28 May 2010

Science Vs Faith

An atheist professor of philosophy speaks to his class on the problem science has with God, The Almighty. He asks one of his new students to stand and.....
Prof: So you believe in God?
Student: Absolutely, sir.
Prof : Is God good?
Student:Sure..
Prof: Is God all-powerful?
Student: Yes.
Prof: My brother died of cancer even though he prayed to God to heal him. Most of us would attempt to help others who are ill. But God didn't. How is this God good then? Hmm?
(Student is silent.)
Prof:You can't answer, can you? Let's start again, young fella. Is God good?
Student:Yes.
Prof: Is Satan good?
Student: No.
Prof: Where does Satan come from?
Student:From...God....
Prof: That's right. Tell me son, is there evil in this world?
Student:Yes.
Prof: Evil is everywhere, isn't it? And God did make everything. Correct?
Student:Yes.
Prof: So who created evil?
(Student does not answer.)
Prof: Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things exist in the world, don't they?
Student:Yes, sir.
Prof: So, who created them?
(Student has no answer.)
Prof: Science says you have 5 senses you use to identify and observe the world around you.
Tell me, son...Have you ever seen God?
Student:No, sir.
Prof: Tell us if you have ever heard your God?
Student:No, sir.
Prof: Have you ever felt your God, tasted your God, smelt your God? Have you ever had any sensory perception of God for that matter?
Student:No, sir. I'm afraid I haven't.
Prof: Yet you still believe in Him?
Student:Yes.
Prof: According to empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, science says your GOD doesn't exist. What do you say to that, son?
Student: Nothing. I only have my faith.
Prof: Yes. Faith. And that is the problem science has.
Student:Professor, is there such a thing as heat?
Prof: Yes.
Student: And is there such a thing as cold?
Prof: Yes.
Student: No sir. There isn't.
(The lecture theatre becomes very quiet with this turn of events.)
Student : Sir, you can have lots of heat, even more heat, superheat, mega heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat. But we don't have anything called cold. We can hit 458 degrees below zero which is no heat, but we can't go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold . Cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat . We cannot measure cold. Heat is energy . Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it .(There is pin-drop silence in the lecture theatre.)
Student:What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness?
Prof: Yes. What is night if there isn't darkness?
Student :You're wrong again, sir. Darkness is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light....But if you have no light constantly, you have nothing and it's called darkness, isn't it? In reality, darkness isn't. If it were you would be able to make
darkness darker, wouldn't you?
Prof: So what is the point you are making, young man?
Student:Sir, my point is your philosophical premise is flawed.
Prof: Flawed? Can you explain how?
Student:Sir, you are working on the premise of duality. You argue there is life and then there is death, a good God and a bad God. You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, science can't even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one.To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing. Death is not the opposite of life: just the absence of it.
Now tell me, Professor.Do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?
Prof: If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, yes, of course, I do.
Student:Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?
(The Professor shakes his head with a smile, beginning to realize where the argument is going.)
Student:Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor, are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you not a scientist but a preacher? (The class is in uproar.)
Student:Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor's brain?
(The class breaks out into laughter.)
Student : Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor's brain, felt it, touched or smelt it? No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established rules of empirical, stable, demonstrable protocol, science says that you have no brain,sir.
With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures, sir?
(The room is silent. The professor stares at the student, his face unfathomable.)
Prof: I guess you'll have to take them on faith, son.
Student:That is it sir.... The link between man & god is FAITH . That is all that keeps things moving & alive.


That student was none other than our former president Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam...


01 May 2010

You Know You Grew Up in India in the 90s When…

I was on Facebook the other day and stumped upon this page 'You Know You Grew Up in India in the 90s When...' and this is the content of that page... its just too beautiful to miss if you were indeed one of those who grew up during the 90s... :)

You Know You Grew Up in India in the 90s When…

1) You know the words to ‘In-pin-safety-pin’ and ‘akkad-bakkad’ by heart

2) Cricket is almost a religion for you, and you idolize at least one of Rahul Dravid/Sachin Tendulkar/Saurav Ganguly

3) You have read at least some Chacha Chaudhary or Tinkle comics

4) You’ve watched Shaktimaan on TV at least once in your life. And you can immediately recognize the character when you see him.

