}Chennai Freethinkers{Annual Report

A compilation of reports of the monthly meets • January 23, 2012

• email: chennaifreethinkers@groups.facebook.com • 1

}1{

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The First Meet26th January 2011

- by Bala Subramaniam

I endeavor to give a report of the Chennai

meeting. It would not be in the form of

‘Minutes of the meeting.’  It is rather a

summation of what each member contributed

at various points of the conversation

throughout the discussion and finally how it

was proposed to take the free thinkers’

movement further.

Fifteen people attended the Indian Atheists’

Meet-up at Chennai today.

Bala Subramaniam gave an introduction and

talked about the agenda for the day. He

mused how relevant the 4 points in the agenda

were and also indicated that there was a

request to discuss about the inefficacies of

homeopathy. He felt that discussing the four

structured points would help break the ice

and would also help us know where each of us

stood so that we could arrive at a consensus to

go ahead. He talked about the importance of

making available study material on Science in

the form of lectures and short videos for those

who are interested. Adithya interceded to

point out that though this was a good idea, the

internet already contained loads of

information and it only required that we use

the net to obtain required info and of course

cross verify from more reliable sources.

Bala Subramaniam offered to arrange for a

recording studio for those interested in

making short films on Rational topics /

Science.

Adithya  continued by saying that the concept

of an Atheists’ meet up is sort of funny as we

have nothing in common other than our

disbelief in god. ( in this context,  Gaurav said

that his friend on being told about the get

together commented: So what are you atheists

going to do? Meet and not pray?)    He felt

that though we already have the Nirmukta

banner under which we can organize

ourselves, Nirmukta lacks an identifiable face.

He insisted that we should think of

identifying a strong person who could act as

our spokesperson and who would be able to

get the message across and respond to

criticism in the media. He offered to provide

backend support on this.  He recounted a

debate on the Nithyananda episode in which

he participated in the channel NDTV Hindu

and how a young participant commented

about the incongruity of Sri Sri Ravishankar

preaching simple living and him traveling in a

Mercedes Benz.

Elanchezhian told that when people asked

Periyar what he would do, if god appeared

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before him, Periyar replied simply that he

would start believing. Elanchezhian also

informed that a new TV channel called Periyar

TV which proposed to propagate rationalist

ideas and free thought was to be launched in

Tamilnadu shortly and felt that it would go a

long way in opening people’s minds. It was

felt by the participants that if we organize

ourselves well, we can get slots in TV

channels and spread the movement and the

ideas.

(Tony) felt that the reason for

closet Atheists not coming out

into the open was because of

the stigma attached to the

‘Atheist’ tag.

Bala Bhaskar discussed in detail the

educational value of the short videos that

could be posted in Nirmukta website. He

suggested that we should post 10 minute

videos  on the lines of the web site

scienceofscams.com to counter the

innumerable frauds such as reiki and so on.

He suggested that we could bring out a video

of Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot in tamil; the

translation has already been attempted and

posted in Nirmukta.  It was agreed that it

would be a great idea to get some  well known

media personality to lend his voice for the

video and Adithya offered to get the same

arranged provided there were no copyright

infringements. Bala Bhaskar also informed

that Nirmukta was in the process of obtaining

NGO status and this would help us go ahead

with our plans. He also expressed his concern

that a site called nirmuktafrauds.info was

spreading canards about Nirmukta and it was

imperative to counter such attempts.

Sanjay started on a philosophical note about

the perils of consumerism but soon got into

the groove. He lamented about the fact that

the so called ‘ Sri Sri Ravishankar” was 

addressing the IITians , on the topic of 

climate change. He talked about bringing

people like Narendra Nayak and making them

address gatherings and exposing frauds

perpetrated in the name of religion. Religion

is a form of child abuse, he felt, as children are

indoctrinated and not allowed to think for

themselves.

Tony Stanley talked wistfully about how he

was inspired by the ‘Turning point’

programme in Doordarshan of yore and

stressed the need for more such programmes.

He felt that the reason for closet Atheists not

coming out into the open was because of the

stigma attached to the ‘Atheist’ tag. He

suggested that instead of calling ourselves as

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Atheists we may adopt a different label. There

were a few suggestions – Freethinkers,

Humanists, Naturalists. Adithya took a dig at

the creationists calling themselves as

believers in Intelligent Design we too could

call ourselves as Humanists. But no

conclusion could be reached on this front

though there was some inclination to be

labeled as ‘Freethinkers.’

Chakrapani , in a specific response to a report

recounted by Aditya that Amritanandamayi  ,

by licking the wounds of lepers was capable of

curing them, sarcastically commented that  

instead of taking sick people to healers like

her, she can visit hospitals on a daily basis or

rather there would be no requirement for

hospitals at all.

Harsha pointed out that in any group there

would be radical people as well as moderate

people and that radical people are needed to

take the views forward. He talked about the

importance of taking the message to children

and told about the fiction ‘Harry Potter and

the Methods of Rationality’ and about

Lesswrong wiki. He also offered to start a

dedicated facebook page to further our cause.

Rajendran impressed upon the importance of

logical thinking and how to tickle people into

thinking.

Neethi  talked about promoting scientific

temper and inculcating critical thinking skills;

he stressed  that it was the most important

aspect to be looked into. His wife Barathi

talked about how she got introduced to

Atheism. She also said that teachers could be

approached and educated to develop the

critical thinking skills of their students. Their

daughter Nikita was an avid listener. It was

nice to see a family of atheists.

Gaurav stressed about the need for

inculcating inquisitiveness in children and

also about the importance of forming a stable

group of freethinkers to provide a sense of

belongingness to people who come out of

organized religion and look to be part of a

group.

Geetha talked about the possibility of

reaching out to the fence sitters by organizing

more such meets and also the importance of

equipping oneself with the list of logical

fallacies listed by Carl Sagan which would aid

in debating with a believer.

Ganesh said that we need not bother about

hurting the religious sentiments of people as

only inciting religious violence is a crime.

Adithya chimed in by saying that calling

religious belief as stupid is no crime. Ganesh

talked about the importance of talking to

children about the various creation myths

apart from teaching them about evolution. He

suggested that everyone should watch the 40

– minute video ‘Here Be Dragons’  which

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related to developing critical thinking skills.

Ganesh also told about his dream of writing a

book for children explaining the various view

points and pointing out the fallacies in

religion and how he gave up after hearing

about Richard Dawkins’ next book targeted at

children as he could never hope to match

Dawkins. The group encouraged him to write

his book as Dawkins would mostly focus on

Christianity and that Ganesh would have

better scope given the ‘richness’ of

Hinduism.

 

Of the four points listed in the agenda, it so

happened that the participants were more

interested in discussing the third point viz.,

How should the freethinker movement

proceed? Goes to show the social

consciousness of the group. There was not

much dwelling on when they realized that god

was imaginary nor whether any of them were

closet atheists. As regards the question when,

it was broadly agreed that it cannot be pinned

down to one moment but was a gradual

process.

The group by and large decided that it was

essential to have a well known face from the

media to propagate our views. It was also

agreed that school going children have to be

inculcated with the ideas of free thought,

critical thinking  etc.  This had to be done

without using any tags like atheism, religion,

god etc. so that they or their teachers/parents

are not intimidated. It was also agreed to have

a web page for the group to interact and

exchange views. 

 

 Those present were:

Tony Stanley

Adithya

Balamurugan Bhaskar

Bala Subramaniam

Gaurav Himkar

Harsha Svrs

Sanjay Kumar

Rajendran

Elanchezhian

Chakrapani

Geetha TG

Neethi

Barathi

Nikita

Ganesh Veluswami

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Next Steps30th January 2011

- by Bala Subramaniam

Fifteen people randomly by chance with no

particular objective assembled at the café,

with just one common characteristic we have,

that is ‘rational thinking’.

I was enthralled to see the group started

discussing what to do, when to do and how to

do, even before we could know each other.

When I started the introduction with the four

questions, we already felt like we all knew

each other for a long time.

Such is the hurry, because each one of us in

our own life would have realized the urgency,

and also seen in many places and many times

the ‘irrational thinking’ of people creating

hurdles to self as well as to the humanity

We have been discussing much on the name

for quite some time. I would like to stop here

and to just look back and see what actually

brought these 15 likeminded people together

here. It’s the effort of the Nirmukta group

which created the ‘Indian Atheist’ page in FB.

As I had mentioned once during our

conversation, it is our decision to click ‘Like’

on that page has brought us here. Since the

Nirmukta group took the initiative and

encouraged us to have a meet in Chennai on

the lines of other city, we should leave the

‘naming task’ to them who are actually in

touch with the likeminded people of other

cities.  However, we shall give our opinion.

If I am not mistaken, all of us felt the tag

‘Atheist’ is too narrow with respect to our

ideas. We wanted a broader area to apply our

rational thoughts against and not stick just to

theism. Therefore the word ‘Freethinkers’

came out unanimously, which we are able to

see happening in other city meets too.

