Random Thoughts

Your religion is decided for you based on the family you're born into almost immediately after your birth. This is further reinforced during your childhood with the various customs and rituals that you're part of, each one involving prayers to a higher being. Then, it is no surprise that you get brainwashed into believing in God. After all, it is the biggest fantasy or myth that your parents and your community have indulged in and have made you a part of, so much so, that it becomes part of your identity. Later when you experience more of the world, learn more science, see more sense in logic than unfounded beliefs, you start to question the existence of God. You notice how the fallacy of the religious belief begs the question that if God created man, who created God? You probably have already imbibed so much of the belief both consciously and sub-consciously that any loss in this faith comes across to you as a desertion of your own identity. How then can you ever break a...

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins My rating: 4 of 5 stars This book reads like a story therefore making complex concepts simple and interesting. Dawkins establishes very early on that the genes today in all of our bodies are essentially just versions of the earliest replicators. The argument of why the gene is selfish and how every single behavior of every plant and animal is dictated by the genes selfish nature to multiply makes for an interesting read. Reading it today, more than 40 years after it was written, some of the scientific achievements of mankind that seemed speculative and futuristic at the time are now already in use. For example, he talks about something similar to what became IBM's deep blue (first chess-playing computer to win against the reigning world champion), maps that could give you the best route and today we can't think of going anywhere without Google Maps. Also, one of the chapters is called memes because of its traditional meaning, which ...