The joke is on us

Global warming concerns me. Plus, I have watched 'An inconvenient truth'. It's a horror movie. It creates knee jerk reactions. I've have also seen the skeptists' rebuttal to Al Gore's 'truth'. And all said and done, it's still left me with an uneasiness that refuses to go away. I totally accept the fact that Gore probably only gets to those who were anyway 'environment conscious' in the first place. But that said, I have two different thoughts on this.

1) Certainly, if we keep up our ways, we are going to end up in a bad situation. If we gorge existing resources this way, we are gonna throw up... or get thrown up.

2) Just maybe we arent that significant at all. All our greed is not going to result in anything. There have been ice ages several times before and it's really a pattern the Earth follows anyway. We are just an experiment of Nature. We havent even been around long enough for Nature to determine whether we passed or failed. Not that Nature would care before Earth promptly turned on her heel and went into another long ice age... us bundled into fossils to create fuel for some other form of intelligence to come. Like a child playing on the beach, making sand castles... giggling and wiping out a tower here and a mound there purely for the heck of it.


Not to sound discouraging, but I get the eerie feeling that in either case, the joke is on us.

Joy Ride

I've never been so enamoured by a piece of metal machinery as I am with my brand new Trek 1200 bike. How often have I mocked those who become slaves of their machines, fussing over them, cooing to them, taking the pains to scrub every corner to squeaky-shiny perfection! But as they say, laugh while you can, for once you get roped into it, you will find yourself fawning the same.
It took 5 bicycle shops, 4 trips to Seattle, a multitude of test rides, 3 adjustments and a dark rainy evening. But now she stands proud in my living room. And I look upon her with affection, approach her with caution and promise myself that this is going to be one hell of a summer :)
Like running, there's no special reason for me to get into biking. It just seems like a very interesting sport. Learning to push yourself, increasing your stamina and endurance... all in the game.
The first ride around Lake Sammamish (27 mile loop) was on a weekday. Lovely route, not too complex. It helps that I've been running coz I didnt feel like I was dying on the first day. And did I mention that the saddle is so awesome that I didnt even feel butt-sore? I just plain enjoyed it. Except for the fact that I find changing to the top front gear slightly non-trivial, I have no complaints.

And to hear my fellow riders compliment me on how the components are really good only added to the joy of the experience.

Cheers for the bike riding days to come! :)

The atheist argument

This entire atheist-theist debate is getting to me these days. And overall, I see that most atheists are more understanding of where the theists are coming from. But theists start with the premise of 'These atheists...'. It's a free world, why in 'God's' name does anyone have to worry about anyone else's beliefs (or the lack of them). If we were even to try an intersection of the various beliefs and rituals in the world, we would end up with an empty set. So much in contradiction are the various religions and cultures of the world. What's good in one may be completely inauspicious in another. Crazy!! And everyone still wants to stick fast to what they learnt growing up.

My favourite argument has always been this - A new chess player is told to protect his Queen no matter what. Now, this is based on the assumption that the preservation of the Queen is directly related to his/her chances of winning. That said, you will still lose some and win some. And, that does not mean that you will not sacrifice the Queen if that is actually leading to a win. In the same vein, the concept of 'God' according to me, was actually introduced to make sure that the men of the world had some tenets they could follow to ensure that their and others' interests were secured. It was just easier to convince people to follow something if they were not given the option of not following it. So associating wrongful acts with the idea of divine punishment would actually make sense. Now going beyond that, if a person has actually understood this entire concept and the idea of God is not what is required to hold him/her in line, why should it be anybody else's problem what beliefs who has?!! Why has the 'source of the sin' been shifted from the person's acts to his/her beliefs or religious inclinations?