What is religion?
- a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny
- an institution to express belief in a divine power
What is god?
The term God is used to designate a Supreme Being; however, there are other definitions of God.
For example:
Many religious and philosophic systems consider a God to be the creator of the universe.
Some traditions hold that the creator of the universe is also the sustainer of the universe (as in theism), while others argue that their God is no longer involved in the world after creation (as in deism).
The common definition of a God assumes omnipotence, omniscience and benevolence. ...
In brief , religion is a belief system and God is a symbol to represent it. How wierd can that be, you cant see or touch or smell belief.. and you cant do that with god either!
If God is supposed to be the symbol of belief then we should be able to see, touch, smell or atleast feel "him"
Many people believe that God exists.. others believe that he doesnt!
As for me... I believe he exists... he/she is the creator of the universe...
How can I prove his existence?
Simple, just because something exists, therefore there must be a creator, hence just because the universe exists, therefore there must be a creator... we choose to call him/her "GOD"
But my definition of god is rather limited. I just see him only a "creator".
And because god exists, hence there must be a God's God too!! (Hint hint: Stephen Hawking style!)
By limiting the God's role to only being a creator (and maybe an observer... the creation of the universe was his experiment and he is busy noting down the observations!)
I mean to say that man is actually the creator of his own destiny.
Consider the whole universe as a big experiment being conducted by an experimenter called GOD. Now for every event that takes place, GOD makes a note in his notebook. Every event could have been triggered by either of the two causes:
(1) GOD was being too curious, and that curiosity led him to interfere with something and that led to that event happening place
(2) The event took place as an outcome of the "natural" interactions between components of the universe
(by "natural" I mean the set of rules or mathematical model which forms the basis of GOD's experiment!). Man is a component of the universe.
(After thought: Woman is also a component of the universe (heheheh). We consider men and women to be the different sexes of the same species. But another way to look at them would be to consider them as two different species having a symbiotic relationship... they both need each other to flourish and "supposedly" prosper!.... for more on this read Dr. John Gray's Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/006016848X?v=glance)
getting back to the topic..
Most people believe that (1) is the case with the GOD's experiment... GOD is just to curious.. and interferes just too regularly... so they try to attract his attention by praying and stuff... so that he would interfere in their lives and somehow make them happy! he would interfere not to make them happy but out of mere curiosity of knowing what would happen if such and such thing was done to such and such "components of the universe" (read men)
I believe in (2). The experiment that GOD has started is has features diverse enough that he doesnt need to interfere. All events happen because of the natural interaction between the components of the universe and GOD is kept busy just noting down the observation... he doesn't have time to interfere in its working!!
There is one funny aspect of this ridiculous theory of mine, most people believe in (1); and most of these people who believe in (1) also believe that ignorance is bliss...
So if you believe that ignorance is bliss and also believe that GOD can interfere in your life, then you must also believe that GOD is curious!
ignorance is bliss and curiosity... both opposite ideas!!!
my theory sucked anyway!
Coming back to deciding our own destiny, let me first reproduce here, one of today's top news story:
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Sydney- Zookeeper, film star and environmentalist extraordinaire Steve Irwin died as he had lived: getting as close to, and personal with, Australia's most dangerous creatures. It was as if the zany 44-year-old showman had devised a way of death that both summed up his devil-may-care attitude and had an eye to how it would look on his tombstone: Speared through the heart by a stingray while diving on the Great Barrier Reef.
Irwin was a jumble of contradictions: an astute businessman who liked to pass himself off as a village idiot; a self-made man who actually inherited from his parents the money-spinning Australia Zoo on Queensland's Gold Coast; a nature lover who seemed obsessed with stalking and taunting wild animals.
Irwin was set up for a life of danger by his zookeeper parents. They gave him a python on his sixth birthday and by the age of nine had him catching deadly saltwater crocodiles with his bare hands.
Or, at least, that's the way Steve the charmer liked to tell it.
With the catch-cry "Crickey" and togged out in khaki shorts and shirt, Irwin won worldwide attention as the Crocodile Hunter. The television series boasted an audience of 500,000 and spawned merchandise like Crocodile Hunter dolls and led to a feature film.
He was at once shocked and delighted by his instant and amazing success as a filmmaker.
"It's insane, mate," he hollered at the Sydney premiere of the 2002 feature film Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course. "I'm bigger than 10 bears. I reckon you'd be pretty right if you said I'm the best known Aussie in the world."
When United States President George W Bush visited Canberra in 2004 Irwin was on the guest list for a barbecue at the prime minister's residence in Canberra. Characteristically, Irwin turned up in his trademark khakis to greet the most powerful man in the world.
The muscular bloke with the bleached hair and the ragged clothes had a penchant for exaggeration. Everything in his hyperactive world seemed larger than life.
He famously declared Prime Minister John Howard to be the "greatest leader in the entire world" - injudicious remarks about a political leader that raised hackles.
A knack for self-promotion and a business-savvy American wife led some to see him as having grown too big for his desert boots.
Said Irwin's business manager John Stainton: "It's what happens in Australia. You stick your head up and you've got 10,000 shotguns pointed at you."
Worse was to come for Irwin. In 2003 he was left defending the indefensible after cameras caught him feeding chicken to a hungry 4-metre saltwater crocodile with one hand while holding month-old son Bob in the other.
Pictures of a stunt performed in front of a paying audience at Australia Zoo flashed around the world and had viewers wondering whether the madcap bushman was simply mad.
Australians, in letters to newspapers and in comments on talkback radio, were universal in their condemnation.
