Google Dependence and Withdrawal...

Have we become too dependent on Google and its subsidiary products?

I have absolutely no doubt that I’m addicted to Google. To its search engine, its mail system, calendar, docs, reader, G+ and even blogger! Since Tuesday morning, I have not had access to my Google Account and thus, all the Google Apps that I use regularly (regularly, in this case, means about 10 times a day). The reason for this malfunction (and oversight on my part) is that due to all the things that I have on Google, I use a higher security system to access it called the 2-way verification. This means that after I input my password, a text is sent to my cellphone with a code that I have to input into my computer (Only when accessed from a new IP address). If you would note, this is something banks generally do when you buy something online. Ever since I came back to Singapore 3 weeks ago, I haven’t logged in on my own computer since I never log out in the first place so it was never an issue. When my friend logged me out to check her email on Tuesday, I realised I couldn’t log back in as I left my sim card in UK and Google finally realised that I was running on a different IP address. I realised that I didn’t give Google a back-up phone number and my back-up email address wasn’t receiving any emails as everything was forwarded to Gmail. Thus, my life was effectively ruined. Not being dramatic. Just over.

Through all of Tuesday, I tried to forget about it although my friends and family thought it’d be hilarious to make fun of my dependence. But it’s 8:30pm on Wednesday night and I’m not kidding but I’m going through some serious withdrawal symptoms. I’m depressed, lost my appetite, have a headache, indulged in retail therapy and don’t feel any better. This is an addiction. Fine, I admit it. But the fear that I might lose all that information terrifies me.

So the question remains, have we (the human race who have computers and internet) become too dependent on Google?

In the wake of Google's weekend error that labeled the entire Web as malware, some like CMS Watch analyst Kas Thomas are asking a provocative and timely question: have we become too dependent on Google?

One wonders: If Google were to go down (or become essentially unusable -- same thing) for, say, 72 hours or more, how disruptive would it be to the economy? Would online retailers see a slowdown in business? Would job-seekers remain out of work longer? Would the productivity of information workers (who supposedly spend a couple hours per day doing online searches) be seriously affected?

Sometimes even the most highly distributed, highly virtualized, "enterprise-hardened" infrastructure is no stronger than its weakest component. And quite often, the weakest component is human. That's never going to change--cloud or no cloud.

In the case of the Google error, which was caused by a simple human mistake, the world arguably went its merry way without serious disruption. But it's a fair question, and the same one formerly raised about Microsoft's dominance on the desktop. When one company dominates a market so completely, does it become an essential facility and hence require government regulation to ensure that it doesn't bottleneck the economy?

I'm not sure. I tend to eschew government regulation whenever possible, and I'd hate to see Google significantly constrained by U.S. oversight. Even so, the weekend snafu demonstrates just how vulnerable Google is to attack, as well as how susceptible we'd be to going down with Google.

Yes, other search engines are just a click away, but with more and more people enveloping their online lives with Google products (Gmail, News, Finance, Reader, etc.), an error in one aspect of Google's product suite could have a domino effect on all of them, and significantly hamper productivity until Google fixes the source error.

Even so, the answer to Microsoft's dominance wasn't regulation: it was competition. Google, too, will face increased competition on the Web, so perhaps the answer to the concern is simply to wait. Over time, open source and other trends will no doubt diminish the relevance of Google's stranglehold in online search.

But for now, I can't help but feel a little vulnerable.

Lol.

Lemons, Life & Many Questions

If life gives you lemon, make lemonade.

Why? What’s wrong with lemons? Why do I have to make lemonade? The way I see it, if life gives you lemons, that’s pretty good because you got yourself some free lemons and why do you have to use them in some way? Life thinks about you and gives you something for free, even after all the irreparable damage we have caused and how hard we’ve seemingly tried to destroy this planet. The idea that we always have to turn lemons into something else seems pretty rude when we look at it in this light. There are times when a lemon would be useful, right? If you were in a desert, would you be picky about where you satiated your thirst from?

