It always is of greatest difficulty to answer when asked of the definition of the God. More importantly why there are so many religions when we confidently say in so much faith that there is just one God. However one might propose an answer to the latter question saying that different religions are just analogous to numerous paths starting from somewhere in the history of mankind, taking too many turns, although converging at a single point of concept or object - God. Well to most of the religious philosophers the former addressing to God as a concept will easily be digestible, as for concept can be real or abstract , physical or metaphysical. Irrefutably these philosophers will certainly cry from indigestion of my latter addressing to God as an object, complaining this definition to be materialistic. Still with so many religions the formal basic definition and explanation of God varies and so does the way people have been admitting them for centuries.
The matter of religion is the matter of philosophy. It is the philosophical doctrines that have settled ground for all the religions. Philosophy is the outcome of man's fetish to seek for the true knowledge and its understanding, it is the man's ability to go for reasons and logic behind those knowledge in order to pave the way for mankind so that nothing remains skeptical.
Philosophy can be dated back to the times when man first came. It was the philosophy that made man to explore each and every new thing that came his way in the prehistoric times and which inevitably made him to learn the art of living and surviving so that one day he can rule this planet. But that was the crudest form of philosophy which over years started getting more rational and pure owing to the biological developments of man. During the course of development, man tried to understand natural laws within the boundaries of his logical framework. The thunderbolts, forest-fire, rain, earthquakes etc..that were the matter of mystery (and worship to please these forces of nature) during some point of time , later perfectly fitted into the logic and reasoning.
The greatest reproachment that a religion can suffer is that Man makes religion, and religion does not makes man. Religions are founded by people who feel a need for religion themselves and have a feeling for the religious needs for the masses. This is perfectly true in the context of every religion whether it be Hinduism , Islam or Christianity. I will shortly try to justify the above made statement in each of them.
Initially there was nothing but paganism which incorporated worship of gods in multiple forms(mainly restricted to the elements and forces of nature, natural creatures etc). Paganism is usually misinterpreted as religion although paganism was not any religion but the blend of ideas , faiths and dogmas which got sedimented over the years right from the time of early mankind. There were so many theological dogmas practiced under the common name of Paganism. During those times when a state conquered another, owing to variant practices and beliefs of people in both states there might arise conflict when the beliefs were made to impose on one another. There could be another reason behind letting the people to choose their set of beliefs - fusion of beliefs. Despite changing one's belief , attempts were made to continue with them to create a fusion of dogmas, ideas and philosophical doctrines. Beside them, however, there arose a fusion of art, literature whose effects became conspicuous in the daily lives of people. Over centuries, this continuation led to the widespread expansive form of paganism in the times of ancient Roman empire and Greek Hellenistic society.
Another religion that brought the Roman world empire into subjection and dominated the largest part of humanity for around 2 millenniums was the Christianity. Christianity arose as a movement and outlook of utterly despairing people after the numerous revolts of slaves and poor people deprived of all rights against the yoke of the Roman Empire. Political prisoners, gladiators, people accused of blasphemy etc shared the curse of being slaves. Christianity promised salvation from slavery, bondage and misery if proper measures were taken to overthrow the existing religion of the state (which was Pagan).
Now I would like to turn my attention to Islam. Islam was started as a religion of Orientals(orientals were those belonging to eastern ethnicity), especially Arabs and Africa. It had townsmen engaged in trade and industry on one hand and Nomadic Bedouins on the other. The townsmen grew rich, luxurious and lax, while the Bedouins were poor and hence of strict morals, contemplating with envy these riches and pleasures. Then they finally unite under a prophet, a Mahdi, to chastise the apostates and to restore the true faith.
Now the question arises what made them to unite, what kind of turmoil happened to place the situation good for yet another new religion ? What makes a new religion to foster ?
Well to answer this question , one might choose to think religiously or as a free thinker. Still philosophy plays an eminent role in making this distinction.
Every new religion fosters owing to change in the way philosophical ideas are presented in order to address the problems of people of a time, so that a better modified solution can be presented. However the core philosophical ideas like virtues and vices, general human attitude towards his surroundings, rights and duties of humans as a part of society etc remains almost same, still the difference continued to exist because every religion was established in some particular region at some particular point of time.