Stuart Hastings, writing to The Australian newspaper, noted the logical inconsistency in Irwin's declaration that little Bob's life was never at risk: "If his baby was in any danger from the crocodiles, then Irwin was guilty of gross dereliction of his parental responsibility. If there was no danger from the crocodiles, then the whole of his crocodile feeding act is a fraud."
Irwin took on a much lower profile in his homeland after the episode with baby Bob.
He leaves a wife, Terri, and two children. Bob is now 3. His sister, Bindi Sue, is 8.
Sting ray gets its name from the razor-sharp barb at the end of its tail, coated in toxic venom, which the animal uses to defend itself with when it feels threatened.
Attacks on humans are a rarity - only one other person is known to have died in Australia from a stingray attack, at St Kilda, Melbourne in 1945.
"Stingrays only sting in defence, they're not aggressive animals so the animal must have felt threatened. It didn't sting out of aggression, it stung out of fear," Dr Bryan Fry, Deputy Director of the Australian Venom Research Unit at the University of Melbourne said.
"Steve came over the top of a stingray and the stingray's barb went up and went into his chest and put a hole into his heart," said the ebullient Irwin's longtime producer John Stainton, who was with him at the time.
"It's likely that he possibly died instantly when the barb hit him, and I don't think that he ... felt any pain," a tearful Stainton told reporters
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Another great hero, lost! Yes I like to think of him as a hero! He was my kind of hero.. I would have given anything to be in his place! His passion for nature was and still is like a communicable disease. Just watching him on TV, one would feel like as if he/she was actually there with Steve doing what he did best: getting up close and personal with the wildest and the most ferocious... ok ok .. I know I sound like thepromo for The Crocodile Hunter!
But the fact is that its much too painful to know that he is gone forever! His family would miss him a lot!! The whole world would miss him a lot!
Why did i like this guy so much?? What was so great about his act? How was it any different from the guys who tried to break records buy swimming naked in sub zero waters for seconds?
Consider this... there is a beautiful and intelligent girl which is the most eligible bachelorettes of our time...
What would this girl think when he sees two men on TV:
One is the guy who is trying to break a worlkd record by swimming the ongest in subzero waters and the other guy is Steve Irwin who is trying to rescue a crocodile from some dirty marsh..
what would go on in the girl's mind?
"The first guys is probably stupid, what do I care about under sea swimming at sub zero temperatures?.. we are never going to do that!!.. and probably half of that guys' reproductive system might have got screwed by now after spending so much time in sub zero waters!... i dont want deformed kids!!
but look at this Steve guy, crocodiles apart, this guy is fearless and is quick witted. He has nice muscles and probably knows how to survive in nature.. If the ice age was nearing, I would probably marry the first guy... but before that happens, I think we would be under threat from our own selves .. some one would probably blow up an Electromagnetic Pulse Bombs... The ones used in the Matrix movie series to fry the electronics of any machine. (Detailed: http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/kopp/apjemp.html)
Very few people would die of such a bomb instantaneously, but its after math would be real bad... crippled economies, no food or hospital services, no electricity, no water supply... Skills of 95% of the worlds population would be rendered "ZERO" , Getting 90% in your university exam wont help you in dealing with things to follow, So I would rather go for Steve. He would keep me an my kids alive even when the industrial world crumbles under its own weight! We would flee to some forgotten of the cost of Australia and live happily ever after!".
Stupid hypothetical situations apart, the fact is that I really beieved in Steve.. So what if he fed a hungry croc with his baby on his side... Maybe I would have done something like that too!!... I am equally insane.. He had a passion ... a mad passion for nature... He lived that passion and thru TV made it possible for all of us to share it with him !! HE WAS A FOUNTAINHEAD!!
He lived life dangerously.. no he wasnt a fraud... he knew it was dangerous and that someday he would have to pay for it... he forced luck on his side and never got killed before until this once... stupid stingray...He is the only other person to have been killed by a stingray...
I believed in Steve for his passion. I believed in Steve in trying toshare with people his passion for nature. I believed in his craziness. I feel sad for his wife and kids... but they should be proud to be Steve's family. He and his wife Teri were a perfect match.. If you want to know the meaning of "MADE FOR EACH OTHER"... well they were it!
Today also happens to be the Birthday of my dearest friend Shomika. One of the most influential girls in my life. She could stay calm in all situations.. one who held her head high above her shoulders and had a courage which never faltered.
If all this about God, heaven and "afterlife" is true, then I have no fear of death.. because I know that I will meet my dearest friend Shomika on the otherside.
I learned a lot from Shomika. It was many days later after her that I actually came to know that she was gone.. I coulndt believe it.. more than 2 years later and I still cant believe that she is gone.. Whenever I pass near her house, I always rememeber seeing her standing at the bus stop every morning in her uniform waiting for the bus. I remember her too well. We both knew eactly what our friendship meant to each other. In that sense I dont have any regrets. But what I do feel sad and helpless about is the fact that I wasnt there with her during her last moments. And the fact that I came to know about this so many months after she was actually gone only makes it worse.
It was because of her that I could make my way through worst of the days.. I would remember how some people around her mad her life sickening for her... and how she dealt with it so smoothly..
I always thought if she could do it, so can I..
She was one of me role models... just like Steve
I believed in Shomika.
I believed in Steve Irwin.
I had ultimate faith in them.
They were a part of my belief system; my religion.
I lost Steve, I lost Shomika, I lost my religion.
Here is a picture of me, shomika and ayush s .. at the 12th std farewell party:
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