I like lemons. And if you don’t like lemons, then how can you like lemonade? I guess you coud add sugar to it but what if life didn’t give you sugar?  And why do you need sugar…oh wait, because you put all those ice cubes in it, watering down its lemony flavour. Wait, where did you get ice? Oh and what if life didn’t give you a glass?

I read somewhere (sorry I forget) and it made me think; this saying is a fitting metaphor for our species’ obsession with consumerism and manufacturing nature into a mass produced package. We get something for free (lemons) from our kind and generous Earth and instead of just using what we need and leaving the rest, we manufacture it and force Earth to make more and more. Well, originally the idea came because we could feed the hungry but why are they hungry in the first place? Our society is based on large-scale agriculture, which reaps huge surplus of food: increasing any given population’s food supply results in a population increase. Doh. Ok, but then we get what we need, population increases, we run out, population dies (just like every other animal in the ecosystem). Nope. Humans took the agricultured land and ‘developed’ it to make room for cities and set up all the mining and deforestation operations that are required to support the mass production industry.

Ok. So the same land that used to give us lemons (for free) can’t support us any longer because you wanted your DAMN lemonade! Our air is polluted, 200 species a day become extinct because of the factories that you need to make aluminium cans and cardboard boxes to package the lemonade? ‘And the Earth is bleeding under the oceans and the ozone layer is being depleted and the ice caps are melting and countries are perpetually bombing each other because of all the petroleum you need to fuel all the trucks and planes you built to transport the lemonade to thousands of corporate distributors worldwide?’

Sometimes sayings become so cliché and I understand that the true meaning is a motivational thing to make something positive when you’re handed something that you don’t like in life. Looking at the bright side is great and of all people, I’m usually the last to say this, but sometimes we should look at the other side. If life gives you lemons, just be thankful you got something.

Bonus (Alternate saying):

When life gives you lemons, be sure to send a hand written thank you note for the lemons, as email thank you notes can appear to be less sincere.

When life gives you lemons suck out all of the vitamin C and yell “EAT THAT, LIFE!

When life gives you lemons ask for salt and tequila!

When life gives you lemons, make orange juice, then wonder how the heck you did it.

When life gives you lemons, collect them one day life will stop and u would have the most lemons ever.

When life hands you lemons make lemonade and find someone else who life handed vodka to, and have a party

When life gives you lemons alter their DNA and make super lemons!!!

When life gives you lemons sell them on ebay,

When life gives you lemons when no one is looking, throw them through life’s window and run away.

When life gives you lemons, squirt the juice in his eye

When life gives you lemons, find a kid with a paper cut

When life gives you lemons, ask for the receipt

The James Bond Shower

A Shot of Cold Water for Health and Vitality  

James Bond always starts off his water (in the shower) nice and hot and then, turn it down to cold for the last few minutes. Perhaps a subtle way to illustrate Bond’s ancestry since this type of shower is sometimes known as the ‘Scottish Shower’ (although many cultures have this routine).

Hilarious History (as it usually is)

Hot water used to be a luxury in the ancient times, unless you lived near hot springs, so for most of human history, people bathed in cold water. However, even after the Greeks invented a heating system for their public baths, they continued cold showers for health benefits. Although they also made ill people bleed or induced vomit…

During the first century, the Finnish would sweat it out in the ancient version of a sauna and then, jump into an ice-cold stream or lake, a past-time also known as icehole swimming and still enjoyed by modern Finns and Scandinavians. And by those stupid Americans in movies, who fall into the ice, get stuck and die.

I'm still considering whether or not to add this to my bucket list. What say?

Many other cultures also incorporated cold water dousing during religious ceremonies. Native American tribes would alternate between sweating it out in a sweat lodge and jumping into a snow bank. Ancient Russians also took frequent plunges for health and spiritual cleansings. Who’s betting that Vodka was involved? Japanese Shinto practitioners would stand under an icy waterfall as a part of a ritual called Misogi to cleanse their spirit and is still practiced today.

