God’s Identity?

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18489-found-hawkings-initials-written-into-the-universe.html?haasFormId=46aa9eea-8158-4b87-8d70-3994c2a1bd64&haasPage=0

or just one of those coincidences and human imagination running wild

I said no!

A woman in Paris holds condoms with a picture of Pope Benedict XVI. This condoms were released to mock the pope after he rejected condoms as a weapon against AIDS during his African trip.

Source (The Telegraph)

Dave Allen on Religion

Dave Allen, a comic genius, conveys a strong set of messages through this stand up routine. Beautifully done.

See other Dave Allen videos here

See other videos featured on Religurd here

Mahasammata Wadaya – Religion and Governance in Sri Lanka (Updated)

The work-in-progress article of Prasad Mapatuna, Mahasen Bandara (Co-Author), Religion and Governance in Sri Lanka, has has been updated, and includes a new section titled  ’Mahasammata Wadaya’.

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Mahasammata Wadaya

Something more need to be said about the attempt to popularize an ancient value system and bring backancient governance model as the way forward for Sri Lanka. I earlier dismissed this concept as a mere re-dressing of Feudal System (Weda Wasm Wadaya) and nothing more. However judging by strength of the fan-base for this concept, it is obvious that they have seen something attractive in it. Therefore I thought that concept should be given little bit more respect than outright dismissal.

It is not an uncommon trend for communities in former colonies to feel that they have “lost” something good in their past, that their former colonial masters took away or destroyed.  It is also not uncommon to associate anything that came from outside after the subjugation to the colonial powers as something thrust upon them. In that sense, I can understand the mindset of Mahasammatha fans where they see that parliamentary democracy and modern values associated with it as “alien western concepts”. They feel that whatever was there in the past should have been better since what we have now is less than perfect. A cult formed around this type of nostalgia can be quite harmless. Unfortunately due to strong appeal the Buddhist institution has for this ideology, (for the reasons mentioned above) this is far more than a mere cult. It is almost a political force.

These type of ideologies are harmful in the same sense the Eelam (Eezham) ideology was harmful to the North Eastern Tamil community. The entire community was taken for a very expensive ride by the LTTE who themselves must have been convinced that Eelam was achievable. If we take step back and have anhonest look at Eelam concept in its ideal implementation. It does sound quite appealing not only to North Eastern Tamils but also to Sinhalese in the south. Provided that fair division of land and water resources is possible, what we will have are two nations with strong inner coherence (relatively free from internal conflicts) and have strong feeling about the land they live. Tamils with newly achieved land and Sinhalese with newly lost territory both eager to make the best out of the circumstances. I am sure we all agree that this utopian state is not achievable and Tamils are only harming themselves and entire Sri Lanka by pursuing this dream.

I am not even interested in going deep in to Mahasammatha concept and see what if offers. Even if someone manage to convince me that is it the best thing that can happen to Sri Lanka, it is a tough ask to rally people around a concept of this nature. This concept has very strong Sinhala Buddhist perspective to it. This immediately alienates more than one-third of the population. At best it can only help in taking the whole of Sri Lankan in a very expensive ride similar to the Eelam ride north eastern Tamils were taken.

As we have overcome a difficult war of our own making, it is time to seek ideologies that promote reconciliation; not further division. We should not leave any room for another war.

Lets Pray for the Sinners……

More Politics…

News reports indicate that President Mahinda Rajapaksa has been officially endorsed by the Sri Lanka Buddhist congress, one of Sri Lankas largest Buddhist organizations.

Daily news was the only paper carrying the story

Read the full story http://www.dailynews.lk/2010/01/23/news42.asp

There’s also a very nice picture at gulf news

Philosophical base of religion vs. Practical implementation – Religion and Governance in Sri Lanka (Updated)

The work-in-progress article of Prasad Mapatuna, Mahasen Bandara (Co-Author), Religion and Governance in Sri Lanka, has been updated, with a new section on the “Philosophical base of religion vs. Practical implementation” and the section “Laws based on religion vs. scientific reasoning” expanded.

