Does god exist ?

This is one of the older and common-er issues, nevertheless an interesting one. So let me set the ball rolling. I am not here to ask anyone to change their beliefs. I would feel happy if we could all share our thoughts in a calm non-judgemental debate.

I do not believe that god exists. Now why do I say that ? Two points ;

1. First, for the purpose of this discussion, we should precisely define god. For anything/ anyone to qualify as god, there are a few conditions that must be met
a. Must be all knowing and ever present
b. Must be all powerful
c. Must be beneficial to mankind / other forms of life.

I hope most of us are agreed on this definition.

2. So if god exists and satisfies the conditions above, why do we see millions of people killed in natural disasters ? Genocides ? Could it be that he is not all powerful and could not stop the disasters..? Well then he cannot be acclaimed god. Could it be that he COULD stop but chooses not to. Then again he cannot be acclaimed god (point c above). Some believer friends of mine have told me that there is a larger meaning to creation and god that we cannot comprehend. And that the deaths of innocents are a part of this larger scheme (shades of the Bhagvad Geeta). So god chooses to "observe" in silence the deaths of innocents, for he has a design in it that we humans do not understand.

To my rather simple mind, it looks like if god cant prevent anything bad from happening, and if he is not all powerful and beneficial, why do we need him at all? It’s like the story of frogs and King Log/ King Stork.

And finally...in the newspaper some months ago, I read this little news item. A 10 year old mentally retarded girl was raped by three men, somewhere in North india. Now I do hope that my believer friends are not going to tell me that this too is a part of the grand design of god (which we humans don’t understand).

To sum up this little train of thought, I believe that god does not exist chiefly because there is no evidence that he ever does anything that should cause people to believe in him in the first place. I think compared to god, George Bush may be a better choice, instead.

More on this in a future piece,

Dustbins and god

What’s common between dustbins and god? You may well ask, what kind of a silly question is that? It indeed is. But all the same it occurred to me one day when I was at work and had come out for a smoke.

Well I work for an IT company, and in keeping with current trends they have eliminated smoking inside the office. I fully endorse this practice. (Now only if the smokers could be eliminated). So they have smoking corners, only sometimes they are not really corners. Smoking spots, lets say. My office has a large open space (a plaza) and that’s where the smoking spots are. There are a few dustbins scattered around. But I notice that the smokers ALMOST NEVER use them to deposit the cigarette butts. The butts are strewn generously everywhere else. Almost as if smokers took special effort to NOT use the dustbins. Now are we smokers such a perverted and irrational lot ? Knowing IT people I am tempted to say yes, they are. But that’s another story.

The point here is that all the dustbins are placed in locations that have a very strong breeze, are exposed to sun and rain and have no place nearby to sit. So I mentioned these things to the Admin people. Why not shift the dustbins closer to where people smoke? Well, I was told they had done it before and one dustbin (or its contents) caught fire. As they say, no smoke-ing without fire.

Now a few lines about the dustbins themselves. There are two types. One is the steel thing in a rectangular shape. The top has a tray with sand/ pebbles to stub out cigarettes and the lower half can be used for dumping used coffee-cups and such things. This is a very American design. The other type is made of plastic/ fibre glass and usually in the shape of an animal cartoon character. Ducks, squirrels, penguins, monkeys, fish. I am sue you must have seen them in public places. This is a wholly Indian innovation. I think they first started appearing some 25 years ago and quickly became an irreversible and abominable part of the urban landscape In India. Look at one closely and you will realize why.

The cartoon animals have the most pained looking expressions. In some cases the animal figure is holding up the dustbin. The way it is positioned, pointing upwards, is too indelicate for me to even mention here.(Hint : its phallic) With the monkey, fish and the penguin the garbage has to be disposed into the mouth of the figure. So much for respect for wildlife. Finally, can we make a guess about a people/ culture by looking at their trash bins and the trash itself ? Well can YOU ? (more on this in a separate piece)

So where does god come in? Dustbins are like god. Useful and ubiquitous, but largely misplaced and neglected.