About Bhagat Singh

 He was born into a Sikh family, but many historians believe he was an atheist.

Via BBC News

It's no belief but declared so in no uncertain terms by the man himself.

Why I am an Atheist by Bhagat Singh

Section 295A -Blasphemy law

Even though this is one of the legacies of the colonial period, it certainly appeals to a large herd minded believers in India. Now there is a clamour among liberal society to repeal this act as Sanal Edamaruku, president of the Indian Rationalist Association, has become its latest victim.

In my opinion, instead of repealing this act, there should be couple of clauses that can render it little more civilized.


1. Religious feelings are not considered hurt or outraged if the person in question is born to a parent or parents of the same religion, whether practicing or atheist. This should be a natural corollary to the fundamental right, 'freedom of religion', as  enshrined in the Indian Constitution.

2. Religious feelings  are not considered hurt or outraged if a person of any other religious denomination or an atheist has used scientific methods to attack it. This should be seen as part of the person's obligation to the fundamental duty of 'developing scientific temper' as enshrined in the Indian Constitution.

Random Thoughts - Astrology

I have this nagging thought that whether one should only oppose Astrology as a pseudo-science or should also consider it as a criminal offense if an astrologer makes negative predictions. I would guess sometimes they should even be arrested for culpable homicide. Two events have set me thinking in this direction.

Couple of years ago, I participated in a discussion in an atheist forum. One of the participants gave many examples where he had seen the predictions of an astrologer coming true. I found many of them dubious but the one prediction that interested me was about his father's death. According to him, his father died on the same day that was predicted by the astrologer.

I know a family who are hopeless believers. Unlike that rationalist with an ambiguous attitude towards astrology because of his experiences, I get plenty of hilarious examples from this family that only strengthens my conviction about its pseudo-science status. But I suppose I should be neutral and go by only the scientific studies. Couple of recent ones in the family are;

1. An old woman who is supposed to be dead by August 4th of this year is still alive
2. A young man is looking for a suitable match. He has 'Mars Fault' so can only marry a girl with that condition. But there is an additional clause that faults in both Horoscopes should lie in same house. Or so their astrologers had told.

From the prospective brides' side, it turns out that;
- The additional clause that faults should lie in the same house is wrong and in fact based on other positions, faults in different houses are auspicious and the same house is dangerous
- The guy's horoscope reading itself is wrong and he doesn't even have that 'Mars Fault'!

These prospective brides' astrologers are even more reputed than the guy's astrologers or so accepted by the guy's family. I'm sure they will overcome this momentary crisis of faith and get back to astrologers with even more vigour. Last checked they haven't gone to that astrologer and asked their money back(or chided him) since the old woman is not dead.

Anyway, I believe the reason this old woman didn't die like that old man was because he knew about the prediction and she didn't (keeping underlying medical conditions common in both cases). I would think any negative prediction would have psychological impact like 'white coat hypertension'. It would be better to study any such "successful" negative predictions with this angle. What if those persons would have had few more years to live but for those predictions?

Charvaka - iii

I came across a good deal of information about the Charvakas in Naturalistic Tradition in Indian Thought by Dale Maurice Reipe. (Overheard about it at Vidya's blog).

Interesting point is the comparison between Indian and Greek traditions. All I can say is, the connection can be found in the spread of Y-Haplogroup J2a.

I suppose the Atharva Veda, the fourth Veda predates Charvakas (around 500 BC?). However, only three Vedas are mentioned in Charvaka rebuttals. I suppose those are Rig, Yajur and Sama.

Charvaka - ii

Dr. S. Radhakrishnan in his 'Indian Philosophy' (Vol I) lists some of the quotations attributed to Charvakas. I'm quoting few of them below.

The Agnihotra, the three Vedas, the ascetic's three staves, and smearing oneself with ashes —
Brihaspati says, these are but means of livelihood for those who have no manliness nor sense.

If a beast slain in the Jyothishtoma rite will itself go to heaven,
why then does not the sacrificer forthwith offer his own father?
If the Sraddha produces gratification to beings who are dead,
then why not give food down below to those who are standing on the house-top?

While life remains, let a man live happily,
let him feed on butter though he runs in debt;
When once the body becomes ashes,
how can it ever return again?

