The Evolution of God Wednesday, Jul 11 2007

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Root of all evil Tuesday, Apr 24 2007

Religion as the root of all evil on this planet ?

One cannot disagree more with the above statement after viewing the below mentioned thought provoking documentary videos.

Part I – The God Delusion

Part II – The Virus of Faith

When I say ‘east’ below, I mean ‘India and towards the east of India’
and west means ‘the world towards the west of India’

Interestingly after going through the documentary I find that the aspect of violence is not present in the eastern religions all of which have their origin in India -Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, or say in the related variations like Zen, Taoism, Confucianism etc

Unlike the western religions, in the eastern religions good and bad people are distinguished not based on whether they are believers or non-believers. According to the ancient vedic teachings of hinduism, those who help others in need and do their duties are good (Vedas say ‘Dharmo Rakshathi Rakshithaha’ -which means he who performs his moral duties, helps those in need is in turn protected by his deeds). Those who hurt others are considered evil.

For that matter intentionally hurting ourselves is also evil says hinduism, buddhism and Jainism. So you will never find a suicide bomber in these religions 

Also, unlike christianity which I feel has a negative effect as it says ‘We all are sinners. And son of the god came to pay for our sins’, which I strongly disagree with, for I am no sinner, and I dont need anybody else to pay for it even if I ever commit one.

Does it mean people can continue to commit sins, since their sins have already been paid for? Doesnt it sound absurd? The very thought brings the picture of a crime filled society in front of our eyes. Thank god not all are taking these teachings that seriously  How on earth can a inncocent new born baby or a child be considered a sinner?

Now look at the eastern religions, say hinduism, the thought of each human being here is as a pure soul, a clean spirit, and this has so positive effect on our morals. In hinduism ,we are not considered sinners, instead vedas say ‘Aham Brahmasmi’ which means ‘I am the God’ or ‘God lives within me’. The whole thought is so positive in spirit and encourages a person to do all good deeds like a God. NO negative or inferior feelings about ones ‘self’ are allowed here. In my language Kannada there is a hymn ‘Enna Kaale Kambha, Dehave Degula, Shirave Honna Kalasha’ – which can be summarized as ‘My body is a temple where God lives’. What a pleasant feeling it is..

This is the major difference between western and eastern religious cultures. In the west people celebrate their birthday by putting off the candles ‘which is a symbol of desctruction, the light is put off’

On the contrary, in the east, we celebrate every occassion by lighting lamps – the symbol of spreading light, being constructive. Vedas say – ‘Tamaso Ma Jyotirgamaya’, which means ‘From darkness towards light’
In the eastern religions putting off a lamp or any other source of light is considered bad, negative, as it introduces darkness..

Well I am not against any religion, but this is just a analysis of what I have seen and understood about the cultures. I am definitely proud about my ancient Indian culture. though I am not deeply religious. I dont go to temples and pray to god asking ‘give me that, give me this’, if God really exists, I think he is intelligent enough to know my needs and will definitely give me the best what I really need, there is no need to pamper him with offerings, prayers and what not, I dont think God thinks so cheaply that you have to bribe him to get your things done. Yes, but I do thank God for this wondeful universe, for the food I eat, for the nature I see, for the good health I have, for the great friends I have and for everything else that I have.. 

In fact I love to converse with God on the nature of the universe, as to why do we exist (not in a spiritual sense, but in a scientific sense), about the laws that govern the universe and what not.

I do feel that there is a great need in the west to become more spiritual (which preaches love NOT hatred, enquiry and thought NOT faith) than blind religious. I suggest people to try out the Art of Living, though I am not associated with it in anyway.

Faith is dangerous because it doesnt allow you to question it. The church does not want scientists to enquire into Big Bang bcos it feels that since God created universe we should not enquire into that creation!! Nothing sounds more absurd to me. Did God tell them that ‘Dont enquire into my creation, I fear that you will then understand everything about the universe, and then what will my value be?’ Well, if God did not wanted us to enquire into the creation of the universe, he would have simply not given us that intelligence at all, right ?

In fact I was so surprised when I saw the video, that in the western world (which many people in the east think as a well developed and more civilized and well educated society) they teach children that the universe is only a few thousand years old and all of us were created in 7 or 10 days or whatever ! I couldnt control laughing and really felt sorry for those kids who study in these educational(?) institutions.

