Tag: God

  • When Man was God…

    A few days back, I read this amazing article ‘Why everything you’ve been told about evolution is wrong‘, thanks to Surekha. Though it begins by rubbishing ‘creation by God’, it thankfully moves soon enough into Darwin’s theory of evolution and the epigenome (the protective package of proteins around which DNA is wrapped), which plays a role in deciding which genes get to express themselves in a creature’s traits and how much. It talks further of how a change in the surrounding environment for even a relatively small time can affect the way genes express themselves in future generations. This raises a question mark on the ‘random mutation + environment filtering’ basis of Darwin’s theory, and suggests that the environment had a hand in creating those ‘random’ traits. Lifestyle alters heredity.

    (Kindly read the remainder of the post before confronting your grandparents)

    I don’t have a hard stance against anything to do with God/faith, because I find around me many things that are not really explained, many dimensions which we haven’t been able to crack. Maybe, we will, in the future, but that doesn’t mean I will be arrogant about science now. There are so many wonderful things around me that awes my mind because of the mix of complexity and simplicity, that I like to have faith in a system/being at a higher level.

    But the article made me think about the way we have reached where we are, and our concepts of God and evolution. And that’s how I wondered whether man was ‘God’ at some far off point, and had some fun. A half-ass thought. For this scenario I’m accommodating both versions – i.e. God created man in his image OR nature threw up enough random genes to create a version of man with super powers.

    So at some point a long way back, we have a set of humans on the planet, all of them with superpowers – lifespan, various controls over elements etc, and thanks to that, a complete disregard for everything around them. The system (God or evolution/epigenome) realises this is a bad thing and starts turning down the super powers slowly. Or maybe they fought amongst themselves and turned off each others’ powers, until only a few had them. Their lifestyle tampered with their heredity. In later generations, they appeared in patches, say in a few  who are now known as rishis/sadhus/saints. These generations however, knew that earlier beings had superpowers and begin to regard them as Gods. They also began to fear the power of nature as they experienced calamities and lost things and people that were dear to them. Man now thinks that he should be beyond the control of nature. Technology  makes its entry and is man’s weapon against everything that nature can throw at him.

    Where does it go from here? Maybe nature is working to a plan – pushing man to increasingly rely on technology until the point he can no longer think for himself. And then attack man with all it has got when he’s at his most vulnerable.

    until next time, a 20:20 vision we might never have 🙂

  • Time Off

    In an earlier post – “Brood Mode“, I’d written about expectations, and how sometimes, they cannot be met. In the context of that post, Austere had commented thus “Is it the instant-ness demanded of the response that puts one’s brain to a side?” I messaged her on Twitter, that ‘the time construct’ was something I’d planned to write on next.

    Our response time has been shrinking on a continuous basis, twitter, FB etc are a manifestation of that – real time, but the changes have been happening much before that, probably with every advancement we made, not just in communication, but even things like transportation. So, the thought is, if we had more time on our hands, would we be behaving differently with people?

    When I was chatting with Meeta recently, we started discussing this, in the context of relationships with people. It started with me saying that the traffic during the daily commute to work, made me forget all the rules I make for myself, because with all the lane cutting and parking woes, its easily a scenario in which you’re either aggressive or you end up on the road, literally. So I wondered if it would be different if there were no time constraints.

    Despite only a superficial similarity, I was reminded of another construct – money. What started out as a tool of convenience has enslaved many and managed to dictate their actions. Much like the things we create to crunch time. The similarity ended there. Time is not money. Quite obviously, time exists with or without us, though the latter can force one to ask “Who does it exist for then? So let me put it this way, it is a construct that’s still not fully understood, whereas we made the money construct. But for the fun of it, imagine what you would’ve done if your life wasn’t dictated by time. What if you had all the time in the world. Would you be a different person? Would you behave differently with people?

    As it regularly happens these days with me- by sheer coincidence, the day after I had this discussion with Meeta, I came across this work from Hugh MacLeod, which puts it so well

    time

    until next time, timed out for a fortnight 🙂

  • Sikandar

    Its one of the names i have a fascination for… from the Indian version of Alexander’s name to Anil Kapoor in Trimurti, it conveys (to me) someone who can conquer all, someone who is on a plane above normal humans… the reason why the name is the topic of discussion is because i happened to dine in a restaurant by that name sometime back..

    while i dont consider myself competent enough to put together a food review, i can safely say that it lived up to its name..of course, i could have been extremely biased because it offered me the opportunity to indulge in another of my fascinations.. sitting at a height and watching humanity move along on the roads below… walking, driving, just moving on, into the night…

    i bet thats one of God’s favourite views..wonder what freud would have made out of this… a desire to be above current levels in life? a need to be objective all the time? at a subconscious level, perhaps these could be factors, but at the conscious level, to me, it is a humbling experience, like looking at a starlit sky and us humans below, because it is moments like these that seem to tell me that i am a small part of a huge canvas, an experience that i have no idea about…