If he who departs from the body goes to another world,
how is it that he come not back again, restless for love of his kindred?
Hence it is only as a means of livelihood that Brahmans have established here
all these ceremonies for the dead, — there is no other fruit anywhere.
The three authors of the Vedas were buffoons, knaves, and demons.
All the well-known formulae of the pandits, jarphari, turphari, etc.
and all the obscene rites for the queen commanded in Aswamedha,
these were invented by buffoons, and so all the various kinds of presents to the priests,
while the eating of flesh was similarly commanded by night-prowling demons.

Radhakrishnan observes, "Obviously this account has an element of caricature of the cArvAka position. A philosophy professed seriously for centuries could not have been of the coarse kind that it is here reported to be."

However, I look at it differently. I have previously argued that Carvakas were fringe philosophers as they were always against the authority (which in religious matters were invariably Brahmins). In my opinion, the above quotations are nothing but frustration from their part. Common people understand only blunt and direct arguments. They were probably resorting to coarseness so that common people could see the commonsense in it.

My Predictions - I

I used to think South India would herald Indian Renaissance. Now, I'm more and more getting convinced that it would be Pakistan. I should have guessed it earlier. After all, it was Christian heartland of Italy that heralded the Renaissance in Europe.

Egyptian Introgression?

Zeitgeist
I came across this video at "Atheism in India" forum at Orkut. The priest centric Hinduism and the development of early Greek society(Y-Haplogroup J2a), both, the long time readers of this blog might be aware that I have attributed to West Asia. Traditional wisdom ascribe them to Indo-European nomads. My belief is that most likely IEs consulted their Wise Women and Medicinal Men like most of the Shaman societies in Steppe.

To further the previous argument, we know priests were a powerful community in both West Asia and Egyptian society. Even today their society is controlled by priests. However, in European lands priesthood never appeared until Christianity. Also, it was overthrown in many societies after few centuries.

There is a Malayalam story- I have mentioned that before- of a Brahmin husband and Paria(formerly untouchable) wife whose union produced 12 children. Well, that number again alludes to astrology. I suppose many anthropologists found that story as socially very revealing about the development of caste system in Kerala. I just wonder anything IE is left in Indian traditions. I hope there would be similar studies on Indian mythology/mythical heroes and astrology.

I think Manu recreating human race with the help of a fish is very revealing. That appears to be allusion to PISCES constellation.

Okay.

In my excitement I failed to check the facts initially. Then looked up at Wikipedia.
Criticism

It does appear to have generalized few things (eg. Krishna). However, the idea that astrological symbols have something to do with many myths, appeals me. In fact, Hindutvites typical attempt to find the exact dates of Mahabharata and Ramayana based on Astrology should be scrutinized from this background.

Regarding Krishna, I have argued about Visnu's(also known as Hari) growth from a minor solar deity to a main god shows influence of West Asia where the Sun god had become supreme over time.

At least, population genetics does appear to show the reason for West Asian/Egyptian deities/cultural aspects(purity-impurity) in Hinduism. When there are so many similarities then correlative thought( I don't know what it means just suppose another academic term for convergent evolution) can't be applied.

I of course just wonder whether it is believable that many scholars would sit together and create a great body of literature due to political backing. How about the Sangam literature? If it is the case then it is indeed an admirable feat. A greater hope for mankind than the true occurrences of these events.

Praying Scientists of India

‘Scientists must not pray in labs’
TIMES NEWS NETWORK (July 3rd, p. 5)

Hyderabad: The Centre for Inquiry on Wednesday urged scientists not to conduct religious ceremonies in scientific laboratories. A recent survey by the Centre of Inquiry in association with a few other bodies discovered that a majority of the country’s scientists were “religious and even superstitious”.
The survey report was based on inputs from institutes all over the country, including Acharya Nagarjuna University, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, Centre for DNA and Finger Printing and Diagnostics, Deccan College of Engineering and Technology, Kakatiya University, Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology and SV University from the state.
The survey said 44% of scientists believe in astrology while 41% believe in conducting ‘pujas’ before starting any major scientific activity. According to the members, scientists are setting a bad example to the rest of the country by believing in superstitions including vedic astrology. “There are many cases where scientists do pujas in their labs. This should not be permitted as there should be no observation of religious rites in any of the government institutions,” former CCMB director P M Bhargava said.
“A majority of the scientists said they believe in some super non-human power which protects all,” social activist Chandana Chakraborthy said. According to the founder member of the organisation, N Innaiah, many scientists believe in godmen too. Since the survey deals with scientists who come from different elite institutes in the country it is alarming to see these many people believing in superstitions.

