Best of Bill Maher on Religion

100 truths, religion and IPL.

Tuesday, April 7th 2009.

0807hrs, NUS Thinklab, Computer Centre.

Yes, its true that I am in univeristy so early in the morning.

April and May are the months of exams, assignments, stress, IPL etc in most parts of the world. Side-effects of these are varied. Depending on who you are (I guess you will identify few of yours here) it maybe facebook addiction (latest trend), excessive sleeping, insomnia, smoking ,drinking, porn, movie or tv-show marathons, getting addicted to some music and anything else to distract you from what you are actually supposed to be doing.

I have been having some of the above mentioned effects and some more peculiar ones. But before I talk about that I would like to start of with FaceBook (FB) addiction. FB being dominated by students worldwide is a very good indicator of stress levels in student communities around the world. If you have a FB account and have 50+ friends you must have noticed the recent high activity rate on the website, a very good indicator of the April-May zone. Let me talk of three most popular trends I have seen over the last month.

It started with people tagging their friends on one picture, which has like many smaller images of variety of characters we encounter (eg. the flirt, the cutie, the jerk etc… I guess you get which one I mean). Then came the quizzes, with so many random-shit questions – when will you get married? when will I get cancer? and equally shitty answers. And then came tagging lists of things you do and passing them on – the ipod quiz, the other randomly self-indulging- chance of making yourself -look-good-which you are actually not- lists etc.

So anyways yesterday night my friends started doing this 100 truths list and tagged me to do it as well. Some of them cited exam-stress as reason for doing the list, others stated joblessness as the reason. Whatever it is I am not here to analyse the reason behind their doing it. The list itself interested me a lot.

Before I touch on the reason of my interest for the 100 truth list I think I need to lay some more foundation.

I was watching the documentary Religulous yesterday night. Last saturday (earth hour night) I was involved in a fierce debate over definition of religion with some friends and I have been reading Bhagavad Gita. So you can see that I have been spending a lot of time on religion and understanding it (side-effect 1?) . If you are a namesake-Hindu like me (one who doesnt go to temple,eats beef etc etc – which I am not saying are true requirements of being a Hindu, but merely stating social norms) , and you probably are looked at in a condescending manner by your staunch Hindu parents,friends etc then what I say will be similar to what you feel !  I hate those so called religious-people who judge others in that fashion. First of all do they really understand their religion? More importantly do they understand the idea behind religion? Or do they blindly follow what other people have told them to be religious or non-religious? Whatever minute knowledge I have gained through my readings clearly indicates that what people perceive today as being religion is not true. What is it then? – Right now I dont know. There are some ideas I have, but they are not cultivated enough.

Is religion a way of life? Is it a guide to reach god? Is it just an idea? – I dont know. Or may be as one of my friends stated – ” Religion is sum of all egos. ” (for more details ask me  personally on the explanation :p). Anyways I can write a book if I keep talking about religion and even put the hardcore-insomniac to sleep with this discussion, but what I wanted to point out is this:

Religion should be our intuition, an experience. It should not be what someone said. If you look into history of Hinduism (accurately, Sanatana dharma) in the vedic period this is what religion was, an experience. You live your life, experience it , learn what is right and wrong. It was the process that was important ,not the destination. So, say if my friend smokes or drinks or whatever, its his intuition to do so, and I should not be judging him to be non-religious or a sinner.

When Avinash wrote in his 100 truths :

” Do you want to get married? – Yes…..maybe i cannot sustain myself properly currently but will make sure to give my family the highest standards to live in.”

 unlike Agastya who found it funny (not judging you buddy 🙂 ) , I found it very heart-warming.  The fact that we dont associate such a response from a guy like Avi might make it funny, but I look at it as what he desires, what his instinct says . Knowing him personally, I highly doubt that while answering that question he mentally referred to any religious teachings or scripts to reach that conclusion. Through his experience and what he has learnt in life and through “thinking” himself he reached this conclusion! I would say thats religion ,not accurately, but in a crude sense. That is probably just a small example from day to day life.

Now moving to something interesting! – Did you know there is a Cannabis Religion??? Their tagline – “We use cannabis religiously and you can, too.”  I personally dont find it stupid, because  ” Realty is unique, wise men see it (achieve it) in different ways. ” (Rig-Veda)  If Cannabis is your way to the truth, so be it (right Shanty?)

From all the intense religious stuff to some light stuff – CRICKET – IPL.

18th April , saturday is the day of the season opener for Indian Premier League Season 2 . Great match to start off with: MUMBAI INDIANS VS CHENNAI SUPERKINGS. Where are all you guys watching (if you are)? Avinash has indicated to me that he might live at  Ankur’s place throughout the season! So do you want to watch the season openers at Ankur-Agastya’s place??  Also guys I have sent you invites for the NTULC Season 2 IPL fantasy (cricinfo). Lots of players to choose this time over and more transfers than last season as well! So Do join! If you havent got the invite let me know your email address– will send again!

Anyways I better get started (my instinct speaking!) on the 3 assignments I need to submit by today evening. I hope Agastya gets his remote working by tonight, I tried helping him over the phone yesterday night, but chances look bleak! As for others keep the facebook traffic alive, its stupid, but entertaining.

0915hrs, 7th April 2009.

 PS: Sorry for the horribly unstructured writing! Havent blogged in a while…hopefully more blogs during the exam period. 🙂