[Goanet] Citizenship and National Anthem of IRC
Recently we have had many inquiries about the rules of acquiring citizenship of the Independent Republic of Chimbel. We have so far been lax about granting citizenship. But with the new terrorist threat, we have determined that those who do not know our national anthem will not be given citizenship. By special authority granted to me by President Pandurang Fernandes, they will be labelled as enemy combatants, rounded up, and taken to a temporvary sakachi khopti camp on a temporvary island in the middle of the Mandovi river after the rains. Those who are already citizens, but do not know the national anthem will be branded as traitors, and tied in the gottho behind the Dhovi Khopti. We would therefore order all citizens and all those who want to be citizens to learn the following IRC national anthem by heart: AAMI CHIMOLCAR (National Anthem of Independent Republic of Chimbel) Aami Chimolcar, Chimol aamcho deys Khoxi lokaancho, sunneaancho ani gorvaancho. Borreaancho tosoch chorraancho, Barcaraancho ani bebdeaancho. Sobit rosto, kaaiborelo futko. Modinch boorraak, modinch fonn. Taajeyr votthaath khopteo, ghorram, Gaade, tavernaam, ani barraam. Morombim, Maanos, Battollem, Chinchevado, Chimolvado, Xiren, Gonvllem Bhaat. Pattear aamche vhodlem negoss, Xerracodien paasoyek vochaath. Xaar aamchem polleyaath Indira Nagar, Aataanchem, novea modichem. Express xitty bus, xerviciechi gordi. Mama, mami, onkol ani aanti. Mia, bibi, daai ani vhoni. Laayaath kestavaam, koraath zhogdim, Choryo, fottingponna, zhunzam ani maaramaari Kosloch bhoi naa, koslich murvot naa. Oslem mokhlleponn khoinch mellchennam. Vhodlem tollem, dhakli poien. Vaaro fukot, uudok boorxem punn fukot. Maara folg, aasa bombdo. Komdi naaka zalear vhoraath combdo. Dhongor fodaath, banda bildingo Kadamba rosto torr soglleaanchea bapaicho Zaaiti paatall bhaaji, zaaitedo vhodlo uunno Khaayaath, piyeyaath, tokli dhuyeaath. Zaai zaaleaar kaadaath bhojim, Punnun kaadaath voir aamchi copitalist economy. Diyaath khaavpaak soglleaank dudu. Chimolcar aami sogle khoxi urundi, Chimol deys aamcho voir sorundi. Joao Ashraf Faattorney General Independent Republic of Chimbel =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
[Goanet] re: Beyond colonialism
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "J. Almeida" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >Those who checked the reference I gave realize that I >did not alter anything at all in quoting Dinesh >D'Souza. My motives are less sinister than some make >out. > Thanks Joel for letting us know that your motives are not so sinister. Please forgive me for not being able to guess that from your original post on this thread - the one that quoted from a publication other than San Francisco Chronicle, which Margaret, Venantius and I were referring to. I am always confused by posts that also quote unrelated excerpts from Charles Darwin's books, such as the one based on which Gandhi was supposedly unenthusiastic about Western Civilization, as Dinesh D'Souza was supposedly suggesting. Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
[Goanet] re: Beyond colonialism
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "J. Almeida" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >Yawn. > Joel, sorry I did not know you were asleep. Sorry to wake you up. > >Please check the reference given here. > Venantius, Margaret and I were referring to the following article published in the San Francisco Chronicle: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi? file=/c/a/2002/07/07/IN11844.DTL I give the relevant quote below exactly as it is printed in that newspaper: "[I am not suggesting that it was the intention of the colonialists to give all these wonderful gifts to the Indians. Colonialism was not based on philanthropy: It was a form of conquest and rule. The English came to India to govern, and they were not primarily interested in the development of the natives, whom they viewed as picturesque savages. It is impossible to measure, or overlook, the pain and humiliation that was inflicted by the rulers over their long period of occupation. Understandably the Indians chafed under this yoke. Toward the end of the British reign in India, Mahatma Gandhi was asked, "What do you think of Western civilization?" He replied, "I think it would be a good idea." Despite their suspect motives and bad behavior, however, the British needed a certain amount of infrastructure in order to effectively govern India. So they built roads, shipping docks, railway tracks, irrigation systems and government buildings. Then the British realized that they needed courts of law to adjudicate disputes that went beyond local systems of dispensing justice. And so the English legal system was introduced, with all its procedural novelties, such as "innocent until proven guilty."]" > >Good idea to show Mr. D'Souza in a favourable >light: I hadn't thought of that. > Now, I wonder why you feel that way! Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
Re: [Goanet] Beyond colonialism
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "J. Almeida" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >No wonder Gandhi was unenthusiastic, as Mr. D'Souza >himself points out: > >'It is impossible to measure, or overlook, the pain >and humiliation that the British inflicted during >their long period of occupation. Understandably, the >Indians chafed under that yoke. Toward the end of the >British reign in India, Mahatma Gandhi was asked, >"What do you think of Western civilization?" He >replied, "I think it would be a good idea." ' - Dinesh >D'Souza. > The above quote appears to be a deliberate fusion of two separate paragraphs to show Dinesh D'Souza in better light. The last sentence of the above "misquoted" paragraph is in fact a separate paragraph in the actual article. The sentence 'Toward the end of the British reign in India, Mahatma Gandhi was asked, "What do you think of Western civilization?" He replied, "I think it would be a good idea"' is a separate paragraph that is wedged between two paragraphs that convey a transition from a negative to a positive view of western civilization, and Gandhi's assertion acts a bridge between the two. The meaning of Gandhi's assertion is at best ambiguous to a person who does not know much about Gandhi. On the one hand, it might mean that at the end of the British reign it would be a good idea if India adopted the ways of Western civilization. On the other hand, it might be a witty sarcastic remark suggesting that the West is not yet civilized, and it would be a good idea if it did. But one has to know that this D'Souza book is directed towards the American audience, especially towards right-wing Americans, some of whom love an Uncle Tom as much as they hate Charles Darwin, and even those who do not hate Darwin can barely pronounce Gandhi's name, let alone know what his views on western civilization were. Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
[Goanet] Gandhi on Western Civilization
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Venantius <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >With due respect to Western Civilization; Gandhi's >response, simple as it may seem to the prig Dinesh -- was an acerbic >(as in biting) criticism of western civilization from the man of >Swadeshi. > > >Either Dinesh totally missed tthe meaning in Gandhis succint >statement or he truly believes that aside from himself most people >are dolts. > Venantius is absolutely right here. Gandhi was veritably hostile in his views about western civilization. I give below an excerpt from a chapter in Gandhi's 1908 write-up called "Hind Swaraj". The views he expresses in it would make many Indians cringe, as they do me, let alone any westerners. Perhaps this point aptly illustrates the lack of scholarship on Dinesh D'Souza's part that Margaret Mascarenhas complains about. I wonder whether D'Souza has ever tried to read anything Mahatma Gandhi has written on western civilization or colonialism. Quoting sound bites is often a mark of intellectual laziness. Cheers, Santosh * EXCERPT FROM A CHAPTER FROM MOHANDAS GANDHI'S "HIND SWARAJ" (1908) Those who are intoxicated by modern civilization are not likely to write against it. Their care will be to find out facts and arguments in support of it, and this they do unconsciously, believing it to be true. A man whilst he is dreaming, believes in his dream. He is undeceived only when he is awakened from his sleep. A man laboring under the bane of civilization is like a dreaming man. What we usually read are the works of defenders of modern civilization, which undoubtedly claims among its votaries very brilliant and even some very good men. Their writings hypnotize us. And so, one by one, we are drawn into the vortex. . Let us first consider what state of things is described by the word "civilization". Its true test lies in the fact that people living in it make bodily welfare the object of life. We will take some examples. The people of Europe today live in better-built houses than they did a hundred years ago. This is considered an emblem of civilization, and this is also a matter to promote bodily happiness. Formerly, they wore skins, and used spears as their weapons. Now, they wear long trousers, and, for embellishing their bodies, they wear a variety of clothing, and, instead of spears, they carry with them revolvers containing five or more chambers. If people of a certain country, who have hitherto not been in the habit of wearing much clothing, boots, etc., adopt European clothing, they are supposed to have become civilized out of savagery. Formerly, in Europe, people ploughed their lands mainly by manual labor. Now, one man can plough a vast tract by means of steam engines and can thus amass great wealth. This is called a sign of civilization. Formerly, only a few men wrote valuable books. Now, anybody writes and prints anything he likes and poisons people's minds. Formerly, men traveled in wagons. Now, they fly through the air in trains at the rate of four hundred and more miles per day. This is considered the height of civilization. It has been stated that, as men progress, they shall be able to travel in airship and reach any part of the world in a few hours. Men will not need the use of their hands and feet. They will press a button, and they will have their clothing by their side. They will press another button, and they will have their newspaper. A third, and a motor-car will be in waiting for them. They will have a variety of delicately dished up food. Everything will be done by machinery. Formerly, when people wanted to fight with one another, they measured between them their bodily strength; now it is possible to take away thousands of lives by one man working behind a gun from a hill. This is civilization. Formerly, men worked in the open air only as much as they liked. Now thousands of workmen meet together and for the sake of maintenance work in factories or mines. Their condition is worse than that of beasts. They are obliged to work, at the risk of their lives, at most dangerous occupations, for the sake of millionaires. Formerly, men were made slaves under physical compulsion. Now they are enslaved by temptation of money and of the luxuries that money can buy. There are now diseases of which people never dreamt before, and an army of doctors is engaged in finding out their cures, and so hospitals have increased. This is a test of civilization. Formerly, special messengers were required and much expense was incurred in order to send letters; today, anyone can abuse his fellow by means of a letter for one penny. True, at the same cost, one can send one's thanks also. Formerly, people had two or three meals consisting of home-made bread and vegetables; now, they require somethin
Re: [Goanet] ...and you thought journalists were not human
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Frederick Noronha <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I've forwarded Dr Helecar's comments to the editor-in-chief. > Hi Frederick: Thanks for forwarding my comments to the editor. I appreciate the concern you and Rene have shown with regard to this issue. It is important that such carelessly written reports, after having already been published in the popular media, be presented for debate and criticism on mailing lists. > >since many in Goa still question how our ancestors consumed coconut >oil without any of the supposed ill-effects (albeit while having a >different, less-sedentary lifestyle). > Regarding the above statement, it would indeed be interesting to find out what the actual life expectancy of our ancestors in Goa was, and what the causes of death of those who somehow survived through typhoid, tuberculosis, dysentery, small pox, penumonia, etc, were. I am willing to bet my month's supply of Mexican coconuts (or Caribbean if Jose sends me some) if the life expectancy of my great great grandfather's peers was even half as decent as it is now. Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
[Goanet] Coconut Oil Information is FALSE
> > 'Coconut oil healthiest oil on earth' > > By Vasantha Arora, Indo-Asian News Service > The health-related information contained in the above article is FALSE. This article is full of gross distortion and misrepresentation of facts. I give below a point-by-point refutation of the statements contained in it. > >Coconut oil, which is generally believed to be bad >for the heart and full of cholesterol, is now being feted by an >American doctor as the "the healthiest oil on earth". > Bruce Fife is not a doctor who practices conventional medicine. Coconut oil is the most unhealthy vegetable oil on earth. It contains the highest amount (91%) of saturated fat of any vegetable oil. Saturated fat raises one's cholesterol and low density lipoprotein levels, which predispose to high blood pressure, ischemic heart disease and stroke. The American Dietetic Association and the American Heart Association strongly recommend people to minimize the intake of coconut oil. > > Based on his research and study, Fife says that if used daily for >cooking purposes coconut oil could help protect users from heart >disease, cancer, and other degenerative conditions, improve >digestion, strengthen the immune system, and evn help you lose excess >weight. > None of the above research has been published in the peer-reviewed medical literature. Bruce Fife has not published anything on coconut oil in the medical literature. There is absolutely no scientific evidence for any of the claims made above. > > Modern research seems to back up the claims. Once wrongly accused of > increasing cholesterol levels, coconut oil is now being used by >doctors in the treatment of a variety of disorders, Fife says. > The above claims are absolute nonsense. No modern research backs any of the said claims. No conventional doctor who practices rational evidence-based modern medicine uses coconut oil in the treatment of any disorder. > > Clinical studies have shown coconut oil has anti-microbial and >anti-viral properties, and it is now being used to treat AIDS. >Studies in the Philippines last year showed coconut oil reduces the >viral load in AIDS patients. > The above claims are outrageous and false. No studies in the Philippines on coconut oil have been published in the peer-reviewed medical literature. > > "Monolaurin is the antiviral, antibacterial, and antiprotozoal >monoglyceride used by the human or animal to destroy lipid coated >viruses such as HIV, herpes, cytomegalovirus, and influenza. Some >studies have also shown some anti-microbial effects of the free >lauric acid." > The above information is not supported by sound peer-reviewed scientific evidence. Monolaurin has minimal anti-microbial activity at best. > > Faulty science was used to convince people all saturated fats were > unhealthy, when saturated fats rich in the medium chain fatty acids, >like lauric acid, are very healthy. > The above statement is pure garbage - another example of self-serving conspiratorial propaganda. > >It is only recently that the health benefits of these tropical oils >are starting to become rediscovered, Fife contends. > >The oil supports immune system function, helps prevent osteoporosis, >helps control diabetes. > There is no scientific evidence for the above claims. > >Using the coconut oil as a pre-wash conditioner can rid a person of >dandruff better than a medicated shampoo, says Fife, who markets >specially extracted virgin coconut oil on the Web. > And FINALLY and thankfully, the ulterior motive of this Fife guy becomes clear. He is trying to sell his coconut oil products. There is always a self-serving motive behind such attempts to fool the public. How I wish mainstream journalists such as Vasantha Arora would stop giving free publicity to these greedy and unscrupulous salesmen, masquerading as health experts! Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
Re: [Goanet] Undeveloped Language - What Nonsense!
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >Well said Santosh and I do hope that you have found a cure for AIDS. > >Edgar Martins > Hi Edgar: Thanks for your comments. Finding a cure for AIDS is not my cup of coffee. I am busy with less ambitious ventures. Cheers, Santosh Orlando Fernandes wrote: > >I need to read more about this debate can you point me somewhere? >Cheers >Orlando > Hi Orlando: Good to hear from you again. Regarding the Konkani-Marathi debate, you are in a better position to have access to material related to and personalities involved in this issue. Please contact the Konkani Bhasha Mandal or some active Konkaniwadi such as Dr. Bicaji Ghanekar for more information on it. Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
[Goanet] Undeveloped Language - What Nonsense!
