Religion Vs Science

The following extract has been taken from a novel (the name of which i do not wish to mention, because some of the intellectuals might stop reading after hearing the name due to their prejudice!!) But it is a good book. And this passage particularly evokes a lot of thought. It questions our beliefs, or the lack of it. It makes one think about one's priorities and the general direction in which one's life is headed. At least this is the effect it had on me...So here it goes...by the way, the speech is made by a Carmalengo from the balcony of St. Petersburg Church in the Vatican City...don yawn, read on...

"The ancient war between science and religion is over. You have won. But you have not won fairly. You have not won by providing answers. You have won by so radically reorienting our society that the truths we once saw as signposts now seem inapplicable. Religion cannot keep up. Scientific growth is exponential. It feeds on itself like a virus. Every new breakthrough opens doors for new breakthroughs. Mankind took thousands of years to progress from the wheel to the car. Yet only decades from the car into space. Now we measure scientific progress in weeks. We are spinning out of control. The rift between us grows deeper and deeper, and as religion is left behind, people find themselves in a spiritual void. We cry out for meaning. And believe me, we do cry out. We see UFOs, engage in channeling, spirit contact, out-of-body experiences, mindquests - all these eccentric ideas have a scientific veneer, but they are unashamedly irrational. They are the desperate cry of the modern soul, lonely and tormented, crippled by its own enlightenment and its inability to accept meaning in anything removed from technology.

Science, you say will save us. Science, I say, has destroyed us. Since the days of Galileo, the church has tried to slow the relentless march of science, sometimes with misguided means, but always with benevolent intentions. Even so, the temptations are too great for man to resist. I warn you, look around yourselves. The promises of science have not been kept. Promises of efficiency and simplicity have bred nothing but pollution and chaos. We are a fractured and frantic species...moving down a path of destruction.

Who is this science God? Who is the God who offers his people power but no moral framework to tell you how to use that power? What kind of God gives a child fire but does not warn the child of its dangers? The language of science comes with no signposts about good and bad. Science textbooks tell us how to create a nuclear reaction, and yet they contain no chapter asking us if it is a good idea or a bad idea.

To science, I say this. The church is tired. We are exhausted from trying to be your signposts. Our resources are drying up from our campaign to be the voice of balance as you plow blindly on in your quest for smaller chips and larger profits. We ask not why you will not govern yourselves, but how can you? Your world moves so fast that if you stop even for an instant to consider the implications of your actions, someone more efficient will whip past you in a blur. So you move on. You proliferate weapons of mass destruction, but it is the Pope who travels the world beseeching leaders to use restraint. You clone living creatures, but it is the church reminding us to consider the moral implications of our actions. You encourage people to interact on phones, video screens, and computers, but it is the church who opens its doors and reminds us to commune in person as we were meant to do. You even murder unborn babies in the name of research that will save lives. Again, it is the church who points out the falacy of this reasoning.

And all the while, you proclaim the church is ignorant. But who is more ignorant? The man who cannot define lightening, or the man who does not respect its awesome power? This church is reaching out to you. Reaching out to everyone. And yet the more we reach, the more you push us away. Show me proof there is a God, you say. I say, use your telescopes to look at the heavens, and tell me how there could not be a God? You say, what does God look like? I say, where did that question come from? The answers are one and the same. Do you not see God in your science? How can you miss him! You proclaim that even the slightest change in the force of gravity or the weight of an atom would have rendered our universe a lifeless mist rather than our magnificent sea of heavenly bodies, and yet you fail to see God's hand in this? Is it really so much easier to believe that we simply chose the right card from a deck of billions? Have we become so spiritually bankrupt that we would rather believe in a mathematical impossibility than in a power greater than us?

Whether or not you believe in God, you must believe this. When we as a species abandon our trust in the power greater than us, we abandon our accountability. Faith...all faiths ...are admonitions that there is something to which we are accountable...With faith we are accountable to each other, to ourselves, and to a higher truth. Religion is flawed, but only because man is flawed. If the outside world could see this church as I do...looking beyond the ritual of these walls...they could see a modern miracle...a brotherhood of imperfect, simple souls wanting only to be a voice of compassion in a world spinning out of control."

