have to transfer the information to a new set of leaves periodically to keep the information alive. This would require a massive workforce of full time palm leaf writers in industrial scale.

In a nut shell- Nadi Astrology - what a load of bull shit.

Post Script:

Some bleiver will tell me that they had a different experience. May be they were never questioned for one hour, may be they got the palm leaf stright away. May be every thing the Nadi Astrologer predicted came true.

Would that mean I went to a fraud and that is not the fault of Nadi Astrlogy? No, it that just means that the guy used a different technique! and you have not carried out an objective anlysis of his prediciton.

Astrology -the psudoscience

2008-09-30T20:38:00.000-06:00

“An Indian without a horoscope is like an American without a credit card”
- Sashi Tharror

There are lot of astrological web sites that promise you instant prediction, remedies (parihara) etc. By the click of the mouse you can remove the effects of Mars or Kethu, all you have to do is give them your credit card number! I find it surprising.
There is a lot misinformation and misuse of scientific terms to justify Astrology. For example I find constant reference to Nava Grahas ( 9 Grahas) as 9 planets. One web site claimed that Indian Astronomers discovered 9 planets long before Europeans or Americans had any knowledge of it. I want to point out that not all the Nine Grahas are planets. Out of the Nine Grahas, only five are planets, (Sun is a star, moon is earth’s satellite, and Rahu and kethu are not even celestial objects, they are lunar nodes!). When it comes to Planets even the modern day astronomers don’t have a common agreement. It is only recently the International Astronomical Society has come up with a definition for Planet. As a result of the new definition, Pluto is demoted from the Planet status. So there are only 8 planets as we speak. The five planets that Indian astronomers observed were known to the Greek, Chinese and other civilizations that existed at that time.

It is interesting to note that Earth, one the major planet in the solar system is not considered in the horoscope. If Mars, Venus etc can cast an influence on humans why not earth, after all we are living in it (it is the only planet that seems to have life forms as we know)? . Is it because ancient astronomers thought that the earth was the center of the universe and every thing revolved around the earth (Geocentric theory)? For some reason, the earth is not taken in to account in Astrology, which I find it strange.

How can Grahas (Celestial objects), Nashatras (stars) etc influence individual human life?

Ancient astronomers probably studied how different celestial bodies influenced the Earth. The Sun and Moon in particular can exercise influence over the earth. Seasonal changes, tide actions etc are a result of relative position of the earth in relation to Sun and Moon. Therefore it is important for them to predict the relative location of some of the celestial objects so that they can plan their life around in ancient days. So if you are a farmer, you need to get advanced knowledge of seasonal changes to decide what is the best time to start you plantation and what is the best time to harvest. To predict seasons you need to understand the movement of the Sun around earth (as it appears to an observer on Earth). In those days there was no calendar or weather forecast so this is the only way they can organize their life.

However, you have to understand that the impact of the celestial objects on earth is specific to a region. For example if it is summer, it is summer for every one living in that area. So the force or influence exerted by a celestial object cannot be specific to an individual. Scientifically the celestial objects cannot exert different force to different people living in the same place on earth. For example the Sun cannot emit one level of UV radiation to you and a different level of UV radiation to me when we are both living in Madras.

Even if they exert a force that is not yet discovered by the scientific community, it can only exercise that force over an area on earth and not to each individual. We have so far concluded that any physical force (gravitational, magnetic, radiation etc) if exerted by celestial objects can only be specific to a region and not specific to an individual within a region.

What about Spiritual force? Spiritual Forces can exercise influence over any person, any place, and any time. Generally the supernatural or spiritual forces do not obey any natural law and they can do their own thing! But you cannot quantify or even prove the existence or non-existence of these supernatural or spiritual forces. Any way, for the time being, let us accept the theory that such spiritual forces exist. That means each Graha (celestial object) has some sort of spiritual force within it. At this point, we move from Astronomy to Astrology!