Couldn't make out what percentage of Indian scientists are atheists. Is it 51%? Are all the believers of Astrology(44%), a subset of believers of prayer(49%)? Or are there atheists among believers in Astrology? But if one believes in Astrology, is s/he an atheist by the definition of it?

Ghostism and Godism - I

This post is the outcome of a discussion at Quetzalcoatl anthropology forum. It is difficult to say if other member/s understood my points or I understood their points. But once in a while during the discussion one of the more learned members of forum would assure me that my point had merits. Therefore, I think, the whole discussion was not pointless and I can expand it to include many other aspects and as my wont make it completely incoherent.

Description of the terms:
Soulism is belief in the supernatural to which we can connect. These supernaturals are called spirits. The founders of this institution were females who could see their ancestor ghosts and sometimes get possessed by them. In the later times mostly men became shamans who go into trance and get possessed by spirits.

Godism is belief in the supernatural to which we can not connect. These supernatural are called gods. The founders of this institution were males who lost the memory of the ancestors who became spirits. Probably, these are the men who lost from the tribe with shamans. In this belief an oracle might resemble a shaman but I don't think he gets possessed by gods in public and deliver the message. Also, oracle uses some other materials to read and deliver gods' message which is not shamanism. Therefore, oracle must not be equated with a shaman. Here the people who hold the knowledge of worship are called priests.

However, human society includes one more institution that was relatively uninfluenced by supernatural but wondered about human creation. The final conclusion of this group was emergence of linga-yoni or yin-yang.

The incompatible institutions:
I believe all these three groups had independent origins. When they met there were many frictions and also many anomalies to accommodate. Consider Vedic people for example;
Vedic people were basically a pure godistic community. They did not have spirit and linga-yoni concepts. Therefore, you can find RigVeda making mockery of phallus worshippers. Also, Krishna commenting that people who worship ghosts will become ghosts eventually.

When Shamanic society encountered Godistic society the gods became just like spirits. You can observe many Hindu gods being worshipped as spirits in Tulu region.

However, I do not have any examples of linga-yoni society meeting Shamanic society. When linga-yoni did come to pure Shamanic society of South India; it came as a part ofGodistic society. This makes me think may be linga-yoni concept in fact was part of Shamanic society or grew in Shamanic societies. But probably few Shamanic societies developed it.

The creation question:
As we have already seen the question of creation need not to have an answer in god. A linga-yoni duo can satisfy it. However, because of gods the answer took different form in godistic societies. There was a greater need for explaining the concept of gods and a new range of myths were created in those societies. What about Shamanic societies?

Curiously, the pure Shamanic societies never faced this situation as their ancestors were always kept alive in the form of spirits. People were just descendants of those ancestors. It was difficult to imagine a supreme ghost like a supreme god as Shamans can not connect to that supreme ghost. I have already mentioned that many of the spirits in Tulu regions come in brother-sister pair. The present day myths talk about origins of all spirits from Shiva. The original story connected to many of these spirits have been lost. In my opinion, this brother-sister pair were also husband and wife and the ancestor of the tribes. Curiously, a tribe named Koragas have brother-sister pair spirits called Koraga and Korati(though now propitiated by all the communities).

Probably, Nuwa-Fuxi, Adam-Eve and Mari-Sugaar pairs were initially brother-sister spirits like Koraga and Korati.

Priests versus Shamans:
I do not think shamans could have commanded the respect that the priests had in the past. I think the fundamental difference between them was the kind of background from which initial shamans and priests came. I believe shamans came from poor, malnourished families where it could have been natural to see the ghosts or get possessed by the ghosts. Therefore, their position might not be exulted in any society. However, priests could have been elites who in the absense of shamans had to invent gods in the place of spirits. The priests generally had very uneasy relationship with shamans. The priests were always exorcists or sorcerers to drive away the evil spirits. But what if a shamans and priests come together? I think this happened in India.

Advaita and Dvaita:
Curiously, the biggest proponents of these two schools of thought came from predominantly Shamanic societies. Shankara, proponent of Advaita, was from Malayala region and Madhva, proponent of Dvaita, from Tulu region. These two schools of thought exemplify the anomalies when the fundamentals of Soulism meets fundamentals of Godism.