Philosophy is the product of man, and man is the product of time and its surroundings. Therefore irrefutably philosophy is the product of time and the conditions. Every philosophical idea was once proposed when there was an urgent need to do that, when our mind asked questions which were unanswerable owing to our unwilling situation of limited knowledge. Our entire wealth of knowledge is the accumulation of those clutter of ideas which were the product of time. When man did not understand those mysterious happenings around him in the form of rain, thunders, earthquakes, varieties of creatures he was watching around and tried to peel off their reason of existence, origin and behavior he first got himself into deep helplessness. The reason could be obvious - they were new to them and on the part of logic, man had not gained much. Man and animals showed much resemblance in their behavior and reaction to new and strange things. When he experienced them in the beginning, he had no option than to fear (owing to his less adapted condition and fragile mindset as a result of slow evolutionary progress). His incapability to overcome them turned man to induce a kind of fear and respect which made him to worship them for the sake of his desires and ambitions. When the things got regular for him over time, rather than getting frightened he started to contemplate. All the reasons he sorted out was the result of this contemplation over layers of time.
Because every philosophy is the spiritual quintessence of its time, the time must come when philosophy not only internally by its content but externally by its appearance comes into contact and mutual reaction with the real contemporary world. The planets and sun that were once considered to be godly things are now conceived as just the byproduct of Big Bang. Copernicus' great discovery for which he was accused of blasphemy and was executed, turned out to be the greatest discoveries of all the time. Despite of being a christian, Copernicus held a great disagreement with the christian dogmas and faiths. This was not the fault of the early philosophers and people who conceived and passed such faiths generation over generation, rather such faiths were the result of analysis and logic of people of those times. A concept or idea of one time is not hard bound to be correct in another phase of time. Even Einstein's theories on relativity were not taken seriously correct when he first proposed them ! But we cannot blame physicists of his time for the connivance they turned on his theories; when time came and we developed such logic and evidence to understand him , we started adoring Einstein.
Man, who looked for a superman in the fantastic realities of heaven and afterlife , when found nothing there but the reflection of himself and his individual views, his experiences, his joys and pains, he simply poured his findings over some supernatural element (God), as there was no other option to him to offer his reasons onto. Originally man created god and later god created man i.e, the concept of God was created by man and later this concept was transformed into divinity. If the concept of god did not exist, somehow man would have created one because it is vital for his psyche.
Today our philosophical wealth might be maintaining silence over the definition of God and it might be logically crippled to prove and ascertain its existence, hopefully it might be possible in some near or far time to break this silence over such a critical subject that has been the matter of great interest and chaos among the pool of believers and non-believers.
We have always been talking for peace and stability. Diplomatic talks forged around building trust and confidence, which are considered to be the bringer of peace in a region, have not always worked. Therefore an obvious question strikes our mind -- What should be,then done in order to reinstate peace or better say to make it sustain long ? There are many who would call for a healthy diplomatic conciliation on this, some non-pacifist would suggest for an offensive move. Still these are not permanent solutions for a nation like Iran which is so vulnerable owing to the hectic condition of the middle-east.
It is being said by US and other pro-US nations in an alarming tone that Iran is busy making nuclear armament, the implication of which would be non-peaceful in an already chaotic middle-east environment and to the entire world. Iran is accused for secretly enriching uranium and for repudiating the investigation on nuclear properties demanded by IAEA several times. The west is concerned that Iran may have some offensive intentions behind such activity. I would try to present here what would have been going on inside Iran's political machinery considering the non-futuristic path some of the middle-east
countries are heading on. Moreover there would be an attempt from my side in making this move of Iran reasonable.