In the 1820s, a German farmer named Vincenz Priessnitz started touting a new medical treatment called ‘hydrotherapy’ which used cold water to cure everything from broken bones to erectile dysfunction. Shhh…Don’t tell the pharmaceutical companies, they’ve got billions of dollars in this research! He converted his house into a sanitarium and patients flocked to it in the hope that his cold water cure could help them. Why couldn’t they just take long cold water baths? This soon spread to the rest of Europe and United States and people took to it like a duck to water - haha get it? – Charles Darwin was one of them (a chronically sick guy in addition to coming up with evolution). By the end of the 19^th century, there were over 200 hydrotherapy/sanitarium  resorts in the US, the most famous founded by John Harvey Kellogs (Inventor of corn flakes, preacher of circumcision to prevent self-abuse and great believer in the power of enemas).

What is practised in the name of hydrotherapy these days. Just looks like a $60 bath.

Although its popularity declined over the 20^th century as more physicians started to adopt allopathic medicine rather than holistic approaches which were seen as pseudo-hokum. While ice-cold baths are not prescribed for illness cures, they are still used to treat injuries such as sprained muscles and broken bones.

Real Benefits of a Cold Shower

1. Jump-start your mood and motivation
2. Deepen your breathing
3. Keep your hair healthy
4. Help with insomnia (although warm showers are also known for doing the same thing)
5. Detoxify your body
6. Rejuvenate, heal, and tone the skin
7. Enhance immunity against infections and cancer
8. Give your glands (thyroid, adrenal, ovaries/testes) a boost, improving hormonal activity
9. Crank up your metabolism to fight type 2 diabetes, obesity, gout, rheumatic diseases etc…
10. Increase testosterone and also virility
11. Reduce stress by regulating your autonomic nervous system
12. Strengthen exhausted, irritable nerves
13. Normalize your blood pressure
14. Train and improve your blood circulation
15. Fight fatigue
16. Improve kidney function
17. Reduce swelling and oedema
18. Improve lymphatic circulation, thereby increasing immune function
19. Regulate temperature, fighting chronically cold hands and cold feet and excessive sweating
20. Improve haemorrhoids and varicose veins
21. Decrease chronic pain
22. Reduce aches and pains

People who shouldn't try this: If you have the following conditions – heart disease, high blood pressure, overheated or feverish

Steps for the perfect James Bond Shower

1. Start off with the hot water.
2. Wash your hair with some Pinaud Elixir shampoo, just like 007.
3. When you’re ready to rinse, turn on the cold water. Bond would spend a few minutes under the cold water, meditating about a lost love or on how awesome his job is.
4. As you walk out of the shower, kill the hitman that’s been hiding in the closet using nothing by a towel and a Scotch glass.
5. Say a pithy one liner and proceed to put on a tux.

My personal advice (if anyone cares), is take it with a pinch of salt. If you want to try this, gradually decrease the temperature so your body can adjust.

Most importantly, listen to your body, it knows best. 

Top 10 Medical Breakthroughs of 2011

Courtesy of TIME Specials

1. Scientists use cloning to create stem cells

Not exactly human cloning but not too shabby either. A variation of somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) was used on human cells; the same technique that created Dolly except from ewe skin cells. SCNT replaces the egg cell’s genetic material with a mature cell’s DNA. The egg cell then is stimulated to divide and if it develops fully, it produces a genetically identical clone of the animal from which the mature cell was taken.

At the New York Stem Cell Foundation, they modified the technique recently and instead of replacing the egg’s DNA, they combined it with the mature cell’s genetic material. Something about this seemed to click and appeared to facilitate cell division and allow stem cell generation. However, the stem cells weren’t quite normal since they contained an extra set of chromosomes (the ones from the original egg).

The researchers hope to find a way to silence or eliminate the extra set of DNA. But there seems to be a lot of promise as potentially yielding stem cells means that we could, one day, treat diseases such as Parkinson’s and spinal cord injuries that match their donor but also erase the need for an embryo.