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "Joel D'Souza" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >KONKANI AND PANDORA'S BOX: "A developed language is a pre-requisite >for a developed society. It is therefore absurd to search for Goa's >Asmitai or identity in Konkani, which is nothing but an undeveloped >form of Marathi, according to the principles of the science of >language. Marathi is India's third great and one of the major >languages in the world. Denial to it its rightful claim in Official >Language Act, 1987, was a serious matter." >(Jaisinghrao V Rane in Panorama-NT) > The above statement is absolute nonsense. The science of language would never claim that Konkani is an undeveloped language, or for that matter, only a form of Marathi. What principles of science of language is this guy talking about? Can he state them? According to modern linguistics any language is characterized as a fully developed independent language if it displays the following characteristics: 1. It is spoken by a significant number of people for several generations, with several generations of their children having learned to speak it naturally. 2. It has its own vocabulary, grammar, phraseology, figures of speech, idiomatic expressions, etc. 3. It is distinguished from being a dialect of another language by not being fully intelligible to a native speaker of that other language unaided by formal education or informal exposure. By all three of the above linguistic criteria Konkani is a fully developed language, distinct from Marathi or any other language. 1. Konkani is known to be spoken since at least the 11th century. 2. Apart from having a vast lexicon, rich syntax and phraseology, and a wonderful corpus of idiomatic and figurative expressions, it has some rules of word formation that very few world languages, if any possess. For instance, a tree bearing a particular fruit, such as guava can only be called a "guava tree" in English, or a "peruche zhaad" in Marathi. But in Konkani the fruit is called "perr" and its tree is called "peyr". Very few languages, if any have special words for stinking smells emanating from different sources. In English we have perhaps five words that mean the same thing stink, stench, malodor, fetor, and reek. In Marathi, "ghaann vaas" and perhaps, a couple of other synonyms. Similarly in Hindi, perhaps, only "budhboo". But in Konkani, there is a unique word for each type of bad smell. I will just list a few that I know without specifying the source. First, of course is the generic "ghaann". But then we have "gutthaann", "khaathsaann", "hivllaann", "himsaann" and "dhorbottaan". 3. Konkani and Marathi are largely mutually unintelligible to native speakers of each language who have not been exposed in a formal or informal way to the other. Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=- To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet == For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
[Goanet] An Interesting Business Trip to India
I am posting below a very nicely written description of a business trip to India by a Californian named G. G. Carl. It is always enlightening to learn about the experiences of others. This description was posted on the internet forum of the James Randi Educational Foundation. I post it here with the author's permission. Cheers, Santosh * GANESHA SAVED MY LIFE! by G. G. Carl In December of 1996, I spent 2 weeks in India on a business trip. I had never been to India before and was completely unprepared for the Indian experience. It's a love-it-or-hate-it kind of place: unimaginable poverty everywhere, but yet an enterprising people many of whom have come to grips with their existence. I was traveling with a sponsor, a Gujarati fellow who was very helpful as well as unintentionally humorous. I visited 5 cities in my 2-week stay: Dehli, Hyderabad, Chennai (Madras), Bangalore, Mumbai, then back to Dehli to get my flight home. My laptop started acting up almost as soon as I had landed. For whatever reason it just wouldn't boot up properly until the 9th or 10th attempt. At each one of the demonstrations I gave at various client sites, I'd have to boot and reboot while the customer waited, sometimes impatiently while my sponsor tried to keep them busy. Once booted correctly, everything was OK, except at Nuclear Power Company of India, Ltd. where the power went out!! I'll get to that in a minute. When I finally got to Mumbai, I was just about ready to throw the laptop away and go home. As I was complaining about it to my sponsor, the cab driver, having overheard me, pointed to a small figurine on the dashboard and asked, "Do you know Ganesha?" "Of course," my sponsor said with a look of eureka on his face. "Why didn't I think of that?" So both of them explained to me that Ganesha in the position displayed in the figurine was "the remover of obstacles and protector of travelers." I was to find out later that Ganesha had 27 or so positions, each one for a different purpose (one of them helps a woman get through her "dirty time"!!). "So what does it all mean," ask I. What it all meant was first going to the cab driver's cousin's store and getting a figurine of my own, which we did. I looked at it as getting a souvenir of my trip, but my sponsor and cab driver had a deeper plan. It was not enough merely to possess the figurine, it had to be blessed by the Ganesha priest. Handily enough, a suitable temple was close by. I'm sure it has an official name, but I called it "Ganesha Central." It was a rather large religous-looking building in a business district. A little incongruous, I thought at first, but actually quite apropos because in India, religion and business seem to go hand-in-hand more often than not. I got out of the cab and started heading towards the temple. I could have cared less about the religious nonsense, but India had quickly become endearing to me as a huge adventure, an assault to every one of my senses, and I was eager to experience as much as I could in my limited time there. "Not so fast," my sponsor stopped me. "First, you gotta have the proper offering." He gestured towards a store, doubless owned by a relative of his or the cab driver. The "offering" consisted of a metal tray of candies and flowers strung together for 100 rp. In addition to the figurine, this adventure had cost me almost 1000 rp. so far, but was about to go up even more. I'm sure I'd paid way too much for everything, but I looked at it as the cost of entertainment. Up until then I'd been having a good time. "Now you have to take your shoes off. You have to be barefoot inside the temple," my sponsor pointed to my shoes. If you've ever been to India, you know how much fear was in my heart at the sound of those words. When I was a boy, my mother told me to never go outside without shoes. As an incentive she told me that there were little worms that would drill holes in the bottoms of my feet and infect me. I really didn't buy mother's argument, but if there was anywhere in the world with drill worms, it was India, specifically the street outside Ganesha Central. Let's just say that streets in India are in dire need of cleaning. Knowing that I was probably going to die a horrible, painful drill worm death, I took off my shoes and socks and got into the entry queue with the throng that had just started arriving. The temple was going to open in a few minutes and soon the street was packed with thousands of people waiting for their blessings. As I was waiting, I was beset by a little girl who kept insistently tapping me on the arm holding up a few sad looking flowers. I told her politely about a thousand times, "Sorry, sweetheart, I already have my offerings." But the girl was very persistent. Finally, my sponsor spoke to her in Hindi, telling her to give me the flowers, and if Ganesha's offerings are accepted, we'd pay her on the way out,
Re: [Goanet] Newspaper of Expatriates Goans.
Venantius Pinto had some good critical comments to make in response to my post on the above subject. They did not show up on Goanet even though he tried to copy them to it. So here they are: "A. Veronica, Perhaps what you wrote below is what you have experienced (and if yes, you must see yourself as the aggrieed party) or observed first hand. If you care to, I would be happy if you could put some distance beween yourself and the labels -- "innuendo, distortion and fabrication". In doing so, the other label of bigotry would not apply since it is the "unreasoned attachement" to ones beliefs. I am sure yopu have your reasons and you will agree that some thing scould be said differently. I do not mean political correctness but simply through reason. Help me out here A. Veronica. Venantius PS: Santosh Helekar, I hope you see my point here." ... Venantius Pinto, sorry I do not see your point here. Can A. Veronica know from personal experience that Krishna Menon invaded Goa because he wanted to provide employment for unemployed "Malyalis"? Does personal experience with some number of "Malyalis" justify stereotyping all "Malyalis"? What do you mean by "the other label of bigotry would not apply since it is the "unreasoned attachement" to ones beliefs"? Do you think these beliefs are supported by reason? Can they be justified? Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
Re: [Goanet] Newspaper of Expatriates Goans.
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "A. Veronica Fernandes" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > But Malyali Menon was a Malyali Menon and these > Malyalis will never give us peaceful life anywhere > they may be. Krishna Menon wanted to create > employment facilities for Malyalis who were suffering > from rampant unemployment in Kerala and since Goa had > no manpower to fill the English required jobs, Menon > thought Malyalis will fill this void and hence the > rascal gave green signal to his troops to grab Goa > which is now under extinction. > This is an amazing paragraph. Please correct me if I am wrong. But I think it contains bigotry, innuendo, distortion and fabrication, all rolled into one. Gratuitous chauvinism and historical revisionism appear to be suddenly rampant in the writings of journalists with overemployed imagination, nowadays. Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
[Goanet] Biased History of Ideas
People often let their ideological, nationalistic and/or religious biases affect what they believe to be true, and what they prefer to post on internet forums such as this one. This leads to a lot of misrepresentation and sloppy presentation of facts for public consumption. Two recent posts on the ancient history of ideas and knowledge appear to have suffered from this problem. In the first post Joel Almeida wrote: > >Arabic mathematics and astronomy led the > world, alongside highly important advances in India. > These were exact and scientific disciplines, > encouraged by the religious authorities of the time. > The explosion of science in Western Europe was ushered > in by the Scholastics (Christian religious scholars > influenced by Greek philosophers whose writings had > been kept alive within the Arab civilization) who > asserted that: > > a. Nature is not entirely capricious and > unpredictable, but has laws that can be studied and > discovered. > > b. Material reality exists independent of our senses: > it is not all just illusion. > The above statements create the illusion that religious authorities were responsible for promoting Science, that Christian philosophers ushered in the modern scientific revolution, and that these Scholastics and their Greek antecedents were the first to enunciate the principles of scientific naturalism, materialism and realism. History of Science and Natural Philosophy provides ample evidence that religion and religious authorities have always remained predominantly an impediment to scientific progress and public acceptance of scientific ideas, especially when these ideas and findings were in conflict with their teachings. This was true in Hindu, Muslim and British India, and in the Dark Ages in Europe, and this is true in most parts of the world today. Regarding the idea that nature can be studied as a system of laws, while Scholastics did support this view, such ideas were elaborated 1500 years before them by many atheistic and agnostic Indian schools of philosophy, namely the Lokayata Materialist School, the Nyaya School, the Vaisheshika School, and the agnostic Jain and atheist Buddhist philosophers. These views were effectively suppressed by ritualistic and Brahmanical Hinduism of later years. Similarly the Ionian and other Greek philosophers such as Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Aristarchus etc who were not particularly influenced by any religion, and certainly not by Christianity, had well-formed ideas pertaining to natural laws. The fact that material reality exists independent of our senses was the basis of the materialist Lokayata School. Scientific realism was fleshed out in great detail by the Nyaya-Vaisheshika Schools as well as other agnostic and atheist rationalistic philosophers of ancient India. Pre-Socratic and later Greek philosophers also contributed a great deal to these ideas. Joel wrote further: > >He opposed the idea of a religious account of natural phenomena in >opposition to what could be known by science. He viewed such >accounts as "most deplorable and harmful, and to be avoided at any >cost". That is the view of many large, mainstream Christian churches. > This is certainly not true with the largest Christian Church, the Southern Baptist Church in the United States, and many other churches, especially in the Bible belt. I am not sure the Catholic Church is willing to discard the idea of Mind-Body dualism and the nontenability of supernatural explanations on scientific grounds, either. Joel wrote further: > > Today, fortunately, many people know enough history to > take an informed view about the origins of modern > "Western science and mathematics". > Unfortunately, most people let their ideologies, religions and nationalities warp their "informed" views about most issues. In the second post of this type Subhash Paradkar wrote: > > (2) Rishi Kanaada from Gujrat was the proponent of the Atomic >Philosophy(theVaishesika darshana), and the law of causation. This >was nearly 2500 years earlier than John Dalton. Kanaada also >described the dimension and motion of atoms and their chemical >reactions with each other. Historian, T.N. Colebrook has >said, "Compared to Europian scientists, Indian scientists > were the global masters in this field." > >.. > >Aaryabhatta was the first to proclaim the earth is round; > it rotates around its own axis, orbits the sun and is suspended in >space. This was 1000 years before Corpernicus published his theory >in 1543 AD. Aaryabhatta was known for ~ (pie) used in calculating >circumference to four decimal places (3.1416). > The above statement and most of this post appears to be shaped by a nationalistic bias. There is nothing wrong in doing that as long as accuracy in reporting is maintained, particularly since it is absolutely true that Western historians have ignored important contributions made
[Goanet] Is Old Unquestionably Gold?
Paddy wrote: > >Old is Gold. > Subhash Paradkar wrote: > >Intelligence of our forefathers should not be undermined and >measured by Western scientists. > When I see or hear statements such as the ones made above, I ask an obvious question. Why? Why is old gold? Why should knowledge of our forefathers not be questioned by modern science? Modern science has found no evidence for any regression in the intelligence or creativity of humans over the past 5000 years. There is no reason to believe that our forefathers were any smarter than we are. If you examine the knowledge and scientific and technological achievements of our forefathers there is ample evidence to suggest that they more often wrong about things than right. For instance, Aristotle was completely wrong about basic Physics. Ptolemy was utterly misguided about the structure of the solar system. Susruta and Caraka made horrible blunders pertaining to human biology. A few of the erroneous ideas that they believed in are as follows: 1. Congenital defects were due to an ungratified mother. 2. The position of the fetus in the mother's womb determined its sex. 3. A male was conceived on even days and a female on odd days. 4. The softer tissues were derived from the mother and the harder ones from the father. 5. A mother who feeds on ghee and milk gives birth to a male child, whereas oil and beans produces a female child. 6. The heart is the seat of consciousness. This is also what Aristotle believed. There is also the ridiculous ancient field of Astrology, which has been shown to be completely baseless and worthless by modern observations. It is absolutely important and essential for us to apply to ancient ideas and therapies the same rigorous empirical tests that we apply to modern scientific ideas and therapies. Our lives depend on it. Many of the age-old traditional treatments are harmful to our health such as the practice of applying ash, cowdung and brick powder to cut umbilical cords. Paradkar wrote further: > > We need to respect our roots and herbs as well. If they work for >masses with guidance from Aayurvedic doctors and universities, then >we need to accept these remedies as a gift of our ancestors and be >thankful. > Statements such as the above fly in the face of the knowledge that more than 2500 years of Ayurveda did nothing to cure and control dreaded diseases such as small pox, typhoid, malaria, leprosy, tuberculosis, syphilis and pneumonia. On the whole, Ayurvedic and other traditional remedies have been abysmal failures in saving lives and promoting the health of the masses. They have flunked the test of time. Open-mindedness does demand that we entertain the possibility that some of these ancient ideas and treatments may have some merit, especially because our forefathers were also unlikely to be any less smart than we are. However, prudence demands that to harness the limited merits of these ancient ideas and forms of treatment, we subject them to rigorous modern scientific analysis. Otherwise we will truly be laboring in darkness with regard to their effectiveness. I am all for respecting our traditions, and cherishing them, and preserving them. But to me, old is unquestionably gold only if it is to be used as a museum piece, not if it is to be put to its intended practical use. For that I would first want my appraiser to run some tests in broad daylight. Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
Re: [Goanet] NEWS: Who's ready for cow's urine?
