Bad Karma?

I read this shocking news in today's Hindu.

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Nun was gang raped and priest brutally assaulted in Kandhamal
The brutalisation of the nun and the priest by a mob raising anti-Christian, Hindutva slogans took place around 1 p.m. at the site of the Divya Jyothi Pastor Centre. The church was burnt the previous day in reprisal against the murder of an RSS activist, Lakshmanananda Saraswathi, and four of his associates on August 23. The gang rape of the young nun, whose “virginity [was] grossly violated in public” (and whose identity is being withheld by this newspaper to protect her privacy) took place in front of a police outpost with 12 policemen from the Orissa State Armed Police present and watching, according to Father Thomas Chellan, the priest who was dragged out and badly beaten.

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Read more at:

http://www.hindu.com/2008/09/30/stories/2008093058040100.htm

My first reaction consisted of disgust, anger, and hatred for these scoundrels. It is beyond my understanding how any sane person can accept these atrocities. Several questions came to my mind. Would the 12 policemen keep quiet if their sister was in that position?

What made the mob perpetrate that act and not stop it? It is probably reasonable to assume that the mob consisted of regular folks, during normal times. If some street Romeos tease a girl, the same mob and police would have probably beaten up the eve teasers. How did they convince themselves that they were doing the right thing? I presume they felt they were doing the right thing.

I can think of two theories – possibly there are more. The first theory is that they are soldiers of Hinduism and they are acting in the interest of God and are part of God’s plan of taking revenge on the Christians. It is not a crime they are committing but doing a service by carrying out the will of God.

The second theory is the Karma theory. Presumably, the Nun has done acquired a lot of bad karma in her previous lives and current life and she is reaping the fruits of her Karma. I wonder what people who believe in Karma have to say about the perpetrators?

Some simpler theories also are possible. For example, political elements are misdirecting the foolish masses for their personal/political gain – for example, Christians are the root cause for their misery and hence they should be hounded and massacred. Another related theory is that the perpetrators are miscreants who are exploiting the situation and getting away with crime in broad daylight.

Which theory do you subscribe to? If you picked one of the simpler theories, please note that that is it is difficult to reconcile this with the God’s plan theory or the Karma theory.

Comments?

Selling Rational Thinking

Rational thinkers have been pointing out superstitions and irrational concepts since the beginning of recorded history, but superstitions still abound. Even as early as 570 BC, Xenophanes rejected the idea that the gods resembled humans in form. Xenophanes argued that if oxen were able to imagine gods, then those gods would be in the image of oxen. Two thousand five hundred years after Xenophanes, irrational thinking still rules the day. Why is humanity not able to get rid of irrational thinking? Why are superstitions and pseudo sciences still thriving, in spite of the boom in access to knowledge and the efforts of free thinkers?

The reason is that superstition possesses several attributes that make it well-suited for natural selection. It has been sufficiently demonstrated (with very good evidence) that Religion/Superstition is a natural phenomenon, and can be explained in evolutionary terms. Daniel Dennet’s ‘Breaking the Spell’ is a very good book that deals with the evolutionary aspects of religion. Religion is very good at ‘surviving’ and ‘propagating’ well. Giving up religion and other superstitions is not an easy task. People have talked about ‘God-shaped holes’ in humanity’s psyche; and this needs to be filled with something else when people relinquish God. Several people I know are almost atheists, but are not taking that last step because they feel it will leave a void in their lives.

While rationalists have been very successful at logical arguments, the emotional aspects have not been addressed with the due importance (in my opinion). Most of the rationalists have been men of science and to them it has been sufficient to provide a logical sequence of steps to qualify the degree of truth of any matter.

Also, I feel that rationalists believe in ‘Truth shall prevail’. In the same manner that we have gone from ‘the world is flat’ to ‘the world is spherical’, we might believe that someday, we will go from a ‘superstitious world’ to a ‘rationalist world’. This belief is dangerous. “Truth” might not prevail, and we might go back to the Dark Ages (or worse).

Another aspect is people’s tendency of resisting change, even when they realize the benefits of changing. Take smoking (or exercising, for that matter). Nobody today denies that smoking is injurious to health. But because of the additive nature of smoking, it is not easy to give it up. It is all the more difficult with superstition, because the harm caused by superstition is not understood at the same level as the harm caused by smoking. Religion has become such an integral part of people’s lives that they cannot even think of giving it up. People don’t even want to think of a change.

That’s why I think there is a need to sell rational thinking. It is very commonly accepted among salespeople that people buy emotionally, not logically. That’s why we see several good products being unsuccessful in the market and several poor quality products being more successful. Selling is very important for success. And, we all know how much selling is done by religious organizations. And they have very good salespeople too. I met one myself. A brief detour here – I was travelling by train one day from Bangalore to Hyderabad – a journey of over 12 hours. It was around 4:30 in the afternoon and I was waiting at my seat for the train to leave. A volunteer from a very popular religious organization hopped on to my compartment and started selling religious books to my fellow travellers. He was doing a pretty good job – the books were very glossy, with nice pictures and at discounted prices. Some travellers bought it just to while away the time. He came to me and started his sales pitch. I bluntly told him that I was an atheist and was not interested. Without batting an eyelid, he asked me to buy the book and have fun at all the stupid things the book was saying. I did not expect this. I was expecting him to curse me and move on. But he was not dejected – he still tried to sell it to me. That’s a very good salesman – if he can sell the Gita to an atheist, he can sell a refrigerator to an Eskimo. Of course, I didn’t buy anything from him, but I want to highlight the kind of competition we are facing. What better place to look for how to sell ‘rational thinking’ than by looking at the ways of the competition, which have been successful at it for thousands of years.