So my proposal is as follows, I request the

other 14 to say whether it’s comfortable.

Request Ajita, Siddharth and others who have

been trying to build this for past 2 years to

share the guidelines, common goals, agenda,

etc if any. Also come out with a common

name and structure.

Circulate a brief history of all the activities so

far done and any future plans drafted.

Who are the people playing pivotal roles

nationally and globally now?

Now coming to chennaites (includes Tony,

Harsha and Gaurav ), now that the un-cool

activities are given off, lets chill.

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We shall start talking about what we shall do

and when we shall meet next, where, what

would be the agenda etc.

A small suggestion, if everyone likes, I shall

arrange for a hall with projector, etc and we

shall watch some videos like “The Four

Horsemen” (just an example), etc together

and just chat for some time informally, discuss

science, logic and reason. We shall also invite

people of other cities (Pune, Delhi, Mumbai,

Bangalore, etc) if they could join.

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Second Meet24th March 2011

- by Geetha TG

It is universally recognized that we human

beings have an innate need to form groups /

socialise. Forget about the instantaneous

rapport, cutting across all divisions, that men

seem to strike while talking about cricket –

there is definitely more to life than just cricket

or movies for most people. I am sure there are

groups all over the world dedicated to

meeting regularly and discussing about topics

ranging from space shuttles to taphophiles

discussing their love for cemeteries . There is

something appealing to be among like-

minded people, where you can unwind to be

your natural self, express your opinion

without getting curious glances or talk

without fear of being branded ‘weirdo.’

Coming to think of it, those of us who met at

3p.m on Sunday, 20th March are not all that

familiar with each other. And nor were we

much interested in personally getting to know

each other. But we were very comfortable in

inter-acting with each other content in the

knowledge that in our perspective of life we

all shared a narrow band of ideas and views

and that there were not many in our

respective circles who shared a similar

outlook. We recognized the importance of

having such a group of friends and that made

us almost affectionate towards each other.

 

                The last time we all met at Cafe

Coffee Day, most of us were quiet, trying to

gauge the others and were slightly

uncomfortable to be part of a distinctly

diverse group that was yet to forge a bond.

However our exchanges in the virtual world –

FB in general and Chennai Freethinkers page

in particular had helped us to form a comfort

zone with regard to fellow members of the

group. And so when we met last Sunday with

the agenda to discuss 1) how Nirmukta would

grow after registering as an NGO and how

Chennai Freethinkers would function under

the umbrella organisation and 2) the

modalities of organizing a workshop akin to

that conducted by the Bangalore

Freethinkers, we did not take long to open

up. Though we could not talk to Ajita Kamal

and Sidharth Singh on Skype as planned, we

talked to Adithya Manthramuthy of Bangalore

Freethinkers about their experiences in

conducting the workshop.

 

                A good lot of ideas and points were

tossed about. Dr.Nagalekshmi and Girish

Shankar, a First year B.Tech. student

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attended the meet for the first time.

Dr.Nagalakshmi said we should not project

ourselves as atheists conducting a workshop

as this might put off people. She also

suggested that we could have a session on

Alternative medicine. Bala S clarified that the

workshop would be ‘to promote scientific

temper.’  Girish came across as an intelligent,

soft-spoken person and extremely well read –

no wonder he was considered to be ‘weird’ by

his peers. He was given the task of roping in

students to participate in the workshop.

 

...for me it was satisfying to

mention Richard Feynman

and get a broad smile in

response.

                Sanjay, ‘the big picture guy’ as usual

talked about the ill effects of consumerism –

the group agreed what he said was perfectly

true but reminded him that it was better to

tackle one issue at a time. Bala S was ‘the idea

man’ who came up with a lot of ideas, ranging

from conducting a series of workshop,

holding debates and discussions (in the Music

Academy!)  and so on and so forth. He too

had to be reminded that we are still taking

baby steps. Ganesh,  ‘the bubbly and

effervescent doctor’ regaled us with funny 

anecdotes and his experiences in dealing with

superstitious people. He said he would

request Dr.Ezhilan Naganathan of Youth.org

to speak in the workshop. Bala B, ‘the creative

genius’ of our group was the sobering effect –

reminding us of the vision of Nirmukta and

also about what was practically possible at this

stage. He clarified that there would be no bar

in calling our workshop too ‘Yukti’ and

explained that the word meant reasoning or

deduction. In fact Yukti could be the title of

all the workshops that would be held under

the banner of Nirmukta. He also talked about

his work in designing the logo for

Freethinkers.

 

Bala B also suggested that  we could watch

documentaries / debates during our monthly

meetings, which was agreed to be held at

4p.m on the 1st Sunday of every month.

Though all of us had watched several lectures

and debates by ourselves, the prospect of

watching as a group, Christopher Hitchens

taking on Dinesh D’Souza or Sam Harris

taking on Deepak Chopra was enticing.

Personally for me it was satisfying to mention

Richard Feynman and get a broad smile in

response and also information about his

Messenger Lectures from the group members

– contrast this to getting this response from a

friend when I mentioned that Feynman was

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my favorite scientist – “You have a favorite

SCIENTIST??!!”

 

Though  a lot of details about organizing the

workshop like –whether it would be for one

day or 2 days, what could be the topics,

possible speakers, venue etc., were discussed

at length , we did not consolidate and arrive at

any concrete conclusion. The ideas thrown up

in the brain storming session would be mulled

over and discussed in the forum in days to

come. The members of this group are

requested to come out with topics and

probable speakers for the workshop tentative

planned to be held in May.

 

Finally the easy camaraderie of the group

where we could, on the one hand, have

cerebral discussions about the evolution of

religion, the impact of Adi Shankaracharya,

Gautama Buddha etc.,   and crack jokes, talk

and laugh on the other hand without much

inhibition showed that the Chennai

Freethinkers have arrived and bonded well as

a cohesive group under Nirmukta. Well then,

maybe, just maybe, we Chennai Freethinkers

can gain some visibility as a respectable

community and thereby hope to contribute

something to the cause of Science, logic and

reason.

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Third Meet4th April 2011

- by Bala Subramaniam

We missed our fellow freethinker, who used to do the reporting with grace. I can’t present as beautiful as that, but will try my best to at least convey what we discussed during this meet in a nut shell.

It was pleasure to have Sandeep and Anbalagan the new faces (outside facebook). Also to have Aditya Manthiramurty and Krishnan Parthasarthi of ‘Bangalore Freethinkers’ with us today.

Regarding Chennai Yukti the following were decided

- 15 th of May 2011 is the tentative date.- It will be a 1 day workshop including lunch and tea.- A nominal fee shall be charged- We shall seek for some sponsorship.- Sanjay has taken the responsibility to identify the hall

Rest of the meeting was fun, we discussed usual Darwin, Dawkins, Dennet etc.

Then Isha yoga, Art of living, Ramdev and certain other similar nonsense.

Certain controversial topics among us like Politics, democracy, Cricket… (for sometime)Then the last few hours, the topic went to the details of cosmology, physics and other

wonderful science where we got lost.Ganesh didn’t like me referring the god men ‘Avar’ (to refer someone respectfully in tamil) he prefers ‘Avan’ (to refer someone disrespectfully) – I should try that (habituated).

‘Could there be different laws of physics in different planetary system’ asked SandeepSanjay beautifully explained (Membrane) M- theory and said not possible in the same universe, probably its possible in another universe.

Adhitya wanted to know what to answer if the irrational asks what is the purpose or meaning of the whole universe. Ganesh said “why should there be one?”  then we said the meaning and purpose are needed only if we view the universe from an anthropocentric point.

We also discussed about how the universe can still exist without life. Of course in between we took some tea break discussion on god men.

We are still waiting for some development in Nirmukta being formally organized.We exchanged some videos and books digitally before we reluctantly parted.

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Fourth Meet5th June 2011

- by Bala Bhaskar

The 4th meet of the Chennai Freethinkers happened on Sunday the 5th of June 2011 at Birla Planetarium, Chennai.  We met at 1500 hrs in front of the auditorium.  Fifteen members participated in this meet, which is our second highest participation since the inception meeting.  Due to initial problems finding a comfortable spot to settle down, it was suggested by Sanjay that perhaps next time someone could scout for a good meeting location a few days before the meet.

 

Once settled down, Balu.S began by giving an introduction about Nirmukta and its objectives.  The immediate job of filling up key posts within the group was quickly brought up.  After few discussions it was decided that,

 

-       Ganesh Veluswami will be President,

-       Bala Bhaskar will be Secretary and

-       Balasubramanian S will be Treasurer.

 

 It was also noted that in the future, a proper protocol for electing key members should be drafted. 

 

Ganesh reminded us of Prof. Narendra Nayak’s schedule in Chennai and urged us to attend his meet on the 11th of June at Periyar Thidal at Vepery. 

Bala B suggested at this point that we have a proper introduction session since there were many first time members . 

