Thursday, December 31, 2020

Be humble, be happy - Happy 2021!

What an irony - the word “2020” is used for a perfect vision of person and the year “2020” has shown us vividly the most imperfect world that we live in. Till this tiny biological foe hit us from nowhere (or from Wuhan), we were so convinced that we are in control of our destiny on Earth. You want to see the proof of that? The proof lies in the “Man made climate change” doctrine and by claiming that our actions alone would turn the temperature of the Earth down to fix the Global Warming. Imagine the devastation of another virus with a little variance of a Coronavirus that spreads more easily and attacks across the age spectrum. If anything we should take away from the year 2020, it should be: learn again to “be humble”.  We should utilize the human ingenuity to pursuit the best of our ability but we shouldn’t get carried away with a false pretension to infallibility. Don’t forget that the human civilization is just one Comet away to get wiped off from the face of the Earth.


Be humble, be happy - Happy 2021!

Friday, November 13, 2020

What is Normal?

We all are waiting to go back to normal.

What “normalcy” we all are waiting to go back?

Is it that “normalcy” where more than six million Syrians had been displaced and living dire life in refugee camps? Just because they wanted freedom from a tyrant.

Is it that “normalcy” where more than twenty thousand refugees were drowned in the deep Mediterranean? Just because they were looking for safety for them and for their children.

Is it that “normalcy” where twenty four million Yemenis are in dire famine due to sectarian and regional wars? Just because the regional powers wanted to face off to exploit the sectarian divide.

Is it that “normalcy” where Palestinians in Gazza are living in the largest open air jail for decades and under apartheid rule for half a century? Just because they couldn’t accept that they have to live under the occupation and in an apartheid state.

Is it that “normalcy” where hundred thousands Afghans died in the longest running American war? Just because the Afghans can’t accept the fact that they would live under a foreign occupation.

Is it that “normalcy” where Rohingya are going through an ethnic genocide in front of the world and almost the entire population are now living a subhuman life in refugee camps?

Is it that “normalcy” where the Uyghur Muslims are persecuted and detained in “re-education” concentration camp?

Just because both Rohingya and Uyghur wanted to live with their ethnic and religious identity.

Is it that “normalcy” where systemic racism is so deep that police can kill black persons as if black lives don’t matter in the land that guarantees the “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness”? 

Is it that “normalcy” where three police officers can kill a black man in a slow death kneeling on his neck for a long seven minutes and forty six seconds?

Is it that “normalcy” where five million people die of hunger every year?

Is it that “normalcy” where seven hundred million people are obese by eating excessive but eight hundred million people are undernourished and five million people died of hunger in the world?

I don’t want to go back to that “normalcy”

I want to move forward to create a “new normal” from here

This virus has shown us that we are so vulnerable in front of this invisible non-living thing which is indiscriminately attacking us as mere human and doesn’t spare Palestinians over Israelis, Indians over Pakistanis, Muslims over Hindus, Whites over Blacks, Africans over Europeans, Men over Women. Then, why we, the most finest creation of God, can’t be indiscriminate to our fellow human being to create the better “new normal”?

I dare to dream for a “new normal” that is far from that “old normal”

The “new normal” that would create a world- free from injustice, war, hunger, racism and oppression.

[Published on FB on Jun 19, 2020]

The period of darkness comes but the hope of light lives on!

After 4 years, it's been proved again that hope never dies! The period of darkness comes but the hope of light lives on. The country is divided- racism and bigotry wouldn't vanish overnight - but we've got one more chance to take the country back to civility! 

The expectation from the #BidenHarris administration is to lead the recovery from COVID19 in America and in the world but there's a tall list of expectations:

- Economic recovery

- End of Systemic Racism in America

- Fair treatment to the Palestinian

- Medicare for All

- Stop Anti-immigrant policy against Asian, African and Muslim countries

- Stop waging war with Iran

- Work sensibly against climate change

One thing I expect #BidenHarris administration to continue from the last administration though: please stop meddling in every corner of the world!


published on FB on Nov 7, 2020

Sunday, July 19, 2020

If you believe in Science, you can't have disbelieve in God. This just doesn't work!

Let’s unravel this thought by looking into it from three angles. It’s so vast topic, I don’t think so I can cover it in this short post but to at least provide some explanation of my previous post, I am making quick attempt.