Iran has got two war-torn regions--Iraq at the west and Afghanistan at the east, both of these nations being doomed by a common force US. US entered in a war against Taliban which was accused to shelter Al Qaida, the force behind the 9/11 holocaust, and which had taken Afghanistan into a sheer primitiveness and theocratic compulsions. The fate of Iraq driven the nation into another war , but this time with its own former ally US. Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussain, this time was accused of implementing chemical warfare against Iran during Iran-Iraq war in 1980-1988, and waging a war on Kuwait in 1990 seeking the excuse of stealing its oil beside other hegemonic claims. The conditions here in the aftermath of the war is conspicuous to us and therefore there are many who condemn this offensive action of US to
emerge out as a global superpower.
To a much extent I agree. Indeed US connivance was pitiful when Iraq was using chemical warfare against Iran ( as a matter of fact US was backing Iraq in this war) ,and was seeking a retaliation to an earlier event in 1979 , when some university students of Iran had made US official hostage for 444 days in order to oust pro-US Shah regime and reinstate democracy. Since then US has always been looking for a chance to vandalize Iran. Moreover there have always been such intentions to refrain Iran becoming a powerful state in the middle-east. The criticism over nuclear development is one such display.
1. Iran is the second largest producer and exporter of oil in the world. Moreover it is the fourth-largest exporter of crude oil globally after Saudi Arabia, Russia, and the United Arab Emirates. This culminates,into US, the desire to get hands over the oil reserves and its fiscal profit in order to maintain the global dominance which has always been challenged by Russia, and now by China.
2. Iran had nationalized all its oil reserves and oil-conglomerates soon after democracy was reinstated in 1980. This move ceased entire opportunities for foreign interventions, particularly of US and UK , which were the dominant profiteer from Iranian oil-exports prior to 1979.
3. With oil prices going up day by day , US must have been concerned with the oil consumption in the industrial sector , lagging on which would definitely cause embarrassment to its global economy strongholds.
4. US must have been alarmed with the Russian alignment in the context of Iran policies. Moreover China, another US rival has some tie-ups made recently with Iran in exchange of oil.
All these factors have driven US in a state where maintaining its global grip would be the sole priority. And to pursue that, US would definitely cast a move , and indeed it has !
Now i would like to establish Iran's nuclear policy reasonable :-
1. Iran has witnessed the worst during Iran-Iraq war , and therefore it would be its sole concern in making a robust defense in order to check any foreign intervention.
2. The double standard US-policy played against Iraq and Afghanistan (during Afghanistan war 1979-1989 ) has created a distrust in Iran for US. Overthrowing democracy in Iran through a CIA coup in 1953 sought to be a valid reason for such distrust among Iranians.
3. The United States (and other official nuclear weapons states) were alleged during the May 2005 month-long meeting on the NPT(Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) to be in violation of the NPT through Article VI, which requires them to disarm their nuclear weapons, which they have not done yet. Is it justified ?
Perhaps Iran would have the same answer (what US is having) to all those who are busy reproaching so-called Iranian nuclear-ignominy.
In my way to conclude the discussion , I supremely believe that to maintain peace in a region, a proper balance of power is needed. Iran has got pro-US machinery in its neighboring nations Iraq and Afghanistan. To nullify the US dominance over the middle-east, it is not unjustified to build proper safeguards. Almost entire nations had once started their nuclear warhead program in order to maintain regional balance of power ( This is perfectly valid in the context of India, Pakistan and China). If it is acceptable at some place, then it must be the same in the context of Iran. I am complacent to hope that Iran would not bear the blame for another nuclear war..!!
Few days back I went to watch " My Name Is Khan " , though i do not carry much fetish for Shahrukh Khan , I was sure at one point that the film would certainly mark something relevant and messaging. During the film I heard him saying " My Name Is Khan and I am not a Terrorist ! " a number of times. In the theatre, I could see crowd rejoicing each time the protagonist utters this dialogue..they clapped, they shouted with zeal...and they left. But the film left me in a swirl state where I started asking my conscience as whether the extent to which the crowd applauded made them feel the essence of the movie ? Was that just a reflex to a dialogue being said by a superstar, or did they immensely hold the nerve of the movie ?