 

Balu S stared us off by introducing himself.  He is an interior designer with a keen interest in science. It was critical thinking that led him to renounce religious beliefs.

 

Neethi is working at Tata Consultancy Services.  He mentioned that his wife used to be a believer and would waste hours on end performing rituals.  However, he never used to stop her and allowed her to continue with the practice but requested not to compel him to participate.   Years later when she reasoned herself into being an atheist, she asked him why he didn’t stop her back then from wasting her time.  Ganesh noted that one can never covert someone to Atheism.  At best we can de-convert the person.

 

Girish is a 2nd year B.Tech student studying Nuclear Science at SRM University.  He said he has been an atheist for the past one year. 

Blaize Leslie, a first timer for CF meet, is a software developer for a French Multinational Corporation, which produces aerospace and defense hardware.  He used to be a staunch Roman Catholic Christian for 25 years.  He said he had a strong urge to understand the religion and did extensive research into theology.  The more he read about Christianity, the more the chances of the Bible being factual quickly diminished.  Pretty soon he realized it was man made.  However

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he still wanted to know why it is that people made up such stories.   He opined that humans are basically afraid of death and need a mental crutch to hold onto to cope with it. He described how his parents thought it was Satan's work that made him question his beliefs.

 

Anand Boopathy, also a first timer to the CF meet, is an Engineering Graduate.  He said he never used to believe in the supernatural.  He follows science and since childhood has a habit of questioning beliefs.  He reads as many science books as he could and wished to be a scientist.  However he said now it’s too late for that.  Others including Bala S and Sanjay said he still has a very good chance of becoming a scientist, as he has just finished his Undergraduate course, and asked him to be hopeful.  Anand said that though his parents are believers, they supported his non-belief.

 

Einstein Deepakraj is a 4th Year Engineering student from a Catholic family.  This is his first meet with the CF. When taught about the Big Bang in school, the teachers pointed out to him that science cannot answer what happened before the big bang and that God started the universe off.  When he asked who started God off, he was put down and told he would understand as he grows up.   He said he used to pray as a child but was never convinced if he is being heard.  He even thought he is not good enough and there might be something wrong with him.  His family is close to the Church and his grandparents have been helped by the Church to a great extent.  He was told that it is because of the Church that he is what he is today.  So although he stopped believing in God, he thought perhaps the existence of the Church is a good thing.  About a year ago he

saw a video of the "Intelligence Squared" debate on BBC.  The motion was “The Catholic Church is a force for good in this world”.  In this classic Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry debate, Fry says that justifying the RCC by the charities is like a robber pleading before a judge that although he committed robbery and murder, he did give his dad a birthday present!  This was the final nail in the coffin for Einstein’s dissociation with religion.

 

The more he read about Christianity, the more the chances of the Bible being factual, quickly diminished

Senthil Kumar is a software engineer.  He said he developed a habit of questioning traditions and wanted to meet like-minded people. 

 

His wife Pradeesha, who is a nurse by profession believes in a higher power although she rejects all religions and

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traditions and superstitious rituals.  Ganesh responded by saying it is not necessary for a freethinker to be an atheist and that Atheism is a subset of Freethought.

 

Veluswami, Ganesh’s father is a retired Assistant General Manager of Reserve Bank of India.   He said he is probably the only person in the group who has visited all the temples in Tamil Nadu or even perhaps India.  This was because whenever he used to visit banks for inspection, the bank manager inevitably would take him to a nearby temple.  His wife is a believer and there used to be healthy debates between Ganesh and his mother.  He described how the “pooja room” in their house is unused due to Ganesh’s piercing questioning of rituals.  He seems to be very influenced by Ganesh’s outspoken atheism.

 

...it is not necessary for a freethinker to be an atheist. Atheism is a subset of Freethought.

Naveen is an Orthopedic Surgeon and Ganesh’s friend.  He opined that people need role models in life and most of the role models we see today are theists.  He is a fan of Sachin Tendulkar and was distraught to see him weeping in front of Satya Sai Baba’s corpse.  He also opined that change should come from childhood and we should stop threatening children using irrational beliefs like ghosts and gods in order to make them behave. 

Naveen’s father passed away a while ago and he does the yearly Hindu rituals.  Not because he believes that it is going to help is father in heaven but just to satisfy his living mother.  Similarly he takes his children to temple on their birthday on his wife’s request.

 

Madhavan is a journalist for The Hindu Business Line.  He said we as a group needed some sort of a badge to identify ourselves and for others to recognize us.  He couldn’t stay with us for long and had to leave early.

 

Ganesh is a pediatrician and has been the most vocal in our group since our first meet.  He narrated an incident where his Chief Doctor was once going through a rough patch and asked him if she should convert to Atheism to see if it works.  He then explained to her Atheism is not an equal alternative set of beliefs to religion that she can simply switch to.  It is a way of looking at reality which one has to reason themselves into. He said people accept irrational beliefs because they are comforting and easy to grasp.  For instance a patient with a kidney stone is more likely to believe a Homeopath who says he can cure him through Homeopathic solvents than a Medical Doctor who says the stone is large and needs to be operated on.  He quipped that in this case the Homeopath may be right as Homeopathic medicine are nothing but water and consuming water is essential to erode kidney stones.  He emphasised the need of conveying the awe and beauty of science to the masses but conceded that doing so in a style that appeals to the general audience might prove difficult.

 

Bala B is a visual effects artist working for a production studio.  He used to be an

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apathetic believer for most of his life.  Few years ago he met with a road accident and was hospitalized for a few months.   During his hospital stay he used to get religious groups visit him everyday to pray for him.  This annoyed the Doctor who banned all visitors citing infection risk.  Subsequently all the religious paraphernalia like pamphlets, offerings etc., were collected by the nurse and delivered to him in the evening every day.  One day there was a copy of The God Delusion within the pile.  He read it and started questioning his beliefs one by one.  Pretty soon they all fell like dominoes.

 

Rajendran is a trainer at Infosys.   He is a NeuroLinguistic programmer.  He was interested in psychology which led him to study religion.  He realized too much of it was made up.  He opined that all immoral activities in society are committed by religious people, to which Ganesh replied saying one can’t generalize like that.  He quoted Steven Weinberg saying “Good people will do good things.  Bad people will do bad things.  But for good people to do bad things, it takes religion”.    Blaize opined that even when helping people, they thank God instead of thanking the person helping.  When asked why, they say “God is working through you”.  Ganesh replied that Blaize should slap that person and say “God slapped you through me”.  Ganesh narrated a similar incident where he gave a lift to someone in his car.  Once inside the car the person thanked God for sending him.  Ganesh did a U-turn and dropped the person where he picked him up.

Sanjay is an Environmental Engineer working on the Climate Change program.  The amount of poverty and inequality in society made him turn away from the God

concept.  He said all religions are rife with misogynist ideologies.  He has a keen interest in physics.  He emphasized the need for combining sociology with science in order to bring about change.  He also opined that we as a group needed to have a political agenda.

 

The introduction session lasted a good hour and a half with stories of personal journeys and humorous anecdotes.  The security person at the park requested us to leave as it was well past their closing time.  We took a few photographs and exchanged contact details.   We tried to record the session but due to lack of proper audio device the sound quality was pretty bad.   The next meeting will be on the 11th at Periyar Thidal for Narendra Nayak’s speech.  Everyone was requested to be present and to bring their family and friends.

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Fifth Meet11th June 2011

- by Geetha TG

On 11th June 2011, the Chennai Freethinkers and The Rationalist Forum of Tamil Nadu jointly organized a meet titled “Science Behind Miracles”. Around 70 people attended the meet, which was held at Periyar Thidal in Chennai. A TV film crew for Channel Nine in Australia was filming the event as part of their ’60 minutes’ program.  While the crew was setting up their equipment, Professor Narendra Nayak explained about his experience over the past few days filming at “Vaitheeswaran” Temple and exposing “Naadi” Astrologers.

 

The program began with a welcome address by Prince Ennares Periyar of the Rationalist Forum.  This was followed by a speech by Justice Paranjothi, who was invited to preside over the event.  He talked about the rationalist movement in Tamil Nadu and the practice of not affixing the caste to an individual’s name, which is being followed in the State. The gathering was then addressed

by Babu Gogineni and by Dr.Ezhilan Naganathan.

  

Babu Gogineni talked about Satya Sai baba and also Baba Ramdev relying on modern medicine when needed. He described a particular news in the inner pages of the day’s Times of India about two new elements having been added to the periodic table.  He described the profoundness of the news, which was sidelined by other news about Baba Ramdev on the front page.  He emphasized the importance of the clause in the Indian Constitution about developing scientific temper among citizens.  

