Science and Religion

-Mahavir Sanglikar

It is a natural tendency in common men to love their country, state, district, city/town and the street where they live. Same thing happens in the case of their religion.

They love their religion because they were born into the religion that belongs to them. If a Hindu who loves his religion had born in Muslim family instead of a Hindu family, he would have loved Islam, and not Hinduism.

Hate is a companion of love. So most of the people who love their own religion, like to hate other religions.

Staunch believers think that their religion is the oldest one and superior to all other religions. They also think that their religion is the most scientific. They don’t know ABC of science, but think that today’s science already existed at the time of their Prophets and Avatars.

In India, the Vedic fanatics always like to tell that there were airplanes, radio, computers, internet and many other machineries & technologies in the Vedic era. They say that the Europeans discovered these things by reading the stolen ancient books of Vedics from India. I am afraid, why then the Vedics themselves not discovered these things in spite of having these books with them for last many centuries?

Such type of people belonging to any religion cannot differentiate between science and technology. For them both the things are one and the same. In fact, fundamental science is an area of genius people and technology is applied science, which does not require much intelligence when compared to prior one.

No doubt ancient Indians, whether Jains or Vedics have done a lot of work in the fields of cosmology, medicine, biology, advanced mathematics and psychology. But these subjects go from over the heads of common believers of Jainism and Vedic religion. So while speaking about their religion being scientific, the Vedics talk about airplanes and Jains talk about health science behind not eating at night.

Modern science has proved many concepts in the religions as just a stupidity; but the staunch believers of religion like to take support of science to ‘prove’ some of the concepts in their religion. On other places, they like to criticize the science. They believe that the science is destructor of mankind, but the fact is that religions are the biggest enemies of humanity. Remember Crusades and Jihads, Hitler and Laden. Although all terrorism are not based on religion, the religious terrorism is more dangerous when compared.

Science does not belong to any specific ethnic group. It does not teach to hate people. It does not claim that it knows the ultimate truth, but it is always nearer the truth than the so-called truth told by religions. Religions have helped to spread blind beliefs, while science always destroyed them.

Believers of religions take advantage of all the technologies based on science. They use television, computers, internet, mobile phones etc. for promoting their religions, but at the same time they criticize science. So the believers are the most ungrateful people in the world.

Science has already overtaken all the religions, and the religions have to change according to science. You might have read that the Pope had to apologize for opposing and punishing scientists by clergies of the past, and also for opposing Darwin’s theory of evolution.

If a religion does not change it will be automatically become an out of dated faith.

Future of English Language

-Mahavir Sanglikar

Here are some of predictions about the future of languages in the world.

The importance of English as a world language will start to decline as soon as the importance of United States declines.

The decline of English language will benefit Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, French and Russian languages.

Spanish language will be the most important language in the world after decline of English language. Spanish will merge as an important language even in United States.

United states will become a multilingual nation, just like India.

After decline of English language as world language, the structure of this language will start to change rapidly. The English language of United States, the English language of United Kingdom and the English language of Australia will start to differ from one another.

It doesn't mean that English language will vanish out, and countries like India, Pakistan etc. will continue to use this language. The largest English knowing population will be in India.

Animal Rights V/s Human Rights

-Mahavir Sanglikar

In India, millions of Dalits are being persecuted by so called upper class Hindus. They are killing thousands of Dalits just because they are Dalits.

On the other hand, millions of daughter- in- laws in India are being persecuted and thousands of them are being forced to commit suicide for dowry.

Every day, there are communal riots in one or another town in India. Innocent people are becoming victims of such riots.

Terrorists are killing innocent people in mass every day.

We read daily newspapers and watch T.V. news everyday full of such incidents. But none of us speak a single word of such persecutions and killings of human beings. On the other hand some people always speak about killings of animals (especially cows*), small insects and invisible living beings even if they are harmful to us. They even speak about the life in green vegetables and underground vegetables and do not eat such vegetables because we do not want to kill them. But they have nothing to do with killings of human beings. Isn't it foolish?

They do not know the true meaning of Ahimsa, so they do not have any place for humanity in their mind.

Talking on killings of human being can be harmful for them so the best way is to run away from working for human rights (what is it?) That's why they talk only on animal rights (we know it very well).

I am a staunch vegetarian and have not involved in any business that is based on killing of animals. I do not use anything made from animals. But that does not mean I should ignore killings of human beings.
What are your comments?

My Atheist Mother

-Mahavir Sanglikar

Most of the Indian women are victims of various kinds of superstitions. It is hard to find an Indian woman who does not believe in God, the biggest superstition of mankind. She likes to visit temples of various (!) Gods and demand various worldly things before him. It includes not only money, health and wealth, but also very minor things like ‘May my husband return to home in time’.

Most of the Indian mothers teach their children to pray the God for passing school examinations. They tell their children not just to pray, but also to offer the God some material thing if he listens the prayer. This is nothing but a kin of bribe and I think that here are the roots of the corruption in India.

Most of the Indian women are superstitious because they feel unsecured in family life. Generally they are dependent on father before marriage, on husband after marriage and on sons in older age. In male dominant Indian society she is of no importance. Due to lack of self-confidence, they surrender themselves to the God(s) and superstitions.

But few women never surrender themselves to the God. They do not believe in superstitions. I am proud to say that my mother was one of such women.

I remember that my mother never told me to pray to the God or to go to the temple. She herself never did this. There was one exception when my sister got married and the couple had to visit the temple in our village. We all had to go to the temple, but my mother was not ready to go there. After requests and forcing, she went to the temple with us. But it was just an attendance of her; she was not involved in any rituals. She just rose up her hands for bow in front of the Teerthankar idol and then she just sat in the corner of the temple hall till we had to return home.

The roots of her atheism were in her family background. She was born in a Jain family. Her father was a Head Master of a Primary school in a village. In my childhood, I got an opportunity to live with him for 3 years. He was a multidimensional person, a rational thinker and an atheist.

Most of the children follow their parents. My mother followed her father. I followed my mother and maternal Grandfather. I became an atheist from my childhood. My atheism was boosted when I read the books on Jainism written by my Paternal Grandfather. Later, I learned rational thinking from my paternal uncle.

My mother was not a traditional Jain woman. She was a staunch vegetarian but she had not restricted herself from eating root vegetables and eating after sunset. She never involved herself in any type of rituals. She never showed an interest in meeting monks. But she never uttered a word, which will harm others.

Last year, my mother passed away. She died the way by which a Jain should die. Followers of Jainism when realize that it is the time to leave, they reduce eating of food day by day. At a point, they stop to eat. Eventually, they adopt death in peace. This is popularly known as sallekhanaa or santhara. Most of sallekhanaas are declared sallekhanas and performed as rituals, but in case of my mother, it was undeclared.

She always avoided medicines and strongly opposed injections. In her last days, the doctor had prescribed some tonics for her, which she never took. He used to check her health routinely, but didn’t find any type of disease. No diabetes, no blood pressure, no cataract. At the age of 71, her eyes were able to read newspaper without glasses. She was able to hear small noises and speak well.

She died just like one goes to sleep. Without shouting, without going in unconsciousness, without any fear. A very peaceful death one should like to have.

(First Published: 12 July 2010)