Religion (an old write-up that I forgot to post)

There have been things that have happenned around me lately which have clogged the mind and the ability to think clearly has been lost. The last few days Pradnya has been reading to me a realistic version of Ramayan (my Hindi reading is awful). My thinking is still muddled, but like any new thing, it has made me wonder the relevance of the form of religion we follow today.

It takes me back to the line of thought that I had been following a few months back. There is a concept in computers called 'legacy system'. The following is a description of 'legacy system' by wikipedia.

"A legacy system is an old computer system or application program that continues to be used because the user (typically an organization) does not want to replace or redesign it. Legacy systems are considered to be potentially problematic by many software engineers (for example, see Bisbal et al., 1999) for several reasons. Legacy systems often run on obsolete (and usually slow) hardware, and sometimes spare parts for such computers become increasingly difficult to obtain. These systems are often hard to maintain, improve, and expand because there is a general lack of understanding of the system; the staff who were experts on it have retired or forgotten what they knew about it, and staff who entered the field after it became "legacy" never learned about it in the first place. This can be worsened by lack or loss of documentation. Integration with newer systems may also be difficult because new software may use completely different technologies.

Despite these problems, organizations can have compelling reasons for keeping a legacy system, such as:
The costs of redesigning the system are prohibitive because it is large, monolithic, and/or complex. The system requires close to 100% availability, so it cannot be taken out of service, and the cost of designing a new system with a similar availability level is high. The way the system works is not well understood. Such a situation can occur when the designers of the system have left the organization, and the system has either not been fully documented or such documentation has been lost. The user expects that the system can easily be replaced when this becomes necessary. The system works satisfactorily, and the owner sees no reason for changing it; or in other words, re-learning a new system would have a prohibitive attendant cost in lost time and money, compared to the anticipated appreciable benefits of replacing it (which may be zero). If legacy software runs on only antiquated hardware, the cost of maintaining the system may eventually outweigh the cost of replacing both the software and hardware unless some form of emulation or backward compatibility allows the software to run on new hardware."

I find most religions are 'legacy systems'. Antiquated systems of beliefs and customs, which were perfect for their times and since have long lost their relevance. Our understanding of the world and social structure is akin to the hardware. While there is a need to start from scratch, there has been a huge investment in terms of money, effort and lives on these systems and doing so will make it irrelavent. The difference is that while most people believe that the legacy systems are obsolete and should be replaced and do not because they are compelled to by monetary considerations, most people in the world have not realised that the religious beliefs that they so passionately adhere to are outdated. Many software professionals who have little idea of how the legacy systems work, spend years writing code to somehow make it still useful. This is very similar to people who have tried hard to reinterpret religious texts, stories or even history to reflect the current realm of knowledge.

Immanuel Kant said that the idea of God is important from a moral perspective. He is said to have supported the idea that if there is no proof of the existence of God, we might need to invent one, because the world would be immoral if it did not believe in God and fairness. It is the fear of hell and the desire for heaven that can only make a man moral according to quite a few philosophers.

I hope that the legal systems of the world could suffice for this purpose, but the practitioners of this art are at most times are most immoral.

Back to Pirsig

I have picked up Pirsig again. Lila this time. It is like meeting a good old friend. There is a sense of predictability, but it is not boring.

I think there is something in the concept of friendship. Even the people we hate have good friends. It just proves that we all look for something different. We can not force ourselves to befriend someone. It just comes from within. It is just what we are.

And I like Pirsig. And Swami Parthasarathy of course. I met Swami Parathasarathy a couple of years back in Perth and attended his talks. Wasn't quite impressed with him. But I like his book on Vedanta. Once you get past the preachy style it does present some interesting concepts. And I like these concepts. They make me think. They make me feel better. And hence I am not quite sure whether I would like Pirsig as a person. But his ideas, I do.

I tried reading Amartya Sen. Read 'Argumentative Indian', 'Identity and Violence' and started reading 'The Idea of justice'. The first two were interesting. The third is a bit tiring. The style of writing is very academic. The purpose is to be correct and seem objective. There are many places in the book when you feel 'Ok, is that all what you want to say? You could have said it in lesser words, simpler sentences and an interesting manner'. But that is what academic writing is all about. No wonder academicians scorn at Pirsig.

But Amartya Sen did not make me think or make me feel better. He did not make me write something on my blog. Pirsig did. And I have just read 30 odd pages of Lila.