Subhash Paradkar wrote: > >Let us not see everything evil in fellow Indians. > Dear Mr. Paradkar: Please don't mistake my criticism of the cow urine patent and its publicization by the Indian Government, as an attempt to see evil in fellow Indians. I was merely attempting to let people know that the therapeutic efficacy of bovine urine has not been scientifically established. I would like people to know that securing a U.S. patent means nothing in this regard. One has to conduct large-scale studies on the safety and efficacy of this product, including multi-centric and multi-phase clinical trials in order to legitimately claim that it is a genuinely useful therapeutic agent. None of this has yet been done. For that matter, even the limited "test tube" experiment done in support of the patent has not been published in a reputed peer-reviewed scientific journal. I know from other credible sources that there are major holes in the scientific procedure adopted to perform this experiment. It is unlikely that any objective expert microbiologist would accept the findings that are reported in support of this patent. I do not necessarily agree with everything you have said in the rest of your post. But I will refrain from spelling out my disagreements because I am in full agreement with you in respect of the spirit of recognizing genuine contributions made by India and Indians. I feel therefore that it is all the more important for responsible Indian scientists and government agencies to resist the temptation to make premature public announcements about potential achievements that might later turn out to be major fiascos, and cause us to lose credibility. One of the things that I am constantly embarrassed by is the fact that Indian newspapers and websites are littered with false claims about herbal cures and incredible magical spiritual solutions to material problems. I hear that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is now asking the U.S. Government to give him a billion U.S. dollars to solve the problem of global terrorism by employing transcendental meditational techniques. I also cringe every time I see those distorted and fabricated lists of Indian achievements and percentages on Indians in famous U.S. institutions, supposedly published in some "German magazine". Such silly transparent propaganda, rather than boosting our image or filling us with a sense of pride, simply manages to portray an inferiority complex. That's all for now. I will comment on the merits of the mindset that assumes something to be good and useful just because it is old, a little later, in response to Paddy's post on this subject. Best Regards, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
Re: [Goanet] Houston Goan Convention - A Blast!
I am sorry my description of the Goan Convention in Houston was not thorough and exhaustive. For instance, I did not mention that Alfred Braganza was a keynote speaker at the convention, and contributed a nice article on Goan culture to the convention souvenir. His article will shortly be put up on the website along with the rest of the souvenir. The souvenir also contains a brief biodata on this illustrious Konkani lover. Indeed, he contributed a lot to the success of the convention, as did many other people. Dr. Pramod Pathak, a prominent Indian scholar who has documented and studied Goan Tulsi Vrindavans and Holy Crosses was the chief quest, and gave an elaborate speech on his work. I have not mentioned many other names of people who contributed in significant ways to the success of the convention. I would like to apologize for these omissions. The purpose of my earlier post was simply to provide a brief description of the convention, and mention some highlights from my horribly limited perspective. It was not meant to acknowledge the remarkable contributions of all the people who helped us make it a success. Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
Re: [Goanet] NEWS: Who's ready for cow's urine?
Here's a nice rebuttal to my post by Subhash Paradkar, which for some reason did not show up on Goanet even though he had copied it to it. I will post my response to it when I can find some time. Cheers, Santosh SUBHASH PARADKAR'S POST Dear Santosh: (1) I am here in the US for the past 34 years and work as a consultant to US Patent and Trademark Office. In recent years, Americans are researching Aayurvedic medications for three reasons: (a) Does the usage of these ancient medicines statistically change, facilitate any improvements or improve the condition of the patient?, (b) Should it be used as a supplement to diet, exercise under a supervision of a medical doctor, and (c) Can they make money by using by taking patents and claiming these medicines as their own inventions. Foreigners have always done that to the people of Indian origin regardless of our own region or faith. (2) National Institute of Health here has received US grant to study alternative medicines because drug companies with professional chemists and scientists take took long to come up with drugs that work on rats, but have side effects on a human body. It is now recognized by spiritual leaders of all faiths, learned medical professionals, and social scientists that human being needs to balance his or her body, mind and soul to achieve happiness (Santosh) throughout the life process. (3) Ancient Rishi Pantanjali from Uttarpradesh was known for Grammar, Aayurveda, and Yoga Philosophy. US medical professions have now accepted that Raaj Yoga or Dhyan Yoga (Meditation) helps people relax, reduce blood pressure, and improve many deceases in humankind. Another Rishi Charaka was known for herbal medicines, and the techniques of surgery. He described qualities of 100,000 herbal plants. Charak Sanhita says."That man remains free from desease who takes healthy food and habits; who is not slave of desires; who observes all creatures with equanimity; who always follows the truth in his heart, speech and action; who is forgiving; and who keeps the company of noble people." Rishi Charaka was an ardent advocate of preventive medicine and emphasized the influence of diet and activity on body and mind. (4) In recent years, Americans made efforts to register patent on Turmeric and Basmati Rice. There was an uproar here in Indian community (sleeping giant). Indian Govt. then (not BJP Coalition) made a case with the US Dept of State that Turmeric and Basmati Rice do not even grow in the US, but has been in India for thousand years . India (not VHP) won the case. Then, Indians abroad and in Indian Aayurvedic doctors got smart and made sure that many items who have been historically used by our grandparents as home remedies are protected from the greed of western civilization. We now have Aayurvedic doctors doing scientific research at NIH, Chyavanprash for longevity, karela and methi for diabetes, and castor oil for psoriasis are now recognized. For many years, I took American drugs for my sinus problem that was cured with no side effect by taking Ginger tea with honey and lime in the morning. It saved hundreds of dollars, and reduced dependency on American drugs. We needs to have faith in our roots and our own genius. (5) Our Prime Minister Morarji Desai of congress party, a Hindu and Gandhian did tell American reporter that he drank his own urine. American press ridiculed him, called him a CIA agent, and ignored that he lived a peaceful long life without stress. BJP and VHP were not credited for his good health or straight forwardness. McDonalds was fined in the US for frying french fries in beef and pork fat that increased cholesterol in children and elders alike. When we are under fear and divided because of internal issues, we fail to recognize the intentions of foreigners in our land. If Coca-Cola discovered that Cow's urine is really helpful to human body, they would patent it or buy the patent, give it another brand name, remove the smell and color, bottle it in India with cheap labor, and sell it back to the world and India at 1000 times its cost for profit. That is capitalism. (6) We need to focus on India's national security, freedom and economic prosperity regardless of our affiliation to our region, language, faith or prejudices. We should enjoy the fruits of all our ancient rishis, freedom struggle of our forefathers, and be willing to trade our goods and services in International market place at a fair price for our people. Otherwise, the West will dictate us the prices of all our herbs, turmeric, curry and rice. The tragedy of human history is decreasing happiness (Santosh) in the midst of increasing comforts (materialism). (7) Let us not see everything evil in fellow Indians. Our culture has survived intimidation from Alexander, Babar, Aurangjeb, Adil Shah, and British Raj, not to mention uppercaste Hindus. To fight back, India did produce Chanakya, Shivaji, Gan
Re: [Goanet] NEWS: Who's ready for cow's urine?
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Frederick Noronha <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >The ancient Vedic medicine, which bagged a U.S. patent last week, is >touted as the miracle cure for ailments ranging from skin disease, >liver problems and obesity to cancer. > >The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) developed the >product containing cow urine distillate jointly with the Vishwa Hindu >Parishad's (VHP) cow research centre in Nagpur. > This is a scam. There is no published scientific evidence for any therapeutic benefit that is accrued from drinking cow's urine. Obtaining a U.S. patent does not mean anything in terms of establishing scientific legitimacy or effectiveness of any invention. The U.S. Patent Office has already issued several patents for worthless quack ESP (extrasensory perception)devices. This is one more example of ideological propaganda by VHP and the present Indian government. Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
[Goanet] Houston Goan Convention - A Blast!
The Sixth Biennial Convention of the Goan Organization in America, which was attended by 219 Goan progeny and kindred at the Marriott- Galleria in Houston, concluded last Sunday with a great sense of joy and accomplishment. As expected, we had a good time and great fun, met wonderful people, ate and drank, talked and laughed, and got amused and entertained. I am not as good a flatterer as George Pinto. But meeting George was a special thrill. We had the great pleasure of hosting Filomena Giese and Agnes Mcbride who were instrumental in igniting the hearts of a seemingly never-ending line of cantar-singing Goans fighting with each other for the microphone. To me this was a rare moment of spontaneous rapture exemplifying the Goan desire to partake in frolic, no matter where and how it manifested itself. It was such a wonderful embodiment of the spirit of this convention. We dedicated this impromptu jubilation to the sense of camaraderie symbolized by Goa Day, by making a formal announcement and providing a brief explanation of the latter event. We had three long days of non-stop "dhoongshonn", as Prof. Ravindra Amonker put it. There was a breathtaking variety of shows ranging from ridiculous Konkani skits and monologues to professionally produced and performed Indian film songs and nostalgic Marathi and Konkani songs, generating enough sensory overload to numb the senses for the entire two-year interval before the next convention in Toronto, Canada, considering the fact that other forms of sense- numbing methods were also employed at open bars, concomitantly. And taste buds of all persuasions were tantalized by traditional Goan culinary delicacies prepared by Goan chefs from the Mother India restaurant of Los Angeles, California. Just before we parted, Prof. Ravindra Amonker, Dr. Rekha Khandeparkar, Dr. Babuli Sanzguiri, Mrs. Asha Karmali and Dr. Prakash Rajadhyaksha made some highly pertinent observations about our convention, about future directions, about our role in improving the Goan political situation, and about the idiosyncrasies of the Goan psyche. George and Filomena gave inspiring presentations on the need to share our good fortune to better the lives of Goans in need and the living conditions in Goa for everybody. An article by George on the activities of Goa Sudharop has been published in our convention souvenir, "Ovllam 2002". I will upload the entire souvenir as a PDF document on our website, "www.goanconvention.org", within a few days. The souvenir also contains articles on Goa Day by Rene Barreto and on "Participatory Democracy in Goa" by Dr. N. S. Dumo, a founding member of the Goa Su-Raj party. The convention ended with a reprimand by younger generation Goan Americans who felt there were no activities arranged to cater to their particular tastes. We are very grateful for this and other criticisms that we received, as much as we are to all the attendees at this meeting for contributing in every way to make it a grand success. The Sixth Biennial Convention of the Goan Organization in America in Houston, my friends, was a blast. Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
Re: [Goanet] Timing, tact and joy
Dear Joel: I disagree completely with what you have written. I have no time to explain now. But in one complex sentence, I think all analogies you use are inappropriate, and I submit to you that there is no more tactful and opportune time to express your disagreement or alternative view about something than immediately after a proponent makes his/her case, irrespective whether they are having a party while doing that or not. Sorry I have to go now. Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
[Goanet] Re: Reproach and Accusation
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "Joe Vaz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Dear Santosh: > > Let me state this upfront: It has not been my intention to either >blemish your reputation or tarnish your image, or ridicule you and >your field of work. The respect I have for you (as a fellow human >being) has remained the same -- it has neither increased nor >diminished despite the disagreements we have in the course of recent >discussions. > Dear Mr. Vaz: Thanks for your thoughtful response. I never expected anything less from you. My respect for you has always been high. It is easy to understand the fact that different people have different individual preferences on what they want to read on mailing lists, in terms of content as well as form. Some people like original humor and satire, even if it is amateurish, and hate recycled jokes and sayings that have already made several rounds on most mailing lists. Others like religious and spiritual posts, particularly of their own denomination, and hate secular criticism of any kind. All this is perfectly fine as far as I am concerned. I have a little bit of a problem, however, with people who lecture to other people on what not to write and how not to do it, ignoring the fact that they themselves have done exactly the same in the past, or were the source of the provocation in the first place. But I chalk it up as a fairly common human frailty. I know you will perhaps not respond to this post of mine. So I will address very briefly the specific points that you raised. But before I do that, I would like to clarify my position to you and to everybody who is paying attention to this otherwise inconsequential post from me. I think all your responses to my post stem from a basic misunderstanding or lack of understanding about science, and about people like me who try to be consistent in their application of critical and clear thinking in all aspects of life. It is easy for people to gloss over the nuances of various arguments, and relegate them to the lowest common denominator, such as prejudice, intolerance, disrespect, cheap ridicule, etc, especially if they do not care about making sure they are not hypocritical while doing that. Words such as prejudice and cheap ridicule are trigger words that most people understand and react to without giving much thought (mostly because of their busy schedule). But such accusations, even if implicit, are totally unfair to people who want to present a serious argument. I do what I do, not because I want to denounce other people?s beliefs or show that I know it all or impose my thoughts on others, but simply because I want to present the other side of an issue, and to correct misconceptions and misinformation about topics that I know something about. This is absolutely important in secular public forums because these forums provide an easy means to spread lop-sided views, distortions, misinformation, disinformation and ideological propaganda. The Hindu fanatics; various leftist organizations; the Christian, Jewish and Islamic fundamentalists; and various types of anti-science and anti-medicine movements have used such forums to great advantage. I subscribe to the notion that there are legitimate, and often times, mainstream points of view that need to be adequately represented in all secular public forums. These include the following: 1. Most people, non-believers and believers alike, do not subscribe to a belief in the literal truth of extraordinary events that have been described in the scriptures. If these extraordinary events are presented as undisputed facts in a secular public forum, their truth ought to be challenged, especially if they known to be in conflict with established scientific principles. A good example is the creation story as opposed to evolution. 2. One has to be fair and even-handed in the treatment of light-hearted comments pertaining to religious beliefs. You cannot raise strong objections to such comments regarding the parting of the Red Sea, while remaining quiet, laughing at or even congratulating somebody if they made fun of Parshuram?s use of a bow and arrow to create Goa (This is not a jab at Cecil. Cecil is a good e-friend of mine ? a faithful member along with me of a two-member mutual admiration club). You cannot chastise me for mild sarcasm shown in response to an obviously planted rhetorical question (an internet forum equivalent of legalistic entrapment) on Christian beliefs, and at the same time post chicken-crossing jokes about the Buddha, or little parables about how Jesus is smarter and wiser than the Buddha and Confucius in a secular public forum. 3. Misinformation spread by anybody, including well-meaning NGOs, journalists and community servants, has to be corrected and severely criticized. I have responded critically to Frederick?s posts on several occasions, even though I have the highest respect and admiration for him, as a journalist and as a human being. For me it is always th
Re: [Goanet] 10 Questions- Cecil Pinto on 'Child Naming Patterns among Goan Ca