 

2. First ever Malaria vaccine

A vaccine tested in children in sub-Saharan Africa cut the risk of infection with malaria by about half. Considering there has never bee a vaccine against a human parasite before, or against malaria (which infects millions of children each year), this is a remarkable achievement. Scientists reported that the experimental vaccine known as RTS,S was 56% effective in protecting children aged 5 to 17 months from infection with malaria a year after immunisation and also 47% effective in preventing severe case of the disease. Although the trial is not complete, the infants (aged 6 to 12 weeks) who have been vaccinated are going to be followed. This age group would be the target population (if it proves effective). Clinical trials are a long and laboured process and the age groups would be followed for three years to determine how long protection lasts and to track malarial infections, if any.

While encouraging, public health officials are still on the fence as whether to warrant widespread immunisation in malaria-endemic areas. Vaccines against childhood infections such as measles usually reach efficacy rates of 70% to more than 90%.

 

3. HIV Prevention as Treatment

HIV treatment has come a long way, thanks to anti-retroviral drugs (ARV) than can lower the virus levels in the body, keeping people healthy and reducing the risk of HIV transmission. Recently, studies are showing that the same treatment drugs can also help protect HIV-free people from becoming infected in the first place. Inn 2011, two ground-breaking trials (the first with heterosexual men and women) showed that HIV free people were significantly less likely to become infected if they took ARV drug Truvada every day.

In the developing world, where most new infections occur in heterosexual couples, using ARVs could help curb the AIDs epidemic. Public health officials face significant challenges to make ARVs widely available but if they can, beating AIDs is a real possibility.

4. Food pyramid becomes a plate

Every five years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services update its Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA). This year's update, released in June, unveiled MyPlate, its new symbol for healthy eating to replace the well-meaning but confusing food pyramid. The circular MyPlate departs from the original triangular shape and better represents the average person’s place. Health officials hope that the symbols’s clear and simple visual cues will prompt healthier eating choices.

5. Body Parts grown in the Lab

Mary Shelley may have been on to something as the Wake Forest Institute of Regenerative Medicine recently created real functioning body parts like the urethra.The urethra is the thin tube responsible for transporting urine out of the body. In men, it can become damaged or narrowed by disease. To build a new one, Atala first created a biodegradable scaffold in the shape of a tube, then seeded it with patients' own bladder cells, and watched them grow. When the man-made organs were transferred into patients, remarkably they started working to eliminate waste.At the moment, the technique is too expensive to be of much help to most patients — it requires a $5,000 investment in materials and equipment. But it's a promising step toward a new world of regenerative medicine where creating healthy body tissues to replace diseased ones isn't such a mad idea.

 

6. Link between Colon Cancer and Bacteria

Two research groups reported similar findings about a type of bacteria called Fusobacteria which are rarely among the usual bugs that live in our guts but seem to flourish in colon cancer cells and are linked to higher rates of the disease. In some samples, they found hundreds of times more fusobacteria in cancerous as opposed to healthy cells. Earlier studies have also shown that the microbes are associated with a higher risk of ulcerative colitis, a condition in which inflammation destroys the colon’s epithelial cells (a risk factor for colon cancer). But is this a matter of cause and effect?

 

7. Weight-loss Miracle

If there's one constant in the world of weight loss, it's that there's no magic pill to melt off your excess pounds. At least, not yet.

But in the latest study of an experimental drug called Qnexa, researchers said obese patients taking the drug lost 10% of their body weight in a year. The pill combines two existing drugs — the weight-loss drug phentermine and the anti-epilepsy medication topiramate. The idea is to tackle the problem of weight gain on two different levels: phentermine (a distant cousin of amphetamines) can decrease appetite (although its long-term safety is still a question mark), while topiramate, which controls epileptic seizures by regulating electrical connections between nerves in the brain, also affects appetite and the body's ability to burn calories by modulating the same brain activity.