As an observation, divorce rates have increased in India in those urban places where western culture has creeped in. Otherwise, you will rarely hear about a divorce in India.

Faith is dangerous because it does not allow you to question things, and when you cannot question things you dont enquire into it, and when you dont enquire into it you wont understand it, and when you wont understand it you wont invent anything new. If all humans had been strictly religious, we would have been still living in old stone age. Thank God (:0) there are thinkers too on this planet who would love to enquire into hows and whys.

More than a thousand years before Galileo was humiliated and giordano was burnt alive in the west by the church for having declared Sun as the center of the Solar system and earth to be moving, in India Aryabhatta wrote a book on the same subject saying ‘Sun is the Center of the Solar System and earth revolves around it’ and lived the life of a great scholar. I really feel proud to be an Indian.

The church said Earth doesnt move. Science proved otherwise! Yet they humiliated Galileo, burnt Giordano alive!

Then they said Earth is the center of the Universe! But then science proved otherwise, earth is nowhere in the scene and even for our local solar system Sun is the center!

Then the church said God created universe in some 7 or 10 days. Science proved otherwise. Universe has been there for billions of years and life on earth also evolved over millions of years, not like an instant coffee in 7 or 10 days!

Just imagine where we would have been if some of the humans had not taken those steps of thinking instead of blindly believing what religions say! I am glad that I was brought up as a thinker and not a blind believer of some faith.

Also its interesting to note that none of the western religions talk about things which would have been a product only of a scientific enquiry. Why doesnt the holy books say anything about quasars, quantum mechanics, black holes, planets invisible to naked eye, doesnt these data makes it clear enough that religions are creation of narrow minded humans and not GOD? Well for those who object for my specifying ‘western religions’ in this paragraph, let me tell you that eastern religions are more scientific and have a spirit of enquiry in them. If you disagree with me, please read ‘The dancing Wu Li Masters, ‘The Tao of Physics’, ‘The arctic home in the vedas’, or look into what great scientists like Neils Bohr, Oppenheimer, Schrodinger, etc had to say about the vedic texts, Bhagavadgita etc…

Now my question is when the religion is so wrong, why on earth do we need it ? Cant we be good to fellow humans beings and other life forms on this planet, do good, progress, be thinkers, make earth a better place to live, and NOT be religious at the same time? Or atleast let us not follow those preachings which encourage us to commit crime, hate or hurt others, consider ourselves sinners, teach scientifically wrong things, suppress the spirit of enquiry and reasoning

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Modern Science and Ancient India Sunday, Apr 15 2007

“We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made.” – Albert Einstein

“The ingenious method of expressing every possible number using a set of ten symbols (each symbol having a place value and an absolute value) emerged in India. The idea seems so simple nowadays that its significance and profound importance is no longer appreciated. Its simplicity lies in the way it facilitated calculation and placed arithmetic foremost amongst useful inventions. The importance of this invention is more readily appreciated when one considers that it was beyond the two greatest men of antiquity, Archimedes and Apollonius.” – Laplace

Every person aware of modern science if also well aware that mathematics is the soul of modern science. Computers, Medical equipments, missiles, reactors, automobiles, electronic equipments, economics, finance, banks every where we need mathematics.

Romans used to represent every number using its own unique symbol or a unscientific combination of symbols. This was where west started its mathematics only to be discarded later due to its impractical nature to do bigger calculations.

I,V,X were used to represent numbers till 49 and when they run out of symbols then L was used to represent 50, similarly C for hundred, D for 500, M for thousand.. etc and etc

Any person who has worked using this roman number system knows very well that doing even a simple multiplication is a monumental task in this system. Higher mathematics like calculus, algebra, trigonometry are simply impossible here. I dont think a person has ever seen a simple linear equation in roman system!!!!

If the world had depended on western roman roots for modern science we would have been still in stone ages of science where the greatest achievement would have been counting the number of visible stars in the night sky !!!!!

Ancient Indians took a different approach and this was more than 3000-4000 years before romans invented roman numbers!!! While ancient Indians were working advanced mathematics (which finds its first reference in the ancient Vedas and is called as Vedic mathematics, this is part of the Atharva Veda which is all about engineering) the western world was still in stone age!! 