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Philosophical base of religion vs. Practical implementation

It is interesting to note that the core philosophy of almost all major world religions survived humankind’s relentless pursuit of determinism by way of scientific enquiry. Defenders of these religions always found ways to stay above science or, at least, to be even with the propositions of the scientific modeling of the universe. The origin of the modern scientific approach is found in cultures with a Judeo-Christian background. In those cultures, most scientists treated their efforts as a pursuit of finding the ultimate equation of God. The theories, like the Big Bang beginning of the universe, in fact, were supportive of the argument of the creation of the universe by a personal God. The laws of nature seem to break down at the Big Bang singularity and scientists agreed that only God knows what happened there. On the other hand, with the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum theory, and modern concepts of subatomic physics, the wisdom traditions of the East found their way into the minds of the scientific community. The concepts, like ‘observer-created-reality’ in quantum theory go hand-in-hand with Buddhist philosophy. Also the modern notion of ‘an undivided universe’ where the observer and the observed are treated as a single system, and every observed phenomenon is treated as manifestations of ‘an underlying wholeness’, goes well with the Hindu philosophy of undivided wholeness of the Brahman Paramaathma.

The philosophical base which serves as the seed for the intellectual discourse within and among religions has often little or no bearing to the way the religion is practiced in the field. The people rally not around the philosophy, but around the institution. The leaders who run the institution hold the key to the emotion-buttons that they can press to mobilize the followers in a direction that they please. A dangerous mob can be easily and quickly organized using power of custom or arbitrary authority. This is the danger of endowing religious institutions with more and more resources and authority.

In most of the religious implementations, relationship between the underlying philosophy and the practice of the intuition is similar to the relationship between the Koran to Taliban OR the Communist Manifesto to Stalin’s regime OR Eugenics to Nazi Germany. It is true that it is unfair to judge The Koran, The Communist Manifesto or Eugenics by Taliban, Stalin’s regime or Nazi Germany respectively. We all can hopefully agree that the seeds (Koran, Communist Manifesto or Eugenics) were not evil by themselves, but these three institutions were.

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Critical analysis on buddhism and all other religions

Buddhist are as any other believer of any other religion are significantly mislead{now you must be angry but keep reading as Buddha as far as surmon in “Kalama suthra”advice you to keep an open mind be analytical (which I admire but this is in contradiction with many of the impractical teachings of Buddhism)} .You people call your religion the truth and guess what, so does the others who believe in other religions.Calling something is true based on faith(do not give me the irrational argument that Buddhism does not require faith “saddha is just another word for bakthiya“) is just an assertion but to make it an argument who should back it with reason and for an argument to be a fact it should be underpinned by evidence.NO religion including Buddhism can do this and only science can and only science will.And if somebody thinks that morality and civilization came about as a result of Buddhism or any other religion it is an false assumption.Morality is an inherited by humans and all animals with sufficient level of reason with the excption of humans having the ability to refine and organize morality in oder to create civilization(for more details see social contract principle) and it must be said with clarity and evidence(of course you will only understand this if you have read about other religions books about philosophy,logic and evidence) that religions are not the source of morality but just documentations of morality.All religions acts as deice of governance,this has been the purpose of religions even with the tribal formats of them where the leader wanted unquestioned authority and power.Religions are based of fictions which introduces super natural characters like God,Buddha or Allah to create that’wow” feeling inside you to get your attention and control your autonomy under those super natural characters whose orders or guidance are if disobeyed would lead to hell or more suffering and if followed would lead to haven or nirvana(what ever might be the concept behind the reward it is still a reward).This is also named by me as the”donkey tied to the cart principle”(mail me if you want to know more).Now you would be thinking why should Ilisten to him,who is he and how dare he criticize the establishment and who is he compared to LORD Buddha who suffered billions into trillions of years in search of truth and more than that who suffered for us,preciselyleading to my point that you have been hypnotized by the mythical stories(as stories are scientifically proven to impair reason to a level where it result in drawing the listeners to state of trance where you feel that “Oh so wow’ a.k.a Holly!.This mechanism is used so often in religious preachers and you will so often notice this if you carefully analyse the formula of Bana deshana.(there are more techniques that are used by religions such as chanting to hypnotize devotees.And another reason average intelligent people adore religion is because they find it difficult to understand the world as it is and they feel very uncomfortable with the realities of the(do not tell me Buddhism represents reality cause so does say the other religions and saying is not enough and just because it sounds rite does not infer it is does not represent the truth you have to prove it or should leave it as a theory) the world which simply characterizes humans as mortal beings with no existene after death where as religions attribute divine,eternal and sansaric lifes to us, whom can develop super natural powesr which can be developed by meditaion or prayer.Religion gives people a divine identity by associating them self to super natural creatures who become the saviors of man kind and yea some time all creature of the universe and by giving them hope about an alternative reality(nirvana, haven)to a level that they get so addicted to it they behave on schizophrenic and retarded manners such an obsessive praying or chanting , sacrificial acts(I know Buddhism is not that extremist,but it does justify suicidal acts if it is done to archive nirvana which you should be very careful when allowing a child to read and also protect children from the stories of hell that can impact the fragile mind of a child and horrify children which in future would have serious consequence on once personality) in other words simply to say it makes us feel like we live in a fairy tale.Imagine so many times you have prayed in front of clay statues and gone round and round trees expecting it will cure you sins(Apala) and chanting till the morning thinking it will bring prosperity to the people(if so Sri Lanka must be the most developed country in the world,which obviously is not)and chase off evil spirits and welcome divine creatures and worshipe people just because they where a particular dress(Chivareta wadinawa) which when collectively appreciated can be classified as schizophrenic behavior which allows me to humorously say that if the writer of harry potter lived in the medival times we would be worshiping Harry potter and all the brooms in the world since he used brooms to save humainty(Which kind of anologise with buddha and the boa tree or jesus and the cross),which can be academically termed as miss use of symbology.