In other obesity-drug news year, scientists at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston tested an injectable compound called adipotide, a drug based on cancer research, and found that it slimmed fat monkeys by 11% in just a month.

 

8. Dogs than can sniff out Lung Cancer

Man's best friend might also be a doctor's newest weapon in detecting cancer. Dogs are known to have a keen sense of smell — sharp enough, according to a new study, to detect the presence of cancer on a person's breath. German researchers trained dogs over nine months to distinguish between breath samples from lung cancer patients and from healthy people; the animals were able to identify 71 out of 100 cancer samples accurately, and also picked out 93% of the cancer-free samples.What were they sniffing out? The scientists think the dogs were picking up on very subtle changes in certain volatile organic compounds in the breath, which may change when cancer is present. It may be possible to analyze cancer patients' breath for whatever compounds the dogs were identifying, but it's not clear what that is. "It is unfortunate that dogs cannot communicate the biochemistry of the scent of cancer!" the study's author noted.

 

9. Your spit can give away your age

Despite many medical advancements, something that science cannot do till now is accurately establish the age of a body at the time of death. DNA doesn't give away age (AN - and it shouldn't since it should be constant throughout life and if it’s changing, you’re in trouble, my friend!)

Thanks to some sophisticated analysis of saliva, UCLA researchers reported that scientists can now glean the age of a dead body from genetic material. These are not fundamental changes to the DNA, but epigenetic changes caused by environmental influences like diet, stress, exposure to sunlight, carcinogens or toxins even. These don’t change the DNA but are layered on top of the genome, affecting how genes are on or off. At specific area of the genome, these changes build up or decrease in an almost chronological way, serving as a timeing to predict a person’s age within five years accuracy. While this needs more studies to confirm and validate, every clue will definitely help!

 

10. A death risk predictor?

Researchers at Uppsala University in Sweden reported in August that a simple blood test may be able to predict who is most likely to die of heart disease or cancer. In a 12-year study of nearly 2,000 people, the researchers found that those with higher levels of an enzyme called cathepsin S were more likely to die than those with lower levels. The enzyme, which helps break up certain proteins, tends to be higher in people with heart troubles or tumors, and may contribute to atherosclerosis, so people with higher levels of the enzyme are more likely to die of these diseases, the researchers found. Cathepsin S is also abundant in fat tissue, which isn't surprising since being overweight is a major risk factor for heart events.

It's not clear yet exactly how cathepsin S contributes to either heart disease or cancer, but drug companies are already busy working on compounds that might block its effects.

(AN – Not to put a damper on things, but something that has such widespread effects on the body probably shouldn't be blocked as it will definitely have too many side effects but be my guest!)

Happy New Year 2012 :)

So it's New Year's again...And with that, comes New Year's Eve expectations...I, for one, have never had a perfect New Year (while I have had close-to-perfect birthdays) except for the time in New Zealand when I was actually climbing a glacier at 3am on 1st Jan 2004 (That was Legendary!) In retrospect, after 20 NYE, if I have had one legendary one, I really shouldn't be complaining, should I? 


Yes, I have plans tonight, to go to multiple parties, wearing a gorgeous dress that prevents me from breathing and heels that hate feet and to countdown while at the soppy equivalent of TimesSquare in Singapore. You can see that I don't have a lot of expectations but I guess my sister is excited to do something that is different so for her, I can suffer through the night, when I'd rather just go out to dinner and watch the fireworks (as long as I'm not in my house in front of the telly at midnight, I'm alright).


So here's Cracked's version of NYE:

That asideeeee....Hope you all have had amazing and fulfilling 2011s and if you haven't, it's a new year and plenty of time to get it right this time.

Hope you have a wonderful time welcoming 2012 and live it just for you and the way you want to, so that when 2013 rolls around, you have NO regrets. 

I actually have plenty more love and good wishes to give but I think the next picture sums it up brilliantly...