The roots of modern mathematics is based on the concept of place value system, which we take for granted, but accoding to me is the most ingenious invention in mathematics. This is what Indians invented to have a complete scientific system of working with numbers. (In my series Alien Twist to God I have argued that this mathematics which has its roots in the vedas and the sanskrit language in which vedas are written in, both are of an alien origin, which is why sanskrit is the only human language capable of becoming a computer programming language)

In the place value system a limited set of symbols is taken and used to represent any and every possible number upto infinity down to minus infinity!!!

The number of symbols we select indicates the base of the system. We normally use base 10 which has 9 symbols aka 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9

Once we have the set of symbols the value of a symbol depends on the position of the symbol in the number. First position has a unit value, second position has a base value, third position has a base X base value, then base X base X base value and so on,..

So in base 10, first position has a value of 1 times the value of symbol, second position has a value of 10 times the value of symbol, third position has a value of 100 times the value of the symbol.. and so on….

So when we say 42 it represents a number whose value is 4 times 10 + 2 times 1 !!
We who are used to this system find it so simple!! The simplicity of this invention is what makes it so great bcos remember this is the root of whole modern mathematics and if this itself is complicated then we would be back to square one as romans!!!

Once the place value system was invented Indian mathematicians had another difficulty. Suppose there was a place in the number which had no value at all!!!!

Consider the case of 100… here 1 should be used in third place which is base X base .. but then the two places down have no value!!!! This is why Indians invented ZERO!!!! In sanskrit Zero is called Shoonya, which means nothing.. presence of zero at a place means that place has no value in the number and should be ignored!!!

This in itself explains the great power of zero and its role in place value systems which makes it a key element of modern mathematics. Thats why once somebody said, I think it was Bernard Shaw, ‘The greatest contribution of Indians to the world is Nothing’

Ancient Indians bcos of their strong mathematical basis becames champions in astronomy and related calculations. More than a thousand years before Giordano was burnt alive in the west by the church for claiming Sun is the center of the solar system, More than a thousand years before Galileo had to apologize for proposing the motion of the earth, Aryabhata in India had written great works on helio centric systems, and more than 3000-4000 years before aryabhata vedas had all this in their roots..

Then in modern times Buddhist missionaries from India spread this knowledge of mathematics and easy counting to the eastern world of China, Thailand, Japan etc …

Arab merchants who came to India to trade spices to the west, saw this simple way of doing counting more easier than roman system and adopted the same and also spread it to the west, this is the reason them modern base 10 system symbols are called ‘Hindu Arabic Numerals’ meaning borrowed from the land of hindus and spread to the rest of the west by Arabs. After learning this  system of mathematics, arab mathematician wrote the book ‘Al Jabr’ which gave way to modern algebra.

Still there are gaps in this whole system. Arab merchants learnt only the basic counting required to do business and spread it to the western world. And from there west developed its own mathematics based on these Indian roots where Newton’s Calculus etc came into picture…

Unfortunately, west again had started looking at maths with a roman mindset for higher level of generalization and students today are taught partial differential equations which require pages together to solve. Indian approach of Vedic mathematics is purely mental mathematics and generally doesnt require pen and paper to solve problems. The approach is also completely different in Indian mathematics, there are more specific formulae than generic, while this means more to learn, but once a child is used to it, problems will be more easy to solve. For instance in multiplication using vedic mathematics, the formula to multiply a two numbers which end with 5 is different from an approach to solve two numbers which have even numbers in their units place!! MANY WESTERN SCHOOLS TODAY TEACH VEDIC MATHEMATICS IN THE NAME OF MENTAL MATHEMATICS WITHOUT GIVING THE ANCIENT INDIANS AND THE VEDAS THE DUE CREDIT THEY DESERVE, which I feel is a total hypocrisy on the teachers part.

However, every thing including modern calculus, pythagoras theorems etc were already developed and documented in ancient Indians mathematics with its roots in vedic mathematics and the Indian approach to calculus etc is quite different from that of western approach. Bhaskaracharya wrote Leelavati (a book named after his daughter) more than 1000 years before newton and has detailed explanations for problems of differential calculus and the theory of calculus itself !!!