5) You have some ‘NRI’ relatives.

6) You couldn’t wait for it to be December so you could have the Toblerone chocolates your NRI relatives brought you

7) You watched Cartoon Network, and then the late night movies on TNT that came after Cartoon Network ended.

8) You watched corny dubbed versions of Small Wonder, Silver Spoon, and I Dream of Jeanie

9) You were THRILLED when McDonald’s opened in your neighborhood (or even eight kilometers away)

10) A visit to Pizza Hut used to mean a special treat

11) You have seen Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and Hum Aapke Hain Kaun at least 5 times each

12) You still remember the theme song of Hum Paanch. (Hum Paanch, Pam Pam Pam Paanch!)

13) You have played hours upon hour of running and catching, chor-police, lagori, saankli, ‘Doctor, doctor, help us!’, ‘Lock and key’

14) You have seen girls play ‘Amina Super Sina’ more times than you can remember. (And you still don’t know what it means!)

15) Dog ‘in’ the bone was your favorite co-ed game.

16) Much of your free time in school was spent playing UNO.

17) You collected trump cards of wrestlers, cricketers, and airplanes, and did not quite understand why your younger siblings were obsessed with Pokemon and the other Japanese trends that followed.

18) Your summer vacations were often synonymous with visiting your grandparents or cousins

19) Your parents, at some point, told you ‘Dark Room’ was a bad game to play. But you still loved playing it.

20) Bole mere lips, I love uncle Chips!

21) You know the song ‘Made in India’ by Alisha Chinai

22) You have seen many many many episodes of ‘Antakshari’ on Zee TV and know the only thing constant in the show is Annu Kapoor.

23) Many evenings have been spent watching little kids gyrate vulgarly on Boogie Woogie on Sony.

24) You were the coolest thing in class if you had a computer in your house while it was still the 90s.

25) You learnt LOGO and BASIC in school!

26) You couldn’t wait to start 4th standard so you could start writing with PENS instead of with pencils!

27) You often used terms and phrases like ‘two-say’, ‘same to you, back to you, with no returns’, and ‘shame shame, puppy shame, all the donkeys know your name.’

28) You most probably saw Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge at the cinema at least once. You also fantasized about singing songs in mustard fields as in the movie.

29) You have seen David Dhawan and Govinda movies and laughed at them.

31) You have said ‘haw’ or ‘yuck’ when you saw people kissing in English movies. (nowadays kids are used to it!)

30) Titanic was your FIRST favorite English movie.

31) You thought seeing English movies and speaking English made you the coolest thing ever.

32) You remember the Gujarat earthquake very clearly and could possibly tell everyone EXACTLY what you were doing when the earthquake occurred (yes, this happened in 2001, January 26, 2001, to be exact — but this group is about the things that Indian kids that GREW UP in the 90s remember and identify with).

33) Barbies for girls, and GI Joes for boys were the ultimate status symbols. You just wanted more more more and more. And how can I forget Hot Wheels, for both boys and girls?

34) You thought ‘imported’ clothes were definitely way better than ‘made in India’ clothes (never mind that a lot of clothes brought from overseas by NRI relatives were actually made in India, before ‘Made in China’ started appearing on EVERY existing thing)

35) "Jungle Jungle Baat Chali Hai Pata Chala Hai! Chaddi Pehen Ke Phool Khila Hai Phool Khila Hai!" You watched "The Jungle Book" every Sunday morning at 9.a.m" and just loved mowgli, bhalu and bagheera. A few years later, you watched Disney Hour, which had cartoons like Aladdin, Gummy Bears, Tail Spin, Uncle Scrooge!

36) At some point or other, cool was your favourite, and therefore, most overused word.

37) Captain Planet was your first introduction to environmental consciousness.

38) You have tried to convince people around you to not burst crackers on Diwali, and then gone straight back home and burst them yourself.

39) You have had endless packets of Parle Gluco G biscuits, and of Brittania Little Hearts biscuits.

40) You loved licking off the cream from the centre of Bourbon biscuits.

41) There were no Nike, Reebok, Adidas, Puma- Bata and Liberty was the way to go for your sports shoes.

