Truth shall set you free?

If you are looking for a rare color of a car you just cannot get it. Unless there are enough people who want the same color a car company does not make it. So it is with democracy. You have the freedom to get  whatever every body else wants.  By definition that should not be called freedom but we often want what others want and that is why democracy and freedom are considered synonymous but they are not. In fact democracy restricts your freedom to desire only what the majority wants.

It is well known that college and school kids start drinking much before the legal age. The majority of voting people obviously have decided to restrict this freedom for those below 21. As a parent I would probably have voted with the crowd when my kids were young but I feel differently now. If indeed an 18 years old person is an adult what right do I have of restricting the freedom of another adult?

So what do the kids do to get their freedom? Lie. They use fake ID's or get an older kid to buy alcohol. And what would a politician do  to get what they want? Lie to change people's opinion in their favor and what is wrong with that?

The more I think the more I am convinced that the value of truth is over rated. I do not even fret over the lies perpetrated by religion considering the fact that these lies make people happy. After life is one such lie that was invented a few thousand years back that is still helping modern people face death.

Truth shall set you free? What truth?

Lie boldy

And learn this from the Republicans. Michelle Bachman was being questioned by Fox news as to why she had said that the US is becoming a socialist country and the net worth of companies owned by the US Government stands at 51% of the total market value of all the US companies. This was a bold lie as it always is with Fox and the Republicans party but in this case Fox was being beaten by Michelle Bachman. How can anyone be bolder than FOX news in telling lies so they challenged her.  FOX news said that we have calculated it and it comes to only 1.5%. I thought she was going to embarrass herself but she came up with the name of some report by some person who had claimed this percentage. So if you want to tell a bold lie simply ask some non-entity to write it somewhere on the Internet and now you can keep telling the lie boldly. If you get caught just quote the source. In the same interview on FOX she was claiming that 30,000 people have died in US killed by NATO operation. When confronted with this preposterous claim she said her source was the Libyan Government's report in a Libyan news paper! Why on earth would she believe the Libyan government you have to ask.

The job of the opposition is to replace the current ruling party  "ruining the country" with itself and if lies are necessary to change the people's opinion, so be it.  It is all for a good cause!

Science and religion do not tolerate lies

After winning a fierce battle a king had a difficult problem on his hands. The kingdom had lost most of its young men in war. There were lots of young widows. These widows could not remarry because to the men of those days the idea of marrying a woman who had slept with someone else was repulsive. In any case there were not enough men. Widows could not be expected to spend the rest of their lives without getting married since they depended on men for financial and physical security.

The obvious solution was to let every married man marry a widow or two. But the religion did not permit that.

The king came up with a bright idea. He made up a story telling his subjects that he saw God in his dream who told him that it is okay for a man to have multiple wives. Also that God would be pleased with any man who married a widow. The king was respected by the subjects and no one suspected that he was telling a lie. The lie worked. So much misery was avoided.

The king was a politicians and in politics lying is a necessary evil and in this case I do not even see where the evil is. Even if people found out later that the king was lying, no one would care since the end justifies the means.

But what if this story had been told by Jesus and someone found out from his diary that he made it up.  Would Jesus be Jesus then?

What is not true is not a lie

A perfect lie is one that everyone believes is true except the person who is telling the lie. The lier knows whether it is a lie or not.

Many people believe that Obama is lying when he says he is a Christian. The right thinks he is a Muslim and the left thinks he is an atheist.

Obama's mother was agnostic and his father an atheist. Most people simply adopt the religion of their parents. Even scientists, including Noble laureates, who are theists only end up adopting the religion of their parents only. Which simply means that we do not use our minds in this matter. I have three PHD friends, a Sikh, a Hindu and a Jain. All three strongly argue for their own religion. It is extremely rare that an intelligent person would adopt any religion other than the one he was born in. Simply because people find every other religion silly except their own.

Only Obama knows if he is lying, but I would be disappointed if he is not.

Lies we like

A recent rumour on the Internet said that Jesus used to smoke weed. Those who strongly believe that we should legalize marijuana should try to spread this rumour to gain a few percent of Jesus loving voters that voted against Prop. 19 in California. What is wrong with that morally? If you sincerely believe that legalizing marijuana is good for the country but just 5% of people are blocking the reform then there is nothing wrong in spreading this rumour. Or is it? As it is, no one really believes that Marijuana is good for Glaucoma, or for pain, and for so many other ailments that people claim, but we all ignore these lies because it achieves what is right.

If freedom is about getting what you want but the power to do what is right is with people who are clearly wrong then it becomes necessary to use lies to convince them to vote for your cause. What is wrong with  fooling "bad" people who are against a noble cause?

Many Ayurvedic doctors in India mix herbs with well known miraculous drugs like Aspirin and the antibiotics for those who only want to be treated with natural herbs. After all curing people  is a good cause and profitable one too!

Thomas Jefferson once said that when the poor figure out they can loot the Treasury if they elect the right politicians, America is done. Fortunately, America has sold the American dream to the masses by giving anecdotal evidence of ordinary people who have made it big. Americans really believe that "anyone can do anything if only they work hard". So the taxes on the rich can be kept low because that would be punishing success.

Without the lies the 1% rich cannot convince the other 99% to give them what they want.

In politics lies are a necessary evil.

Is it dough or bread?

Put the dough into the oven, give it some time and it turns into bread. Exactly at what point does it become bread? What do you think of a person who insists that it is bread the moment it is put in the oven.

What if after putting in the oven the power went off and when you came in the morning the bread was still dough. A good baker might want to throw the whole batch in garbage. A lot of bread got wasted one might say. But is it really bread that was wasted or the ingredients? After all flour, water, sugar, salt, oil cannot be called bread." Who cares?" says the baker.  But to a person who is fanatically inclined not to waste anything it is a serious question. It had the potential of becoming bread so it is bread that got wasted. Could we have done something to save the bread? What happens if we turn on the oven now? You will get bread, right? "No" says the baker," I would not call it bread." It might be something that looks like bread but it is not what I bake every day that people love. "But it would still be bread though" insists the wastage  obsessed person. To which the baker says "No, it is not". And the argument continues.

When it comes to opinion based questions, the person who differs with you is always wrong. And rightly so.

................Based on John Stewart's really humorous monologue at the time of appointment of a new chef to the White House during the days of President Bush.

Why do I want to write a blog?

In fact why should anyone want to write a blog.  I think it is simply my open diary where I do my loud thinking. But I could write my own diary just for myself. Why do I want everyone else to read it? So I want to ask all the blog writers to please  tell me why you write blogs while I am still thinking about it.

The next question is what topics should I write about. If I am writing for myself then I would write about science, religion, politics, human rationality etc.

Is it reasonable to believe in science and religion at the same time?

Why do we tolerate lying in politics but not in any other profession?

Has democracy acquired the status of  a GOD that everyone must believe in?

What do you mean when we say we are a free society? Exactly what is it that we can do freely that people in non-free societies cannot?

Why people can come up with the exact opposite conclusion given the same set of arguments?

What is the source of irrationality in human beings?

Can higher education make you more rational? Or are the PHD's more rational than the non-PHD's?............................

Will think of some more later while I am still thinking about why I should write a blog at all!


Vinod