It Was Another Life. We Were Different Then.

When I think back now it seems like centuries ago and I can’t even recognize these people anymore.

On days my father was home, the two of us would go to the local bakery early in the morning to get freshly baked breads for breakfast. I still remember the place. It was in one of the many alphabetically numbered municipal buildings’ basement near a place called G.D.N.S Grounds.

These breads were so fresh out of the oven I could feel my palms perspire under the heat it exuded when I carried it with my tiny five-year-old-hands. On such nights as this when I close my eyes and take in a deep breath I can feel it’s warm whiff enter my nostrils and I can see the image of a road covered in mist with the morning sun fighting to peep through and wake the sleepy little town. The image is so vivid I can feel the chilly air numb my ears. On such nights as this I can taste the still crunchy crust of bread dipped in a hot cup of Darjeeling tea. My eyes would water as in my juvenile hastiness I would burn my tongue. The bakers always cut the bread into rough irregular slices, wrapped them in a newspaper and tied it with a white string. I’d carry it by holding the string with only two of my fingers at times, turning it round and round, while my father carried me home. As soon as we entered the house the two of us would be greeted with the smell of the most mouth watering scrambled eggs prepared by my mother. Family breakfasts together.

Such days were special and rare and I looked forward to them eagerly; my father’s job as a journalist hardly let him spend time with us. Every time he came home my toddler brother would get busy untying his shoe laces and hiding his shoes and socks under the bed. He thought this would stop my father from leaving the house. But he did. He left home and would not come for months on end. There was a time when my brother didn’t even recognize him. He thought my mom’s friend’s husband was our dad.

Rough and irregularly shaped as the bread may have been this didn’t deter it from being the tastiest thing on the planet when had with scrambled eggs made by my mother. They tasted better than any Mc.D or Sub I have had till date.

All I have are these memories now, simple moments of carefree happiness. These are moments that bring you back to your folks no matter where life takes you and no matter how bad the situation between you gets. These memories linger on and keep you rooted, despite the fact that you can’t even remember the last time you had a decent conversation with your father; despite the adolescent arguments that you have had with your mother where you didn’t speak for a month; despite the fact that you take your brother to be a scoundrel because he stole your Rosary that had been blessed by the Pope himself, and gave it to his girlfriend whose name he doesn’t even remember anymore. They linger on.

We’ve changed but we’re still the same.

Jus Tryna Cheer Meself Up

Since almost everything I do is turning into shit and almost every relationship that I make attempts to build falls apart, I will write about the only good thing that’s going in my life. Part of the new master plan to always stay positive. So here it goes- I GOT THROUGH JAMIA! Well it isn’t technically a completely good thing because I've just been called for the interview. It’s on the 20th. Im nervous about it. And damn quota! If I get through the interview I’ll completely respect myself for one full day! I mean sure I got through Stephen’s but I always lived with the guilt that the only reason I got through that college was because I was Christian. And I always felt guilty bout the fact that I might be occupying the seat of someone who actually deserved to be in Stephen’s. someone whose deserved it more and whose seat I snatched jus because of the fact that I belonged to a certain religion, regardless of the fact that I never as much attended a full mass for the entire three years that I was in college. Talk about loyalty to one’s religion.

My entrance had gone well but I had the made the most fatal mistake conceivable by answering all the four questions asked in one booklet instead of writing two answers each in two separate answer sheets as was required. But what I really think did the trick, besides my extremely well written answers (cough-cough) were my Statement of Purpose! I tell you boys and girls a well written SoP does the entire trick. Take notes. Will ya?!