With the above assumption, let us look at the Horoscope or Birth Charts

When a child is born, the astrologer will produce a birth chart called Horoscope. This contains all the information (specially the location of different Celestial objects) as observed on a particular day. For example, at the time of birth the Nakshatra of that day will be designated as Jannma Naskhatra (home star). Bye the way, a Naskhatra is not a star but a celestial zone along the path of the moon. I will try to give a simple explanation of Nakshatra. Draw a large circle, and at the center of the circle draw a small circle. Now the small circle is the earth and the large circle is the apparent path of the moon around the earth. (You can use a collar button as moon and move it around the large circle to be dramatic). Divide the large circle in to 27 segments (just like the way they make Pizza slices). Each segment is a Nakshartra and they are named after the star or group of stars that exist within the segment. As the moon moves around the earth, it moves from one segment to the other. So if you look at the Panchankam it will tell you the Nakshatra for a particular day. Because the Lunar day does not synchronize with the calendar day, you might have two Nakshatras in a single day. The panchangam will tell you at what time the switch over form one Nakshatra to the other happens. Like wise you can establish rasi, thithi, yogam etc . In a nut shell the horoscope produces a snap shot of the sky with some key celestial objects at that time of birth. The belief is, depending on the location of these various celestial objects at the time of birth, the personality, character, who they will get married to, when will they die, etc will be decided.

There is a fundamental problem with the above theory. Because every thing is decided at the time of birth, if you are a clever person you can manipulate the time of birth to produce the right horoscope, a custom made horoscope that produce this super child. A caesarian section for example can be carried out to suit that exact moment. A simple way to cheat the mighty and powerful supernatural force. After all you can control your child’s destiny if not your own!

Let us look at the horoscope form the perspective of a Graha. Let us take Mars for example. Mars is happily going around the sun as its usual routine, and suddenly it gets a signal, a child is born. It needs to record the Child in its database, the exact time and date, and its relative location with respect to the Child’s coordinates (Latitude and Longitudes) on earth. This information is key data for Mars because later on it needs to decide what it is going to do to this child comparing to an other child which is born one hour later (who inherits a different horoscope by the way). A child is born every 3 secs or so and there are lot of babies born across the world. So Mars should have a sophisticated process of keeping track of all the babies and adults as they grow up. If this Graha is that intelligent and powerful to perform a complex operation like this, will it not know that you have tricked the system by delivering the baby before it was due? If I were Mars, I would quickly found out this trick and call it bluff! . Therefore, the time of child’s birth which is the important element of a horoscope does not appear to be the best system from the Graha’s point of view as human beings can manipulate it.!

In a small region in India, on average over 10,000 babies are born within a time interval of 5 mins. All the 10,000 babies will have identical or similar horoscope. In theory they should grow with identical life style ( get married on the same day, die on the same day, suffer flue and constipation on the same day and so on!). We know that no two persons life style is same. Identical twins are classic example. For years, Child Psychologists have been debating whether the Child’s character and personality is as a result of Nature (Genes) or Nurture (by upbringing). This has resulted in extensive study of Twins. Studies have shown that twins who are separated at birth develop distinctly different character, life style and personality from each other. As a part of the Epigenetic studies, scientists are studying identical twins in which one of the Twins suffers a life threatening disease while the other leads a normal way. They are trying to figure out what makes them different even though they are of the same genetic make up. Dr Manel Esteller led a group of scientist in Spanish National Cancer Center in Madrid, to carry out a study on identical twins to understand why one of the twins developed a cancer while the other one did not. So Twins, even though they both may have identical horoscope, they could have different life style (one gets cancer and the other doesn’t). How can we explain this?

One astrologer told me that the time difference between the births of the two twins could have made the difference and a good astrologer will take that in to consideration and actually device a different horoscope for each twin. Some of the twins are born minutes apart. Is the horoscope that accurate to minutes or seconds?. If that was the case, most of our horoscopes were not exactly correct. How many of you can guarantee that the time of birth recorded in your horoscope is accurate to minutes and seconds? In most cases of birth, the person who records the time of birth is the Midwife or Nurse and they are not too bothered about recording it to the exact minutes. In most hospitals in India only medical professionals are allowed in the labor ward. The only way a family learns about the child's birth is when the Nurse or a hospital attendant comes to the family and announces the birth of the child. It is only the Nurse’s word and no other proof exists about your time of birth. For all you know the Nurse might have spend some time after the child’s birth (chatting to a fellow nurse for example) and then came and told you about the child’s birth. So in actual reality the child might have been born a few minutes (or even 10 –20 minutes earlier) earlier than the time the family came to know about the birth. In most cases, once the child is born, the priority of the mid wife would be to examine the child, cut the placenta, clean the child, attend to the mother and so on. I don’t think there is any one present in the labor ward with a stop clock to capture the exact moment of birth. If horoscope should be based accurately on time of birth (to minutes and seconds accuracy) than 90% of the folk’s horoscope is wrong. When I asked one astrolger about this, he said the time of birth does not have to be that accurate. He said that as long as it is within one Nazhikai ( about 1 and half hours) it is OK! They keep changing the criteria for establishing horosocpe to suit their arguments!