Here are some initial thoughts on why their ‘selling’ is successful.

• When they were originally founded, religions like Christianity and Islam did not say anything bad about the existing religions. On the contrary, they tried to include them in their mythology. For example, Islam gives the same prophet status to all the previous icons – from Adam, Noah, Moses to Jesus. They claimed that their religion was “newer and better” and used this to attract followers. My insight: it does not pay to find faults with the current state of things. Instead of debunking the current system, we need to demonstrate value in the “newer and better” system. We need to focus on the benefits rather than the ‘truth’.
• Missionaries in India are very successful at converting people from the lower castes and those from poor backgrounds. We do not see many conversions in the economically well-to-do or higher classes. Why? Because the missionaries are able to point to their problems and relate them to the exploitation by the higher classes and the current system. Missionaries provide monetary support, schools, and hospitals to better the lives of the ‘victims’ of the current society. That’s why they are successful. My insight: we need to educate the ‘victims’ of superstition and focus on improving their lives. Targeting the well-off and those who benefit from the current system (for example, the conmen) might not be as effective as highlighting the sufferings of believers.

In this context, rationalists can focus on the victims of superstitions and educate them. For example, women are treated very badly in most religions. In Hinduism, widows are considered as bad omens for festive occasions and are not allowed to celebrate or enjoy along with the rest of the family. Women are not allowed into temples, during ‘that period of the month’. My guess is that it should be easier to make the women understand the benefits of rationalist thinking than men, because in most cases, men are the exploiters and women are the victims. This is just a hypothesis, but I feel it definitely deserves some thought.

So, what are the benefits of a rationalist way of life over a superstitious one? There are several obvious benefits. But to be effective, these benefits have to appeal to the individual. Collective benefits (such as reduced global terror) do not have the desired effect. A case in point is the use of the public transport system. Even though using the public transport system has global benefits, people still travel by cars and two-wheelers because the individual benefit aspect is not addressed.

Here are some benefits (at the individual level) of rationalist thinking that come to my mind now.

1. A more positive outlook towards life. You are not sinners and lowly beings. You don’t have to go through life worrying about punishments from God.
2. The promise of a healthier life. We don’t have to go through the travails of performing elaborate and tiring rituals involving restrictions on food and medicines. My mother-in-law is one example – even when she is ill, she undertakes fasts which can be harmful to her health. As another example, a mosque near my house urges devotees with diabetes to observe the day-long fast in the month of Ramzan, telling them that Allah will take care of them. These devotees clearly will have lesser suffering and a healthier life by letting go of their superstitions.
3. More free time and money to pursue your interests. Imagine all the time that is freed up when you stop doing everyday Pujas, travelling hundreds of kilometres and standing several hours in serpentine queues for just one glimpse of a stone carving. Imagine all the money saved avoiding these time wasters. Think of how you can finally pursue the hobby that you have been postponing for so long with the new found free time.
4. Experience and appreciate the wonders of nature. With an open mind, we will be able to explore our universe and unravel the mysteries much better than cooking up superstitions. For example, our current understanding that the Sun is a hot ball undergoing constant nuclear fusion reactions is not just more accurate, but more fascinating too, when compared to a demi-god who rides the sky on a seven-horsed chariot. As another example, the fact that life of such complexity and variety has evolved from tiny bacteria over billions of years is more awe-inspiring than the theory that God created everything 6000 years ago in one shot.

I plan to refine these benefits, add new ones, and focus more on selling rational thinking. Stay tuned. Also, I’d love to hear sales techniques that you feel could be effective in selling rational thinking. Please leave a comment and let me know.

Why are some smart/successful people superstitious?

I recently came across an article about a gentleman named Naresh, who lost both his legs in an accident at a very young age, and later studied at IIT and now works at Google. The article is available at “From banks of Godavari to Google on wheel chair:
http://battakiran.wordpress.com/2008/07/29/from-banks-of-godavari-to-google-on-wheel-chair/”. It is a very inspiring story of the triumph of human spirit against several odds. Hats off to Naresh.

One of the things that struck me as odd about Naresh is his superstitious nature. The fact that he has made it into IIT is proof of his capacity for rational thinking and scientific background. I have personally met several scientific minded people who are very smart, yet they are superstitious. I’ve read statistics which say that around 95% of the top scientists are atheists, where as 95% of the general public are believers. I have always been bewildered by how scientific minded people can be superstitious. I think I have figured out one possible reason and would like to describe it in this article.