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Cecil Pinto <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > 10 Questions by Ree Coh > > Firstly, let us examine the legend of the 'creation' of Goa. >According to the Vedas, Lord Saptoshwar threw a trident into the >Arabian Sea, hoping to catch the equally mythical Goan Crabs. The >trident missed its mark and landed in interior North Karnataka, close >to where the Dupont Nylon 66 plant is currently situated. Three >clumps of earth thus shot up from the ground and landed near the >Arabian Sea. Lord Saptoshwar immediately christened them Govapuri, >Bhajipuri and Shrikandpuri. These were later re-christened by the >Portuguese as Goa, Daman and Diu. > >. > > Now the Portuguese changed all this. They gave the Catholics names. >And they converted many of the Hindus to Catholics and gave them >names too. It was time of much merriment among the Portuguese. They >would catch some helpless victim and drag him into the town square. >Then they would take turns thinking up names. I have dedicated a >whole chapter of my book to this colourful process. Please keep in >mind that at the time the Capital City of Goa was not Panjim. It was >Benaulim, which remains a perpetual stronghold of the Catholics with >most curious first names, even at the Assembly level. British Prime >Ministers, Walt Disney characters... > Dear Cecil: That was simply outstanding and beautiful! The above two paragraphs are veritable gems. I will ask President Pandurang to name you the Comedian Laureate of Chimbel. Please note that I said "Comedian", not just an ordinary "humorist" like Art Buchwald. Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
[Goanet] Mr. Joe Vaz's Reproach and Accusation
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "Joe Vaz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >Mr. Santosh Helekar: > >I feel sorry for you and sad, to note the way you responded to my >last post, and to those before me who tried to exact an explanation >on how you arrived at your spurious conclusions, on the subject >matter. Did you really have to resort to your pale jokes, cheap- >shots, and name-calling? I think that was totally unwarranted, and >unbecoming of your status? I hope you will refrain from doing this, >in the future. But if you think you can browbeat me and win an >argument through your cheap theatrics, you are sadly mistaken. I >hope you realize that all you are doing is demeaning yourself, in >the bargain -- and you're doing a pretty good job at that. > Dear Mr. Joe Vaz: Thanks for feeling sorry and sad for me. But I do not need your pity. Please don't worry about my status. I consider my status to be no different from that of an uneducated outcaste from my little Goan village, who spends his day watching over cattle grazing in the fields behind our house. I have never believed in social stratifications, whether they are based on caste, religion, education, wealth or proximity to God. You are free to feel secure and triumphant on your high horse or whatever high status you consider yourself to have ascended to, to deserve the right to pretend to feel sorry and sad for me, to pass your privileged judgments on what I write, and to distort and mischaracterize my statements in this forum. Your status, whatever it is, does not intimidate me. I am willing to take any amount of unprovoked sarcastic ridicule and mockery from you something that you have resorted to in your previous post, as indicated in the following quotes from you: "Inasmuch as I like to believe our intellectual here who states that: "Miracle is an appeal to ignorance." Like others on the forum, I would like to request our esteemed scientist, -- to demonstrate to this audience through his own scientific wit (or through his peer- review) that the above are not miracles but merely "an appeal to ignorance." "We can all see that we are not getting anywhere with Santosh's rhetoric that "Miracle is an appeal to ignorance" unless of course he can substantiate through his scientific prowess and conclusively prove that in fact miracle is an appeal to ignorance." "You are NOT doing any service to either science or humanity here but causing upheavals, by your constant mocking of the subject matter." But if you think that your high status gives you the privilege to be left free from ridicule in return, you are sadly mistaken. Nothing and nobody gives you the right to lecture other people on how to express themselves in a secular public forum, and to expect privileged treatment because of your perceived privileged status. Please rest assured that every time you (or anybody else) presents a one-sided view or factually inaccurate information on important subjects that interest me, I will confront you with every instrument of honest, outspoken and civilized public discourse available to me. If your definition of civilized discourse does not include the use of humor and sarcasm, especially and exclusively when the target is you, that is your problem, not mine. Every time you ridicule me and my field of work, I reserve the right to ridicule you and yours. If you run for public office, I reserve the right to criticize you in public. I have closed my debate on miracles with you because I have made all the points that I wanted to make this time around. I have also closed it out of respect for Paddy. So I will not respond to your statements on miracles. Regarding your following request for "authentic photographs" pertaining to the Theory of Evolution, I will provide you those photographs as private email attachments. Unfortunately, this forum does not permit email attachments. But I can do better than that. If you are in Houston at any time, please let me know. I will be happy to take you to the Museum of Science and Natural History, and show you, not just the photographs, but the actual fossils of animals, including primates that lived hundreds of millions of years ago. I can show you how the type and diversity of these fossils changed with each passing epoch. Joe Vaz wrote: "Well, let me ask you this, and based on your above request, I hope that you will be able to oblige: As an advocate for the "Evolution" theory, Santosh, can you provide this audience "authentic photographs of these events" - of apes evolving into humans?" I can also show you other forms of objective physical evidence such as comparative DNA analysis of apes and humans. Joe Vaz wrote: "SCIENCE HAS NOTHING TO SAY ONE WAY OR THE OTHER ABOUT THE EXISTENCE OF GOD OR ABOUT PEOPLE'S SPIRITUAL BELIEFS." I think you are right about the God part, but most likely wrong about the spiritual part. The scientific study of normal and abnormal brain function can give us fundamental insights into
Re: [Goanet] Freedom of Thought v/s Imposed Views
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > >But that should not give anyone the right to impose their views (be >it scientific or diabolical) on the faith-filled who believe and >trust in God's omnipotence. Can we live and let live? There is ample >room for all of us to attain their chosen destinations! > .. > >Can we then all not agree to close this thread -- which has been >unduly prolonged? Referee Viviana may have a soft spot for you and >not command you to hold your peace. But the Admin. Team ought to >step in at some point and close the Thread :) > Dear Paddy: Thanks for expressing you opinion. I think it should have been clear to you from all my past discussions in this and other forums that even though I express my views forcefully, I have no desire to impose them on others. In fact, I assume that most people who have been indoctrinated into traditional modes of thinking would never be persuaded by the logic or the substance of my presentation. I always welcome others to challenge my views, so all sides of an issue are presented. The need to present a balanced view on important matters that impact our lives and minds has been the sole driving principle behind all my discourses on all mailing lists. My only intention is to provide others access to factually accurate information, and an effective counterbalance to one-sided information and opinion. As far as this thread is concerned, I have already made all the substantive points that I wanted to make. I will not respond to any more posts by Joel, Joe Vaz or anybody on this issue at this time. But that does not mean that I forfeit my right to debate this issue some other time, should somebody decide to launch yet another barrage of one-sided miracle claims in this forum. It is interesting to note that nobody asks these guys and gals to hold their peace. Perhaps, this prenuptial expression does not apply to people who are already married to their particular faith, and who proudly wear that flashy ring on their finger. But I would not want them to hold their peace either. The uninhibited war of words is more enlightening and enriching than the uneasy silence of enforced peace. Viviana does not have a soft spot for me. She strongly disagrees with me on most issues. She regards the rest as Pandurangisms. The Admin. Team is free to to do whatever they want to do. I only hope they are even-handed about it. Thanks for asking me to elaborate on my views on lunar effects and other things in private. I will try to do that. Best Regards, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
[Goanet] Milagrino's Fake Appeal for a Foul
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "Joe Vaz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I want you to understand that I was trying to put the "Miracle" >concept into context, so that misconceptions, posited in Santosh's >posts, may be exposed to clarity. > My legs are tired. I cannot go on in over time. I am also afraid of sudden death. I have a new substitute. His name is Sunithino. He is better than me at free kicks. He will take care of Joelinho. But this substitute Milagrino (Joe Vaz) from the other side keeps challenging me for a rematch. The big problem I have with him is he repeatedly slumps to the ground without being tripped, and then incites the crowd to appeal for a foul. This time he has also appealed for a red card in my penalty box. This can only mean that he knows all along that his goal is guarded by an invisible goalie who is believed to have made some miraculous saves. But nobody really knows whether this is true or not because nobody saw these games, and nobody has seen the goalie. > > Like all other things on this subject you indeed have miserably >failed to objectively prove how "Miracle is an appeal to ignorance." > Those who want to verify whether the above statement is credible or not, please refer to my earlier post. I will never be able to objectively prove anything to somebody who is not objective about it in the first place. But there is ample objective historical evidence that the demystification of a miracle claim in every single case has led to freedom from ignorance and advancement of knowledge. When belief in miracles was widespread, people died of small pox and syphilis. Belief in miracles never helped cure any disease. Acceptance of miracle cures did not and does not produce any advancement of medical knowledge. > > I had cited just two examples of a miracle by definition: Red Sea >parting as depicted in the movie "The Ten Commandments" (i.e., not >simply a low tide); Jesus raising the dead man Lazarus to life (John, >xi). > As I alluded to before, nobody saw these games. Joe Vaz, Have you seen them? Do you have authentic photographs of these events in real life by any chance? I have seen the movie. I hear they used props and things like that in it. But even in the movie enactment, the parting of the Red Sea looks pretty fake to me. Having said that, I know Joe Vaz is trying to win cheap sympathy for his argument from an audience that is overwhelmingly sensitive to the mention of Jesus's name. How can an irreverent lout like me ever score a goal against Jesus? So I will head this ball over my goal line. Let Joe Vaz have his cheap corner. > >Like others on the forum, I would like to request our esteemed >scientist, -- to demonstrate to this audience through his own >scientific wit (or through his peer-review) that the above are not >miracles but merely "an appeal to ignorance." > The above miracles are an appeal to ignorance because those who insist in the literal reality of these events are asking people to believe in things that are in violation of scientific principles and everyday experience. They are asking people to believe in things that are not supported by objective evidence. They are trying to legitimize miracle as a valid logical explanation, bypassing even the common sense need for truthful eyewitness testimony and independent corroboration from multiple sources. > > And if you think the onus of providing scientific proof is NOT upon >you, through your sheer inability to do so, (or for lack of >scientific wit in this area,) then please hold your peace. > Only referee Viviana can command me to hold my peace. Milagrino's appeal for this red card is so obviously fake that if he were on our Xerrachea groundar, I would have complained that he is eating roddi. Eating roddi on our ground calls for stopping the game and going home with the ball, all the while shouting obscenities at each other. > > You are NOT doing any service to either science or humanity here >but causing upheavals, by your constant mocking of the subject >matter. > Joe Vaz, I humbly and respectfully note and reject your above opinion. Here is mine for you to reject, even with contempt if you like. I consider it my inalienable right and duty to think freely, and express myself fully and forthrightly in any public forum that I participate in. And yes, I do believe I am doing a service to Science and humanity, as much as you believe you are by spreading your gospel. I do believe however that you are doing a service to mankind. Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing
[Goanet] Miracle is an appeal to ignorance
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "Joe Vaz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Quote:"I am frankly tired of this argument now, because I think I >have failed miserably in explaining to Mr. Vaz " Unquote. > I am rapidly becoming tired of this argument this time around as well, and continue to fail miserably in explaining to my detractors what I am trying to say here. But I am going to state as clearly as I can one last time where my beef is. I have no problem with people who believe in miracles based on faith, just as I have no problem with people who believe in God based on faith. After all I am surrounded by them. My problem is only with people who claim that certain miracles are certified by a scientific committee and a legitimate "scientific scrutiny or scientific study and analysis". > > The miracle is essentially an appeal to knowledge. > I am sorry, but I think it is self-evident that miracle is an appeal to ignorance. Those who claim that a miracle has taken place have already accepted that God has made it happen. They don't ask any more questions. There is no room for any further inquiry. They have already surrendered their mind, their intellect and their curiosity to the idea that they cannot possibly understand how God made it happen. They cannot fathom God's ways. For them miraculous occurrence as an act of God is the be-all and end-all explanation. Learning cannot begin when inquiry ends. Knowledge cannot be acquired when wisdom has already been received. History has shown us time and again that advancement of human knowledge has occurred every single time that we have stopped believing in a miraculous explanation. If we had continued to believe that thunder and lightning were acts of God, we would still be lighting oil lamps in our homes. I would challenge anybody to give me one example wherein advancement of knowledge occurred as a consequence of believing that a miracle has taken place. Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=- To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet == For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
[Goanet] Re: A Skeptical View on the Padre Pio Hysteria
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "Joe Vaz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >In the canonization process there is a role known as (or previously >called) the ?Devil?s Advocate? this role freely allows for refutation >of a miracle claim through (scientific) demonstration. > >. > >Any scientific theory, by definition, is as good as the conclusive >proof it provides. And any amount of unsubstantiated rhetoric cannot >disapprove, invalidate or repudiate a miracle in its own right, >virtue and definition. The canonization process is subjected to >rigorous scrutiny and scientific study and analysis, and therefore >amply allows for refutation of claims. And when --and only when-- no >evidence is produced, to refute the occurrence of the miracle, or >miraculous cure/s as in this case, it is declared as such >(?miracle?) --as inexplicable phenomenon, to the human mind. > I have debated with Joe Vaz on this matter in the past. As in his previous posts on this issue, his argument continues to suffer from a serious misunderstanding of Science and the scientific method. Here is what my understanding of the scientific method is. This is the science I know and practice on a daily basis in my own modest way: 1. Science always tries to seek rational natural explanations for observed phenomena - explanations that do not violate established scientific principles based on objective evidence. 2. When confronted with an apparently unusual and extraordinary observation the default scientific position is to still seek natural explanations perhaps involving modification of the existing principles. However, such modifications are viewed with tremendous skepticism by the rest of the scientific community. To be taken seriously the proponent of this new explanation has to carry the entire burden of providing an extraordinary amount and type of objective scientific evidence to support his claim. 3. Science does not accept or even consider a claim as legitimate just because it has not or cannot be refuted by others. 4. Science under no circumstances entertains supernatural explanations of any kind. 5. If a religious, paranormal or supernatural organization decides to stretch their definition of Science to include supernatural explanations, they would still have to require that the proponents of such explanations carry the burden of supporting their claims with an extraordinary amount and type of objective scientific evidence. Of course they can stretch the definition of the scientific method to suit their own convenience. But then their claim that they have followed "rigorous scrutiny and scientific study and analysis" would be false and deceptive. Such claims have been made by all kinds of pseudoscientific disciplines and organizations, such as astrology, believers in UFOs, believers in telepathy, etc. 6. All genuine scientific reports that are deemed to result from a "rigorous scrutiny and scientific study and analysis" are published in a reputed scientific journal after an excruciating peer-review process conducted by anonymous expert referees. I would love to know the name of the scientific journal in which the miracle claims that Joe Vaz is referring to are published. If they have not been published in such a manner, then I have no choice but to discount his claim that "the canonization process is subjected to rigorous scrutiny and scientific study and analysis". Such a statement is empty rhetoric. Another clear example of empty rhetoric is the passage quoted by him below: > >A passage from the book "Conversation with God" succinctly states: >"You don?t want to know the Truth, you want to know the Truth as you >understand it. This is the greatest barrier to your enlightenment. >You think you already know the Truth! You think you already >understand how it is. So you agree with everything you see or hear >or read that falls into the paradigm of your understanding, and >reject everything which does not. And this you call learning? This >you call being open to the teachings? Alas, you can never be open to >teachings so long as you are closed to everything, save your own >Truth." > The above passage is not just empty rhetoric. It is ironic, because it applies more aptly to religion than to science. > >God and miracles have remained unfathomable mysteries to humankind ? >and science cannot unravel this mystery. And as mysterious as it may >seem ? it is an irrefutable fact that miracles do occur in human >life. Truth never changes its form; it will always remains as the >"truth" ?- no matter what the case, condition or circumstance. > Upon reading the above additional rhetoric, the following rhetorical questions come to mind: How does Joe Vaz know all this? Could it be that he has a privileged vantage point that enables him to see the truth? Does he know the ultimate "truth" by any chance? Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