Believing in Science: “Believe” is a state of mind where someone holds an opinion or has firm conviction on something. This can be aided by evidence but it’s more of a psychological state where a person holds something as true with or without explicit reasoning. That’s why you would see that at times a person is holding two beliefs at the same time that contradicts with each other. By very definition, “believing in something” is not truly “scientific” - as per Scientific Method (systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses). Because, even Science can be proven wrong through Scientific method and at that point. So believing in science is kind of “oxymoron”. So, if someone says that I believe in Science but I don’t want to believe in God because I can’t prove the existence of God - that’s like the person is saying that I can believe one thing in my mind with/without prove but I can’t believe something else with/without a prove. This is inherently contradicting because as per definition, believe doesn’t need a firm prove to start with and science is all about observation-experiment-proving hypothesis.
Disbelieve in God: if you’re a scientific mind, to prove or disprove anything you would have to prove a hypothesis through experiment and able to do that repeatable manner. So, if you believe (hypothesis) that God doesn’t exist then the next step is to prove your hypothesis in a repeatable manner. I have never seen such hypothesis has been proven so far by any atheists - for or against God’s existence. So until, you can prove it or disprove it - you should be quietly working on that experimentation using Scientific method (to clarify the common misconception - most of the atheists go on wasting their time on proving the idiotic arguments of some religious people. When you prove certain religious people as idiot or dumb you are only proving those people as idiot but that’s not moving the needle for your hypothesis on God’s existence or nonexistence). I know it’s very hard or at this point not even possible to conduct experiments on the hypothesis because there are so many basic fundamental things, for instance, in Physics but in general in Science, that even Science can’t prove or disprove it but they just know that it just happens (e.g. Quantum superpositions, Entanglement).
I am just taking one example of God’s attribute if it can be proved or disproved: God is omnipresent i.e. God can be everywhere at the same time. How can that be possible? This is a concept even a theist has hard time to comprehend it (no wonder, as we try to explain things based on our knowledge such as mostly by classical physics where we know nothing can travel faster than light speed at which point the time becomes constant or irrelevant thus causing all theories of classical physics to fail). On the contrary, if you get into the world of Quantum mechanics, you would see that our traditional understanding doesn’t work there (such as Quantum Superpositions: it states that a quantum particle can be in multiple state at the same time until it’s measured). Though physicists yet don’t know fully how it works but it’s evident that it works and is now being used in real world implementation. I am not saying that this is the prove of the “God’s Omnipresence” attribute but I am just pointing that the “night is still young” - Science has to go long way to even understand the Creation before it can jump into proving the Creator.
Scientific mind can’t disbelieve God: This may seem totally opposite of what you experience in the real world situation. Most of the Atheists claim that they are the students of science or at least have affinity to Science. But this is actually far from the truth. It is like Donald Trump’s great proclamation that “I am the least racist person there is anywhere in the world”. Would you buy into his claim and agree with him? No, you wouldn’t. Because you would check this statement against the action he has been taken or he has said in other occasions. In the same sense, even the most atheists would claim that they are the most scientific friendly person there is anywhere in the world, you would judge their actions and other statements to justify that. Let’s see what Science tells us to do. Science never claims that it knows everything rather it is the process of discovering the truth by observation and experiments. Through that discovery process you would find new truth, dismantle old truth - even the truth that Science had asserted as “truth” in the past through scientific experimentation. Do you want evidence of it? I am giving you a few as headline (otherwise it would be few pages long for each of them)
- Aristotle’s Eternal state is shattered in early nineteenth century by the Big Bang theory which is now recognized the widely accepted theory (until the next big theory shatters it)
- Cosmological constant (aka Einstein’s greatest blunder) to adhere to static universe
- Lord Kelvin’s claim on Airplane and Oxygen’s supply in the earth would run out in 400 years (claimed in billion population
- Newton was absolutely wrong on the cause of gravitational force and then superseded by Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Spoiler alert, Einstein was also dead wrong about the Quantum mechanics (below)
- Quantum physics and classical computing don’t agree with each other on many things. Quantum entanglement is one where Einstein had denied the existence of such behavior but now has not been accepted but it’s one of the founding principles behind the Quantum computing.
- Opioid, once hailed as a “miracle pain killer” is now proven to be root cause the America’s Opioid Epidemic where almost 50 thousands Americans are dying every year due to the addictive nature of this prescription medication. In just 50 years, the
- The list goes on…
By going through the evolution of scientific discovery you would see with certainty that Science doesn’t stand still on anything for a long time but is an eternal journey to find new discovery and truth while shattering its own past truth. While the state of Science is such, how would you rely on Science to decide that there’s God or no God? For Science to come to that point where you can have a candid discussion on God you would probably need to wait hundreds or thousands years. Until then, what should be a science minded person should be do? If honest, it can be at the minimum - Agnostic (which is another hypocritical stand that I can cover in another post).

Monday, June 8, 2020

Let’s start eradicating the racism...one word at a time

Senator Cory Booker has brought a bill in Congress to change policing in the country by not only proposing some common sense laws but also funding policing appropriately to invest the remaining funds to improve the Black neighborhoods and Black young populations. Let’s support that bill. We would need more to it but this is the immediate “antibiotic” that the nation need. It needs more wholesome change in the country by empowering Black population economically through reforming the education system - by essentially demolishing the “structural & systemic” segregation of education system.

While the macro level changes are brought to the nation, let’s also change the microcosm of our cultural biases - the "unconscious" racism where we unknowingly use racially toxic words in our everyday conversation. We always talk about problems. Today, let's talk about solution. Let's change our "carefully" ignored racially intoxicated words and phrases from our day to day life to eradicate racism from our society. One word at a time. Here's the one liner rule to start with:

 "The words that we use to denote a fellow human, in our everyday conversation, stop using those words to imply or suggest a thing or an idea that is used implicitly or explicitly for anything bad, evil or harmful...and the other way around".

For instance, we use these words to imply bad thing: Blacklist, Blackmarket, Blackheart, Blackmail, Blackout.

On the contrary, we use the opposite phrases to imply good thing: such as, Whitelist, White lie, etc.

Using such expressions we don’t just create wrong association to the people who are identified as black, but we also help continuing the legacy of our racial unconscious biases through our next generations to come.

Let’s start eradicating the racism...one word at a time.

Note: There will be some people who would knowingly use those words- they are the racially biased bigots. Let's clean the rest of our souls who unknowingly used to use those phrases.