Let’s start with Naresh first. Here is a clip from the article referred above:

“God’s hand
I believe in God. I believe in destiny. I feel he plans everything for you. If not for the accident, we would not have moved from the village to Tanuku, a town. There I joined a missionary school, and my father built a house next to the school. Till the tenth standard, I studied in that school.
If I had continued in Teeparu, I may not have studied after the 10th. I may have started working as a farmer or someone like that after my studies. I am sure God had other plans for me.”

And then he continues about how several good people helped him in his life (including his sister, his teachers, professors, the Good Samaritan he met on a train who funded his education at IIT etc.) and he attributes all this to God.

Naresh lost both his feet – somehow he does not blame God for this. In fact, he doesn’t blame anyone for it. But for the good people who helped him, he attributes them to God. Isn’t Naresh aware that there are thousands (if not millions) of people who do not have legs, who lead miserable lives begging on railway stations, traffic signals till their death? Of course, he is. Can’t Naresh figure out that it follows from elementary probability that given the number of physically challenged people in India, the chances are reasonably high that there will be stories like Naresh’s? Of course, Naresh can figure this out. He probably solved much more complicated equations involving probabilities in his quantum mechanics courses at IIT. Then, why does he feel that “God had other plans for me”? By extension, what plans did God have for those unfortunate ones who begged on railway platforms throughout their miserable lives?

What was God’s plan for Naresh? Why snatch both the legs and then plan for Naresh to get into IIT? I would imagine that having legs is much more valuable than getting into IIT. If someone had asked you to trade your legs for a seat into IIT, would you have done it? I wouldn’t. Well, maybe God wanted to teach humanity something through the life and struggles of Naresh. We’ve heard this one several times. Well, why can’t God teach humanity the same thing without having Naresh go through the suffering?

No. Rational thinking does not apply here. Human beings, even when they have been trained in the scientific methods, do not apply it on themselves. What is it about human nature that is at work here?

To understand this, I revisited the book – ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ by Dale Carnegie. This book was written eighty years ago and still continues to be a bestseller. Dale’s insights into human nature have been validated several times over these years – rock-solid and time-tested, as they say. And indeed, I found an insight which can explain why even smart people can be superstitious. In the second chapter of the book, titled “The Big Secret of Dealing with People”, Dale talks about the “desire to be important”. In fact, he asks the reader to remember that phrase because “you are going to hear a lot about it in this book”.

I would like to quote a few sentences from this chapter:

“Almost all these wants are usually gratified – all except one. But there is one longing – almost as deep, almost as imperious, as the desire for food or sleep, which is seldom gratified. It is what Freud calls ‘the desire to be great’. It is what Dewey calls ‘the desire to be important’.”

“Many people who go insane find in insanity a feeling of importance that they were unable to achieve in the world of reality.”

That is the power of the ‘desire to be important’. In extreme cases, it can even drive people insane.

So how does the sense of importance lead to superstition? People who helped Naresh presumably derived a sense of importance by being able to make a difference in the life of a physically challenged boy. Naresh probably felt a sense of importance because of the attention and encouragement he was getting from people he met. This might have prompted him to achieve some more, which in turn lead to more appreciation fueling his sense of importance further, thus becoming a positive feedback loop. At some point, the sense of importance becomes so powerful, that he starts beginning to feel that he is better than others, but he doesn’t know why. He comes to believe that he is extra-ordinary – he is ‘chosen by God’. The others are not so important – millions like him are suffering, but he is better off than them, so he must be special. God has other plans for him.

I guess the process might have been similar for the kings of olden times who felt they were in-fact direct descendants of God. Maybe that’s why Bin Laden thinks he was chosen by God to rid the earth of infidels, and Bush thought he was implementing God’s will when he attacked Iraq. As you can see, when the sense of importance reaches such high levels, it can be very dangerous.

Once people believe they are chosen by God, their confidence increases and they can take bigger risks in life, which they might not have taken if they had only used reasoning. Since they take bigger risks, the rewards they potentially reap are also bigger. And these rewards are attributed to God’s grace. This might be the reason why people like Amitabh Bachchan, the Ambanis, feel God has a special place for them and rush to Tirupati ever so often. Also, we only notice those who took bigger risks and succeeded. But what about the people who take bigger risks and fail? The folks who fail don’t attribute their failure to God. They attribute it to bad Karma or their sins in past lives. Why not to God? Because it will hurt their sense of importance. It is not acceptable to believe that God did not listen to our fervent prayers, because that means we are not important to God. It is acceptable that God gives us importance, but his hands are tied because of our bad Karma. Isn’t the poor beggar at the traffic signal suffering due to his bad karma?

This explanation probably holds good for the popularity of Sadhus, spiritual and religious leaders. They appeal to the individual’s sense of importance. They preach that you have in you a divine spark – you are special and your life has a grand purpose.

In summary, I believe that ‘the desire to be important’ is a more powerful force than the desire to see the world in an unbiased manner. We see the world as we desire to see it, not as it really is. I hope that eventually, truth shall prevail over human nature.