New Year's Resolutions

Every year, I’m impressed by people’s faith behind their resolutions, those hardy perennials that crop up on a regular basis: lose weight, start exercising, take up a new hobby. Regardless of the resolution, the faith remains in hope: we can all be better people tomorrow. Of course, anyone can say that this is not supported by evidence since they are repeated so often, we could hardly be making good on our promises, can we? Montaigne once said, “Is it not stupidity to let myself be fooled so many times by one guide?”


I’m not sure I agree because as cynical and sceptical as I am, I don’t underestimate the value of hope. I try to think of myself as glass-half-full and I usually am, but it’s not easy. Don’t let those pessimists let you think that being an optimist is the easy side cuuz it ain’t. Think about it, to have to keep believing in other people (who sometimes let you down), to have faith in your ability to stand by your resolutions (even though history suggests otherwise), is not an easy task. I disagree with the great philosopher (with all due respect) because resolutions represent a distinct and oddly inspiring sub-category of error: ‘wrongness as optimism’. 


This doesn't slumber quietly all year, waiting to make an appearance in the final week of the year as we begin to reminisce and take notes on what we achieved this year. On the contrary, it is with us all the time, such as when my friend says he’s smoking his last cigarette. Why I lug 5 books about philosophy on a 2 week holiday, none of which is even opened. It is why I went to sleep last night, saying I’ll wake up early this morning, go to the gym and continue working on college applications (In reality: I had breakfast, rearranged the living room with my mother – counts as gymming, right? – and browsed the newspaper.) It applies to everyone. Politicians, once elected, who had good faith in their campaign, break their promises, because they, like the rest of us, overestimate their ability to make good on their hopes and dreams. It explains why ardent sports fans continue to support the hopeless underdog teams.


As easy as it is to mock our species for falling for this trick time and again, the truth is we are wise to be this particular kind of wrong. In most aspects of life, climate science for example, we do not want blind faith to outweigh the importance of facts and the evidence. But, in the case of murkier terrain such as our sense of self, a small sense of delusion serves us well by preventing us from falling into existential despair; The classic Waiting for Godot-complex, but never finding out the truth, nor believing in your ability to achieve and create change in your life. In fact, a lack of faith that our lives will get better in the future is a classic warning sign of depression.


The second reason is that sometimes, wrongness as optimism, wonderfully transforms into rightness. Human beings can never become something without pretending to be it first; so, in other words, resolutions are successful acts of the imaginations, not just the failure of will. That is not to say that you will lose 20 pounds, stop eating chocolate or spend more time with your children in 2012 just by resolving to do so. However, you will be doomed to failure if you never even dreamed of those resolutions in the first place.


Just as our other forms of wrongness as optimism propel out of bed after a wasted day watching all seasons of Dexter, our annual resolutions propel us into the new year, hopeful all over again that we will be better people in the days to come. So here’s to that, and to 2012 – the year that I shall finally figure out what I want to do in life, attain my goal dress size and ride every roller-coaster in the world (and hopefully, not die, but that’s for another post!)

I wish I were that confident. That would be half the battle, right?

Merry Christmas & 10 Little-Known Facts :)

HO HO HO! Merry Christmas to all :) Whether or not you celebrate Christmas in any way, you can't end the year without acknowledging its existence...Not just a religious holiday (although it is for many Christians), for others, it's just a time of being with friends and family and enjoying some well-deserved time off of work! So hope you all enjoy the holiday season with copious amounts of food and drink, great company and make some beautiful memories.

Now on to some interesting facts (this site is just a great way to procrastinate...or find interesting things to blog about):

Before you get on that, check this out for a great little prank Xmas present (great for international buddies): http://www.sendacallfromsanta.com/

Getting into the Xmas spirit with some historical facts :)

Just The Facts

• Christmas was originally a pagan festival dating around 4th century in Germany. It was then known as Yule, which sounds so much better (Coincidentally, the ball in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was called the Yule Ball and was held during the Christmas period.)
• It has since been absorbed into Christianity to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, but is also celebrated by people from many faiths.
• Today, Christmas is celebrated by a lot of the world, but not all of it.
• Coca Cola invented Santa Claus (citation needed).
• Okay okay, they didn't invent him, but there was a rumour that they invented the image of the red suit, you know, for marketing.
• Christmas is now a capitalist holiday that is all about greed and money. It's still the most wonderful time of the year in spirit and abstract concept (like so many other things in the world).

Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year :)

History of Christmas

"Christmas is the most magical time of the year, more magical even than four bank holidays glued together and multiplied by Easter!" - Charlie Brooker, UK TV Comedian

Yule has been celebrated for a long time, but the first time it was noted down by anyone was around the year 730AD. It was obviously a winter festival celebrated by Pagans from Germany, and consisted of great feasts, yuletide songs and happiness all around. The traditions of Yule haven't changed much since being converted to Christmas, apart from the inclusion of Jesus Christ.

Today, we follow the same traditions (nearly) as originally carried out during Yule. We eat ridiculously vast meals, sing songs that fill the heart with happiness and drink ourselves into an early depression in preparation for the New Year that's looming on the horizon.

Santa

Santa Claus goes by many names around the world, such as:

·         Saint Nicholas

·         Kris Kringle

·         Father Christmas

·         Pere Noel

·         Baba Chaghaloo

·         Santa Klaus

·         Julemanden

·         Weihnachtsmann

·         And far too many more..

Santa is mainly known for delivering presents over the world to all the boys and girls. Of course, there are lot of skeptical people that say he doesn't exist, but there are factors that they haven't taken into account, like:

• Time Zone differences
•  The fact that not everyone celebrates Christmas (So only believers get presents? Because they've done the shopping...how convenient!)
• He has a reliable airline

We can see from these facts that the chance of Santa getting presents to all of his believers...is still pretty slim. But not completely impossible (for any believers out there, I'm trying to appear unbiased).

The real point of the Santa Claus story is to bring happiness to people at Christmas time. The idea is stronger than the embodiment, as shown in the film "Miracle on 34th Street", both the original and the remake, but more so in the remake. The end states that if the people of America can believe in God without physical evidence, and believe in him enough to print his name on their currency, then surely the people can believe in Santa as well.

Where is my seat? These budget cuts really suck...

Bonus - Just cuz it's hilarious

 

Is the World better off without Religion?

Clarification: I’m not disputing or endorsing the existence of God. That is a personal belief and something that can’t be proven either way you stand. However, I can say that religion is a sociological phenomenon, a man-made concept. Thus, it is therefore, fallible, because humans are fallible creatures.

Religions are extremely diverse, have different interpretations of God (& Goddesses), have different opinions as to what people should wear and eat, how many wives they can have, what rituals they should follow. As they each take the view that they are the ones correct and that they vary dramatically in various respects, it is obvious why throughout the course of history, religion has burdened mankind with a great deal of conflicts and divisiveness. Instead of going into the differences between religions; let me point out a common recurrence: Throughout history and in most of the orthodox manifestations of religion, women are given 2^nd class status (not being able to make independent choices for their body and future, not able to get the same education etc.), being hostile towards homosexuality and a severe opposition towards scientific progress. (AC Grayling, author of The Good Book and Ideas that Matter) First point is that religion usually endorses a patriarchal heterosexual version of society, to maintain control of the community and to continue the spread of their religion via children (which homosexuals cannot physically have); progress for progress’s sake must be stopped since the truth has been revealed a long time ago and relinquishing the hold of religious authorities would cause them to lose economic and territorial power.