Shankara said both soul and god are the same. By saying he in fact broke away from god's concept which is a supernatural that can not be connected by a human. Shankara in his actions remained Godistic in his philosophy became Shamanic. However, Madhva wanted to maintain the status-quo and said soul and god are different. But could not get over the concept of soul, an abstraction of spirit.

The development of Education and Soulism and Godism:
Here, I think Godism moves ahead of Soulism. The invention of supernatural that humans can not connect needed higher level imagination to explain the things. And also the need to preserve these explanations. This was not required in Shamanic societies. Also, priests tend to be from the elites(could be rulers too) this education (oral or written) became mainstream. Even if there was any kind of literate tradition in Shamanic society it would not have become mainstream as elites of those societies were never shamans.

Indus Valley Civilization:
Some people(Michael Witzel, Steve Farmer) have speculated that Indus valley civilization was illiterate. I do not think we can judge that. In my opinion, we can be only sure that it was Shamanic and not Godistic. The kingdoms west of this civilization in fact had highly developed literate society even before this civilization started taking complete form. However, we have to also see that those were generally Godistic societies. Some of those kingdoms were ruled by priest-kings. The literature was mostly about gods/goddesses and rulers.

Because IVC was Shamanic and hence not ruled by priest-kings, we can safely say that kind of literature /artifacts/ artistic creations found in Godistic societies can not be expected in IVC. However, that does not mean everyone was illiterate. There could have been few people with their secular literature on construction/ astronomy etc. But education was not mainstream and hence the preservation never became a mainstream effort.

Charvaka (Carvaka, Chaarvaaka)

Charvakism was an Indian school of thought which perhaps the only Indian philosophy that was materialistic in nature. However, their real influence on Indian social life was absolutely nothing. Perhaps, a wrong step in the evolution of civilized Indian society.

The basic features:
Via Amma's Column(Jyothsna Kamat's Blog) at Kamat's Potpourri

* God is non-existent.
* There is no pre-existence or after-life.
* There is no such thing as salvation (moksha); death itself is salvation.
* Happiness is the only goal of life.
* The wise should seek happiness with productive work.
* Pursuit of music, eroticism, medicines etc., add comfort to life.
* Distinction of class and caste are humbug.
* The term "chastity for women" is rubbish (men and women are alike as far as chastity is concerned).

It is said that, Charvakas were attacked for the fourth point. What about other points? Not much is said about that except they were called 'vitandavaadi's(one who indulge in jugglery of words). Madhvaacharya said that it was very difficult to refute their arguments. At that time India was a society where many schools of thoughts supposed to have lost out to Vaidiks in debates. And Charvakism was supposed to be undebatable! So even with such strong foundations why couldn't they attract the great majority of intelligent people of that period to its fold?

The fringe philosophers:
The other name for Charvakism is Lokayata. Some people define it as 'philosophy of common people'. But I would go with the other definition that is 'philosophy of worldly'. Since I am sceptical about the number of common people among its followers I won't go with the former definition. In my opinion, there were only few philosophers at any point of time subscribing to this school of thought. And they didn't have any position in the society.

One striking feature of Charvakism was its relentless opposition to Brahmins and its call for rebellion against authority. These two things possibly demonstrate their position outside the public sphere of influence. Also, since none of the Indian schools of thought or the establishment found it necessary to open educational institutions for the common people, it was impossible for Charvakas to attract the vast majority of the population which was too superstitious, barbaric and illiterate to accept their philosophy.

So it leaves us with brilliant people of that era. Though I have talked about tendency of Indians to follow whatever their ancestors had said without any question, this kind of closed mindset baffles me. Was Charvakas’ strong stand on happiness too distasteful for the ascetic minded Indians? Extremely hard to believe. Were Charvakas the people outside the Aryan (this includes Vaidiks, Jains and Buddhists) society? Were they descendents of Greeks(who had developed such kind of materialist philosophy by that time) who stayed back in India. Hard to say since they were not called as Mlechchas, Yavanas, Panchamas etc. in any of the Vaidik literature. Or were they really Indus Valley people as claimed in the Wikipedia article on Charvakas? At this point this claim is too preposterous considering the number of questions it would raise. Not least of them is the question of Dravidians.