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

Growing up, in the little town of Darjeeling in the foothills of the Himalayas, we did not have a television set in our house; it was a luxury those days. So my earliest memory of what media was, or what I understood of it, goes back to my childhood days when my father, then journalist for the Nepali language daily Sunchari in Darjeeling, allowed me to accompany him for a myriad of events ranging from an outright political march against the unfair policies of the West Bengal government, to a friendly football match being played between two villages in a football field carved right in the middle of the tea garden, to interviewing victims of landslides, a major problem every monsoon in Darjeeling. Needless to say, all these visits and the opportunity it gave me to interact with so many people from almost every possible background helped me to view events from a perspective that prompted me to think about the important issues around me and affected me in more ways than one. 

Hence, print media was the first ‘kind’ of media that I was exposed to. It was the prime source of information there and the window to the outside world. The tradition of reading the newspaper outside tea kiosks and the debate that would follow kept the townsfolk quite satisfied with their daily dose. Small as it may be, the town would not miss out to have a share from the booming growth and penetration of electronic media that consumed India in the 1990s. Pretty soon, every household, including ours, had a TV set; first came the black and white one, then the coloured. With the advent of television there was a sudden rush and availability of 24-hours of information and entertainment. One could see plump housewives basking under the feeble sun, discussing the tragic life of their favourite soap characters. I, for one, thanked the good heavens above for making the TV and saving me from my hellish existence - the neighborhood kids no longer made fun of me, because Shaktimaan told them it’s wrong to do so. Heidi by Johanna Spyri would never have sparked off my love for reading, had it not been for the Japanese animated version that my brother and I would religiously watch every weekend!

If I have to describe the impact media has had in my life, specifically two memories conjure in my mind.

I still remember waking up on a cold February morning, when I was fifteen, to flickering TV News channels broadcasting about the Columbia Space Shuttle mishap. Kalpana Chawla was one of the seven astronauts who had lost her life while the shuttle was re-entering the earth’s atmosphere after a sixteen-day trip in Space. I can’t say for sure what it was, but something in me changed and I mourned for her, along with the rest of the country. As is the case these days with every news-maker, all the news channels aired special shows about her journey from Karnal, a small village in Haryana to out in Space. For the next two years I worked as hard as I could in the hopes of following her footsteps. I would go to the library and devour books after books about Space and the Universe. I even read her biography. Of course, my ICSE marks in mathematics and science smashed my dreams of starting a career as an astro-physicist and later on moving on to become an astronaut. And besides that, my height would not have allowed me to even sit inside the cockpit, let alone a space shuttle, but that’s another story. Every time I think about this juvenile dream of mine, I get a smile on my face.

The second story takes me back to my class twelve second term exams. I remember writing an entire essay about the ‘Relevance of the Brain Drain Theory in the 21st century India’, based solely on a special issue of India Today that I had read. When the term started afresh, my teacher read my essay in class. It turned out I had been the only one to attempt it. Having abandoned my ‘astronaut dream’ two years prior, it was on that day that I decided that I want to be the one to write an article about something, anything, that would help a girl like me to write her essay, somewhere in the world…or India will do for now.

My move to Delhi to pursue my bachelor’s degree in History from St Stephen’s College provided me with an invaluable exposure to a variety of cultures from within India. My active participation and the opportunity to lead the Hindi Dramatics Society, Shakespeare Sabha, of college, in capacity of the joint secretary, has instilled in me a deep love for the creative arts. I love being on stage. Besides this, the experience of hosting an sms request show and acting for an infomercial designed for NIIT, has equipped me with the confidence to carry out scripted dialogues with as much ease as impromptu ones in front of the camera. Not only television, but I have also had the chance to write for a monthly radio show for AIR and to record for radio skits. This range of work was propelled by the deep desire in me to be associated with the media in any which way, in any which capacity.

My association with (company name)in Delhi, for the past one year has exposed me to the glamorous side of the media too, hence increasing my fascination.

This is a particularly suitable course to translate my interests into a career. I believe that I possess the enthusiasm to expand my knowledge base and the horizons of my perspective. I also understand that the valuable experience of studying at the A.J Kidwai Mass Communication Research Centre entails immense hard work but my ability to persist and the eagerness to learn have propelled me to apply for it.

Tell me I’m good!!