Science vs Religious Beliefs

With the message of peace this is Cemendtaur



I have gathered an interesting crowd on Facebook. In one of my recent posts I alluded that the religious beliefs we hold sacred today have been passed on to us through several generations--believing in them is not only believing in the ‘beliefs’ we hold true, but also believing that the original message has been conveyed unblemished, generations after generations.

One of my Facebook ‘friends’ did not like the thought. He wrote that the belief in the sanctity of the message through centuries is not unique to religion; the same happens in the field of science.  No one alive today has met Mr. Newton, but we still believe in his theories.  Reding this response, I knew how confused this man was about science.



We should understand that Science is not about respect of anyone or their ideas.  Science is about brutal honesty, about criticism, about raising questions, about being doubtful of any presented theory.  The scientific approach is diametrically opposite to religious beliefs. The students of science do not respect Newton because they blindly believe in the laws of motion he discovered.  They admire Newton because they find those laws to be true.  Two centuries after Newton died, human beings were able to send rockets in outer space by calculating the escape velocity using the Newtonian Laws.  Those calculations would have been still correct without knowing anything about the man who gave us those mathematical equations.



Unlike religion, science is on auto-pilot; it keeps correcting its course. Here new theories debunk old ones, and no one raises an eyebrow. When Einstein challenged Newtonian Physics for velocities approaching the speed of light, no Newton fan got offended.



Before the scientific method took roots, the world was a magical place where things happened without any reason.  The modern world is different; it is a world of cause and effect.  Before the era of science began, any unexplained phenomenon could be written off as a divine act or a satanic mischief.  Not anymore.  Today, even a staunchly Muslim country like Indonesia is not willing to call the recent Lion Air plane crash as the will of God; the investigators are trying to figure out why an almost brand-new Boeing airplane went down.

Science does not need any verification from any belief system.  On the other hand, we always find religious people trying to justify their faith through science.  Pursue science if you are curious about the physical world.  For things you cannot see, or are beyond the reach of your five senses, keep believing in whatever religious ideas you believe in.



This is it for today.  Hope to see you next time.

Please don’t hurt your fellow citizens. Please compost the biodegradable part of your garbage.

With the message of peace this is Cemendtaur



You are responsible for your City's garbage problem


I have been fortunate to travel a lot more than an average person does.  I have been to many poor, developing countries.  But let me assure you I haven’t seen the kind of filth you see in the cities of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.



In urban environments, garbage collection system has two parts: a) Garbage must be collected from homes and put at the right place for the city to pick it up, b) Trucks should come and haul away the garbage from the designated locations.



Like anywhere else in the world, people in developing countries keep their houses clean and take the garbage to the right place.  But then, there are no trucks to collect the garbage from neighborhoods and take it to a landfill site outside the community. That is where the broken system hurts us.



Let me tell you what you as an individual can do to solve your city’s garbage problems. I compost my biodegradables and you should do it too.



Garbage can be composted many different ways, but the easiest way is to bury the biodegradables in a hole in the ground and put a layer of dirt on top.  Keep doing it whenever you need to dispose of collected biodegradable and when the hole gets filled up, move on to the next hole.  You can compost food and kitchen waste in empty flower pots and large planters too.



And you should not let any biodegradable waste leave your home knowing well that it is only the biodegradable part of trash that rots, that becomes fertile ground for bacteria and viruses, and ends up getting people sick.



Please don’t hurt your fellow citizens.  Please compost the biodegradable part of your garbage.



This is it for today.  Hope to see you next time.

NZ Shootings: Human races and how they were formed

With the message of peace this is Cemendtaur.



After the recent terrorist attack in two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, the issue of race has again re-surfaced.  Was race a motivation behind the terrorist attack, it is being asked.



Let’s talk about human races.  Why do we have Black, White, Chinese, and other races in the world?



When human beings left Africa, everybody in that group looked pretty much the same.  So how come we look so different today?



The race is defined by the color of the skin, the stature, and the facial features of an individual.



The geography a group of people lives in and the food that people eat, make the race of that group.



The process takes many centuries.  Weather—hot or cold—along with the amount of sunlight determines the skin pigmentation.



Humidity in the air defines the shape and form of the nose.



What kind of food people eat defines their statures. When there is more milk and dairy products or other things having a large supply of calcium present in normal diet of a group of people, the larger bone sizes become evident and people are tall.



The hair is also shaped by the humidity and the amount of sunlight that is there at one place.



The process of artificial selection can steer a group of people in a specific direction.  For example, when through a random gene mutation a certain trait shows up in a group of human beings, that trait can become prevalent or obsolete based on the preferences of that group.  The color of the eyes and the hair of a group of people is determined by the process of artificial selection.



Living as hunter-gatherers, human beings moved often and did not let a particular geography work on them. Race is a phenomenon tied to the communities that settled down in one place and let the geography of the place act upon them, for many generations.



Race is not a fixed thing; it is a continuously evolving trait, though the changes taking place in defining the ‘race’ of a group of people are hard to notice in one lifetime.





This is it for today.  Hope to see you next time.

Beyond College bypassing College: How to give the best world-class education to your children, for free

Beyond College bypassing College


With the message of peace this is Cemendtaur





Higher education has been evolving ever since people settled in communities and interest was taken in understanding the physical world.  For a long time, education remained a luxury afforded by the very rich.  In the second phase, education remained under the influence of religion.  Scientific education, independent inquiry is a newcomer—but it quickly took over.