 Dr.Ezhilan described his experience with irrational beliefs among his patients.  He outlined his work with ‘Youth Organisation’ that he set up to spread rationalism and critical thinking in rural Tamil Nadu through street corner theatre and drama.  He said, after some demonstrations, the members would collect horoscopes and burn them in front of a temple.  He noted that till date he has not experienced any notable resistance.  He conferred that rural Tamil Nadu was already primed for rationalism by Periyar, however it was difficult to get the message across to the urban middle class.  He also described his work of reaching out to schoolchildren in the suburbs and helping them to think rationally.

17

This was followed by a demonstration debunking miracles by Prof. Narendra Nayak. He produced ash and a chain apparently out of thin air.  He lit a camphor and placed it in his tongue.  He then had an audience member perform the trick. He also showed video clippings exposing Sai baba’s miracles and

another godman advocating crystal-gem-music therapy.

 

Bala Bhaskar and Sanjay introduced themselves as office bearers of Chennai Freethinkers and described our agenda and requested people to join our monthly meets. Bala Subramaniam explained what ‘freethinking’ means and told about Nirmukta and its activities. Ganesh proposed the vote of thanks.  

 

Babu Gogineni emphasized the importance of the clause in the Indian Constitution about developing scientific temper among citizens. 

After winding up the meeting, there was an interactive session between members of The Rationalists’ Forum and Chennai Freethinkers. This took place for about an hour at the Periyar Museum. It was inspiring to sit amidst the photographs and artifacts of the great rationalist Periyar and discuss how the two groups can come together and move forward. The members of The Rationalists’ Forum suggested that we could provide inputs and content for their magazine Rationalists and for their children’s magazine. All of us agreed that children should be our target group and that we have to invoke scientific temper in them. Finally they promised to invite us to participate in their activities and requested us to do the same.

18

Babu Gogineni’s Speech11th June 2011

- by Babu Gogineni (International Director,

IHEU) during the Chennai Freethinkers and

Rationalist Forum meet.

Dear friends and colleagues.  It is indeed a great pleasure to be amongst you. Just a few months after Geetha mentioned in Bangalore that there was the Chennai Freethinkers Group, there is this opportunity to be amongst you.  I acknowledge the hard work that went into bringing this meeting together, Dr.Ganesh and everyone else who was involved. 

 In the last 12 months, people in India have had a few rude reminders, that the spirit of science and the principles on which science is based is under serious threat today in Independent India.   The Mumbai High court received a petition from an atheist, asking the high court to ban astrology and Vaasthu.  The High Court considered it and asked the Government of India to respond.  The Government of India submitted an affidavit and said, that vaasthu and Jyothishya Saasthra (astrology) were ancient sciences and therefore the Government could not regulate them.  This is the response from the Government of India which functions under the constitution of India whose very preamble

talks about secularism, and whose article 51AH exalts all the citizens of the country to promote social reform, scientific temper and humanism.  I don’t believe there is any other constitution in the world, which is so heavily in favor of the ideals and the values that we stand for.  Yet science, humanism and social reform are in peril today in our country. 

 Take for example the response that was given by the Government of India, which said, that Jyothishya saastra and Vaasthu were “ancient” sciences.  We ask, can science ever be ancient?  We wonder, that the Government assisted by tens of thousands of technical workers, (because India is supposed to have the largest pool of technically qualified scientific workforce), that one has the temerity, that one has the courage, that one has such scorn for modern scientific achievement that one should say that these are “ancient” sciences.  Science is ever fresh.   Yesterday’s philosophy of science, yesterday’s conclusions of science, are already challenged by today’s discovery.   That the earth was a sphere was unknown to those who talked of vaasthu saastra, And yet it persists.  That the sun is a star was unknown to the Jyothishyas, who in their navagrahas don’t even have the earth, and they have two imaginary planets.  And yet, the country that has the largest population of scientists says, that anti science can survive.  They are happy to tolerate nonsense.  

 The other rude shock that people in India got was this extraordinary case in Gujarat when a fellow rationalist and humanist approached the High Court pleading that there cannot be any religious functions performed in the High Court of the state, as that would take away from the secular tradition of the state, because bhoomi pooja was conducted in the premises of the High Court.  The High Court considered the matter and said, that the petition was a frivolous one because the

19

prayer made to the earth was a secular activity and fined our colleague Rs.20,000 for having wasted the time of the court.  

The third rude reminder is what happened when Sathya Narayana Raju, also known as Sathya Sai Baba died over 20 days in a hospital. Clearly he died because he was being given medicine.  Sathya Sai Baba would have lived if he had been administered Vibhuthi. The medicine that he gave to people around the world, was not the medicine he wanted, or was administered to him. We had the additional solicitor general of India who made a public statement saying he had a dream and in his dream the dying baba told him that he had deposited his will in a silver box and he asked everyone to go into Yajur Mandhir (Sai Baba’s residence) and open the doors and go into Sathya Sai Baba bedroom and find that box, open it and find Sathya Sai Baba’s last will and testament.  People went, and discovered that there was no silver box and there was no testament. 

 Look at the comedians in public life.  Look at what is happening today in complete and utter disregard to the very basic principles on which science is based, that there must be evidence based on which we must come to conclusions about facts.  That is the foundation of science.  That any claim about the reality of something can be questioned, examined and verified.  And yet, that seems not to matter anymore in our country.  If it did, why would we have state government

after state government after state government performing varuna poojas and varuna yagnas to make it rain?  Why would we have ministers for endowment and religion, perform Shaanthi poojas on the day there is an eclipse in the country?  In fact, two years ago, when there was an eclipse, and the minster for endowments in Karnataka ordered all the temples to be closed and asked special prayers to be performed to ward off the evils of the solar eclipse.  When he was asked, what was the logic of his doing it, he said, “I am not the minister for science!” He is the minister for superstition.  People who are in positions of power today, who have a responsibility to uphold the high values and the great ideas in the Indian constitution are failing it every day. 

Clearly he died because he was being given medicine.  Sathya Sai Baba would have lived if he had been administered “Vibhuthi”.

It’s in this context that people like us who work to promote the spirit of science, to popularize the great achievements of science have to fight.  Todays Times of India announces… I am not interested in the thamashas of fasting by babas.   I’m talking about what was in the inside pages of the TOI.  Two more elements have been added to the periodic table.  Man, the human being has discovered two more things about the universe, in a country, which still sticks with the panchaboothas.  117 elements are there, but these fellows know only five and it is on the basis of these five they construct their worldview. 

20

 The ones who have no idea about modern medicine are the ones who are now victimizing Indian society by peddling their wares, these snake oil charmers who tell you that by drinking Lauki ka juice, you can cure yourself of cancer.   Its these people who will tell you, not only they can tell you, they can sell the art of breathing as the art of living and make money out of it.  Who said human breath has no power?  Human breath created an empire whose turnover is 439 crores of rupees for the double Sri Ravi Shankar.  And who told you that bitter gourd juice and bottle gourd juice had no power? It has created empire worth 1100 odd crores of rupees in our country.  No, it is not the power of Lauki ka juice.  It is not the power of breathing.  It is the strength of ignorance and stupidity.  India has been caught in this terrible cesspool of ignorance and superstition.  And even the scientists are not willing to defend their worldview. Indians are the victim of a life denying superstitious religion and the constitutional functionaries who are enjoined to uphold it are the ones who are attacking the constitution day in and day out and are defeating the principles that uphold a modern society.  It is a matter of life and death.   Near Hyderabad, one of the High tech centres of India, 50 kms from the high tech city, you have witch-killings.  Human beings are suspected to have special powers, which can hurt or harm your neighbors.   They see a piece of cut lime, and a bit of turmeric, and a dead chicken.  These are things that each of us uses in our kitchen in our homes.   In most home the Sunday does not go without chicken.  When it is hot people drink limejuice, and they put chilly in their curries.  And yet, chilly, chicken and lime can kill people, and it IS killing people.  In a country, which uses the concept, the idea of the material nature of existence, we come into the situation that India is today.  People can sell us the technique of breathing.   Some tell us that they can give us bliss by hugging us.  If

there are some maathas who can hug, there are some swamis who can kick.    

Indians are the victim of a life denying superstitious religion and the constitutional functionaries who are enjoined to uphold it are the ones who are attacking the constitution day in and day out.

One fellow told us that he can teach us the art of flying.   And starting from John Lennon and the others, the Beatles, Pundit Ravi Shankar, and all the enlightened people of the world, the educated people of the world, believed that just by holding your breath you could fly.  Transcendental Meditation it is called.  And yet the same flying yogi bought for himself a helicopter.  Why?  If he could fly why did he need the helicopter?  You have these “Sarva Sangha Parithyaagus”, the ones who have given away everything in their lives, who have led an ascetic life, avowed to do that, even changing the name by which they were born… they require, like in the case of Rajneesh, 54 rolls royces.  Like in the case of the great Sathya Sai Baba, who is unique because Sai Baba told us, that he is not an avatar, he is god himself.  He said, Jesus was a holy man, he may be the son of God, but I am god himself.  When God’s corpse was in the hospital for 20 days and the whole country was doing a tamasha. That tells us where the country stands, and that tells us, we have to awaken ourselves and the others, and what better way to do that than moving onto Prof.Nayakji who has been educating people all over the country, the length and breadth of the country, by exposing the ignorance behind superstitions.  Thank you very much. 

