In the past days I have been going through some of the texts of Bertrand Russel. Among them, I would like to suggest you his paper entitled "Why I am not a Christian and the faith of a rationalist". It outlines in a well-written way the main arguments for why religion and, in particular, Christianity are flawed and should not be taken as seriously as one does. Besides the well-known arguments against religion, such as the lack of evidence supporting god, he makes the following two points which are most interesting:
1) If you think that there is a difference between right and wrong, then you are faced with the following problem: if you think that this distinction was designed by god, then it is meaningless to say that god is good because he himself designed the rules for saying that something is good. Now, if you think that god is good, then you must admit that the rules defining right and wrong come from somewhere else. So, why do you need god?
2) Was Christ as described in the Gospels a wise man? In some aspects yes, but in many others no. There were much wiser men than Christ, for instance, Bertrand Russel himself is much wiser than Christ. Chirst for instance believed on hell. To believe on the idea that someone will be punished with the worst tortures for the rest of time just because he/she disagrees with some values does not seem to be very wise.
From my personal background, I could pose a similar question w.r.t. Krishna: was Krishna a wise man? It does not seem wise to believe that a person's duty (dharma) comes from the fact that he/she was born within a social class. In particular, Krishna tells Arjuna, the warrior prince that was in doubt to fight against his kin, that he should fight because he is a warrior, that is his duty. In that sense, Buddha seems a bit better since at least he acknowledges the problems of the caste system. Moreover, to my knowledge, Krishna did not say anything about the fact that the war would involve millions of "innocent" soldiers that served both armies.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Americans got it wrong
Dear all,
It has been a while (almost one and half years) since my last post. Much has changed in my life in the meantime. I graduated from Ecole Polytechnique, got engaged, and now I am a postdoctorate researcher at UPENN, Philadelphia, in the US, since last November.
After five years in Europe, I find the life in the US very different from the European one. The Americans have a very different set of values than the Europeans. One big difference, in my opinion, is that Americans do not know how to live. Let me give you a simple example: I often ask the graduate students at UPENN about their plans for Summer break, and all of them tell me about how they are searching for internships in companies or trying to find out some more extra classes to take. If I asked the same question to an European, most of them would tell me about their big plans of going to the beach or hiking, etc. In France, for instance, the whole country stops in August, that is, everyone is on vacations. When I tell this to any American, they tell me how impossible it would be even to think on asking his/her boss for a month leave.
Another aspect that differs very much from the European values is on environmental issues. This is specially shocking when coming from Germany which is one of the countries that best takes care of the environment. In the US it is really the opposite. There is basically no care for issues like recycling, saving energy or water, mass transportation, etc. For instance, the lights in my department stay on the whole time, even in weekends! The same happens in the building where I live. There is not even a timer that automatically turns off the lights after some time. Recycling in the US is also ridiculous. My building is one of the few that do something, but compared to any German home, it is really nothing. They only recycle old newspapers and magazines. They do not even have a slot for tin cans!
However, the worst aspect is not even the two above, but rather how they treat the poor. It is sad to see that in the richest and most powerful country in the world, there are people without teeth that cannot formulate correctly one sentence. You find people like that very often on the streets here in Philadelphia. They do not have access to hospitals, schools, basically nothing, while the upper class shows off their BMWs and big cars around. Given this situation, it is not hard to see how one can easily manipulate these fragile people with nationalistic propaganda or religious brainwashing. They are against issues which would clearly benefit them directly, such as health care. This contrasts with the situation in Europe: whenever there is any attempt to remove rights of, for example, the French people, they rise up. They are not easily manipulated because they are treated much better by the French society, although they do have their problems.
After five months in the US, I am really glad to discover that this is not where I want to be for the rest of my life, at least not if things continue like this. Europe may have its problems, e.g., xenophoby, but overall their values are much more compatible my values.
It has been a while (almost one and half years) since my last post. Much has changed in my life in the meantime. I graduated from Ecole Polytechnique, got engaged, and now I am a postdoctorate researcher at UPENN, Philadelphia, in the US, since last November.
After five years in Europe, I find the life in the US very different from the European one. The Americans have a very different set of values than the Europeans. One big difference, in my opinion, is that Americans do not know how to live. Let me give you a simple example: I often ask the graduate students at UPENN about their plans for Summer break, and all of them tell me about how they are searching for internships in companies or trying to find out some more extra classes to take. If I asked the same question to an European, most of them would tell me about their big plans of going to the beach or hiking, etc. In France, for instance, the whole country stops in August, that is, everyone is on vacations. When I tell this to any American, they tell me how impossible it would be even to think on asking his/her boss for a month leave.
Another aspect that differs very much from the European values is on environmental issues. This is specially shocking when coming from Germany which is one of the countries that best takes care of the environment. In the US it is really the opposite. There is basically no care for issues like recycling, saving energy or water, mass transportation, etc. For instance, the lights in my department stay on the whole time, even in weekends! The same happens in the building where I live. There is not even a timer that automatically turns off the lights after some time. Recycling in the US is also ridiculous. My building is one of the few that do something, but compared to any German home, it is really nothing. They only recycle old newspapers and magazines. They do not even have a slot for tin cans!
However, the worst aspect is not even the two above, but rather how they treat the poor. It is sad to see that in the richest and most powerful country in the world, there are people without teeth that cannot formulate correctly one sentence. You find people like that very often on the streets here in Philadelphia. They do not have access to hospitals, schools, basically nothing, while the upper class shows off their BMWs and big cars around. Given this situation, it is not hard to see how one can easily manipulate these fragile people with nationalistic propaganda or religious brainwashing. They are against issues which would clearly benefit them directly, such as health care. This contrasts with the situation in Europe: whenever there is any attempt to remove rights of, for example, the French people, they rise up. They are not easily manipulated because they are treated much better by the French society, although they do have their problems.
After five months in the US, I am really glad to discover that this is not where I want to be for the rest of my life, at least not if things continue like this. Europe may have its problems, e.g., xenophoby, but overall their values are much more compatible my values.
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