[Goanet] re: Matteo Colella
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "J. Almeida" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >Please be objective. Unlike the Medical Board which >assessed the prognosis on the basis of the full >medical records and other relevant evidence, I write >only the little that I know. > >Let's assume that the best known conventional >treatment was given. I have no reason or intent to >believe or suggest otherwise. The question still >remains: what was Matteo Colella's prognosis? > > > >I am as yet unable to find any grounds for differing with their >verdict. > Dear Joel: I will make this my last post on this thread. I think I have made my point of view abundantly clear. I hope you realize that you are not exactly objective about this matter. You are drawing your conclusions based on "the little that you know". As long as people (even those with a scientific background like you) are willing to throw caution to the wind, and believe in the miracles of their particular faith based on "the little that they know", those of us who see no reason to invoke supernatural explanations to account for natural phenomena will remain SKEPTICAL. Regards, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
[Goanet] Deceit and Fraud
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "J. Almeida" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >However, whatever I know seems to be free from fraud or deceit. All >of the facts above can be objectively evaluated. If anyone has >specific evidence of fraud or deceit, why remain silent? > Deceit and fraud can be acts of commission as well as of omission. I submit to you that, by omitting important information on the diagnosis and treatment of Matteo Collela, those who were responsible for providing the description (communicated to us by Joel) on his case have tried to deceive us into believing that no conventional medical treatment was given or could be given to this boy. I find it hard to believe that the only treatment that this boy could receive was "an exceptionally large dose of adrenaline administered, as a last measure, by pessimistic medical staff". From what I know about medical staff, even the bad ones don't abandon their patients out of pessimism. And yet this account mentions nothing about the diagnosis or the treatment. Did the boy suffer from any bacterial infection? Were any drugs that are known to cure and save the lives of people suffering from severe bacterial infection, given? Why are those who provided the supposedly non-deceptive and non-fraudulent case description withholding this information? I also find it curious that the entire description conveys an atmosphere of hopelessness, carefully crafted with phrases like "exceptionally large dose", "administered as a last measure", "pessimistic medical staff" and "His death was considered imminent by the medical staff", to create the impression that this state of fatalistic inevitability was medically certified. Nobody who is guided by the principles of honesty, transparency and scientific objectivity would provide such a deceptive case description for "objective evaluation" as has been provided to us in this forum. Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
Re: [Goanet] Matteo Colella
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "J. Almeida" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >Over the following week his health >improved, with blood chemistry tests showing steady >improvement. He regained full health eventually. > >I am not a paediatrician. I have not seen the medical >records. However, whatever I know seems to be free >from fraud or deceit. All of the facts above can be >objectively evaluated. If anyone has specific evidence >of fraud or deceit, why remain silent? > I am assuming that the above is what Joel calls "specific evidence" or "medical facts" that can be "objectively evaluated by people of any faith". If this is what is deemed sufficient by Joel and others to conclude that this boy's recovery could only be a miracle instantiated specifically through the intercession of Padre Pio, then I would have to definitely believe that all the amazing recoveries that happened under the old Doutor Curchorcar were miracles. He could certainly tell a much better anecdote than the one related by Joel above, on how a man who was about to die recovered immediately after the doutor gave him a theflaanchem ajuth. No objective scientist or physician who is not blinded by one particular faith would conclude that the subjective account of the case of Matteo Colella presented by Joel above leads him/her to the unequivocal conclusion that a miracle has taken place, let alone specifically through the intercession of Padre Pio. Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
[Goanet] Press Release from the Dhovi Khopti
The hearing about the qestao between Goanet and Shri Cecil Pinto was held this Sunday morning. It had to be derrenpently dismissed because nobody appeared before the Chimbel Supreme Court in the Tambdi Khopti at Morombim. Vodlo Ghaadi Loximon was furios and declared this a contempt of court. He has ordered Goanet and Cecil to pay a fine of U.S. $50. This is in addition to the money paid by Cecil for transportation. The fine has to be paid to Goa-World.net, who will use half of it to establish another Goanet, Goanet3. This Goanet will be established to raise money for eating purposes, on behalf of Goa- World.net, Vodlo Ghaadi Loximon and President Pandurang. Half the money will be used for the election campaign of the President of our neighbour, India. The candidate we are supporting has just become a Muslim and changed his name to Leyat Rebellah, sensing the demand for a Muslim president there. If he is not elected President of India, the Supreme Court of Chimbel will declare him President. In constipation of this event we are sending two xhitty buses packed like cans of bangde with gang members carrying big bottles of feni on special permit, from Indira Nagar, Chimbel to Samata Nagar, Mumbai. Regarding the money already paid by Cecil, no part of it will be refunded, because it has already been eaten. We hear that most of it was spent by one TGF coordinator to devise a converter to convert English bad words into Konkani bad words so that posts containing them would not be blocked by the Goanet filter. We have initiated an inquiry into this transgression and other such unauthorized practices conducted by this TGF coordinator. In the mean time, we have temporvaarily frozen all accounts of this individual in all branches of the Banco Nacional de Pandurang. One of the actions we are considering if his unauthorized transgressions are determined to be illegal, is to use his accounts for our eating purposes. We are particularly concerned about this matter because with the money that was left for eating purposes from Cecil's payment, President Pandurang and Vodlo Ghaadi Loximon could eat only one plate of botat vodo and two plates of paatal bhaaji after the hearing was dismissed. We cannot allow anybody to come across the stomach of the President and Vodlo Ghaadi of this great nation of ours. - Press release from the Dhovi Khopti, Independent Republic of Chimbel. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
[Goanet] re: Is water found only on Earth?
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "J. Almeida" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >False. The word you are looking for is "reverse", not >converse. Here are the logically correct statements. > >Statement: Life is confined to earth >Re-statement: Life cannot be found outside earth > >Those are logically equivalent. State it either way. >Take your pick. Falsify either one. In either case, >one discovery of life outside earth suffices. > Joel, you are right. The only way you can defend falsification is by playing word games. In writing what you wrote in your last post, I hope you realize that you have inadvertently "confirmed" my contention that all that this fluffy, flimsy Popperian notion amounts to, is a silly dance of words. Knowing fully that you can only confirm and not falsify the perfectly legitimate hypothesis that there can be life outside earth, you rephrased it by merely adding a "not" to "can" to suit your purpose. If you really think that you are making a substantive and substantial point in doing that then I guess I would have to again blame my poor mental capacity to appreciate that point. You can play more word games if you like. But as far as I am concerned, from the point of view of richness of ideas Popper is a pauper. This I hope is my last sentence on falsification. Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
[Goanet] Re: BEWARE OF HEPATITIS "B" VACCINE.
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], gLoBaL~E~LINKED <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >But which brand of Hep B Vaccine are we talking about? The one >presently peddled in Goa? The last one hawked by Lions Club >International-Shanta Biotechnics? Who has certified that these >brands are safe? Certainly not the Health Services of the Goa >govt. How do we know that Goa is not being made a dumping ground >for expired/sub-standard drugs like so many other products? > I would like to congratulate you and others who are trying to look after the public interest in Goa. I have nothing but gratitude for your selfless efforts on behalf of all Goans - in Goa and abroad. All I ask of you is to be a little more circumspect in making public service announcements. Please try to state clearly and specifically what your concern is. A headline asking people to beware of Hepatitis B vaccine in general, and listing bogus side effects is hardly a way of addressing the issues you have now so eloquently raised. Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
Re: [Goanet] Is water is found only on Earth?
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "J. Almeida" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >True. They are trying to falsify the dogma that life >is found ONLY on Earth. That is the significance of >their effort. > >Imagine an application for funds that reads something >like this: > >This project will confirm that life is found only on >earth. We propose to do this by travelling widely on >earth and recording the occurence of living creatures. >This will confirm that life is found only on earth. > . > >Falsification leads to scientific discovery. > Joel, the above example is at least as much a caricature of a scientific funding application, as Popper's falsification folly is a caricature of the scientific discovery process iself. But apart from that, this example gives us a great opportunity to see how trivial and flawed this Popperian concept is. Jumping from water on Mars to life on earth as you have tried to do, let us stipulate that those who are looking for water on Mars are indeed trying to falsify the rather tangential and awkwardly phrased hypothesis that there is life only on earth. But this hypothesis is conceptually the converse of the hypothesis that there is life elsewhere. A Popperian scientist trying to falsify the hypothesis that there is life elsewhere would go from planet to planet looking for evidence that there is no life there. No matter how many planets he might manage to comb through without finding life on them, he would never be able to falsify the said hypothesis, because in practical terms, given the possibility of an infinite universe or at least the enormity of it, there would always be an unexplored planet where there might be life. On the other hand, an anti-Popperian scientist looking for confirmatory evidence for the same hypothesis that there is life elsewhere, by merely finding one confirming instance of such life in the form of a live, dead or fossilized specimen on some planet other than earth, would establish, once and for all that there is life elsewhere. Here is a clear-cut case wherein a single confirmatory observation establishes a scientific fact, while falsification leads one into eternal ignorance. So much for falsification leading to discovery. The asymmetric appearance of falsification as opposed to confirmation rests entirely on how you phrase the target hypothesis. I am sorry, it is hard for me to take seriously any concept that is so precariously balanced on the exact choice of words that a mere rearrangement of these words brings it crashing to the ground. I would much rather invest my limited mental capacity in more mundane but substantive concepts. Cheers, Santosh P.S. I think I have exhausted my arguments on this subject. So please forgive me if I don't reply to any of your future posts on this thread. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
[Goanet] re: Induction & Confirmation (Santosh)
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "J. Almeida" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >You are right, many of my statements are false: probably because I >am merely human. I must say, in fairness, that your statements are >NOT invariably false. If I take a little light-hearted tone in the >following text it is not because I lack the deepest respect for your >talents. > Dear Joel: Thanks for your delightful post. I don't want to refute specifically any of your comments because I don't find anything in them that challenges the view that mainstream science has proceeded mainly by induction and confirmation, and only in a trivial sense by falsification. I have read a couple of Karl Popper's books, "The Self and Its Brain", and "Knowledge and the Body- Mind Problem", in which he discusses falsification, among many other things. His ideas, as far as the mind-body problem is concerned, failed to impress me. Perhaps my mind is not dense enough to appreciate them. But I would go out on a limb and say that very few people with a head centrally placed on their shoulders would accept the Popperian idea that there are three worlds, as anything other than eccentric. I must admit, however, that despite my reservations about Popper's other views, for a while I too was convinced that falsification was an important precept of the scientific discovery process. But over time my simple-mindedness proved to be a limitation in this respect as well. I could not think past the realization that every instance of falsification of a hypothesis is simultaneously an instance of confirmation of the opposite hypothesis. This lowly notion persuaded me not to regard Popper's contribution any more charitably than calling it a trivial advancement in thinking. To use your analogy, finding a white swan is indeed a falsification of the hypothesis that swans are black. But how can I deny that it can also be regarded as a confirmation of the hypothesis that swans are white? No amount of Nobel laureate name-dropping will convince me that it is not. To my simple Goan mind, the distinction between the usage of the term "falsification" instead of "confirmation" in science is as trivial as the distinction between "right" and "not wrong". No matter how many "induction turkeys" are sacrificed in its name, it will always remain the banal dichotomy that it appears to be to light-headed guys like me who are frequent targets of light-hearted comments. As a scientist interested in bread and butter science, I would much rather be inclined to accept the mundane scientific approach exemplified by NASA researchers who are looking for "confirmatory" signs for water on Mars. They are not trying to falsify the hypothesis that there is no water on Mars. But they might have had to do that if the Popperian species of humans were not so endangered, and one of these heady creatures were sitting on their funding review committee. What it would practically amount to, is to merely rephrase a sentence stating the exact opposite of their original hypothesis. And I have to tell you, ordinary scientists - those who float in the moat around ivory towers, would much rather spend their time gathering trivial confirmatory facts, than awkwardly constructing trivial sentences conjugating the verb "falsify", merely to satisfy some Popperian ego. Cheers, Santosh P.S. Martin Gardner's literary and intellectual acumen and contributions can match any Nobel laureate's any day. Two whole generations of Scientific American readers (many of whom became Nobel laureates) grew up reading his brilliant column entitled "Mathematical Recreations" in this wonderful magazine. His belief in God is based on faith - not scientific evidence, and that's a good thing. Skeptical Inquirer is a solid journal that attempts to apply critical inquiry to all ideas and observations. You should read it. It even has some Nobel laureates on its editorial board. A few might even be believers or non-believers in God based on faith. I don't know if any of them hold those beliefs based on scientific evidence. But even if they don't, what the heck, nobody is perfect. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
Re: [Goanet] BEWARE OF HEPATITIS "B" VACCINE.
