From Tribalism to Humanism

k-chakra,

how has everything been on chowk. have you been regular.

dr sohail,

yes, the idea of such a seminar sounds interesting. are you also toronto these days? do you live in toronto?

Re: # 62

Der drsohail

Thank you for the kind words and prompt response to my post. In fact you carry another label also which endears you to me: The name of my elder son is also Sohail and incidentally he is also a doctor, but not a psycho one. He is a surgeon in the General Hospital, Lahore.

Now coming to the topic, I had some more bitter experiences as a Punjabi, but I think those were the result of the ongoing political conflicts and not of some deep-seated ethnic hostilities.

To narrate a few: I was in Decca in 1970 when the election fever was still going on. I had a Bengali colleague there who had worked with me at Lahore for some time. He invited me to a dinner at his home in Decca. What a Bengali hospitality it was I had never experienced in my life. But what a shock it was when after the dinner we started chatting in the drawing room. During conversation it dawned upon my friend that I was a Punjabi (He was perhaps taking me as a Pathan previously for certain reasons). He was stunned at this revelation, got red-hot and stopped talking to me. Promptly I thought it advisable to run away before he slits my throat. I do not think he will still be so allergic to a Punjabi. This I say due to another experience with a Pathan colleague in Peshawar. During One-Unit arrangement of West Pakistan the Pathans had became extremely anti-one unit and anti-Punjabi. That friend of mine was always abusing and threatening Punjabies whom he considered to be responsible for establishment of One-Unit for their supremacy. But after disbandonment of One-Unit when I happened to meet him after a long time he was all love for Punjabies and even gave me a sumptuous lunch at his home. Not even that he had become a `Mureed` of a Punjabi Peer.

So it is perhaps fair to conclude it was not a deep-rooted ethnic hostility as such but only the result of a political conflict in which the Punjabies happened to be villains.

regards

Re: # 95
dear khurrum....when i think of philosophy i think of confucious and socrates....they were

enlightened people who were secular. they quesioned things and traditions and used logical

and rational methods to understand mysteries of life. they were social scientists

...when i think of religion i think of moses and jesus and mohammad who tried to guide

humanity and refoem them but put God and revelation and scriptures at the centre of their

message. Because of making their message sacred they gained more power but became

vulnerable to become institutionalized. Followers could not challenge and criticze their

message without being afraid of serious consequences of being persecuated.

It becomes more complicated when followers of relgion not only follow their own ideology

but want to make a constituition based on scriptures...so religion becomes political. for a

message to become institutionalized and then political is unfortunate because then it

becomes a powerful WEAPON that can be abused by people in power.

Secularism and democracy and humanism try their best for that not to happen or try to at

least minimize the negative effects.

I hope I answered your question....

I am aware that different people might have different interpretations of these terms but I

gave you my humble opinion with clear conscience. I want to share my ideas with no

intention to change your mind or win the argument. Feel free to share your understanding

of PHILOSOPHY and RELIGION...sincerely sohail

drsohail,

Rest assured, I am not upset or frustrated with you . I am enjoying our discussion.

Perhaps you can help clear my confusion by explaining what you think is the difference between philosphy and religion.

Re: # 82
dear khurrum....are you getting upset or frustrated with me?

i have no reservation to accept that all religions had a core of `humanism` in

them....unfortunately followers of those religions and prophets corrupted them and

insitituionalized their messages. so now we have to move forwards. if all religions were

oranges...and juice was orange juice....now we can appreciate and cherish orange juice

without the orange and its bitter peel. this is my view of humanistic philosophy. it is similar

to socialism that came out of communism. socialism in norweginan countries even canada

is better than what we saw in russia. so human evolution keeps the juice and throws away

the peel. but some love the peel and feel nostagic [like cultural immigrants who want to live

in the past] and want to go back to hundred years, thousand years back rather than going

forward. humanism today is a philosophy...if in the future it becomes a religion....then

human beings will come up with a new philosophy and if i am alive i will reject

humanism and go on to new philosophy based on secular and scientific thinking of that

era....to me that is a scientific attitude that is different than religious attitude. in scientific

attitude we accept that all realities are relative and each human being and community has

their unique truth...rather than an ABSOLUTE truth dictated by a tribe based on their

religious or traditional past and then imposed on others......sorry to confuse you

further...confusion is sometimes the first step of wisdom...we are all learning from each

other. i ask my friends in passionate dialogues...are we having fun yet? i am glad that the

dialogue on chowk has been respectful and i want to thank all interactors...smiles sohail

from wikipedia:

Roy Nurmi, an interpretation adviser for Schlumberger described the process as follows: ``Something in the order of 500 million years ago there was only simple life in the seas, and these shallow seas would be rich with organic, living organisms. Plankton and algae, proteins and the life that`s floating in the sea, as it dies, falls to the bottom, and these organisms are going to be the source of our oil and gas. When they`re buried with the accumulating sediment and reach an adequate temperature, something above 50 to 70°C they start to cook. This transformation, this change, changes them into the liquid hydrocarbons that move and migrate, will become our oil and gas reservoir.``[1]

In addition to the water environment mentioned, which is usually a sea but might also be a river, lake, coral reef or algal mat, the formation of an oil or gas reservoir also requires a sedimentary basin that passes through four steps: burial under miles of sand and mud, pressure cooking, hydrocarbon migration from the source to porous rock, and trapping by impermeable rock. Timing is also an important consideration; it is suggested that the Ohio River valley could have had as much oil as the Middle East at one time, but that it escaped due to a lack of traps.[2] The North Sea, on the other hand, endured millions of years of sea level changes that successfully resulted in the formation of more than 150 oilfields.[3]

oil is found in sedimentary rocks (like sandstone, dolomite) and nature of oil reservoirs depends strongly on depositional environment.

Another large class of oil reservoirs are carbonates, which are fossilied remains of various aquatic creatures (like corals). The giant middle east reservoirs, bombay high are carbonate reservoirs.

(all this is conventional theory, there is also a Russian theory on the in-organic origins of oil)

So:

You need flowing water and not just carbon but carbon based life form.

Re: # 90 where ever carbon is found, there is a likelihood of oil being present.....is my guess

Is there oil in space?

(head-scratching)

e.g. the mineral value alone of just the asteroid belt between mars and jupiter has been calculated to be worth trillions and trillions of dollars. add to that the materials in the rest of the solar system - giant planets and scores of moons some almost the size of earth, the millions of objects in the kuiper belt, and the massive energy generatd by the sun itself - all this is within reach.

if this ``tribal mindset`` was not diverting resources into wars, those resources would be going towards these true frontiers - mankind`s control of the solar system, curing disease and prolonging life...

Golden.

Re: # 87 I agree...with you here...here is the deal....whilst the great unwashed of this world are fighting it out, some of the washed are looking outwards. Keeping the interest ofthe unwashed on and its resources, allows for greater and better exploitation of the universe. Forget the universe - see antartica recently!

#84 the minerals in the solar system are remarkably similar to earth. you should know all this!! why dont you google nasa.gov or some such site and see what i am talking about. this is not science fiction by any means. but a hard reality that is much more practical than the kinds of issues raised by the ``tribal mentality`` (which exists in spades on chowk, e.g.)

Re: # 77
dear iron mask...alongside my humanistic philosophy, i also like socialistic philosophy

where human progress is more important than economic progress. i think as human beings

we have enough to share and look after our needs....but not greeds.

that is one reason i live in canada where health care and education is free and we have

social services rather than america where 33 million (poplulation of canada) has no health

care and we are spending billions on war in afghanistan, iraq and now in somalia. it is a

matter of preferences and choices....wise humanistic choices.....we make individually and

collectively....sincerely sohail

#80 further to that see #73

Re: # 81 but what are the minerals? If they contain something new, can we extract what we know from them, or do they contain something new which we donot know how to exploit (its like the radiation chemistry of the 1800`s). We speculate, but there is nothing concrete.