The Insightful Mortal

by Shivam

  4. Carbon Monoxide Poisoning

  In 1921, ophthalmologist William Wilmer published a bizarre paper in the American Journal of Ophthalmology. It told the story of the “H” family and their haunted house. Their hell home was plagued with the sounds of slamming doors, moving furniture and footsteps in empty rooms. One of the children felt something sitting on him while the other was attacked by a mysterious stranger. During the night, the woman of the house awoke to see a man and a woman standing at the foot of her bed, only to watch them vanish moments later. As the hauntings continued, the family grew tired and depressed, and then their plants started to die. It was then they discovered the faulty furnace. The furnace was supposed to send its fumes up the chimney, but instead the gas was pouring into the house. It turns out the family was suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning.

  Carbon monoxide (CO) is an odorless, colorless gas, which makes it really hard to detect. It’s dangerous because our red blood cells absorb CO much easier than they do oxygen, and this oxygen deprivation leads to symptoms such as weakness, nausea, confusion, and eventually death. But before you kick the bucket, you might experience hallucinations, just like the “H” family. For example, in 2005, a woman called the authorities after seeing a spirit in her bathroom. It turned out the paranormal activity was due to her leaky water heater which was filling the house with CO. Bottom line: Stay away from carbon monoxide, folks, because one way or another, it’ll have you seeing ghosts.

  3. Mass Hysteria

  In June 2013, over 3,000 workers went on strike at a garment factory in Gazipur, Bangladesh. They weren’t protesting against long working hours, and they weren’t demanding better wages. They wanted someone to do something about the ghost in the restroom. An angry spirit had attacked a worker in the lady’s room, causing everyone to panic. A riot ensued, and the police had to restore order. A similar event took place at a school in Patong, Phuket when 22 students were hospitalized after seeing the ghost of an old woman. But while the Bangladeshi factory owner ordered an exorcism, perhaps he should have called a counselor instead.

  Both the workers and the students experienced a psychological phenomenon known as mass hysteria. These collective delusions occur when people are really stressed out, usually thanks to their oppressive environments (like a strict school or busy workplace). This pent-up stress then turns into physical symptoms like headaches, nausea, or violent spasms. Throw in religious and cultural beliefs, a relatively isolated environment and the always-busy rumor mill, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. Other people will “catch” the same strange symptoms, they’ll spread like a disease, and panic ensues.

  It’s interesting to note that very few of the 3,000 factory workers actually encountered the ghost. Even the woman who sparked the frenzy didn’t actually see anything. She got sick and just assumed it was the work of an evil spirit, but the suggestion was so powerful and the circumstances were so perfect that everyone freaked out. Fortunately, it didn’t end with human sacrifices or dogs and cats living together.

  2. Ions

  Unfortunately, real ghost hunters don’t carry proton packs. However, they do use tools such as the ion counter. The ion counter, well, counts ions. An ion is an atom with an uneven amount of protons and electrons. If an atom gains an electron, it becomes a negative ion, and if it loses an electron, it becomes positive.

  Ghost hunters go crazy over ions because they supposedly show a paranormal presence. Some say a spirit’s presence interferes with the normal ion count in the atmosphere while others say ghosts draw upon ionic energy when they want to appear and scare people to death. However, ion counters are really pretty lousy when it comes to detecting ghosts. Ions are caused by all kinds of natural phenomena like weather, solar radiation, and radon gas. So it basically comes down to how someone interprets the evidence. Scientists see ions and think, “Natural.” Ghost hunters see ions and think, “Paranormal!”

  Interestingly, both positive and negative ions can affect our moods. Negative ions can make us feel calm and relaxed while positive ions can give us headaches and make us feel lousy. This might explain why people who live in “haunted” houses describe feeling tired and tense, as well as having headaches.

  1. Quantum Mechanics

  Quantum mechanics is the study of the smallest types of matter, and it has led to some pretty awesome inventions. However, it can get pretty weird when physicists start talking about souls and ghosts. Take, for example, Dr. Stuart Hameroff and his physicist friend Roger Penrose. Hameroff and Penrose theorize that human consciousness comes from microtubules inside our brain cells, and these tubules are responsible for quantum processing (our souls basically). Hameroff and Penrose believe when people have a near-death experience, all that quantum information leaves the brain, yet continue to exist, which is why some people report out-of-body experiences and lights at the end of tunnels.

  As you might expect, a lot of scientists have problems with Hameroff and Penrose’s theory. But Dr. Henry Stapp isn’t one of them. As a respected quantum physicist who worked with the famous Heisenberg, Stapp believes that a person’s personality might be able to survive death and exist as a “mental entity.” Stapp theorizes if these entities could return to the physical world, then concepts like possession and channeling could really be possible. Are men like Stapp, Hameroff, and Penrose just wishful thinkers? Or are they modern day Galileos?