If accurete time of birth is required for generating a horoscope then most people's horoscope is wrong! If time of birth doesnot have to be that accureate, then we need to explain why it doesn't work with Twins.!

If life is predetermined by birth, your actions and deeds are pointless. No matter what you do, if you are born to be screwed by Grahas, you will be screwed any way. This is kind of a cynical view of life; it does not offer any hope. It is highly pessimistic (if you happen to inherit a wrong horoscope by no fault of yours!). The astrologers can however argue that by doing some Pariharas (remedies) you can defend yourself against the forces of the grahas. This usually involves doing some special poojas to please the Grahas. Why should the Grahas change their mind if you offer some Puja?. It is more like bribery. So you could be rapist or a murderer, but as long as you keep pleasing the Grahas you can keep getting a good life style. So it looks like bribery and corruption is hard wired in to us through the Grahas.!

What is the role of God in all this?. If the Grahas have some powers, then God must have vested those powers to them. Right? After all GOD is the only source of power. To give a crude analogy, Grahas would be more like MLAs where as God is the chief minister. So why can’t you deal directly with the Chief Minister?. So in theory, by having a good report with god, you should be able to shield yourself from the Grahas, right? If you have complete faith and love for God then it shouldn’t matter what kind of horoscope you have. After all wouldn’t GOD favor his disciples?. From a truly spiritual point of view, there is no need to analyze your horoscope. Right ?

A lot of people accept my arguments but say, “ How come then what ever my astrologers says come true? Every thing he has told us so far has been right and he predicts things with 100% accuracy. You should go to the right astrologer” So from their personal experience they think Astrology is correct even though they accept that logically it sounds wrong.
Why is that an astrologer's prediction turns out to be accurate for those who believe in astrology but not for people like me? To answer this question one should understand the psychology and social mindset of people. Deep inside they want the prediction to come true and they make it happen. It has got nothing to do with astrologers. I will write about how it works for beleivers in my next blog!. I have developed a model to explain how it works. Watch the space.

Science behind Numerology- an Indian Context

2008-09-16T13:24:00.000-06:00

Numerology is becoming a big hit in India, especially with the middle class. Now names like “Karthikeyan” are spelled as “Kaarthykeeyen” to fit in with the Numerology. I decided to give this relatively new phenomenon a thorough exam. Before I get in to the nitty-gritty of understanding the numerical value of alphabets and their spiritual significance, I wanted to analyse how the thing would actually work.

Suppose we assume that there is a great force (shall we call it God?) out there some where we cannot see, and this force controls humans. So God (or sub GOD, or one of God’s department - let us say the Numerology department of God) constantly scans people’s name and establish a number based on a pre-defined algorithm, and then its decides either to screw or bless people based on the outcome of this analysis. So an unlucky Karthikeyan becomes super fortunate by changing his name to Kaarthykeeyen (Even though Kaarthykeeyen may not have done any good deeds or done any philanthropic work). The mere fact that that his name now confirms to the Numerological process is sufficient to reward him. This appear to be a very bureaucratic system, pretty much like the way Government departments work with a check sheet!. There are over 3 billion people or so on the planet, so this programme will have to scan all people’s name every day to analyse their name against a set of rules. You can arugue that it may be difficult for a supercomputer, but not for some one like God as he is super powerful and can run a whole set of angles to carry out this task. right ? So far we have some logic ( in an absurd way). But my next question is:

Why does GOD carry out this pointless task? It seems odd to me that a superpower full supernatural stuff would waste a lot of time in scanning people’s name.

