What the heck is wrong with religion?!?!

Well lots of things. Religions are fascinating and probably the most potent example of potentially (Don’t know enough about the history of religions to know for sure, gut feeling is negative though) good ideas gone very very wrong!!
Would Christ/Allah/Mohammad really have wanted to be the reason for people killing each other?
Would the thousands of Gods in India have really colluded with treating fellow human beings being as untouchables?
Would Ram really have been smiling up in the heavens while witnessing the Babri masjid being destroyed with so much violence?
(Skipping over various atrocities committed under the name of religion here....)
I am pretty sure the answer this time is NO!

But I started off this blog because of another very real, very current reason why religions suck. I just heard a Muslim cleric explain to a fellow Muslim cleric who happens to be gay - (paraphrasing here) - "We do not acknowledge your existence or Islamism because you are gay. The only difference across religions in terms of how homosexuality is treated is in terms of how they are prescribed to be killed" OMG!!!!! (literally), how can this person be a messenger of God? Why are religions so hateful of homosexuals? I think part of the problem here is keeping pace with time - all religions and the texts (like the Bible, Koran) were written thousands of years ago. We as humans update our value system based on our life experiences, we upgrade our tastes, our computers - everything that grows and thrives depends on a positive feedback system from its ecosystem. So, don’t these texts also need to be updated according to the changing times we live in?
Have to say in this particular case, Christinity seems more enlightened than the rest, albeit their bitter and maniacal opposition to gay marriage.
Please religions and religious "leaders" - don’t you believe in human rights? Aren’t we all children of the same God?

June 9th 2009

What I learned today:
The term behavioral economics - based on the presumption that human beings do not know what's good for them - they are highly suggestive and they act in a lazy and greedy fashion.
Main themes of behavioral economics:
Heuristics: People often make decisions based on approximate rules of thumb, not strictly rational analysis. See also cognitive biases and bounded rationality.
Framing: The way a problem or decision is presented to the decision maker will affect their action.
Market inefficiencies: There are explanations for observed market outcomes that are contrary to rational expectations and market efficiency. These include mis-pricings, non-rational decision making, and return anomalies. Richard Thaler, in particular, has described specific market anomalies from a behavioral perspective.
Economists in the Obama administration are behavioral economists.
Example of BE: Teenage moms were given $1 a day for each day they were not pregnant and it worked!!


Something I keep forgetting:
Ascii codes for:
0 - 48
A - 65
a - 97

Something I learnt about fixing bugs:
Focus on narrowing down the cause before narrowing down the fix.

Special moments:
Chirag's 6 month appointment. He consumed more paper at the doctors office.