Charvakism and the concept of Maya:
Ironically, whatever we know about Charvakas is because of their arch rivals’, Vaidik, Buddhist and Jain, literature. The philosophers belonging to these schools of thought had written about the works of Charvakas sometimes with a neutral angle or sometimes with an intention of refutation. So whatever might be their intention they never really overlooked that philosophy, especially Brahmins.

Brahmins, being dominant, were always at the receiving end of Charvakas’ arguments. However, they were never closed minded to whatever Charvakas said. I suspect they might have used at least one observation of Charvakas to complete and be comfortable with their theory of Maya (illusion)

Charvakas refused the role of inference and accepted only direct perception to prove the truth. This is more in line with modern Western philosophy of refuting ‘divine influence’. Whereas West went on to develop empiricism which gave a complete role for observation and experimentation in developing theories for the world’s mysteries, Charvakism failed to give a proper direction for its philosophy.

After refusing the role of inference, the later philosophers went on to reject the role of perception in finding the truth! In a sense, they said truth can’t be understood either by inference or by perception.

The Vaidik school of thought that had become stagnant because of its total devotion to its founding fathers’ words found a new proof in Charvakas’ philosophy to further their own theory of world(confusion about the world would be more appropriate). As claimed by Charvakas, if truth about the world can’t be found either by inference or perception then where was the proof that truth existed at all. It was only Maya (illusion). This theory became a dominant and salient feature of Brahmanical religion after Shankara’s time. I am sure the Charvaka philosopher who rejected the role of direct perception must be Shankara’s antecedent.


Charvakism is not a great loss:
Indian society could have been more civilized had it embraced at least few points of Charvakism,viz., No caste, Equality of sexes. However, considering it as a philosophy which would have heralded a scientific thinking in line with Greek philosophies which put the foundations for the modern Western philosophy would be far fetched. As I have discussed, they failed to give the right direction for their philosophy. However, they were the ones who came very close in achieving it.

Why does fate exist?

If something goes wrong or if something does not turn out as expected, a typical Indian tendency is to ascribe those situations to ‘fate’. While ‘destiny’ is sometimes used as a counterpart to ‘fate’; in Kannada only one word describes the cause for the good and bad things, ‘vidhi’, which could be translated as ‘fate’.

People generally overlook numerous instances of things going right or otherwise but base their opinions on few incidents. However, these are the situations that matter them a lot. Though destiny does not matter much since the superstitions it develops do not necessarily harm the person or the society. But fate can have negative impact on person’s psyche, confidence and motivation. The superstitions that the person develops to get over the bad luck can be detrimental to him or the society. A question of interest would be ‘why does fate strike a person?’

A surest answer would be person expects something in a situation with too many ‘random experiments’. Let’s consider a situation.

Everyday, you take an auto to your office. Let us say you catch an auto at 10:30 in the morning. Here, the incidence we are expecting is auto’s availability at 10:30. Since autos do not have any obligation to arrive in front your gate at 10:30, its availability is a random experiment. I will call this as an ‘external random variable’. Now we have to determine the probability of the availability of the auto. It is possible that out of 10 days you have caught the auto on 7 days. A probability of 0.7. Since majority of the times you have found an auto, a common misconception of its availability will develop in your mind. Now let us consider that ‘emergency situation’. You have to find an auto at sharp 10:30 so that you can reach somewhere in time.

A common person, even with a misconception of 0.7 probability as 100% availability, wouldn’t have fallen for a concept like ‘fate’ if atleast 70% of his ‘emergency situations’ have occurred as expected. A rarity. What is wrong? Simple. He has overlooked one more random variable, emergency situation itself. I will call this as an ‘internal random variable’. A probability 0.7 has to be divided between normal situation and emergency situation. Let’s consider you have emergency situation once in five days. A probability of 0.2. So, what is the chance of you catching an auto in an emergency situation? I will call it as probability of destiny(P_destiny) and is equal to 0.7 * 0.2 = 0.14. In other words, you have only 14% chances of catching an auto in an emergency situation. This is the case in most of the human expectations. Fate will always triumph.

The only way to get rid of this spell of fate is to make sure you have as few ‘external random variables’, that you can’t control, as possible in your life. Also increase the probability of your ‘internal random variables’. An easy example would be trying to do something. One or two attempts will result in very low probability. So number of attempts must be many. Of course, you can always accept the fact that your probability of success is very limited.