21

Sixth Meet18th July 2011

- by Bala Subramaniam and Geetha TG

The 6th Chennai Freethinkers’ Meet was an

experiment. For six months, since that first

meeting in January 2011 we have been taking

baby steps – meeting every month, sometime

at the beach, sometime at the Planetarium and

if there was nowhere else to go, we had a safe

haven – Balasubramaniam would welcome us

to his office. And so our journey went on - not

knowing each other too well but sure that

somewhere we shared a common world view

and a passion for logic and reason. There

would be 5-7 of us attending the monthly

meetings and whenever the figure reached

double-digit, it was a cause for celebration.

 

It was not that after six months we had formed

a solid cohesive group and were confident in

taking the plunge to organize a full fledged

programme with presentations et al; but we

did take the plunge and oh what an

experience it was. We had booked a Hall at

Hotel Park View (Hotel Park, not too far into

the future, Srinivasan Madhavan). The

meeting was scheduled for 3p.m but we took

some time to set up the projector, screen and

camera. Slowly the room filled up and we had

to ask for extra chairs! There were about 25 of

us and quite a few new faces at that.

Balasubramaniam gave a brief introduction

and thankfully made the point that those who

were making the presentations were not

experts but just wanting to share what they

know and what they feel passionately about.

Reminded me of Carl Sagan saying in his

'Demon Haunted World': “Not explaining

Science seems to me perverse. When you

are  in love, you want to tell the whole world.”

 

We started the programme with an

‘invocation’ – to Science, actually, by

watching Alom Shaha’s video ‘Why is Science

important?’ This was followed by a skillful

and informative presentation on Social

Equality by Dr.Ezhilan Naganathan of

Youth.org. Geetha Tg made a presentation on

‘Does Science rob us of our Sense of

Wonder?’ Dr.Ganesh Veluswami made a

thought-provoking and entertaining

22

presentation on ‘Is Astrology a Science?’

Sanjay Kumar made an interesting

presentation on ‘Is Quantum Physics a

mystical subject?’ Bala Subramaniam made a

neat and scholarly presentation on ‘Is

Evolution a theory or a fact?’ Bala Bhaskar

could not attend the meeting and make his

planned presentation as he had to go

outstation on an urgent work.

Geeta Charusivam has written a wonderful

review of the presentations and has given

highly useful suggestions which I assure

would be taken into account in the future.

This was followed by a lively discussion and

what was heartening was that first timers like

Geeta Charusivam, Johny, Johnson and

Habeeb Rehman participated and put forth

their views. When Johnson detailed the

questions on Evolution that he frequently

faced from theists and wanted to know how he

could tackle them, he was asked to check out

talkorigins.org from where he could get the

resource material. When Johny said he was an

agnostic and he was looking for answers to

several questions he was encouraged to

continue with his search for truth. It was a

touching moment when a member confided

that he was estranged from his family as a

consequence of his atheism and the group

responded saying that he had a family in them

and that he could ask for any help any time.

The discussion went on for more than an hour

and it was nearly 8p.m when we reluctantly

wound up the show- but not before Udhav

Naig talked about ‘the elephant in the room’ –

The Rebecca Watson-Richard Dawkins

episode. Of course each one of us held

different views and Sanjay pointed out that

the incident proved that for the world atheist

community, atheism might be the only

common thing and  it could be seen that some

of us were sexists, racists, etc., He was told

that we do not claim to be Chennai Atheists

but Chennai Freethinkers and hence we need

to base our world view only on ‘science, logic

and reason.’

It was a touching moment

when a member confided that

he was estranged from his

family as a consequence of his

atheism and the group

responded saying that he had

a family in them and that he

could ask for any help any

time.

23

I do not know if the meeting could be termed

a grand success. Those making presentations

were obviously novices – we fumbled for a

word here and rushed with our words at

times. But the experience has made us more

responsible – we were able to point out the

strength and weaknesses in our presentations

to each other and we resolve to take steps to

better ourselves. We realize that we were

facing a mostly sympathetic crowd this time

but in future we may face a hostile crowd and

it is then our thorough preparation would

matter - to face the onslaught of criticisms and

counters.

 

But then we have already started planning for

our next meet - Neethi Seenivasagam’s family

(their daughter is the youngest freethinker in

our group) has extended an invitation to hold

our August  meeting in their house. And so

we make plans for tomorrow - how we can ask

the obviously intelligent youngsters like

Einstein Deepak Raj, Girish Shankar, Blaise

Leslie, Johnson, Udhav Naig, Johny and

Habeed Rehman to either make presentations

on various topics or share more about their

experiences; how we can ask Geeta

Charusivam to share with us her experiences

in social activism and devise means to reach

out to children; how we can benefit from the

expertise of Dr.Jagan and Dr.Nagalekshmi

and so on.

 

Thank you, Chennai Freethinkers – we sure

have a long way to go, but the journey

promises to be fun and interesting.

24

Seventh Meet14th August 2011

- by Geetha TG

If the Chennai Freethinkers’ Meet that took

place last Sunday (14.8.2011) has to be

described in one word, it would be this:

“Substantial.” Whichever way you think

about it - the number of people who attended

the meet, the amount of discussion that went

on, the quality of contributions that were

made or the involvement of the new members

to the discussion - I am sure that key word

would do justice to it. It was a crucial meet in

many ways – after progressing gingerly for a

few months since January 2011 we attempted a

programme with a few presentations last

month and it turned out well.

The present one was our 7th Meet and the

response to the call for this meet, we thought,

would decide whether our last programme

could be counted as successful. While we

were having our meets in coffee bars, offices

and other public places so far, this was the

first time a member graciously offered to host

the meet for this month. And that was a good

sign. Many thanks to Neethi Seenivasagam,

Bharathi and their daughter Nikita for making

us feel comfortable and for overwhelming us

with their hospitality what with the tasty

snacks and fresh coffee. While we expected

around 10 to 12 members, it turned out that

22 of us attended the meet.

 

A brief on those who joined us for the first

time:

Karthikeyan Guruswamy, is an IT

professional. He said he was brought up in a

family of non-believers. He found the group

on Facebook and decided to attend the

meeting to meet like-minded people.

Ramya, his wife, is also an IT professional and

a non-believer. She said they had a secular

marriage without any priest chanting mantras.

At this point Ganesh regaled us describing

how his marriage, due to family compulsion,

took place with a priest chanting mantra,

though he made it a point not to repeat the

mantras, as is customary. In fact, for as long as

the priest was chanting the mantras, he was

listening to Christopher Hitchens’ “God is

not Great” audiobook in his iPod.

Basil Joseph is a Keyboard player and runs a

piano school. He is an online friend of

Habeeb Rehman who was present in the last

meet. He found the discussion on our

Facebook page interesting and decided to

join us. He expressed his desire to learn

more.

Soorya Sriram is a final year engineering

student at SRM College. He introduced

25

himself with aplomb – saying he was like

Richard Dawkins, ‘a militant atheist’,

although he was brought up in an orthodox

family. It was interesting to know what turned

him towards atheism – a five day training

session on Vedas under the erstwhile seer of

Kanchi when he was all of eleven years old.

He gave a few examples of the things he was

taught there.

In fact, for as long as the priest

was chanting the mantras

(during his marriage), he was

listening to Christopher

Hitchens’ “God is not Great”

audiobook on his iPod.

First was the reason for wearing the

“poonol”, the sacred thread that Brahmins

are supposed to wear. He was taught that

wearing the ‘poonol’ gives him the right to be

a warrior for God. Then there was the reason

for performing “Sandhya Vandhanam”. He

was taught that there is an epic battle between

the demons and the Sun God. Since the

demons are many and the Sun God is just one,

anyone who does “Sandhya Vandhanam” is

helping the Sun God by making one demon

faint on his way to the Sun god, every time

they perform the ritual. The reason for the

black thread worn by some Hindus around the

waist, he was told, was to separate the good

parts of the body from the bad parts. Ganesh

noted that time and again it has been proved

that a thorough study of scriptures is what is

required to make a person see ‘truth’ and

adopt the rationalistic way of life. Blaise

added that though he had studied Evolution

and watched many documentaries what made

him an atheist was a thorough study of the

bible.

Every time a supernatural explanation is given

to a wonderful and well understood natural

phenomenon, it offends our common sense

noted Soorya. He also enlightened us about a

new ‘Passport Ganesha’ that has been added

to the list of existing Ganeshas. His bubbling

enthusiasm was infectious and provided a lot

of lighter moments during the entire session.