  Nolan Moore was once bitten on the foot by an alligator, but he survived to become an ESL teacher. He hopes to avoid future alligator encounters and one day make it as a writer.

  This is all you needed to take one leap of faith ahead in favor of Science and start thinking rationally. So, if there is no Satan, there should be no God too, right?

 

 

 

 

 

  CHAPTER 5

  MORALITY

  “You don't need religion to have morals. If you can't determine right from wrong then you lack empathy, not religion.”

  -Anonymous

  “Satan worshiping scum . . . Please die and go to hell . . . I hope you get a painful disease like rectal cancer and die a slow painful death, so you can meet your God, SATAN . . . Hey dude this freedom from religion thing sux . . . So you fags and dykes take it easy and watch where you go

  cuz whenever you least expect it god will get you . . . If you don't like this country and what it was founded on & for, get the fuck out of it and go straight to hell. PS Fuck you, you communist whore . . . Get your black asses out of the U.S.A. . . . You are without excuse. Creation is more than enough evidence of the LORD JESUS CHRIST'S omnipotent power.”

  These were the exact words used by some creationist found on the internet. And they ask, where does your morality come from? Need I say more? And does your God need so extreme defense just to prove him.

  This is the most common question asked by almost all the people “If you don’t believe in God, what do you live for, and where does your morality come from? And yeah, you must be very selfish”.

  Well, I have a questions from Atheists too “Do u need a religion to be moral? Is it necessary to be connected to “God” to do things of sympathy, and kindness”, if your answer is yes to these questions, there is lack of morality and empathy in you, my friend, not atheists. We can still have dignity, sympathy and other traits without any religion to cling to..

  Some intelligent creationist might ask, if you believe in Darwin’s Theory and theory of natural selection, then you must be utterly selfish, and should not at all care about others.

  Well, yes, there is logic behind that too. There is a saying in English “You scratch my back, I will scratch yours”. The whole reason lies behind this simple sentence. Evolution has always worked out this way. Primates were evolved to live in groups. So, with passage of time, they have started to feel the need for empathy. This explains the reason, w
hy you feel sad, looking at a homeless child begging, or a dog being hit.

  Other emotions like sexual desire, happiness, and sadness have all been evolved from scratch. The theory of natural selection states that to stay in the environment, you have to dominate over other organisms. So to survive over other organisms, humans needed to grow in number, this caused the desire for sexual intercourse and hence reproduction. The best way for natural selection to build in both kinds of lust in ancestral times was to install rules of thumb in the brain. Those rules still influence us today, even where circumstances make them inappropriate to their original functions.

  Evolutionary Biologist Richard Dawkins in his book “The God Delusion” has explained all about the Darwinian Theory and detailed reasoning for the sympathy we have developed. He has also explained in his book, about mathematical game theory in this study. “Mathematical theory allows two broad classes of stable solution to 'games' of this kind. ‘Always be nasty' is stable in that, if everybody else is doing it, a single nice individual cannot do better. But there is another strategy which is also stable. ('Stable' means that, once it exceeds a critical frequency in the population, no alternative does better.) This is the strategy, Start out being nice, and give others the benefit of the doubt. Then repay good deeds with good, but avenge bad deeds.' In game theory language, this strategy (or family of related strategies) goes under various names, including Tit-for-Tat, Retaliator and Reciprocator. It is evolutionarily stable under some conditions in the sense that, given a population dominated by reciprocators, no single nasty individual, and no single unconditionally nice individual, will do better. There are other, more complicated variants of Tit-for-Tat which can in some circumstances do better.

  Another thing from human society has been build is trust. People who have gained trust among other beings, tend to get more generosity and the one who cheat, and go against society rules are punished. This causes the humans to behave accordingly with compassion to gain an important trust in the society.

  The Harvard biologist Marc Hauser, in his book Moral Minds: How Nature Designed our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong has said “Driving our moral judgments is a universal moral grammar, a faculty of the mind that evolved over millions of years to include a set of principles for building a range of possible moral systems. As with language, the principles that make up our moral grammar fly beneath the radar of our awareness.”

  I guess it might be an elaborate and detailed answer to the question “Where does your morality come from”. It’s Science. If u just need religion to be moral, and to be approved by God, you have serious concerns to worry about, other than questioning science..

 

  CHAPTER 6

  THE CURIOUS CASE

  OF

  INDIAN

  MYTHOLOGY

  "One's convictions should be proportional to one's evidence."