Why is this divine cosmic energy so obsessed with people’s name?

You mgiht say God works in mysterious ways and we cannot understand the rationale behind his actions. Ok, so I accept that GOD for some reason scans people’s name. So without questioning the rationale behind the numerology department of God, I move on to my next question.

When the supernatural force scans name, what name does it actually scans?

We as individuals have different names. For example my Spiritual name is Neelakandan. This is what my mom registered in God’s data base during my naming ceremony. But I don’t relate to this name and won’t even respond when some body calls out this name. After the first registry with God it was never used in my life. After registering this name with God, my mom registered me as Rajkumar in school and then decided to call me Raja at home!. I also had several other nick names during my school, collage and at work. After I moved to the west I became Rajkumar Subramanian. Most official correspondence that I get these days is addressed as Mr. Subramanian which happens to be my father’s name! I then shortened my name to Raj to make it easier for the western folks. Even with this attempt they still miss spell me. The Polish guy that I work call me Rag, some time Reg, or some time Rej. In one mobile phone contract they had my name as Mr.Submarine (some how they got this confused with Subramanian). So which name does the God’s numerology department takes in to consideration when they scan?. It is the official name as per the passport, or as per your school records or just your first name or is the name by which you are known?.

Why does numerology works mostly with English language?

Is there numerology in other languages? I don’t know, but I doubt if there is. I think it is because the English language is so weird. It doesn’t have a proper set of rules that govern spelling. In the word “Walk” for example, the alphabet “l” is silent, but when you say “bulk” it is not. And no one will tell you why this is case. It works pretty much like the God’s numerology department!. It is probably because of this that Numerology works mostly with English language. So when Indian folks change the spelling of their name as per Numerology, they only do it in the English language and not in their own mother tongue. To test this, try adding an additional “sa” (ச) or “ka” (க ) to your name in Tamil, Hindi or any other Indian laguage. It wouldn’t make any sense. When writing names in English you can throw a whole set of vowels and you can make it work. I just wonder how you can apply Numerology to a language like Chinese which has got over 10,000 or more alphabets. You need to a computer to figure out a Numerology system! The system is unfair that Numerology appears to be mostly favouring native English speakers or people who can speak English. The English speakers can figure out how best to arrange the spelling of their names and get the favours from God, where as a poor guy who don’t speak English cannot do this to get the same favour from God. In a weird kind of logic you can argue that this is the reason why English speaking countries like the USA and UK are well developed and prosperous comparing to other Non-English countries. The flaw in this argument is that we assume that every one in English speaking countries follow numerology. Even if we accept that hypothesis, the argument falls down when you take equally propoerous Japan or France in to consideration where most folks do not speak English. ( do they practice Numerology over there?)

Why does name matter so much to god when his own name (at least in Hinduism) is not spelled properly?

In the context of Hinduism, let us examine how Numerology will work with the set of Hindu Gods. For example Lord Ram in Hindi will become Rama in Telegu and becomes Raman in Tamil. Most of the North Indian names are customised with an “n” in the end in Tamil to make it compliant with the Tamil grammar. For example, Krishn or Krishna is turned as Krishnan in Tamil. So which is the right spelling for the God? Is it Ram, Rama or Raman? Most ancient Indian spiritual literatures do not attribute a great deal to names. It fact they repeatedly tell you not to argue about names. They go one step further and actually give a single God "thousand names”. So Vishnu alone has got thousand names (Sahasra namam) . So when Gods don’t care about how their names are spelled why would they enforce it to humans? The concept of obsession with name and phonetics doesn’t appear to be compatible with Hinduism.

After all this analysis, I have decided I am not even going to bother understanding the principles of Numerology. After all, if God is silly enough to evaluate me based on the spelling of my name without considering my actions and behaviours, he is not God but an Idiot. For those of you who get offended by this statement, I reprhase this. God is not an idiot and so God will not evaluate some body based on the spelling of his/her name. (I think I may have cooled down the spiritualists!). If God doesn’t understand me as a person, instead only look at how my name is spelled in English, what difference does it makes between God and a racist who judges people based on their skin colour?

Any comments or views email to: traffic_raj@hotmail.com