Arulprakasam runs a small business and has

been an atheist from childhood. He came to

know of this meet through his son, who could

not attend as he was busy elsewhere. He was

very knowledgeable and provided good

perspectives and told us about the impact

Periyar had created in Tamilnadu. He shared

with us his difficult experience in getting his

rational views published in a newspaper.

His daughter Yamini is studying at the

National institute of fashion technology and is

26

also an atheist. She mentioned how she is

looked down in college by her friends and

teachers when she says that she doesn’t

believe in god. She was told that being an

atheist is nothing more than a fashion

statement. When she objected to the slogan

‘God helps those who help themselves’ for a

College programme she was opposed and

silenced. However she said there are a few

like-minded people among her friends.

 

Balu outlined the structure of the Nirmukta

and its objectives to the new members. He

also explained the word Freethought and said

that it is not necessary for freethinkers to

agree on every topic. However it is important

that we argue using logic and reason. Ganesh

said meets such as this are an opportunity to

bring together like-minded people. Balu

announced that Habeeb had setup a

Freethinkers group within the Madras

Christian College since the last meet and has

around 30 members already. Both Ganesh

and Anbalagan agreed that there are a lot of

freethinkers who simply did not know that

such organisations exist. Anbalagan said a few

of his friends were pleasantly surprised to find

out about the Chennai Freethinkers’ group.

 

The main agenda for the meeting was to plan

for a workshop on October 1st and 2nd when

Prof.Narendra Nayak would be in the city. A

brain storming session for possible venues

and speakers ensued and we decided to form a

core committee and assign responsibilities to

members to organise the workshop. The topic

of registering Nirmukta as an NGO in

Chennai was also discussed. Balu had taken

certain initiatives in this regard and it was

decided to discuss the issues with the

Nirmukta central command. 

...a five day training session

on Vedas under the erstwhile

seer of Kanchi when he was all

of eleven years old, turned him

towards Atheism.

Thanks to Habeeb who reminded us that the

new comers should be made to voice their

thoughts lest they get bored – this was when

the meet was in danger of being hijacked by

us regulars who could not contain our

enthusiasm. The first timers were then asked

to share what they were looking for in this

group and what they would want to be part of

this group. Karthik mentioned that he was

really drawn in by videos on evolution on the

Internet and would like to learn more. Bala B

suggested that we create a central media

27

library from where members can borrow

documentaries and lectures on DVDs.

Anbalagan wondered how we could reach out

to others who have not given much thought to

such big questions. Balu agreed that our

method of outreach should be different for in-

group and out-group. Bala B also said that

once we have enough resources we could

even produce our own videos in Tamil, which

would reach a wider audience.

 

Habeeb suggested to the students in the

group to start a Freethinkers group in their

own institutions and address issues such as

dress code and teachers propagating religion.

Johnson who evinced keen interest in

learning about Evolution said he had

benefited from the resources pointed out to

him in the last meet. He also said that he was

studying some of the religious texts as he felt

that it was necessary while debating theists.

 

Basil Joseph said he was not an atheist and

that he was confused about a few things. He

described himself as a seeker and he found

the social purpose of religion beneficial. He

said he had not studied much Science. When

he was at a loss to explain what exactly he was

seeking, Balu suggested that he could replace

the word seeker with learner. Girish recalled

Dawkins saying that Religion was an

evolutionary misfire. Neethi explained that

uncertainty in life was part of nature and that

religion is not required for people who were

not guilty about their past or anxious about

their future. He also paraphrased the need for

religion as explained by Desmond Morris in

People watching – namely the desire for

immortality, the need for an eternal parent

and the urge to surrender to a clan leader.

Basil raised a specific question, “I am a

seeker. Is it in harmony with this group’s

outlook? If I say I read Paramahamsa or

Ramana Maharishi is it wrong?’ Many

members eagerly answered this and the sum

of it was that we were not against any

particular person; we just do not accept

attributing divinity to any of them. We simply

do not believe in any supernatural stuff. And

once again Science was the best method for

gaining knowledge.

 

The meet generated a lot of discussion and

sharing of ideas. There was not much

structure in the discussion but Balu took

upon himself the job of a moderator to ensure

that everyone’s voice is heard and nobody

would feel left out. We reluctantly wound up

the meeting at 6.30 p.m after profusely

thanking the hosts and left hoping to meet

soon.

 

And so we find ourselves at crossroads now.

We had made a commitment while forming

this group and we have been working towards

it. Now we see that more and more people are

28

joining us and our responsibility is growing.

It would no longer be suffice to share our

personal experiences or discuss our thoughts

amidst like-minded people though it

definitely has its place during the meet. We

now have to carry the movement forward for

which we need to strategize now. This

strategy would fall under two different

categories:

 

1) How to gather people who are already in

line with our thinking – In this group we need

to share resources; learn from each other;

help each other in accessing material to

further our knowledge. This is a very

important activity as we have seen in the last

two meets that members have come up with

specific queries regarding improving their

knowledge in specific areas. So we need to

build some kind of database where we can

categorize and store the material that can be

pointed out to members who are in search for

knowledge.

2) The other category is to reach out to

people at large. In this regard all of us agree

that it is the younger generation we need to

address. For now we can ask the student

members in our group to bring in more

students for the meetings and workshops. But

we also have to reach out to school students.

And then there is also the question of making

an impact in the media – whenever there is a

superstition doing the rounds we need to be

the voice of sanity. Of course none of it would

bear fruit immediately but then we realize that

and we need to be making a mark somewhere

and therein lies our hope.

 

 

I would like to end this brief by sharing what

Greta Christina has to say in her recent blog

post about attending a Freethought

conference:

(http://gretachristina.typepad.com/

greta_christinas_weblog/2011/08/midwest-

humanist-and-freethought-conference.html)

“But I've been to a lot of conferences now...

and these conversations among old friends

and new are almost always the best thing. You

never know when the good ones are going to

happen: ...... But whenever and wherever they

happen, they are worth it. This movement is

becoming a real community; this community

is becoming an extended family. It makes me

happier than I can say.”

Isn’t it true for us too? What say Chennai

Freethinkers?

29

Eighth Meet - ThinkFest 20112nd October 2011

- by Geetha TG

Nirmukta, which was started as a website and

online community, has given those of us in

Chennai a platform to meet and interact with

people who share our world view. We have

been meeting every month for almost a year

now. We finally decided to bring in experts

on Science and Secularism to talk to the

general public. Yukti organized by Bengaluru

Freethinkers was an inspiration for this meet.

The result was Thinkfest 2011, an event

organized by the Chennai Freethiners on the

1st and 2nd of October.

Day 1 was an in-house programme. The

morning was spent in an Institution for

Children with Special needs. The group

interacted with the children who cheerfully

sang, danced and played games.

In the afternoon there were mentoring

sessions with Prof. Narendra Nayak and

Mr.Babu Gogineni . Prof. Nayak shared his

experiences in spreading Rationality traveling

the length and breadth of the country, and the

problems faced by him.

Mr. Babu explained what Humanism was all

about. He also gave valuable suggestions on

how to make presentations in the media.

A ‘Symposium on Science and Secularism’

was organized on October 2nd 2011.

Dr.Ganesh gave a detailed introduction about

Nirmukta and its objectives and how each

topic chosen by the speakers was relevant to

the present scenario.

Prof. Dayanandan’s talk was on ‘Chimpanzee

is our cousin; so is the neem tree.’ He weaved

magic with his words and portrayed

beautifully the rich tapestry of

interrelationship between all life forms on

earth.

The audience listened in fascination when he

explained how mitochondria, the energy

factory in animal cells, had evolved from

bacteria; how variation in skin colour in

30

human beings had evolved as recently as

60000 years ago. He took us to the 19th

century – bringing before our eyes young

Darwin embarking eagerly on his voyage,

visiting the Galapagos islands, collecting

specimens while travelling for five years, and

upon returning, carefully collating and

analyzing before publishing his seminal book

‘On the Origin of Species.’ He made us

marvel at the fact that Darwin arrived at his

theory without any knowledge of genes.

Then he took us farther back in time to Africa

where Homo sapiens evolved and then spread

to other continents. He vividly painted the

picture of our ancestors trudging ‘Out of

Africa.’ He explained what the ‘evolutionary

bottleneck’ was and how the entire world

population had probably descended from a

small group of about 5000 individuals. He

also showed some stone tools that were

fashioned by our ancestors who lived

thousands of years ago around modern

Chennai. It was a comprehensive and

engaging session that sparked of academic

brilliance yet couched in simple terms for all

to understand with ease. The meticulously

prepared slides and the arresting photographs

of nature kept the audience engrossed.

Later there was an interactive session in

which the audience came up with interesting

questions and the session ended with the

audience wanting to hear more lectures from

Prof. Dayanandan.

The next talk was by Prof. Narendra Nayak on

the topic of Alternative Medicine. He

explained the various ‘alternatives’ available

including homeopathy, crystal therapy, gem

therapy, and so on, and explained how they

were all different types of quackery; he

showed videos of conmen nonchalantly

explaining to gullible people how their

treatments ‘work’.