Then there are those people who believe that without religion, there would be no morality. Of course, that is not true. Loving your neighbours, responsibility, concern for others and being a useful member of community: these are all shared by all people, regardless of religion, race or geographical location.  About 16% of the world’s population (1.12 billion people) consider themselves atheists (Of course, this is extremely hard to judge since the term is interpreted differently and some people call themselves agnostics and to be honest, it gets quite confusing but suffice it to say, that these are the people who may have an individual belief system which is not part of any community or its rituals). It is incredibly narrow-minded and hopeless to believe that without the fear of authority or punishment, people will behave in a manner that is not conducive to a communal living. Where is our trust in humanity and our inherent sense of right and wrong? Can’t ethics simply be taught without the shadow of religion clouding our judgement? If you look at the Greek philosophers, all of them preached ethics and morality rather than religion and since no God told them what was right or wrong, it was simply reason and human experience.

Interesting point in the debate: Does believing in one religion make you an atheist in every other? Therefore, if we are to say that there are roughly about 20 major religions in the world and you consider yourself to be part of one religious community, you are 5% Christian (for example) and 95% atheist.

The current estimation is that 0.1% of people belonging to a religion sect are extremists (although I’m not sure how this is estimated, seems like a far-fetched statistic but for the purposes of the argument…) which is about 5 million people. But then you can argue that the rest, the moderately religious, are peaceable and usually approach a ‘live-and-let-live’ policy.

This is the part I’m not entirely convinced about: AC Grayling says that the moderately religious are prone to cherry-picking and they choose the best aspects of the religion they follow and the more awkward or embarrassing bits they leave to one side. He also argues that extremists are the only honest bunch of the lot because they commit themselves whole-heartedly to the entire religion and moderates are simply hypocrites since they follow only what is convenient. He then continues to say that, “If that is real religion, honest religion, then the world is very much better off without it. And if the world is better off without the true and honest form of religion, why not put the hypocrites along with them too.”

This doesn’t sit well with me, my interpretation of extremists is that they have misread, misinterpreted and abused their religious texts and are brainwashed to believe that they are following the word of God, when they are actually following the word of a few charming, authoritative enemies of humanity.  However, even if what I’m saying is true, is there any way we can eradicate all extremist thoughts for eternity, realistically speaking? In that case, is it better to live in a world without religion but with ethics and morality instead?

To really drive this point home, “If religion made people behave better (and morally), then markers of social dysfunction such as drug addiction, ignorance, violent crime or teenage pregnancy would be lower in highly religious communities; in fact, the opposite is true.” (Matthew Chapman, Co-Founder of Science Debate - An organization seeking to get politicians to debate science policy issues). Austin Dacey, author of The Secular Conscience, says that “90% of Americans are religious but we have by far, the largest prison population on Earth, drug addiction is widespread, gun violence is grotesque, our education system produces kids whose maths and science skills are far lower than any in secular countries while our rate of teen pregnancy is far higher. And in a country so rich and Christian, it’s amazing how many people live in abject poverty. Religion is irrational, morally confusing and divisive…Making no reference to God, scientists have, among other things, rid us of the plague, smallpox and polio, dramatically reduced infant mortality, doubled the average length of a person’s life and is coming to understand how the brain works, including its capacity for empathy and moral decision-making.” All this progess, all this beautiful knowledge, all this alleviation of human suffering has been achieved in only a hundred years, while religion has had its chance for thousands of years to prove its supernatural effectiveness.

Again to clarify, I'm disputing the religious construct of society, not individual faith and believers. Institutions that support and propagate religion such as churches and synagogues seems to have an ulterior motive besides a common prayer area. If religion were to become an individualised ideal, where God existed only has an energy force to drive the world, subject to entropy in the universe, not as an authority figure who tells you what is right or wrong (We have parental figures for that!); I do agree that life and universe is a miracle, both a scientific and spiritual one but why does it cloud judgement of persons and prohibit progress. Why can’t humanity function without being told what to do? And if you want an understanding of the world’s nature and its laws, look towards science for answers. I’ll be the first to admit that science doesn’t have all the answers but it is aware of that fact and together with its conclusions, presents its limitations (which are gradually being eliminated as technology progresses). Why do we have to know everything at once anyway? Knowledge is a journey and should remain that way.

Sources: I watched the debate posted below, read up on each of the participants in the debate, read a few articles and the rest is my personal opinion.