Questions by a fellow atheist

How do you justify your existence?
I am wondering how many of you out there wonder about your existence? What on earth are you doing here?

I always get amazed when I think about the complexity of the life forms....for instance...all complex life forms have almost perfect design for seeing things around - eyes? similarly for hearing?...for that matter any part of the body......and humans have outclassed other species with...complex network of neurons...which helps them to think ahead in future!!

And more amazing is the fact that all these evolution occured begining with random aggregation of molecules to start with and..life kicked itself into action....the aggregation that survived the hostile environment..what Darwin would say....'survival of fittest'....replicated further....and aggregated further...and continue to evolve.....over millions of years....to what we are today.....and so it continues....the battle of survival...which including humans inherently indulge in every day...as proved by the way humans would try to outclass/compete other peers, find a better mate, etc....

It appears all life forms are survival machines designed to take advantange of different environment/living conditions to do one thing best....survive!....ensure the propagation of their design....which is embedded in the genes!!

So what are we, biological survival machines - biological robots ??
[courtesy: ORKUT]

WHAT I HAVE TO SAY ABOUT IT.
I have thought about it, and continue to think about it, futilely though, this is the biggest reason why humans thought of the concept of god in the past, currently people are too ignorant to question themselves. probably some day scientists will answer the question. hopefully in my lifetime.

An International airport at Pune?

Sadly not so soon.

Yet another Rahul in the news

As if news created by Rahul Mahajan was not enough, Rahul Bajaj decided to jump in the scribes too. Ironically his being in the news has a lot to do with Pramod 'so many skeletons in the closet' Mahajan. The rajya sabha seat vacancy caused by the soap opera like episode, had to be filled, to which Rahul Bajaj was nominated by NCP, and backed by BJP-Shiv Sena. The congress had fielded its own candidate for it.
This caused so much tension between the NCP and the Congress that there were rumors of NCP allying with BJP.

So Bajaj's nomination for the Rajya Sabha post almost split the NCP and the Congress. This is so very ironic. Ironic because the Bajajs over last few generations have known to be congress loyalists. Jamanalal Bajaj was follower of Gandhi, and was sort of adopted by him. He was also very active member of Indian national Congress then. Rahul Bajajs father was treasurer of the Congress party after 47. However Rahul Bajaj is not exactly following their foot steps. In the Walk the Talk interview, he was queried by Shekhar Gupta, if he is more inclined towards the BJP.

Well if the Congress and NCP do split, and the NCP allies with BJP, the Shiv Sena will surely split with the BJP (as they threatened to do in the last lok sabha elections, when there were speculations of Sharad Pawar allying up with BJP). Congress and Shiv Sena can never be allies and Raj Thackeray will never ally with Shiv Sena. Raj Thackeray allying with Congress also does not seem possible. So a Raj/BJP/NCP can indeed be a winning combination.

A lot of Iffs and Buts, but will surely be interesting in the next elections.

Disney Theme Parks in India?

Yes, soon that could be a reality!

Juggernaut

Was having a conversation with an Indian guy in my university about Indian words being absorbed into mainstream English. The common ones I knew were verandah, jungle, mantra, pundit, karma and a lot more.

While studying for GRE I as told that, if I go to the US, I shouldn't be supprised if a professor asked me to go out for shay (written as chai, but pronounced shay in the US), as that is nothing but desi tea. I had initially thought that this might be the case in really upmarket places in New York, were investment bankers might be fascinated with the fancy exotic stuff. But was suprised to find shay in my own University Campus!

Neways, I will finally get to writting, what I intended to, in the first place. I had first heard the word Juggernaut, when Navjot Singh Siddhu, had used it for his team, in the fantacy cricket program on ESPN Star Sports. I didn't learn the meaning as, 'irrestible crushing force', untill later. But wasn't aware of the origins of the word even then, which was really really shocking.

Would you believe that the origin of the word, comes from the Jaggannath Yatra in Puri. Read about it on Wikipedia, they will get across the point better than me.

Did ya know about this stuff? If you did, how naive am I?

The Code.

Saw the Da Vinci Code, a long time back. But two posts on karname of Mr. Arjun Singh, and then an instinctive one on Pune Traffic mean that I couldn't write on it until now.

Previously I had written about the book, that I had liked the facts more than the fiction. The facts about pi were most fascinating. The fiction part (or was it really fictitious?) was very audacious and shocking for me to read initially. But several dozen documentaries on Discovery and The History Channel later, it is all I remember from the book.

The movie is really bold, with Sony Pictures not giving a disclaimer about the stuff being fictitious. Again the ending was a bit modified in the movie. With Sophie mockingly trying to walk on water, and then joking about the wine thing.

Just before the climax, she asks Langdon, whether she should reveal to the world, the truth about Jesus's Bloodline, and hence his mortality. To this Langdon cites, that as a kid he had once fallen in a well. Being raised as a Catholic, he yelled and hoped that he will be rescued by God. Eventually someone helped him and he was rescued.

And thus he implied that, although he thought that God does not exist, the faith is necessary for people. So in a way the makers of the movie almost re-endorsed Jesus's mortality and hence him being non Divine.

I seriously agree with this; if we think rationally, all of us will realize the prophets being not divine. We should accept them as great men, after which great 'Books' were written. The divine force was just an attempt by people to explain non understood phenomenons.

In any case I do wish to visit The Louvre, Church of Saint Sulpice, Templar Church, and Westminster Abbey, the sites mentioned in the book. And that too now, pretty soon, and not when I am fifty and ugly!