42) You have probably consumed more Frooti in your lifetime than there is oil in Iraq.

43) You watched Baywatch on Star World when nobody was home even though (or because) your parents said you shouldn’t watch it.

44) You bought packets of potato chips for the specific purpose of collecting Tazos. And you had Tazos depicting everyone from Confucius to Daffy Duck to Daffy Duck dressed as Confucius.

45) For the longest time, the Maruti 800, the Premier Padmini, THE Fiat, and THE Ambassador were the only cars you saw on the road, and the Contessa was cool because it was bigger.

46) You would literally jump up in excitement if you ever chanced upon an imported car (Oh my gosh, is that really a MERCEDES?)!

47) You spent a good part of 1998 drooling over the Hyundai Santro and the Daewoo Matiz , debating which one was better.

48) You used to Fuzen gum. You also chewed Big (big) Babool and/or Boom Boom Boomer chewing gum. They were bright pink and disgusting tasting, but you loved them for the temporary tattoos.

49) Talking of temporary tattoos, you sometimes had contests with your classmates about who had more tattoos on their arm, leg, knee, hand, forehead, wherever.

50) You thought Mario and Contra were the coolest things ever invented, especially if you were a boy.

51) You knew that having the latest Hero or Atlas bicycle would make you the coolest kid on the block.

52) You can imitate Sushmita Sen’s winning gasp to perfection.

53) You have, at some point of time, worn GAP clothes (real or fake) like SRK in KKHH.

54) Seemingly senseless acronyms like SRK, DDLJ, DTPH, KKHH actually make sense to you..

55) You have at some point debated who was more beautiful- Aishwarya or Sushmita.

56) Baskin Robbins ice-cream was THE thing to have!

57) You know what Campa Cola is. And you also knew that Coca Cola was THE drink.

58) You would watch WWF keenly every evening/afternoon and loved Bret Hart "Hitman"! really thought Undertaker had seven lives and he made an “actual” appearance in the Akshay Kumar- starrer Khiladiyon ka Khiladi.

59) When all backpacks (or ’schoolbags’) and water bottles and tiffin boxes had strange cartoon characters that were hybrid versions of seven or eight different characters, and you still bought them, because a green man wih a water pistol, boots, a jet-pack, Johnny bravo hair, a rajasthani mustache, gloves, and underwear (long johns) over his pants, called ‘Mr. X’ was OBVIOUSLY a status symbol.

60) You remember the Nirma tikia jingle.

61) You remember the Nirma girl.

62) You remember the ‘doodh doodh piyo glass full doodh’ ad and also the ‘laal kaala peela, gulabi hara neela classic hai badia bristles wala’ and 'roz khao ande' ads.

63) You grew up reading, if you read at all, some or all of Nancy Drews, Enid Blyton books, Hardy Boys, Babysitters Club, Animorphs, Goosebumps, Sweet Valley series, Judy Blumes, and Tintin, or Archie comics. Because naturally, reading foreign authors made you much cooler than reading Tinkle.

64) Towards the late 90s (1998-99) at least some of us started our Harry Potter obsessions!

65) You absolutely HAD to go to Essel World if you were with cousins! “Essel World mein rahoonga main, ghar nahin nahin jaaonga main!” (I never went but always dreamed of going there!)

66) You watched the Bournvita Quiz contest on TV pretty religiously. The smarter ones amongst you actually took part in it and had your entire school and your entire extended families watch you on it!

67) Maggi 2 Minute Noodles = ultimate snack (and tiffin, lunch, dinner)!

68) If you grew up in the early 90s, you recall the nation’s obsession with Mahabharata on TV

69) In the later 90s, you religiously followed Hip Hip Hooray on Zee. Maybe Just Mohabbat on Sony too

70) You remember parzan dastur sayin "JALEBI!!!!" in the Dhara Ad

71) You eagerly awaited Friendship Day, so you could give friendship bands to all your friends, and get bands from them in return. Then, of course, those with the most bands loved to show them off.

72) Backstreet Boys' "Quit Playing Games" was one of the first English songs that you LOVED!

73) Andaz Apna Apna is and most probably will always be your favorite comedy flick!! "Aila Jhakaas!!!"


And I miss that age, it was sooo awesome!