To show you one impractical and controversial principal lets for a moment regard the fist precep of the five precepts which is that under any circumstance buddhist can not kill any animal or living thing.Concern should be given to ‘under any circumstance’ so that this principal’s validity can be tested in respect of the war we had in Sri Lanka to determined whether the war heros are according to above principle of buddhism siners who undoutable killed LTTE carders.I call them my heros and my saviors but in line with buddhism they will be termes as siners with bloond on there hands so as you can see buddhism simply states to us that we should have not destroyed the LTTE.What is the practical solution that buddhism stipulates when some body or some organization acts offencively towards us,ot would simply say that sacrifise you life as “Paramithawa”.If followed these conduct there would not have not been any buddhist left in this country.It is humerous to see how the Sangas bestow there blessings to army men who is in fact going to act in contrary to the principals they believe in I could not stop my laughter when I saw such a thing happenig and I felt ashamed as to the deceving nature of monks and to see the stupidity and unpricipled behavior of it follows who either did not understood the apparent contradiction or while understanding did not have the courage to stand upto this ammusing behavior.When you look at the instance where Buddha was asked to explain why his family and relatiives in Magadha Kingdom were slautered by enemies of that state he preached that thay had to die in such a horific way because once in a past life they had been fishermen and they had enjoyed looking at how the fishe die.See if they had such onsequene for fishing then think what degree of pain would be put upon by us and the army heros by karma for killing humans(LTTE) and celebrating the victory(the true salvation of our country).This is only one twisted peiciple of buddhism whic potrays impractical features of it.To illustrate a contradiction comparison should be made between 1st precep of “pansil” and the “Dhasaraja Dharma Pricipals” which requires the king to safe guard his subjects from foriegn forces and in order to do so to have an army(not to say sadu sadu)to fight for the nation where as the 1st pinciple requires not to kill under any circumstance.

I have made my point and presented it simply as I could and I can not help you if you can not understand the simple logic that I have used in the context,but keep an open mind when reading and criticise my arguments,but with solid counter arguments of intellectual value and of substance not like ” I know it si true cause I saw white lights or Buddhism is only of intelligent people(In my opinion it is for litrature lovers) and not for sinners,as science is not about worshiping an authority but to challenge the authority with on view in mind that is to discover and understand the truth by proper methods(not by closing your eyes and doing silly stuff to experience bliss) which have serverd man accurately.

Finaly,I would like to site an authority,which is somthing I usually do not do as I preffer my oroginal ideas free from authority to most possible extent,which in this case I would site since my idea,which originated independently from Albert Einstien’s(One of the greatesr minds ever) idea, has the same meaning that simply says that do good and to refrain from the bad you do not have to believe in an aftr life and therefore rewards od punishments,just do what you do to fulfil the purpose and that if we humans do good to get merits(PIn/Kusal)

or abstract from bad to avoid punishment(suffering experienced due to Pau/Akusal).

We do not need religion to be moral and loving,it is in us as humans,religion only divides humans.Remember my friends we are one species and we should not depend on these abussive religious authorities whom have divided us and feed on our hard erned money and inhabitates the progress of the human kind.It is time to act!

Christian Group to Save Haitians With Solar-Powered Bibles (ABC News)

To aid the rescue effort in Haiti, a US organisation called the The Faith Comes By Hearing, are sending solar-powered audible Bibles that can broadcast the holy scriptures in Haitian Creole to 300 people at a time. Their website says, ”The audio Bible can bring the hope and comfort that comes from knowing God has not forgotten them through this tragedy”

ABC Via Gizmodo

European Age of Enlightenment – Religion and Governance in Sri Lanka (Updated)

The work-in-progress article of Prasad Mapatuna, Mahasen Bandara (Co-Author), Religion and Governance in Sri Lanka, has has been updated, with a new section on the European Age of Enlightenment.

See full article