He also showed videos of ‘psychic surgery’

which left the audience in splits. The doctors

in the audience added to the presentation by

sharing their experiences and cautioning

people about the dangers of alternative

medicine. Prof. Nayak stressed on the fact

that there is no alternative medicine – there is

only Science or Evidence based medicine; he

talked about self limiting diseases and the

placebo effect; he said it is a myth to consider

alternative medicine as cheap and harmless.

31

32

The session was an eye opener to many

members of the audience who had thought

alternative medicine was safe and with no side

effects.

The first session after Lunch was by Mr. Babu

Gogineni.  He explained what Humanism

means and who could be called a humanist.

While Atheism is ‘just a conclusion’ and

Rationalism is ‘an approach’ Humanism is a

life stance and a philosophy he said.

He suggested that freethinkers should take

up causes and explain their stand to the

public. For example, he said we can support

women who want to visit the Sabarimala

temple in Kerala which by tradition does not

allow women to enter. This led to an agitated

discussion in which many members of the

audience expressed their disagreement saying

that we should not support visiting temples

when we ourselves do not believe in the

existence of god. Mr. Babu replied that

Humanism is supporting one’s right to have a

religion or not have a religion, and when

there is a fundamental inequality it is our duty

to address it. Morevoer, this step would shake

the foundation of religion and weaken it

ultimately. It is a healthy sign that the debate

generated that day was continued by the

members in Facebook. Can giving aid to

welfare institutions affiliated to a particular

religion or fighting for equality within

religion be considered as ‘pre-competitive’?

Mr. Babu’s talk was, to describe in one word,

poetic.

The last session of the day was ‘Science

behind Miracles’ by Prof. Nayak. He

demonstrated with utter ease several miracles

attributed to the divine power – be it

‘materializing’ holy ash or gold chain or

currency; he showed the trick of placing

burning camphor on tongue.

Then he showed videos of Sai Baba poorly

performing cheap tricks which were caught

beyond doubt by the camera. The audience

were surprised by the cognitive dissonance of

several educated people who fell for such

tricksters. Due to lack of time Prof. Nayak

could not demonstrate all the debunking in

his repertoire.

While Atheism is ‘just a

conclusion’ and Rationalism is

‘an approach’ Humanism is a

life stance and a philosophy.

Mr. Bala Bhaskar proposed the Vote of

Thanks and the day ended with the audience

wanting more such programmes and the

speakers expressing happiness to have such a

knowledgeable and interested audience. It

33

was a great experience organizing a

refreshing event as this. And so we dare to

hope….maybe  Chennai Freethinkers would

in the near future begin to conduct an annual

event with lectures on Science and

Secularism, something on the lines of the

Christmas Lectures ; organize debates

between famous theists and atheists; reach

out to school students regularly to teach them

what skeptical thinking means; conduct

summer camps like the Camp Quest  and so

on.

Meanwhile it is time for us to concentrate on

community building – we recognize that we

are not a homogenous group (far from it,

infact!)  and so think of ways to reach out to

each other. We are planning a visit to the

Crocodile Bank, a Turtle walk on a moonlit

night in the beaches of Besant Nagar,  a Tree

walk with Nizhal to learn to recognize the

various species of trees thriving in the

concrete jungle of Chennai, prepare science

videos in Tamil and distribute it to schools in

rural areas to spread science and rationalism.

Thus we have set out on our long voyage to

Ithaka – a journey full of adventure, full of

discovery, our thoughts raised high and a rare

excitement stirring our spirit and our body.

May we enjoy the journey to the hilt!

34

Ninth Meet13th November 2011

- by Geetha TG

Scheduling a meeting at 3p.m on a Sunday

calls for great optimism. What would motivate

a diverse group of people (ranging from 18 to

50 years old, students to professionals and so

on ) take the trouble of traveling in a city like

Chennai for an informal meet on a Sunday

afternoon? I wondered as I made the trip to

the venue of the meeting. During the course

of the meeting I got my answer. Blaise Leslie

put it so beautifully. He shared his feeling of

loneliness when he had ‘realized’ the truth

after a thorough study of the bible! Am I

being arrogant he had worried. Finding

Chennai Freethinkers was finally a great

relief, he said, and to know that there are

people like him who shared his world view

was sheer happiness. It was a great feeling to

‘Come out.’

 

The monthly meeting of the Chennai

Freethinkers had three new members –

Saravanan Dakshinamurthy who happened to

visit Chennai from USA, Yogesh Girikumar

and Ashwin Sriram. The normally vocal

members were quiet for a change and allowed

the new comers to share their thoughts and

experiences.

Saravanan started by describing his progress

from theism to agnosticism to atheism. He

talked about the influence of Periyar,

Dawkins and UG Krishnamurthi.

Yogesh said that he hailed from a ‘not so

religious family’ and explained how he almost

converted to Islam. He said that just as he

found dogma in theism, he finds the same in

atheism too.  He talked about some science in

Quran. Bala S said there is no dogma in

freethought and explained what freethinking

meant and what Nirmukta’s objectives were.

Finding Chennai Freethinkers was finally a great relief, and to know that there are people like him who shared his world view was sheer happiness.

Ashwin said that he could be categorized an

agnostic atheist and even a bit of Budhist. He

was inspired by Dawkins and Hitchens. He

said even if a god existed it would not be a

beneficent one but a callous and malevolent

one.

35

 

Bala S, for the benefit of the new members,

described the process of coming together of

the Chennai Freethinkers – our first meet on

January 26th 2011 and the two events

conducted by us – one in which few members

made presentations on topics such as

Astrology, Evolution etc., and one in which

eminent speakers were invited to speak to the

public. He also said that community building

and taking it forward was very important for

us to grow as a group.

 

The topic of Science in Quran was discussed

threadbare and Zakir Naik’s attempts were

explained. The concept of post hoc fitting of

an interpretation with available data was

discussed as also the claims of Nostradamus.

If everything that god created was perfect why

circumcision wondered Yogesh. He also

shared the story of his grandmother who

suffered from throat cancer and died a ‘clean

atheist.’  Chakrapani added that it was at

death that one finally realizes that one has

never had any supernatural help. It was

termed the ‘Death bed deconversion’ as

atheism is the default position of every human

being and hence you cannot convert to

atheism – you can only deconvert.

 

Ganesh  explained that the goal of Science is

not to formulate theories but to strive

constantly for  better understanding. He

further added that socializing is not the

monopoly of religion; all of us have an innate

need to be part of groups and we learn

because of such interactions.  And so learning

took place at different levels that day thanks

to the interactions. A sample of the queries

thrown around and answered by different

members:

 

Did Alfred Russel Wallace have primacy over

Charles Darwin on arriving at the Theory of

Evolution?

 

No said the members and the story of how

Wallace sent his synopsis to Darwin and how

Darwin realized that he was about to be

scooped and how both the papers were read at

the Linnaean Society in 1858       was

explained in juicy detail. Darwin had already

arrived at the theory but was hesitant to go

public with it.

 

Are pyramidal structures special in any way –

do they conserve or enhance energy?

 

36

Again no and the hoax of the speciality of

pyramids was discussed.

Balaji recounted his friend’s pathetic attempts

to meditate wearing a pyramid helmet.  He

also wondered why none of the astrological

predictions are blatantly negative – like

saying a person would turn out to be a sadist

or murderer. Instead all they do is make

general meaningless statements. Bala Bhaskar

suggested it is easy to disprove astrology by

knocking off each of the claims it makes

  

There were several interesting discussions

about Golden ratio and the Fibonacci

numbers – Saravanan explained the patterens

found in nature – like sunflower patterns.He

remarked that no conscious effort is required

for the formation of patterns.

(http://www.mathsisfun.com/numbers/

nature-golden-ratio-fibonacci.html)

Bala S talked about the beauty of Fractals.

 

Ganesh also talked about the false claim that

lack of religion in a country leads to anarchy –

on the contrary Scandinavian countries where

religion plays a very minor role boast of a far

better quality of life than countries which

claim to be ‘religious,’

 

As always plans for the next meeting were

made. Ganesh said that every year he

celebrates November 24th (the day the Origin

of Species was published) as god’s death day!

He invited everyone for a celebration on the

evening of November 24th by cutting a cake.

January 26th 2012 would mark one year since

the first meeting of Chennai Freethinkers

when a few of us met hesitantly with lot of

apprehensions not knowing what to expect

but hoping to build a community. We have

accomplished that in good measure and that

calls for a celebration on January 26th 2012 –

should we go on a fun cum educational trip or

can we arrange yet another seminar, we

ponder. Why not have an All India Nirmukta

meet on 28th February (National Science

Day) suggested Bala S? Sounds good but are

we pushing the envelope; should we pause

and take stock?  The optimism of Bala S is

infectious – let us see what we could decide in

the coming days.