For the last several decades a four-year college degree provided a strong foundation for a lifetime of employment opportunities.  Colleges have done a good job in preparing students for a productive life.



A good college degree starts with general education in various fields and then ends up in specialized studies in the field of student’s choice.



But ideas, like people have expiration dates.  The time is up for colleges as we know them.



Here is how to proceed in these new times.  Use an online resource such as the Khan Academy for basic education in math, all the way to calculus and develop a broad understanding of social sciences. 



Then couple this knowledge with wisdom provided in TED talks.  Watch the 100 most popular TED talks: on life, on health, on fitness, on finances, on happiness, on psychology, on technology, on personal skills, on motivation, on leadership, etc.  That’s it! 



Enter the workforce wisely and keep learning through the Internet.



All this education is free and taking this route you will end up far ahead of anyone still thinking drowning oneself in loans to study at an expensive university is the best strategy to thrive in the modern world.



This is it for today.  Hope to see you next time.

NZ Shootings: Multiculturalism does not work?

Multiculturalism: It is all about sex



With the message of peace, this is Cemendtaur





Multiculturalism is not working.  That’s what Brenton Tarrant wrote in his manifesto.  In support of his opposition for multiculturalism, Tarrant gives examples of sexual abuse cases in the West, those involving immigrants especially the Muslim immigrants.

Let's look at his argument more closely.



First, what is multiculturalism?  A society is multicultural when there are people of different cultures living together.  To understand what this means, let's first define ‘culture.’  In their primary needs of finding security, eating food, and producing children, human beings are not much different than the animals.  How a group of human beings does these things, broadly defines that group's culture.  How you build your houses, is your culture.  How you dress up, is your culture.  What and how you eat, is your culture.  And of course, how you indulge in the process of making babies is also your culture.

Most of the big cities of the western world are textbook examples of multiculturalism.  The majority of people living in such multicultural societies have no problem with this setup.  So, when Brenton Tarrant or other White Nationalists say that multiculturalism does not work, it means that it does not work for them, that they don’t like the idea.



But that argument aside, I am in favor of educating new immigrants to the west about the culture of their adopted country.

Immigrants and especially the Muslim immigrants often come from very conservative, sexually starved environments.  They need to be educated about the norms of the society they are becoming a part of.

They need to be told that when it is said that a woman is free, it really means that.  That a woman is free to dress as she pleases.  Unlike back home, a scantily dressed woman is not offering it to you. That anyone below 18 is considered a child—and other such lessons.



This is it for today.  Hope to see you next time.

NZ Shootings: White Nationalists must be violent?

Violence is the only solution?



In his manifesto, Brenton Tarrant, the terrorist in NZ Mosque killings, writes that violence is the only solution to get rid of immigrants in the western countries.  And he wants to get rid of the immigrants because he is afraid that with time the population of the migrants and their families will grow, and the European-descent people i.e., people Brenton Tarrant cares about, will lose control of the country and descendants of these immigrants will take control of the country.



And Brenton Tarrant has history to back up his views.  This is exactly how Brenton Tarrant’s ancestors took control of Australia and reduced the Aborigines population to the level of insignificant minority.  The European immigrants to the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand took control of the land by force.  They invaded those lands.

So in a way this guy is saying that if violence was justified then; it is justified now.



And we disagree.  Europeans using violence against the local populations of the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand, was not justified in the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and the Eighteenth Centuries, but the world did not speak up because the world did not know AND those lands did not have a written social contract that everyone agreed on.



That’s not the case today.  Countries exist today with strong social contracts called the Constitution and the Laws of the land, and no social contract allows people to kill each other.



So violence by White Nationalists will not stop immigrants from coming to the western countries; it will only marginalize the White Nationalists and defame their legitimate struggle.



This is it for today.  Hope to see you next time.

NZ Shootings: The big issue of immigration

From colonial rule to Christchurch.



Human beings have always moved.  Because of the influence of the global media today, now the movement of people is more obvious and comes into regular discussions.



When the Europeans reached the Americas,  or Australia, or New Zealand, the local populations of those lands got alarmed.  With time the local population was decimated, even when it put up whatever resistance it could put up.  Too bad there was no media to cover the story of the native population’s struggle.



In today’s world, like in yesterday’s world, people move for two reasons: first, for economic reasons, and second, for their own survival, when there is a war or unrest in the country they are living in.  And where do they go?  They go to places that are secure and affluent.  The migrants choose their destination based on two criteria: how easy it is to go there i.e., physical movement to the new country, and that there is minimum language barrier to settle in.

Keep these two criteria in mind and you can tell who will go where.



Nicaragua.  People from Nicaragua would like to go south to a more affluent Spanish-speaking country, and the more enterprising among them would like to go to North, to USA, to get absorbed in the big Spanish speaking community there.



Mali.  People from Mali would like to go to another neighboring French-speaking country, or go to France.



Angola.  People from Angola would like to go to Portugal, but they will settle for South Africa because it is right next door.



And you see the pattern: the colonial rule of Africa, Asia, and the Americas has given people of those lands exposure to the language of their colonial masters, and when given a chance the migrants from these countries go to the most prosperous country speaking that language.



So, European-descent people of USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, should blame the British Empire for the large number of English-speaking migrants they see in their countries.



This is it for today.  Hope to see you next time.