The movie tried hard and to a much extent proved effective in delivering the message it was intended to. I could remember a dialogue when SRK painfully presented the state of Muslims in US in the aftermath of 9/11---" Before there used to be two things marking the significance of Date..AD and BC, but after 9/11, there are three..AD,BC and 9/11 ! " . Unfortunately it is almost true when Muslims all over the world,particularly in the west are sneered with racial and ethnic discrimination, and to much extent,this community deplorably shares the blame for being allegedly involved,directly or indirectly in almost every terror attack.
In the aftermath of 9/11,the situation and the changes have been different for Muslims in the US. An exercise of discretion was targeted on Muslims not only at the moral level but affecting them through inexcusable legislative practices and transformations. A survey revealed that 26 % of Muslims had experienced racial and ethnic discrimination in the US,57 % know some of their friends and relatives who have experienced such indifference while at work, school or neighbourhood.Shockingly when public discourse was included, 22 % Americans agreed that citizens should be profiled on the basis of their being Muslim; 27 % suggested that Muslims should be required to register their whereabouts to the govt.;and 26 % believed that Mosques should be closely monitored by govt. security agencies. How pitiful is that admitting such a harsh public opinion dismissing entire moral values.
9/11 turned out to be the nadir which took an entire community into the vicinity of suspicion and discrimination, and which is entirely unjustifiable in regard to all those who had nothing to do with that, but still they paid heavy charges.
FBI,immediately after 9/11, initiated a massive investigation called PENTTBOM which sought to identify individuals involved in the attack. Within two months,it led to the detention of over 1,200 individuals nationwide,most of which were either US-Muslims or non-US Muslims residing in various parts of USA. The investigation detained them for an average of 80 days and a maximum of 244 days. Amidst the detention, they were subjected to all kinds of physical and verbal abuses.
Such practices targeting the entire group and placing them under suspicion had adverse on those people who condemned such attacks and were not the hard-liners. To a certain extent, such legal (better call it a disguised-legal) dogma infuses danger to the personal security undermining all loyalties to the nation a person held prior to the detention.
I am asking US authorities at their connivance when an earlier terrorist group The Jewish Defense League was attacking targets within the US seeking the excuse for protection of Judaism against its rivalries. Was that biased ?
Even if the chance of involvement of any Jew in these kinds of acts was 1 to 10000, it would have been totally unjustified to investigate all members of a population to find a tiny mark of dangerous individuals. If we talk in the context of Tamil Tigers, think had been it pragmatic to take entire pool of Tamils into suspicion and refraining them from all personal,social and ethical pursuits ?
Since the vast majority of Muslims pose no threat at all,there is no likely benefit from focusing discretionary preventive measures on them. Such discrimination should be rejected outright ! I should remind them that every religion stresses on peace and each have their faiths. It is not valid in any sense to place a community into sheer disrespect owing to the act of few sociopaths who do not even know what really is Practice of Religion and what their religion is aimed at ?
Undoubtedly, wrongs have been done and may be occuring still ! Have we learned anything from " My Name Is Khan " ?
I am asking this to all those who were present that day in the theatre !
Naxalites' activities have recently surged leaving the entire government machinery and the common man into such a blatant state where it has become difficult to carve out an effective solution. Carving out a solution to such a problem is indeed very challenging; and what makes it so challenging is the side we are on ! I have figured out two such sides -- (i) Government , and (ii) Naxalites .
I can find entire nation standing on these two sides....differing so much in their views, reasons and strategies.
Let's first talk about the Naxalites. Naxalites have always been considered as a group of leftist sociopaths who do not stand with the government and its machinery, and sought out for their own way to handle things. Their anti-government and anti-bourgeoisie radical views have created a great political and social turmoil and a consistent uproarious environment in the past, and now we are again facing the same. Ideological differences in the context relating to the interests of common man,especially of the lower class, have set grounds for such clashes.
Naxalites' movement was started in order to dilute the social and economical differences that had adverse in the upliftment of lower classes. In that time, lower classes were exploited from the uppers seeking for profits and social domination.