  -- Sam Harris

  India is a secular state. Secular means everyone has the right to choose their own religion and have the right the practice it. In the first place, India was basically full of Hindus. Later came Muslims, Buddhist, Sikh, Christians and so on. If they are to be believed, Hinduism was one of the first religions in the World and apparently it’s billions of years old, much longer than what evolution dictates.

  Like any other religion in the world, Hinduism is also full of loopholes and details that can make you wonder. According to Hinduism, the duration has been divided into yugs. And the current time is kalyug which is full of Maya ‘traps’ and very less of reality. According to them, to connect to God, one must leave all materialistic possessions and concentrate on connection with God. Maya will make us to believe and see many things which are not truthfully present or are not real.

  Also, apparently Ascent Hindu tradition is believed to be full of all this gadgets like flying aircraft, long distance communication systems (where people can call or see each other while they are kilometers apart). However with time degradation was believed to come in our religion and we lost all this. People could change their appearance like Mystique, could have claws too like Wolverine, and there is literally one form of Vishnu which is exactly “The Beast”. Leaving nothing behind, there is Hawk Eye too, who can turn the arrows in any direction they want or take any shape. It totally sounds like all the superheroes combined.

  Another interesting thing is life after death. In Hindu culture, there is a concept of reincarnation. When people die, they are reborn again into a different organism depending on their karma. Now “karma” is basically the deed that you do on Earth. If it’s good according to “God”, you might be born into human form again and if you have done some bad deeds, you would be born as a lower creature on Earth. This cycle goes on and on forever.

  According to the scriptures, a Hindu marriage is in dissolvable in life. Nevertheless, polygamy was rampantly practiced in ancient Hindu society. An address by Bhīma to King Yudhishthira in the Mahabharata, succinctly endorses this fact: "A Brahman can take three wives. A Kshatriya can take two wives. As regards the Vaishya, he should take a wife from only his own order. The children born of these wives should be regarded as equal." (Anusasana Parva, Section XLIV). Now, these are the exact written words in Vedas, which truly discriminate one human against the other. The root for all the caste based evils taking place in India is some Vedas, whose source is unknown. People believe the Vedas blindly and take part in all the insane crimes possible.

  “For taking refuge in me, they also, O Son of Prtha, who might be of inferior birth-women, vaisyas as well as sudras- even they attain to the supreme goal”

  These are the exact quotes written in Indian Vedas. This definitely broadcasts your God as sexist, racist, and casteist as he is perfectly implying that women and some caste are inferior to others. This is the source of all problems emanating in India. Still, People take pride in what the Geeta says and they follow it without giving it any second thoughts.

  In India, women have always been discriminated and they have suffered from many disabilities and social injustice. This is true for all Indian women, despite of which caste or religion they may belong to. Indian women rank high in terms of no. of prostitutes in the world, girl child neglected, abused, or often sold for economic purposes.

  Education is not widely attained by Indian women. Although literacy rates are increasing, female literacy rate lags behind the male literacy rate. Literacy for females stands at 65.46%, compared to 82.14% for males An underlying factor for such low literacy rates are parents' perceptions that education for girls are a waste of resources as their daughters would eventually live with their husbands' families and they will not benefit directly from the education investment.

  Another problem with Indian system is dowry. In India, dowry is the payment in cash or some kind of gifts given to bridegroom's family along with the bride. Generally, they include cash, jewelry, electrical appliances, furniture, bedding, crockery, utensils and other household items that help the newlywed set up her home.

  Anthropologist Jack Goody's comparative study of dowry systems around the world utilizing the Ethnographic Atlas demonstrated that dowry is a form of inheritance found in the broad swath of Eurasian societies from Japan to Ireland that practice "diverging devolution", i.e. that allow property to be inherited by children of both sexes. This practice differs from the majority of Sub-Saharan African societies that practice "homogenous inheritance" in which property is transmitted only to children of the same sex as the property holder. These latter African societies are characterized by the transmission of the ill-named "bride price," the money, goods or property given by the groom or his family to the parents of the bride (not the bride herself).

  The sad part is that, although the dowry system originated in other corners of the world, it has now almost been insignificant everywhere but India. It’s still very much an active process in India and takes plac
e everywhere although there are laws against it.

  There are various other issues prevalent in India like illiteracy, overpopulation, health, rape, security, terrorism and the underlying cause behind all of these is religion and caste system. People turn into terrorists because by killing, they have served their “God”. Women are discriminated and raped, who is to blame, if the vedas they are following teaches them that. It is really important in India to enlighten the people and make them believe in themselves, apply sound logic to everything, and then there could be a better and uprising India which would focus only on development and self-growth. That way, we could create a better and shining India..