    until next time, ‘We are all made of stars’……

  • One on One with The One – Part One

    One day on chat, a window popped up …….
    G: Hi there, did u call me?
    M: who r u? dont remember calling anyone..
    G: heard you praying to me, thought i’d come over and chat…
    M: nice line, but how do i know who u r ?
    G: ha! just about sums up the state of humanity… they see me all around and still question my existence!! but just to prove a point, you saw that image of keira knightley and wished…(lost connection)
    connection resumes
    G: and wished that
    M: ok ok i am a believer!!
    G: men are so easy ;), hey, nowadays, you rarely think about me
    M: are you a woman?
    G: does it matter? but why do you ask?
    M: oh, just the general tone of the conversation. but yeah, you are right, the personal rapport with you has kinda lessened..
    G: dont worry, its only human..
    M: i see a faint trace of ego there…..
    G: not at all, ego is your own creation, your perception, i am what i am….
    M: and i am what you made me
    G: of course not, i gave you options, you chose
    M: but werent they already made for me?
    G: thats your justification. amazing how you guys always blame me for the bad things and never are happy for the good things…
    M: so how do you manage all of us, our lives, our deaths
    G: ah, trade secret, boy, if i told you, u might actually convince me to outsource it
    M: are you american?
    G: i am heavenly, why do you ask?
    M: just a thought
    G: i think things might be a lot clearer if i told you that you are not an extension of me, rules that u made dont apply to me, think beyond your perceptions
    M: is that possible?
    G: of course, how do you think great marketing ideas come about?
    M: hey , do you have any?
    G: yup, but wont tell you, that would be unfair to others
    M: they wouldnt know
    G: those are your rules and justifications, not mine
    M: what about rights and wrongs that hold true forever
    G: there is only one eternal truth
    M: and that would be you?
    G: think about it
    …………to be continued……….
    and in
    manuscrypts trivia
    a guy joke and a girl joke
    DON’T TEMPT A WOMAN
    A woman goes to England to attend a 2-week, company training session. Her husband drives her to the airport and wishes her to have a good trip.
    The wife answers : “Thank you honey, what would you like me to bring for you?”
    The husband laughs and says: “An English girl !!!”
    The woman kept quiet and left.
    Two weeks later he picks her up in the airport and asks: “So, honey, how was the trip?”
    “Very good, thank you.”
    “And, what happened to my present?”
    ‘Which present?” She asked?
    “The one I asked for — the English girl!!”
    “Oh, that” she said, “Well, I did what I could, now we have to wait a few months to see if it’s a girl”

    BAD NEWS ABOUT BEER
    Yesterday, University scientists released the results of a recent analysis that revealed the presence of female hormones in beer.
    Men should take a concerned look at their beer consumption. The theory is that beer contains female hormones (hops contain phytoestrogens) and that by drinking enough beer, men turn into women. To test the theory, 100 men were fed 8 pints of beer each within a 1-hour period. It was then observed that 100% of the test subjects:
    1) Gained weight.
    2) Talked excessively without making sense.
    3) Became overly emotional.
    4) Couldn’t drive.
    5) Failed to think rationally.
    6) Argued over nothing.
    7) Had to sit down while urinating.
    8) Refused to apologize when obviously wrong.
    No further testing was considered necessary……….

    till next time, keep the faith

  • And on the eighth day, He made God

    Usually dine out on Saturdays, its a weekly ritual, kinda relaxant for me… this week, went to a place called “Whats cooking?”… other than all the things that are the norm, i liked the place coz it gave me a view of arguably one of the busiest streets in bangalore – Commercial Street. For one and a half hours, i watched diverse versions of our species in various moods and states of existence – some rich, some poor, some physically challenged, some kids, some grown ups, some grown up kids, some angry, some peaceful, some happy, many sad and suddenly i happened to remember a song, which remains a favourite because of its lyrics and concept – “What if God was one of us” by Joan Osborne. It set of a whole train of thoughts in my head, all over again….. about the concept of what we call God, and how he can be so non-human – lacking of ego, anger, hatred… coz if I had a lot of atheists living happily, a lot of guys halfway atheist and demanding proof of my existence, (as if the entire phenomena around them werent enough), a lot of guys beseeching/threatening/cursing me for miscellaneous favours and forgetting me once i get the things done, and to top it all, some wisecracks who proclaim “if god is in everything, he is in me, so worship me”, oh hell, (pardon the pun), i’d be one pissed off God. Thank God they didnt choose me to be God (according to Hindu mythology, the best kings on earth were chosen to be Indra, the king of Gods, after their tenure on earth… we dont have kings now, so……)..hehe…
    While on the concept of God, here’s a good fwd i got, its titled “Whispers” (no, theres no brand involved this time 🙂 )
    The man whispered, “God, speak to me” and a meadowlark sang.
    But, the man did not hear.
    So the man yelled, “God, speak to me” and the thunder rolled across the sky.
    But the man did not listen.
    The man looked around and said, “God let me see you.” and a star shined brightly.
    But the man did not see.
    And, the man shouted, “God show me a miracle.” and, a life was born.
    But, the man did not notice.
    So, the man cried out in despair, “Touch me God, and let me know you are here.” Whereupon, God reached down and touched the man.
    But, the man brushed the butterfly away …
    and walked on.

    I found this to be a great reminder that God is always around us in the little and simple things that we take for granted …
    and now for your weekly dose of
    manuscrypts trivia
    the first quote will apply to a lot of bloggers, the rest are more in line with the post above
    “A writer writes not because he is educated but because he is driven by the need to communicate. Behind the need to communicate is the need to share. Behind the need to share is the need to be understood. The writer wants to be understood much more than he wants to be respected or praised or even loved. And that perhaps, is what makes him different from others.” ~ Leo Rosten
    “It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God, but to create him.” ~ Arthur C. Clarke
    “Is man one of God’s blunders or is God one of man’s blunders?” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche”
    God is not dead but alive and well and working on a much less ambitious project.” ~ Anonymous, Graffiti
    “I have too much respect for the idea of God to make it responsible for such an absurd world.” ~ Georges Duhamel
    “I don’t know if God exists, but it would be better for His reputation if He didn’t.” ~ Jules Renard

    PS – If “God’s Own Country” still has internet alive and kicking, the next post will be from there!!