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Goa Desc <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >BEWARE OF HEPATITIS "B" VACCINE. > >Hepatitis 'B' Vaccine has the following adverse effects. >* Arthritis >* Sudden Infant death Syndrome (SIDS) >* Lupus >* Guillian Barre Syndrome >* POTS (an auto immune cardio vascular neurological problem) > And other life threatening diseases. > With all due respect, the above statement is baseless and irresponsible. Please note the following categorical statement issued by the tax payer supported U.S. National Center for Infectious Diseases of the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, one of World's most prestigious infectious diseases research institutions. "QUESTION: Is There an Association Between Hepatitis B Vaccine and Serious Side Effects? ANSWER: There is no confirmed evidence that Hepatitis B vaccine causes: 1. chronic illness 2. multiple sclerosis 3. Guillain-Barre syndrome 4. transverse myelitis 5. optic neuritis 6. seizures 7. sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) 8. chronic fatigue syndrome 9. rheumatoid arthritis 10. autoimmune disorders" Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
[Goanet] Induction and Confirmation
Joel has repeatedly stated in this forum that good Science proceeds by refutation rather than by induction. This statement is as false as many of his other statements. The idea of falsification in Science was made popular by Sir Karl Popper, an eccentric British philosopher of Science. Most scientists and philosophers now believe that this idea was fundamentally a flawed and eccentric idea. It is widely accepted that the greatest advances in Science have come from induction and confirmation. The theory of gravitation, evolution, genetics, special and general relativity, quantum Physics and structure of DNA have all been great inductive insights from limited initial observations, whose validity has grown stronger with each new confirming instance. Martin Gardner, a brilliant science writer had recently written a beautiful article about the demise of Popper's falsification fantasy in the journal "Skeptical Inquirer". He concluded this article by saying: "Popper's great and tireless efforts to expunge the word induction from scientific and philosophical discourse has utterly failed. Except for a small but noisy group of British Popperians, induction is just too firmly embedded in the way philosophers of science and even ordinary people talk and think. Confirming instances underlie our beliefs that the Sun will rise tomorrow, that dropped objects will fall, that water will freeze and boil, and a million other events. It is hard to think of another philosophical battle so decisively lost." I give below a few other excerpts from this article: "A SKEPTICAL LOOK AT KARL POPPER by Martin Gardner Sir Karl Popper, who died in 1994, was widely regarded as England's greatest philosopher of science since Bertrand Russell. Indeed a philosopher of worldwide eminence. Today his followers among philosophers of science are a diminishing minority, convinced that Popper's vast reputation is enormously inflated. I agree. I believe that Popper's reputation was based mainly on this persistent but misguided efforts to restate common-sense views in a novel language that is rapidly becoming out of fashion." "Popper recognized but dismissed as unimportant that every falsification of a conjecture is simultaneously a confirmation of an opposite conjecture, and every conforming instance of a conjecture is a falsification of an opposite conjecture. To scientists and philosophers outside the Popperian fold, science operates mainly by induction (confirmation), and also and less often by disconfirmation (falsification). Its language is almost always one of induction. If Popper bet on a certain horse to win a race, and the horse won, you would not expect him to shout, "Great! My horse failed to lose!" "Ernest Nagel, Columbia University's famous philosopher of science, in his Teleology Revisited and Other Essays in the Philosophy and History of Science (1979), summed it up this way: "[Popper's] conception of the role of falsification . . . is an oversimplification that is close to being a caricature of scientific procedures."" "It's not so much that Popper disagreed with Carnap and other inductivists as that he restated their views in a bizarre and cumbersome terminology. When Popper wrote "Logik der Forschung," he was barely thirty. Despite its flawed center, it was full of good ideas, from perhaps the most brilliant of the bright young philosophers associated with the Vienna Circle. But where the others continued to learn, develop and in time exert a lasting influence on the philosophical tradition, Popper knew better. He refused to revise his falsificationism, and so condemned himself to a lifetime in the service of a bad idea." Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=- To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet == For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
Re: [Goanet] Vedas, Antibiotics, etc
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "Sunila Muzawar" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >But one of the reasons I asked is to show you how illogical your >approach is. Just because you haven't read it and don't know more >about it does not mean it does not exist. :-) > Sunila, you have covered a lot of ground in the above post. I cannot deal with all the issues that you have discussed. I am a simple- minded kind of guy. I can think of only one thing at a time. I think it is not very useful or logical to take seriously things that are not known to exist, only because they might just possibly exist. This is called the flying pink elephant argument. Sure, such a creature might exist. But Would you pay somebody who claims to have it a hefty cash advance to buy such a unique and special pet? My reference to Vedas was specific to the speed of light. And having read about this matter I can assure you that I am not convinced that the Vedas tell us anything about this speed, as has been claimed. Regarding your other statements, bacterial resistance to antibiotics is a well-known and well-studied phenomenon for the past 50 years. The evidence for telepathy is shaky or non-existent. Medical science knows quite a bit about recovery from illness due to personal faith. There is a branch of science, Neuroimmunology, that studies this issue. Meat is still good for your body. The only thing that you have justification for is your belief in God, which I assume is based on faith and quite admirably so. Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
[Goanet] Vedas, Antibiotics, etc
Sunila Muzawar wrote on the Scientific Method thread: > >Actually the VHP only parrots what others say. Nobel prize winners >like Romain Rolland have said a lot about the Vedas and whatever. > Romain Rolland got a Nobel prize in literature. He was not a scientist. As far as I know, he said nothing about the Vedas and the speed of light. He would not have been qualified to say anything about the scientific validity of the Vedas. Please don't try to confuse issues here. By the way, he was a great supporter of scientific rationalism. > >Let me ask you have you ever read the Vedas ? Do you know Sanskrit ? > No for both questions. Have you, and Do you? If you have and do, Please enlighten us in English or Konkani. I am particularly interested in the speed of light issue. The English synopsis of the Vedas in Hiriyanna's book on Indian Philosophy that I have says nothing about that. > >Intuition, gut feeling, sixth sense and whatever else you may call >it does exist but unfortunately science lacks in being able to prove >it. > Are you sure? Have you read the current scientific literature on these matters? I know there is a lot of published research that deals with this. I would love to know whether your assertion is based on the conclusions of this research, before I accept it. > >Similarly, there are some things which are beyond proof. They are >simply there you cannot deny it. > How do you know this? I deny it, in the absence of evidence that your statement is true. > >One has faith in antibiotics for curing illness based on the logic, >since it did so in the past. > Antibiotics cure illnesses whether you have faith in them or not. This is a scientific fact. Scientists know a great deal about how and why antibiotics work. > >Also the same faith is broken by the logic again when one knows that >antibiotics are harmful in the long run for the body. > Is this a general statement about human psychology or about the effectiveness of antibiotics being intertwined with faith? If it is the latter, there is scientific evidence that contradicts your statement. > >Somethings just exist because they simply do. > It is great fun and enormously useful to find out why they exist and how. Science has been pretty successful at doing that. > >All this talk of logic and science is a failure because it is all >based on assumptions. When the assumptions crumble the scientific >theorams crash. > What assumptions? > >There is something beyond and that is God. > Again, How do you know that? Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
[Goanet] re: Scientific Method
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "J. Almeida" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >Give as many examples as you like to those concerned, >I have no objection. What has all that got to do with >my religious belief? I do object to being tarred with >the same brush you use for them. > Dear Joel: It is not my intention to tar anybody. When I say that religious beliefs, such as the ones I had listed in my last post, are based on faith in spite of contrary evidence, I am not making that statement to cast aspersions on people who hold these beliefs. I thought I had made this fact clear. I do not use the phrase "belief based purely on faith" in a pejorative sense. In fact, I strongly object to your comparing (perhaps unwittingly) these folk, some of whom are my dear friends, with "sexually promiscuous industrialists", as you do below. > >I know of many sexually promiscuous industrialists. >However, I do not imply that being an industrialist >requires sexual promiscuity. Similarly, although I >know many illogical believers, religious belief does >not require me to abandon scientific method or to >cling to beliefs which have been refuted by evidence >or logic. > >From my personal experience I know that many of these illogical religious believers have also not abandoned their scientific method. They merely keep their religious beliefs separate from their scientific ideas, and do it amazingly effectively. > >If you are not attempting to generalize about >religious belief from such examples, then I happily >withdraw allegations of prejudice and stereotyping and >apologise for misunderstanding you. > I am certainly attempting to generalize about religious belief from the examples I gave, but I am doing it without any kind of prejudice. I feel thoroughly justified in doing that because I am yet to be convinced by you or anybody else that religious belief of any sort is based on evidence. In fact, I must say that I have never met a person who has claimed that their religious beliefs are based on scientific evidence. The closest that somebody has come to saying something like that are VHP types who have claimed that Vedas contain scientifically accurate statements, such as the exact value for the speed of light. I would like this to be my last post on this thread. Please don't take offense if I do not respond to your reply to this post. It was fun having this dialogue with you. Regards, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
Re: [Goanet] Scientific method
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "J. Almeida" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >You write of religious belief: > >"something to cling to in spite >of contrary evidence" > >As far as my own religious belief goes, I suggest that >you first present some contrary evidence, then decide >whether I cling or not. Until then, I am inclined to >dismiss such statements as mere prejudice. > Joel, you do indeed use the word prejudice in an unusually liberal and, I venture to say, in a transparently self-serving way. I hope you realize that summarily dismissing a fairly innocuous statement as prejudice might also be construed by some as prejudice. When I say a belief based on faith is held in spite of contrary evidence, I am referring to the undeniable fact that countless people everyday believe in all sorts of religiously inspired "miraculous" events, such as Ganesh idols drinking buckets of milk, or weeping statues, or stigmata, or Satya Sai Baba materializing Seiko watches. All these events have been repeatedly demonstrated to be false by investigation. But people, even some prominent Indian scientists, continue to believe in some of them based purely on faith. I have no prejudice against them. To me faith and scientific evidence have equally positive emotional appeal. But it is important to keep them separate. > > Ignore claims that science is incompatible with religion. Both, at >their best, keep us firmly rooted in reality. > Science is incompatible with religion if these two systems of thought attempt to encroach on each other's domain. That is why it is futile to apply the scientific method to basic religious beliefs, and to teach religious ideas in a science classroom. > >Religion and prayer also "reach the parts that science cannot reach", >helping us lead a more meaningful, fuller and happier life. > A sizable minority of people can and do live a "meaningful, fuller and happier life" in the absence of religion and prayer, and in some cases especially after having freed themselves from their particular brand of religion. And that is a dispassionately stated fact, not a prejudice. Regards, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
Re:[Goanet] Scientific Method
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "J. Almeida" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >Dear Santosh, > >As a scientist I am interested in refutation of error. >Either a conjecture is refuted or it is not. If you >can unequivocally refute the factual claims relating >to the death of the historical Jesus, then I urge you >to take up the matter with historical experts. Present >your unequivocal and compelling evidence in >refutation, take the consensus of historical >scholarship with you, and I will join you gladly. >Attempting refutation of conjectures through >compelling evidence is Scientific Method. The rest is >not. > Dear Joel: I think you have it all backwards, perhaps to defensively position yourself on what you thought was strategically a higher ground. It is you who said that your religious belief is based on "carefully weighing the logic and evidence", by following "the scientific method". As far as I am concerned, I have always maintained that religious belief is based on faith. I do not consider that the supernatural events surrounding the life of Jesus or any other saintly human being amount to a testable scientific hypothesis, even in the limited and esoteric Popperian sense. The conjecture that you are asking me to refute is not falsifiable at all, and therefore, utterly unscientific. The value of religion resides precisely in the fact that it is based on faith, because it gives believers something to cling to in spite of contrary evidence, in times of need. Best Regards, Santosh P.S.: And by the way, I do not want to convert you to my way of thinking. I merely want you think about what I am saying, and then choose to agree or disagree. Actually, if you knew me personally you would have realized that I would like you more if you disagreed with me. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
Re: [Goanet] Mere assertions
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "J. Almeida" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >Prejudice, or a closed mind, forms no part of >Scientific Method. > Yes, but skepticism is an integral part of the scientific method, and gullibility has no place in it, even though the former is often mistaken for prejudice and closed-mindedness, and the latter always represents open-mindedness. If religious belief can be supported through the application of the scientific method, I would love to see the relevant scientific evidence for it clearly stated for examination. If the evidence is so compelling and unequivocal, one should be able to present it in a few short paragraphs. One can of course recommend a book which one has never read, but one then runs the risk of being embarrassed, if its contents do not live up to its title. The proper commonsensical approach (not just a scientific one) then is to first read the book and decide whether it really contains the evidence based on which one thought one had chosen to hold a religious belief. Otherwise, one would have to find an even better excuse to retract the original recommendation than the one provided below. > >CS Lewis offers a personal account, not formal logic, >as I said. Although it is decades since I read "Mere >Christianity", I thought his literary style would form >a pleasant contrast to the Kreeft & Tacelli book. If I >were to pick one, I would go with the formal approach. >Should I come across better books, I will mention >them. > Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
[Goanet] Evidence or Mere Assertions
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "J. Almeida" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >That seems to be your heartfelt opinion, perhaps your >"deeply felt intuition". It also happens to be false. > As I said, I think deeply felt intuition is a good thing to have. It would make me happy if others thought I possessed it. So, Thanks for the above compliment. > >The first is by academicians and takes a formal logical >approach, the second is a personal account from an >atheist who became Christian (and a beautifully >written classic of literature from a widely-loved >author). > >1. Kreeft P, Tacelli R (1994). Handbook of Christian >Apologetics. Intervarsity Press, Downers Grove. pp >399. (ISBN: 0830817743) > >2. Lewis CS (1952). Mere Christianity. Harper San >Francisco. pp 256. (ISBN: 0060652926) > Thanks for these recommendations. I will try to read them. Are these books supposed to show that my deeply felt intuitions are false? Are they supposed to provide evidence for the Christian God and teachings? If so, I want to tell you that I do not think that the second book will create much of an impression on me. I have read a criticism of this book in another book, ironically by a Christian who became an atheist. The latter book is called "Losing Faith In Faith: From Preacher To Atheist" written by Dan Barker, who was an evangelical preacher for 19 years, before he became a heretic after carefully weighing the logic and evidence. I am not at liberty to post the relevant chapter in his book in its entirety because of copyright issues. So I will only post a few excerpts. This chapter is called "Mere Assertions". Here are some excerpts from it: "You can see that Lewis is fond of arguing by analogy. (His whole Narnia series is one huge metaphor.) This can sometimes be an effective way of communicating with uncritical readers; but it can be deviously misleading if used in place of disciplined reasoning. Mere assertions (a better title for his book) can be used in place of carefully defended statements, and can be made to "stick" in the mind with an analogy which, though perhaps apt, nevertheless skirts the question of the truthfulness of the basic idea." "So, according to Lewis, if you want to find God, look within yourself to discover this urging to morality and realize that you have broken this law, every day. Mere Christianity boils down to the same old sermon: you are a sinner and you know it, don't you feel bad? Then, when you are properly ashamed you will realize the beauty of the plan of salvation that this deity has revealed through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (which Lewis historically takes for granted)." "In place of Lewis's Law of Morality, more enlightened people would champion reason and kindness: principles that are pliable and human, not rigid and cold. So, now I have to ask myself why I once thought Mere Christianity was so special. Because it told me what I wanted to hear. As a freethinker I am now no longer satisfied with mere assertions, with creative rehashings of myth. Freethought demands evidence in place of analogy, data over dogma." Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
