Random stuff from my diary

Contrary to what I thought the level of enthusiasm and interest in interfaith dialogue has been tremendous. I hope this will boost the society and counter our doubts and fears of disaffiliation and disappointment. Any number above ten is good enough to make a society viable I don’t understand union’s arbitrary number of 20, it is a bit pedantic and frankly silly, that a side Mathew is right to say that we have to do much more than try to make a society above the membership threshold; to start with I have a few suggestions:

We can use this opportunity to draw up a constitution for the society. I passionately believe that interfaith can be much more than a socialising and discussion forum.
We should not shy away from taking a principled and ideological stance on “sensitive issues” arguing, criticising and opposing those who have been using religion for their mere sectional and personal interests. Neutrality shouldn’t mean pacifism; this should not foster a climate of numbness and docility. We should be able to call a spade a spade, speak in favour of justice and fairness and do not blur the clear boundaries of truth and falsehood in the name of pluralistic attitude.

All great prophets’ message was striding towards a world of justice, fairness and truth, from Moses to Mohammad they were all dissidents, thinking against the imposed beliefs and seeking actively to change the world for better.

Those who attended the last few meetings of faith link at Lancaster gate know that we have been discussing a project about Israel and Palestine. This is an issue which concerns all three abrahamic faiths we could ask members for suggestions and maybe participation. We may corporate and have events with friends of Palestine society and also with all other religious societies.

We live at a time where vacuous materialism is rampaging on people’s lives, where religiosity is the biggest sin and any meaning of life and existence has been made devoid of any substance under the thralls of ultra-liberalism. Capitalism and consumerism hand in hand has changed modern society to a lazy, passive and docile spectator in otherwise beautiful world of action and activity. The system has systematically destroyed the soul of collectivism and replaced it by individual material gains.

Famous philosopher and historian Will Durant asked an interesting question. What would you say if it is found that all our progress has been in the field of making the means better without knowing the aim of life or thinking where are we heading? It is not only the concern of academic philosophers, thinkers or intellectuals in fact anyone with a sound mind can contemplate about the meaning of life and existence.

It might well be the case that the world is a vast vat of sperm and egg and that each mate in random for mere statistical reasons. A bacterium lives to multiply it has no other reason as was famously pronounced by the then noble laureate “what then could be the aim of the bacterium? What does it want to produce that justifies its existence, determines its organisation and underlies it work? There is apparently only one answer to this question. A bacterium constantly strives to produce two bacteria. This seems to be its one project, its sole ambition.” Inadvertently or intentionally we have reduced human status to that of a bacterium. What is the difference between a human being a bi-pedal homo sapiens and a multi or mono cellular bacterium. To start with one would say that there are huge morphological, genetical, biochemical and anatomical differences between these two species but at close inspection it transpires that we are not having a discussion about the differences in those areas which are indeed quite distinctly dissimilar. We want to find out the reason for the very purpose of our being.
The established belief among the scientific elite is that there is a very vivid explanation for our life and we need not delude ourselves with complicated metaphysical and theological arguments but look at the undeniable facts, Facts which are reproducible and stand the test of time and scrutiny of inquisitive mind. We are not only something distinct from a staphylococcus but we are related, a pathogen which kills anyone if untreated is indeed our distant ancestor.
Evolution has been working since the big bang, when the seeds of life started to bud on earth. Four billion years ago that enormous explosion occurred, we don’t know quite for sure how loud and big it was but it was big enough to make millions and millions of galaxies that one shivers at the enormity and greatness of our universe.

The champion of this belief, now the darling of all imminent scientists who relate almost everything in science to his proposed theory, was Charles Robert Darwin, born in a wealthy family of land owners, educated and groomed in the great tradition of Georgian –Victorian England he sailed with HMS beagle to south America and landed in Galapagos islands.
Darwin was a smart cookie and a quintessential English naturalist, observing everything he found around him with a glaring eye, collecting and recording enormous amount of data and analysing them with an incisive mind , then as it is said by his disciples in a eureka moment with a sudden flush of insight he found the answer to his questions. Darwin was now in a hurry to let the world know what he discovered but it took him until 1859 after a hideous and painstaking labour to compile his findings and publish them under a long and dull title On the origin of species by means of natural selection or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life……