The historian Florian Cajori, one of the most celebrated historians of mathematics in the early 20th century, said “Diophantus, the father of Greek algebra, got the first algebraic knowledge from India.”

Even Pythagoras was familiar with the ancient Indian text of Upanishads. It is also said that he had visited India from where he picked up the hypotenuse theorem and spread it in the west, which today is given his name inspite of the fact that he never gave a proof of this theorem!!! Pythagorean theorem finds its first reference in the sulva sutras of Vedic mathematics which is more than 4000 years before pythagoras! And if pythagoras was familiar with Upanishads, there is no doubt that he would have also studied the related Vedas and Sulva Sutras..

Herodotus (father of Greek history) wrote that the Indians were the greatest nation of the age. Megasthenes – who travelled extensively through India in the 4th C. B.C also left extensive accounts that paint India in highly favorable light (for that period).  

Panini who lived around 500 BC has mentioned in his works about boolean logic and the use of the operator null. Panini was an expert in language theory and has written extensively on describing Meta Syntax used to describe context free grammars which is used while defining modern computer programming languages. Hence the modern Backus Naur form BNF is also referred to as Panini Backus Form !

The ancient Chinese mathematics also has its roots in the Indian mathematics which was spread to China by Indians along side spreading Buddhism. There is an article in my site on the ancient Chinese proof of Pythagoras theorem

In an essence ancient India is both the spiritual and scientific mentor of modern world. Note that even the christian teachings by Jesus have its roots in Buddhism (Buddha lived in ancient India 400 years before Christ and any person who has studied the preachings of both Buddha and Christ will find obvious resemblance in both). It is also said that Jesus studied one of the ancient Indian univeristies Takshashila I think where he learnt the buddhist teachings. I had read some works which had done extensive research on this subject indicating Christ name in the list of students at one of the buddhist monestaries in Ladakh region of India.

Kerala in India is the root of modern martial arts. The Keralean Kalaripayat is the world’s oldest form of martial arts and is practiced in Kerala state of India. It was transmitted to China by a sage named Boddhidharma in the 5th century. The Chinese called him Po-ti-tama. He taught this art in a temple. This temple is today known as the Shaolin temple. Thus Judo, Karate, Kung Fu and other similar marshal arts which are today identified with the far-east actually originated from India !

It is known history that when Ottoman turks captured constantinople there by blocking the land based route to India from Europe, this disturbed the entire Europe which depended on India extensively for trade for all items ranging from spices to diamonds to garments to what not. Till 1896 India was the only source of diamonds to the entire world! Unable to trade with India due to locking of the land route by turks, european nations started a race to discover a sea route to India and great sailors like columbus, vasco da gama, amerigo vespucci all set out from spain, portuguese etc to discover a sea route to India and this is how Columbus ended up discovering modern american continent (named after Amerigo who landed up in main land of the continent). In other words the modern super power america was introduced to the rest of the world, courtesty India!!! Columbus thought he had landed in the east coast of India when he discovered America and thats why the native americans are called Red Indians !!!!

Severus Sebokt of Syria in 662 BC said “I shall not speak here of the science of the Hindus, who are not even Syrians, and not of their subtle discoveries in astronomy that are more inventive than those of the Greeks and of the Babylonians; not of their eloquent ways of counting nor of their art of calculation, which cannot be described in words – I only want to mention those calculations that are done with nine numerals. If those who believe, because they speak Greek, that they have arrived at the limits of science, would read the Indian texts, they would be convinced, even if a little late in the day, that there are others who know something of value“

“The Constructions and these tables imply a great knowledge of geometry, arithmetic and even of the theoretical part of astronomy. But what, without doubt is to be accounted, the greatest refinement in this system, is the hypothesis employed in calculating the equation of the centre for the Sun, Moon and the planets that of a circular orbit having a double eccentricity or having its centre in the middle between the earth and the point about which the angular motion is uniform. If to this we add the great extent of the geometrical knowledge required to combine this and the other principles of their astronomy together and to deduce from them the just conclusion;the possession of a calculus equivalent to trigonometry and lastly their approximation to the quadrature of the circle, we shall be astonished at the magnitude of that body of science which must have enlightened the inhabitants of India in some remote age and which whatever it may have communicated to the Western nations appears to have receied another from them….” – John Playfair

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_mathematics

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