[Goanet] Evidence-Based Religion
Joel wrote: > >I can look around and, once I find them, suggest one or more books >relating to the religion I know best (Christianity). > Dan wrote: > >In response to Santosh's enquiry about a book that deals with >apologetics. > Sidney wrote: > >I agree fully with you that religion can never be about logic. > Thanks guys for your comments and suggestions. Joel, Please provide me with only original sources of evidence, translated in English (would have said "or Konkani", but I don't want to sound more disingenuous than required for this amusing thread:-). Massaged evidence is hard to digest. Dan I have to admit (goodnaturedly, of course) I am a little unsure about buying your book, because the website that sells it claims folks who bought that book also bought a book entitled "Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds":-). The last time I bought a book that was also bought by people who bought the latter book, it was a complete waste of my time and money. It was a book called "Forbidden Archeology" published by the Bhaktivedanta Institute, the premier seminary of the Hare Krishna followers. The authors who were scientists provided us with hard evidence for an ancient Vedic spiritual civilization (circa 1 BC) more advanced than the present material one. Both authors had left Christianity to embrace Krishna consciousness after carefully weighing all available logic and evidence. Now if I could shed my cloak of playful disingenuousness just for this last paragraph, I never understand why people have to be defensive about being religious. Why not say that you believe in your religion because you have a deeply felt intuition about it. It is based on your personal faith. What is so embarrassing about admitting that? Faith in something is always good for your health and peace of mind. Why do you have to engage in this charade that your religious belief is based on logic and evidence? Why do you have to mention that even thinkers and scientists have converted themselves to some evidence-based religion? Why do you need reassurance from a scientist? Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
[Goanet] re: Kashmir killings
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "J. Almeida" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >That is why many thinking people and >scientists become religious after carefully weighing >the logic and evidence. > I would love to know what logic and evidence leads one to believe that there is heaven and hell, that there is one God if you are a Christian, many deities if you are a Hindu, and no God if you are a Buddhist or an atheist. How do you decide in the face of conflicting evidence? Which religion holds the best evidence? would really love to examine the evidence if there is some book that describes it. Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
Re: [Goanet] Kashmir killings
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "J. Almeida" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >Death Toll Cause >50 million Second World War >47 million Mao Zedong >40 million Mongol Conquests >25 million Manchu Conquest >20 million Taiping Rebellion >20 million Anihilation of the American Indians >20 million Iosif Stalin >18 million Atlantic Slave Trade >17 million Timur >15 million First World War >9 million Russian Civil War >9 million Thuggee >7 million Thirty Years War >5 million Congo Free State >3 million Chinese Civil War > > >I cannot decide, on the basis of this evidence, >whether the presence or absence of organized religion >is associated with large-scale violence and death. My >neighbour, an elderly Christian widow, is quite fond >of organized religion: I shall not dissuade her just >yet. > On the basis of this evidence, I can certainly decide that the presence of organized religion has contributed to at least 16 million deaths. The blame for 7 million deaths due to the Thirty Years war and for the 9 million due to Thuggee can be placed squarely on religion. The Thirty Years War was a religious war between the Catholics and the Protestants, fought from 1618 through 1648. It was launched by the Roman Emperor Ferdinand II against Protestantism. Some estimates of the death toll in this war run as high as 14 million. The population of Germany was reduced to one third of its original level at the end of the war. Thuggee was and is still practiced in India in the name of the Hindu goddess Kali. Victims of thuggee are believed to be human sacrifices to this goddess. The killing done in accordance with the proper religious ritual involves strangling a traveller to death, and stealing his/her belongings. Having said that, I do not believe we should get rid of religions, despite all the horrible things that happen in their name, because they are also responsible for a lot of good. I only feel that we should reform them, and rethink what they stand for in the modern society. But like Sunila, I would most definitely want to get rid of all religious barriers between people. I am particularly troubled that even in this day and age all major religions and religious regimes continue to restrict our freedom of thought and expression. Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
Re: [Goanet] Dinesh D'Souza
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Tariq Siddiqui <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >The question is, would we have really been better off? How do we >reach that conclusion? > >Santosh's question therefore, is a double-edged sword, where the >opposite in both cases is a matter of speculation. > While Tariq makes a valid point from a logical standpoint, colonialism hardly has or deserves intellectual parity with the concept of freedom, its polar opposite. Nobody has to defend freedom by engaging in hypothetical historical arguments. Freedom is a basic human right. So the fact that we don't know what our fate would have been had we been free, is no way to rationalize colonialism. I think one has to be pretty desperate to justify colonialism using any kind of argument, any way. Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
Re: [Goanet] Dinesh D'Souza
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], George Pinto <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > ?So here they are: two cheers for colonialism!? GEORGE: ZERO CHEERS > > I have not much time right now to respond substantively to the shameless defense of colonialism by Dinesh D?Souza, but I cannot let an apologetic for such a despicable invention of mankind get away without being refuted. So I will make a brief comment on his article. Having quickly read this article, I feel that it engages in a rather transparent form of post-hoc reasoning, which rests on a fallacious and fundamentally bankrupt argument. The argument goes: I like what is happening to me and around me, so even though some bad things happened to my ancestors for no fault of theirs, it was good that these things happened, because I am better for it. Post-hoc reasoning can justify almost anything ? even murder. You can never know what might have happened if things had happened differently. And since uncertainty combined with ignorance are a good recipe for drawing negative conclusions about alternative scenarios, it is not much of a burden to write an article which on its face looks like a reasonable argument for defending the status quo, and a predatory and destructive concept such as colonialism. To illustrate the hollowness of the argument that D?Souza puts forth, here?s an excerpt from the article: ?Only years later, after a great deal of reflection and a fair amount of study, did the answer finally hit me. The reason for our difference of perception was that colonialism had been pretty bad for him (D?Souza?s grandfather), but pretty good for me. Another way to put it was that colonialism had injured those who lived under it, but paradoxically it proved beneficial to their descendants. Much as it chagrins me to admit it -- and much as it will outrage many third-world intellectuals for me to say it -- my life would have been much worse had the British never ruled India.? Now how does he know that his life would have been much worse had the British never ruled India? Has he peered into the annals of alternative history? Cheers, Santosh P.S. I will try to post a more detailed rejoinder to his article later, if time permits me to do it. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
[Goanet] The Marriage of the Pets (Chapter 3)
The last chapter in this saga began abruptly and ended even more quickly, before the bull could sense what hit him. Like the terrorist attacks that befell this great nation of Chimbel, the events that transpired at the top secret private meeting between the bull, the sentient being, and the President's people who use "bull", the verbal instrument, in the art of sophistry accompanying political and business dealings, forever changed two ordinary lives. By the time the bull emerged from the meeting his mind was thrust into such a quagmire that he wished he had joined a circus as a professional juggler juggling contradictory ideas for a living. He was carrying in his hands a hurriedly typed rough draft of a summary of the minutes of the meeting, which required him to sign an agreement: The draft read: "The President's decision regarding the issue of the interspecies marriage between Mr. Boil and Mrs. Bokdi-Boil is as follows: (Pandurang had no clue about the specifics of any of this. He was not yet able to say "interspecies", but he was going to be working on it. He would be happy if he could say some of the words in this statement, let alone remember them.) This union is in the national interest. It is the only union of common working people that is in the national interest. It addresses the central social and economic issues of our lives. The proposal of Mr. Boil to have a mixed breed calf or calves is a good one, because it is pro-life. Such calves would also benefit our economy, because they would provide a new resource for the agricultural and food industry, struggling to market products to consumers whose dietary habits have expanded due to the communal harmony generated by Hindus having been forcibly converted to Christianity, and Christians having been forced to adopt Hindu ways and first names, for fear of being scapegoated or lynched by patriots. The first McDonald's restaurant to be opened in Chimbel has already patented the rights to sell "Bokboilburger" in four self-explanatory varieties, trademarked McBokboil, McBoilbok, McGaibok and McBokgai. The overseas trade assessment by our experts suggests that substantial commercial activity can be generated by marketing this new form of livestock to Muslims (those who we determine are against the terrorists), and the Goan and Indian Hindus (those who deny they are for the terrorists) who have adopted western ways. We have always been bothered by the fact that we have not been able to take advantage of the commercial benefits of cloning and embryonic stem cells because of our politically fruitful pro-life agenda. We did not want to terminate a life created by God through a natural union. But we believe God would not mind if we used lives created through perverted unnatural unions. So we believe we can continue to be pro-life, and allow unrestricted cloning and embryonic stem cell use, as long as it is conducted on an interspecies union. Towards this end, a prominent multinational company that has had some financial trouble recently, but is nevertheless known for its ability to be lucrative for everybody, has diversified into the agricultural and food sector by forming a new subsidiary, appropriately named Embryon, Inc. This company will have their head office in the Independent Republic of Chimbel, for which they will receive the appropriate tax breaks. Mr. Boil and Mrs. Bokdi-Boil who have never received a tax cut and who have never had the privilege of donating for a political cause will receive both for their role in this enterprise. In conclusion, there is the minor issue of the likelihood of loss of life of the goat during delivery, should a bokodgai or bokodboil be born. But we have concluded that sacrificing a goat in the national interest is a small price to pay. The President of the Independent Republic of Chimbel therefore issues an executive order to Mr. Boil and Mrs. Bokdi-Boil to be the patriots that, we are sure, they always wanted to be and kindly sign the requisite documents in the national interest of this great country." ___ Thus the story of the bull and the goat was not just the lost last chapter of "Animal Farm", but it was also the first chapter of "A Brave New World" part deux, which was going to be inaugurated with a small involuntary sacrifice of a goat at an altar sanctifying the backdoor fusion between religious conservatism and avaricious capitalism, presided over by a clueless cowherd, whose wandering mind was incapable of spotting the many seemingly insignificant detours around the separation of the Church and the State, and the excesses of profit-minded special interests motivated by greed. _ The End Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscr
[Goanet] The Marriage of the Pets (Chapter 2)
I apologize for inadvertently posting the first chapter twice. Here is Chapter 2. THE MARRIAGE OF THE PETS (continuation) President Pandurang was not very thrilled about meeting another special interest couple who did not have money to buy a single plate at a fund-raising dinner. He would rather play goddianim in the backyard of his Dhovi Khopti. But his advisors told him that this was a unique photo-opportunity, because he had never been photographed with a transvestite bull and a photogenic goat before. He only had to remember not to make an ass of himself, which by now had become a familiar sight, especially when using his own words in speaking to others. Like King Solomon and the physicists, Pandurang liked simple answers to complex questions. But unlike them, his need for simplicity was dictated by the shallowness of his mind and the limitations of his knowledge and vocabulary. If wisdom had anything to do with it, it was invariably an afterthought ascribed to his babbling statements by his promoters. He constantly discovered new words, and rapidly forgot them, and often wondered why people thought they were cheap. All this was perhaps because, as a cowherd there was very little that could be considered to be within the scope of his field of expertise, and as a simpleton, only simple thoughts could populate his mind. He had what he called a list of priorities, and he was very proud that he could say that word. In reality it was a cue card with a list of politically expedient "either-or" dichotomies that encompassed the political spectrum, prepared for him by a guy who was paid a hefty sum for each word that he wrote. At the top of this list was "a welfare recipient or a potential donor", followed immediately by "a terrorist or a patriot", "an evildoer or a conservative", "a minimum wage or a tax cut", "an abortionist or a pro-lifer", "a feminist or a man of God", "a pervert or a religious man", "an evolutionist or a believer", "an environmentalist or a bar owner", etc. He was instructed by his handlers that everything on the right side of the list was good and right, and everything on the left side was bad and wrong. There is good and bad, right and wrong and there is with us or with the terrorists. These three basic dichotomies, he could not afford to forget. He often said, having rehearsed it several times, that he was a believer who had beliefs, and they were good beliefs, which he knew were always right. The photo-opportunity with the bull and the goat took place at the President's weekend retreat in the chuttanchi khopti in the Manshevoilem sheth. The President had been briefed on all the details about the central material problem in the life of the ruminant couple. He had not followed much of what he was told, but he had gone along with it to avoid embarrassment. His advisors were already working on a practical neoconservative copitalist solution. So the meeting with President Pandurang was brief and mainly involved him posing before the cameras, as if he was fully conversant with all the issues. Pandurang began, stealing a quick glance at his list of priorities: "Both you and your wife are good men. Your hearts are good. You are right, not wrong. You are with us, not with the terrorists?". "Yes Sir", the bull responded. Pandurang continued: "My people are working on your problem. We have to reform your farewell .. I mean welfare ... welfare recipient situation and make you a potential donor. They will meet with you, Mr. Boil, in private in a few days and give you our proposal. It will be a secret meeting. Everything will be classified. We like to always meet with one party, the one who believes in our beliefs. The one who is on our side. The one who is not with the terrorists." "But?", the goat tried to interject. Ignoring her, Pandurang dragged on, becoming more and more pleased with himself, with each new word that he could say unaided: "We followed this uummm principle when we framed our energy policy. We let the cameriam make their own bhorre by cutting down live trees and drying the branches to solve our energy shortage. So we are treating you the same. Mr. Boil, you are not a feminist. You are a pro-lifer. You are not a terrorist. You are a man of God. You are a religious man, not an evildoer. We don't want to smoke you out of a cave. You are not building weapons of mass destruction. I know the cross-dressing can be a problem. But it is a minor perversion. The priests wear robes, any way, which makes it hard sometimes to know if they are men or women. But like the priests, you are a believer. You are a good man. I like this moral clarity. So Mr. Boil come back and see us." Faced with this halting but authoritative lecture from a man who had ambled into the Dhovi Khopti while meandering through the fields of Chimbel watching over grazing cows, the bull and the goat could do nothing but nod in submissive assent. Just before they were ushered out of the door, they
[Goanet] The Marriage of the Pets (Chapter 1)