When Britishers withdrew, the society was driven by bourgeoisie(upper-class) and the government's plans were made in total agreement with them. This worsened the situation where a large part of profits were bagged by them ,leaving lower working class in a pitiful state. India at that time was in its attempt to get up from economic stagnation, and therefore a large number of plans and proposals were promoting economic profits over others goals. Considering economic-changes in USSR , parts of Europe and China; where Socialism and Communism, with the goal of serving each section of the society, had settled ground; there came an inspiration to them willing to change entire set-ups.This tragic melodrama continued and the it ultimately waved the anger within them. Having no option left to them they went aggressive and started targeting all such bodies which supported economic advancement at the cost of lower classes' interests.
I should now be talking about the government machinery being always an antagonist.
One cannot deny the fact that the time when India was merely an adolescent since independence , there was an urgent call for economic progress, failing on which might have brought danger to its integrity. During that time our economic plans were mostly pro-British (beside economic plans, we shared similarity with almost everything ) , and therefore it was conspicuous that they were not so beneficial to the lower classes of the society as compared to the extent they managed to help boost our economy ( For one instance think how fast a pro-capitalist economy advances as compared to a socialist or a communist economy ! ) .
Talking about the present scenario, I definitely criticise the bloodshed and the havoc created in those naxalite-affected zones turning fragile day-by-day. I call for an effective negotiation to be made foreseeing the political, economical and ideological consensus. After all it is an inside matter, and therefore it needs to be addressed with utmost concern if we are looking forward to a better India. I condemn the retaliatory action of State government agencies with the goal to exterminate them through "Operation Red" and "Operation Green-Hunt"...
As an intellect and as a pacifist, I do not see these decimating steps as a solution to it. Rather I would like to remind government agencies that no war have ever resolved any dispute, it only have smothered the anger within ..the anger which would again come out at some point of time..might be intensified ! Who knows ?
Pick the side you are on !
The conciliatory commitment we can notice here in the form of bilateral talks between two labeled rivalries- India and Pakistan is worth-discussing and apprehendable.
February 25 would be the day marked with the settlement of many unresolved disputes which have either remained unresolved owing to the silence maintained by either sides , or through some external means to thwart any such action whenever taken in the past. We can notice blend of voices, some disagreeing on the relevance of this talk and displaying their disbelief on the future implications, while some are welcoming this move with both hands. With no surprise, I find both such voices having their reasons to believe and act---a perfect democratic exposure. However, we cannot deny from the fact that both nations would try to promote their own interests over other's.
India has its primary concern over the growing terror in the region for which it accuses Pakistan's political and military condone. Talking about 2001 Parliament attack, 2008 Mumbai massacre and now the Pune blasts; investigations revealed Pakistani soil as the sole culprit. Abashedly, entire catch-ups, detentions, legal charges and actions and all those diplomatic talk-sharing landed nowhere in the vicinity of effective solution. Owing to the general speculation, India must be asking Pakistan to get a strong hold over unconsiderable movements linked with terror in the region, alongwith the demand to legally ban LeT (Lashkar-e-Taiba) and Jamaat-Ud-Dawa----the prime suspects of Mumbai massacre and Pune blasts.
Pakistan has to attend these unfinished business if it is seeking for a healthier relation with us, failing on which would definitely once again drive the fate to an unpredictably abysmal path.
Talking about the Kashmir issue, I can only urge both sides as to reach a consensus where the welfare of the Kashmiris is of the paramount concern. It is their land, therefore let their pursuit counted first over entire egoistical dogma.
It is being said that India's role in the rehabilitation in Afghanistan is sneered from the Pakistan's side, and it is being claimed as an action to undercast Pakistan's image over the global platform. This can be an another tile on 25th feb talks. We all have seen drastic condition prevailing in Afghanistan over two decades. The extent to which people there in Afghanistan have suffered in all senses, whether it be societal, economic or personal; there should not be any space for such gibberish talks when it comes to resettle humanity in a region. Think we are all humans...mortals..!!
In continuation of all diplomatic moves to be carried forward to settle the unsettled issues, I feel the need for public involvement at a larger scale what we have seen in the contrast to the issues where Pakistani cricketers were excluded from bids in the IPL 2010. All that public commitments made in media when asked signal a friendly and trust-worthy futuristic aspect being awaited of from a long decade.