I present below the second part of the Post-Marriage Story that resulted from George Pinto's elaboration of a Bambino Martins riddle involving a Goan Bhatcar, his two sons, and three pets, on the Goan Forum. This part deals with what happened after the cow married the goat in George's elaboration of Bambino's riddle. I would like to warn readers that this is a long post, and presented here in three chapters because of length limitations. Some of the statements in this story are only relevant in the context of a discussion between three other contributors to the Goan Forum, but the subject matter should be of interest to everybody. THE MARRIAGE OF THE PETS The two creatures that are the subjects of this story were excluded from the opportunity to savor the subjective perspective offered by a theoretical pantheist religion, because their masters thought that they could not think for themselves. So the poor ruminant beings spent their lives ruminating on their own, unable to express their views in any forum. They had to settle for loving and caring for each other, and quietly solving the material problems of their lives, for which thankfully they received at least one generous undirected salute on The Goan Forum. As if the treatment that they received in the Goan bhatcar's household was not enough, their private lives and their marriage were unfortunately subjected to a smear campaign initiated by a hastily formed Silicon Valley internet rag mag startup company whose aggressive accounting practices, we have now learned, are exemplified by the equation "2+2=5". One of the early casualties of this media-generated morass of confusion was the sexual orientation of the cow. The cow was not a cow or gay as reported. He was a transvestite bull who had a fairly healthy, albeit somewhat awkward, heterosexual love affair with the goat before marriage. Any awkwardness that was there in the physical relationship was adequately remedied by the cross-dressing, which provided a prosthetic benefit in facilitating the many recreational activities conducted by the ruminant pair. If you have not already guessed it, this union was one where the need for recreation superseded the need for procreation, because of the very practical uncertainty about the identity and size of the offspring. For this thoughtful choice they were once considered for the "Freedom from Cynicism and Insensitivity Award" of the Independent Republic of Chimbel. However, like most marriages this one also had to sooner or later face a minor crisis. The predicament began when the bovine husband received that annoying phone call in the middle of the night, this time claiming that recreational sex was a conspiracy hatched by liberal intellectuals, and artificial birth control, a money-making scheme launched by the scientific establishment still rooted in the cultural context of the socialist university dorms of the sixties, but tempted by the irrational capitalist exuberance of the nineties. The seeds of guilt sown by this phone call and other similar ones, each containing familiar but slightly different liberally used quotes of a conservative British intellectual whose name escaped the caller, ate at the unrecognized conscience of the bull, who began wondering if he was indeed wasting his own seeds. The "spilling of seeds on the ground" he had heard had displeased God and caused Him to slay Onan, although the phone calls never mentioned this. Tormented by these progressive thoughts that had found their way in his otherwise imprisoned mind, not having received the benefit of a passionate and subjective freedom that can only come from an ultraconservative religious upbringing, the bull in cow's clothing wondered how he would broach the topic with his beloved bundle of mutton. But with appropriate deftness and lack of condescension that would make his co-travelers (even those who have long since got off his bandwagon to join a real band) filled with delight, he laid out his problem before his caprine wife, proceeding with great caution to make sure she would not be paralyzed by his analysis. So with the right amount of confluence of streams of emotion and reason, to create warmth like the kind you only feel in a bathtub fitted with properly functioning hot and cold faucets in a vacation resort in the Bahamas, where they like to entertain people with a 2 night stay in a five star hotel, with a promise not to engage in a face-to-face argument, even if the guest is the elusive Raul, he mooed: "My dear bokdi, we are getting old, and I think we have had enough fun. We have to think about our future, our posterity and our legacy. Don't you think we should have a calf?", slightly apprehensive that he might have caused his wife to spend many a sleepless night juggling contradictory ideas, when her mind and her hooves could be on something better. The wife, startled by the tone of her husband's newly found voice as much as the content of his first re
[Goanet] The Marriage of the Pets (Chapter 1)
I present below the second part of the Post-Marriage Story that resulted from George Pinto's elaboration of a Bambino Martins riddle involving a Goan Bhatcar, his two sons, and three pets, on the Goan Forum. This part deals with what happened after the cow married the goat in George's elaboration of Bambino's riddle. I would like to warn readers that this is a long post, and presented here in three chapters because of length limitations. Some of the statements in this story are only relevant in the context of a discussion between three other contributors to the Goan Forum, but the subject matter should be of interest to everybody. THE MARRIAGE OF THE PETS The two creatures that are the subjects of this story were excluded from the opportunity to savor the subjective perspective offered by a theoretical pantheist religion, because their masters thought that they could not think for themselves. So the poor ruminant beings spent their lives ruminating on their own, unable to express their views in any forum. They had to settle for loving and caring for each other, and quietly solving the material problems of their lives, for which thankfully they received at least one generous undirected salute on The Goan Forum. As if the treatment that they received in the Goan bhatcar's household was not enough, their private lives and their marriage were unfortunately subjected to a smear campaign initiated by a hastily formed Silicon Valley internet rag mag startup company whose aggressive accounting practices, we have now learned, are exemplified by the equation "2+2=5". One of the early casualties of this media-generated morass of confusion was the sexual orientation of the cow. The cow was not a cow or gay as reported. He was a transvestite bull who had a fairly healthy, albeit somewhat awkward, heterosexual love affair with the goat before marriage. Any awkwardness that was there in the physical relationship was adequately remedied by the cross-dressing, which provided a prosthetic benefit in facilitating the many recreational activities conducted by the ruminant pair. If you have not already guessed it, this union was one where the need for recreation superseded the need for procreation, because of the very practical uncertainty about the identity and size of the offspring. For this thoughtful choice they were once considered for the "Freedom from Cynicism and Insensitivity Award" of the Independent Republic of Chimbel. However, like most marriages this one also had to sooner or later face a minor crisis. The predicament began when the bovine husband received that annoying phone call in the middle of the night, this time claiming that recreational sex was a conspiracy hatched by liberal intellectuals, and artificial birth control, a money-making scheme launched by the scientific establishment still rooted in the cultural context of the socialist university dorms of the sixties, but tempted by the irrational capitalist exuberance of the nineties. The seeds of guilt sown by this phone call and other similar ones, each containing familiar but slightly different liberally used quotes of a conservative British intellectual whose name escaped the caller, ate at the unrecognized conscience of the bull, who began wondering if he was indeed wasting his own seeds. The "spilling of seeds on the ground" he had heard had displeased God and caused Him to slay Onan, although the phone calls never mentioned this. Tormented by these progressive thoughts that had found their way in his otherwise imprisoned mind, not having received the benefit of a passionate and subjective freedom that can only come from an ultraconservative religious upbringing, the bull in cow's clothing wondered how he would broach the topic with his beloved bundle of mutton. But with appropriate deftness and lack of condescension that would make his co-travelers (even those who have long since got off his bandwagon to join a real band) filled with delight, he laid out his problem before his caprine wife, proceeding with great caution to make sure she would not be paralyzed by his analysis. So with the right amount of confluence of streams of emotion and reason, to create warmth like the kind you only feel in a bathtub fitted with properly functioning hot and cold faucets in a vacation resort in the Bahamas, where they like to entertain people with a 2 night stay in a five star hotel, with a promise not to engage in a face-to-face argument, even if the guest is the elusive Raul, he mooed: "My dear bokdi, we are getting old, and I think we have had enough fun. We have to think about our future, our posterity and our legacy. Don't you think we should have a calf?", slightly apprehensive that he might have caused his wife to spend many a sleepless night juggling contradictory ideas, when her mind and her hooves could be on something better. The wife, startled by the tone of her husband's newly found voice as much as the content of his first re
Re: [Goanet] Ancestral Home Remedies
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "Aloysius D'Souza" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > and we can make a fortune selling these remedies when the world's >scientists reach the acme of the antibiotic and the germs continue to >build resistance to these antibiotics -- we started with >penicillin, then tetrcyclines, then chloramphenicol, them >omnicycline, now nopflox, each more powerful than the last -- >eventually we have reached a stage where we are taking a huge mallet >to kill an ant and end up bashing our own toes. > We can certainly provide a list of home remedies without disseminating gratuitous misinformation about genuinely effective modern treatments. It is important to know that most antibiotics are every bit as natural as any of the household herbal remedies. They were and are still obtained from various types of molds (fungi). All of the above-mentioned antibiotics are still widely used, and save countless lives everyday. Scientists develop new antibiotics for several reasons, all of which have the common purpose of maximizing benefit to the patient while reducing harm. A newer "more powerful" (whatever that means) antibiotic is not more harmful. In most cases it reduces the number of doses and the length of treatment, and thereby increases patient compliance, which in turn decreases the chances of developing resistant bacterial strains. The discovery of antibiotics and their rational use in modern treatment is a pivotal event in the history of our civilization. That single event has contributed to the increase in our life expectancy more than any other event. Home remedies and other kinds of quackery have existed since the Stone Age. All they have done realistically is provide us with some interesting (and in some cases somewhat compelling) anecdotes. They have contributed diddly-squat to human health on a global scale. Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
Re:[Goanet] Ancestral Home Remedies
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], bernadine decosta <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >Yeahwe need to compile all these remedies so that >our future generations can always put them to use - >these are far less harmful than modern day medicines, >antibiotics etc., > Not if you count the careful and caring application of cowdung on the freshly cut umbilical cord of an infant. Those who have encountered this seemingly harmless act of healing have more often than not found out that the curative powers of cowdung, if any, are well masked by its smell and its potential to produce tetanus. It is important not to go overboard with the mythical effectiveness and harmlessness of home remedies. Somebody has to compile them because of their cultural value - their value as a heartwarming component of our rich tradition, and for sheer amusement. But as for their usefulness in the treatment of genuine medical conditions, their chances of therapeutic success might charitably be slightly better than of music curing an AIDS patient. And many of these remedies can pose a significant threat to one's life. For example, another addition to stomping breech boy and other home remedies is a deceptively innocuous and silly little Goan folk remedy, whose name I consider to be a triumph of our homegrown Goan imagination. This remedy is fittingly called mithacho goo (Hey, this did pass Herman's filter!). It's use, as far as I know, is limited to little girls with infected newly pierced noses. The whole idea behind this remedy is to separate the dirt from common salt, and apply it to the purulent bleb on the pierced nose of a hapless child. In every instance that I have seen it used, the poor victim ended up with a nose twice as infected and horribly swollen, crying to be rescued by the dreaded antibiotics. Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
[Goanet] re: Ancestral remedies & Santosh
Jose wrote: > Dear Santosh, > > do you remember a "treatment" for childhood asthma > which as doing its rounds in Goai.e. The hapless > child was made to drink blood of a chameleon? > It's not a chameleon Jose. It is some kind of a monitor lizard. In Konkani I believe it is called gaar. Yes, I do remember that cure well, although I never had a first-hand experience of it. In retrospect, I would have loved to have that memory rather than the experience. Actually, there is another asthma remedy from other parts of the world that is more amusing to me than the blood of gaar, and that is swallowing a whole live fish. Have you seen that being done? Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
Re: [Goanet] Ancestral Home Remedies
Sunila wrote: > >Boil water with a handful of coriander and cummin (jeera) seeds. >Strain and cool down. > >No time to write the book, but if anybody is really interested in >doing so, Good Luck. > Paddy wrote: > >I am curious if anyone has similar or other experiences and if there >is any ascribable reason for their relief. Santosh usually offers >valuable insight on such matters :-) > I was thoroughly amused by Paddy's reminiscences of a breach boy stomping on somebody's aching back. It certainly beats mine of a 6 year-old being chased around the house by a tyrannical (in a loving sort of way) grandmother with a can of "hingachem aajuth" in her thick firm hands. That is one instance of childhood trauma that I must admit I love to reminisce with great fondness. I would like to extend Paddy's and Sunila's wonderful lists of home remedies with the following nostrums from my late grandmother's IRCP (Independent Republic of Chimbel Pharmacopeia). Besides the monthly pure Shankarchhaap hingachem aajuth (Shankar brand asafoetida warm water enema), there was the weekly (every Sunday morning) kiraitiachem kodu vokhoth (medicated bitter water drained from boiled kiraitem leaves). These were supposed to flush the alimentary canal clean at both its unruly ends. But there were times when even these well-guarded ends did not justify the meals. For such occasions my grandma had the aalem-limbacho ros (ground ginger in lime juice with added salt). I now use this concoction as an appetizer, because if you ever need an excuse to eat something, believe me a taste of this juice in your mouth provides you one. For headaches, there was the soonth kaadop (paste of dried ginger smeared on the forehead). As it turns out, I have formed a Pavlovian association between the smell of soonth and my grandmother's face. She would have this stuff plastered on her forehead almost every evening, a small wonder after having spent the day haggling over the catch of the day with itinerant fisherwomen. There were of course the ubiquitous hot compresses and laying of cold hands, along with the mini-exorcisms (disht kaadop - some dried red chillies and salt drawn around the head and body, and then thrown away). And then there was the ganjanacho kasai (lemon grass tea). This one I liked. But it was reserved for the common cold with cough. I will end this post by mentioning one whose appeal to common intuition I have never been able to figure out. I think it was used when I was really sick and bedridden. It involved tying a few cloves of garlic in a knot around my belly. This, coupled with the no-bath- when-sick policy imposed on me, meant I stank of garlic for quite a while afterwards. I always had the nagging suspicion that this was meant to ground me for a few days. My grandparents couldn't bear to see me play. Thinking about these ancestral home remedies as a grown man with some education and with some ability to reason, I would have to conclude that these wonderful treatments are more of nostalgic than therapeutic value, unless of course you are of the type for whom nostalgia is panacea. It would be such a pleasure to read a compilation of Goan folk remedies. Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
Fwd: [Goanet] Chemistry Problem
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Daniel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >"A solution containing 30 gms of non volatile solube in 90 gms of >water has a vapour pressure of 21.85mm of mercury at 25 degrees >centigrade. Further 18 gms of water is then added to the solution the >resulting solution has a vapour pressure of 22.15 mm of mercury at 25 >degrees centrigade. Calculate the molecular weight of the solute." > Daniel, First, I hope this is not your homework. Use the Raoult's Law: Assuming the solute is a non-electrolyte, the RL equation is P1 = X1*P0 where P1 is the vapor pressure of solution, X1 is the mole fraction of the solvent, P0 is the vapor pressure of pure solvent, and * is the notation for multiplication. The mole fraction of solvent (water) can be calculated as follows: X1 = Mw/(Ms+Mw) where Mw is moles of solvent (water), Ms is moles of solute, and / is the notation for division. Since Moles = mass/molecular weight , 90 gm of water is 90/18 = 5 moles and 90+18 = 108 gm of water is 108/18 = 6 moles. Substitute these values and your other data in the RL equation to get two equations as follows: 21.85 = (5/(Ms+5))*P0 and 22.15 = (6/(Ms+6))*P0 Solve these equations to get: Ms = 0.442 to 3 decimal places Since Moles = mass/molecular weight; 0.442 = 30/molecular weight of solute. Solve this to get: Molecular weight of solute = 67.87 to 2 decimal places. Clap, Clap, Clap! Cheers, Santosh P.S. Please check the calculations. I did them hurriedly. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
Re: [Goanet] Siddhis, Sudras & Slavery!
Sunila wrote: > >The caste system started as a flexible professional recognition >system. Four main professions namely kshatriya (kings), vani >(merchants), brahmin (scholars), shudras(other services) were >recognised. It was flexible and a person could >change his/her profession without a problem. > I don't know to what extent the above historical justification has any kind of objective validity, considering the current desire for revisionist thinking among Vedic scholars. But there is now strong objective evidence for the idea that the discrimination between the higher and lower castes might have been motivated by racism. Furthermore, this evidence completely rules out the above contention that "a person could change his/her profession (caste) without a problem". I am referring here to a genetic study conducted recently by scientists at the University of Utah on several Indian population groups belonging to different castes. I believe a news report on this study was circulated on this or some other Goan mailing list. This study found that the members of the higher castes (Brahmins, Kshatriyas and Vaishyas) are genetically similar to white Eastern Europeans, and substantially different from the members of the lower castes (various Shudra subcastes). The Shudras and tribals have significant genetic similarities with Africans and Asians. The case appears to be pretty strong that the caste system was the earliest form of skin color-based racist apartheid system, as Jose Colaco proposes in his article on Colaco.Net. Cheers, Santosh =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet === For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