 

Personally for me the meeting was somewhat

inadequate. Maybe because I had to leave a

little before 7p.m while a few members

lingered till 8.30 p.m. I was planning to

discuss a bit of Carnatic music with Madhavan

Sreenivasan and prod him a little about Jiddu

Krishnamurthy; poke Girish a bit about his

passion for the Zeitgeist videos and rag

Soorya about his satellite launch. Well, after

37

all a Chennai Freethinkers meet is never

complete without a few things  – a hilarious

religious anecdote or two from Soorya

Sriram, a shy but strong statement from

Girish, a different perspective from Sanjay (a

regular, who  could not make it this time),

creative ideas in measured tones from Bala

Bhaskar and constant blasphemies from

Ganesh.  

... what it meant to talk

without having to defend your

atheism at every step; what it

meant to air your doubts and

ask for clarification without

fear of being ridiculed or

treated with condescension...

It was a different meet in the sense that the

regular members were very quiet – allowing

the new members to have their say without

any interruption and giving them a lot of time

to open up in a forum in which they need not

fear any misunderstanding.  But in the next

meeting I am sure Dr.Nagalekshmi aka Anita

would share the several interesting anecdotes

she told me, Madhavan S would explain the

joy he derives from music and Ashwin Sriram

would talk more about Buddhist philosophy.

 

 I hope Saravanan would carry back good

memories and hope Sripriya Ranganathan,

Ramesh Nagappan and others who have

expressed interest from overseas would join

us whenever  they make a trip home.

 

As I write I realize why most of us were quiet

that day. For we knew how important the

space provided by Chennai Freethinkers was -

what it meant to talk without having to defend

your atheism at every step; what it meant to

air your doubts and ask for clarification

without fear of being ridiculed or treated with

condescension; we knew that we could trust

each other to point to resources that could

add to our knowledge - there was exchange of

books, documentaries and movies between

the members which showed that bonds have

been forged. And more importantly all of us

knew that we are going to meet next month

and the next and so on…and that thought gave

us a lot of confidence and comfort.

 

38

PS:   During the TAM 9 at Las Vegas,

Dawkins announced that the Richard

Dawkins foundation would take up funding

for child care in atheists meet ups. Bala

Subramaniam of Chennai Freethinkers has

gone ahead and quietly done it. When you are

attending a meet with your spouse and your

child insists on tagging along, don’t worry;

for Chennai Freethinkers is an inclusive

group – My daughter had packed some

crayons, coloring book and the book she was

reading (A Faith like mine by Laura Buller, a

book on world religions ) which raised the

eyebrows of Girish and Soorya but I did not

tell them that she had just whispered in my

ears that she wanted to convert to judaism!

Pretty pictures, you see.  It is another matter

that she came home and told her grandmother

that she went for a meeting and explained

confidently who a freethinker was. Well, she

did not feel out of place there – she was

listening to our discussions while playing

games and drawing pictures in the computer

thoughtfully provided by Bala S.  Chennai

Freethinkers FTW, like Ajita says!

39

Tenth Meet18th December 2011

- by Bala Bhaskar

The 10th Chennai Freethinkers meet took

place on 18th December 2011 at Hotel Planet

Mount in Nungambakkam.  Eleven members

attended the meet including a first timer

Seshadri Baskar. He is a friend of Sreenivasan

Madhavan who is a regular member to our

meets.  They have been friends for nearly 30

years.

 

Many of us were still reeling from the news of

Christopher Hitchens’ demise just a few days

ago.  Sanjay pointed out that the obituary

article in the Times of India was highly

sanitized and that Hitchens’ atheistic

thoughts were never mentioned.  Bala

Bhaskar mentioned that The Hindu had an

article where his atheism was mentioned right

on the headline, however the article itself was

from Reuters.  Bala also mentioned that he is

somewhat relieved that there hasn’t been

many cartoons of Hitchens entering hell/

heaven. That would have been offensive,

quipped Ganesh.

 

We discussed a few pareidolia, like the face of

lord Venkateswara seen on the profile of the

Thirumala mountain, and a person getting

electrocuted while taking a picture under

high tension wires of the electric train.  It is

claimed that the flash triggered electricity to

pass through light and electrocuted the

person!  There was also a photo of lord

Ayyappa’s image formed by clouds.  Bala

Bhaskar pointed out that it was clearly

photoshopped.

 

It was pointed out the hotel conference hall

setting didn’t feel like a proper meet like the

last time (in Balasubramaniam’s office) and

felt more like an Alcoholics Anonymous meet.

Balasubramaniam (Balu) enquired if AA is

conducted mainly by the Church.  Then why

should Jesus convert water to wine wondered

Ganesh. Soorya reminded us of a Family Guy

episode where Peter Griffin drinks wine in the

Church and asks if it really is the blood of

Jesus.  When told yes he says “That guy must

be really wasted”!  Balu pointed out an

interesting status update by Jayesh - “If

someone converts wine to water,  is he the

antichrist?” 

 

40

Seshadri pointed out that the number of

people visiting Sabarimala has dwindled

dramatically this year. Balu wondered if this

was because of rationalists exposing the

“Mahara Vilakku”.  Ganesh said its probably

due to the Muallaiperiyar dam issue, in which

case its not much of a progressive

development.  The devotees are just

unloading their “Irumudi” on some temple

close to the Tamil Nadu, Kerala border, and

some might even courier their offerings to

Kerala said Ganesh.  Soorya pointed out that

the wikipedia article for “Mahara Vilakku”

even has the photograph of the platform on

which the fire is lit.  Ganesh noted that when

this is pointed out to the faithful, they try to

rationalise by admitting that the “Mahara

Vilakku” is of course artificial, but what

matters is the “Mahara Jyothi” which is the

star which appears above the mountain. 

Ganesh’s response is that, that star is Sirius

and can be seen most of the year in the

northern hemisphere.  You don’t need to

observe stringent rituals for 48 days to see

that.  “You can have your girlfriend in one

hand, beer in another and a fag in your mouth

and view the star from your terrace”! Much

laughter ensued.

 

Balu mentioned that authors are now making

trailers for their books to boost up sales. He

said this might improve book readership

among the public.  Shesadri mentioned that

among Tamil publications, the magazine

called “Uyirmai” had good quality articles. 

Geetha pointed out that it is probably the only

magazine in Tamil that had articles about

Richard Dawkins and Richard Feynman. 

 

Richard Dawinks will be speaking at the

Jaipur Literary Festival in January and Geetha

said she is planning to attend.  She said the

last time Richard Dawkins was in India was

nearly 10 years ago.  Ganesh lamented that

Deepak Chopra and “Double Mr” (Sri Sri

Ravi Shankar) would also be there and would

probably attract a bigger crowd. 

 

Bala brought up a recent news article about

the UK Prime Minister calling UK a Christian

country.  He said the substance of that speech

might as well be directly from the Hindutva

brigade, as, what he seemed to be saying is

that, it is only because Christianity is so

tolerant and accommodating, that other

religions and irreligion are coexisting

peacefully.  Bala said it almost sounded like a

threat.  Balu pointed out that it is only

because the rest of them are tolerant that

Christianity still exists in the UK.  He said in

India, violent religious clashes were fairly

recent.  Madhavan pointed out that it is not

necessarily so.  He quoted Prof.Sadhasivam,

41

who teaches Saiva Siddhanta philosophy, who

said that  major part of the history of Tamil

Nadu is a struggle between Saivaism and

Jainism.  The works of Appar,

Thirugnanasambandhar et al., point towards

this fact, said Madhavan. Seshadri however

pointed out that, their works nevertheless do

have literary value.

 

Soorya mentioned that there is a conference

in Vizag on “Vedic Sciences”.  Ganesh

quickly retorted that the term “Vedic

Science” is an oxymoron, like “Ancient

Wisdom”.  Soorya said that the gist of the

conference is that physics and chemistry as we

know it today were explained thousands of

years ago in our vedas. Ganesh asked, then

why didn’t they invent electricity?  Soorya

also pointed out the school textbooks in

Tamil which has chapters that compare

Avvyaar to John Dalton. Avvayaar wrote a

poem in which she describes the “seven seas

and all the lands locked inside the tiny

mustard seed!”.  This, it is argued, is

description of the atom!

 

The normal way of studying History, Balu

pointed out, is that first you excavate for

evidence, and then from the evidence, you

build the story. But those with an agenda

already have their story ready and then they

go dig up for evidence to fit.  If you ask for

electricity, they might find something that will

fit and show you how electricity was produced

thousands of years ago. 

  

Bala mentioned an English version of

Bhagavad Gita by P.Lal, suggested by Arvind

Iyer, which is easily readable.  He said that the

author totally takes the side of Arjuna’s

Humanism against Krishna’s Spiritualism. 

The author says that for the first 10 chapters,

Krishna tries to persuade Arjuna to fight

using reasoned arguments.  But once that

fails, Krishna resorts to mysticism and magic.

  

...the term “Vedic Science” is an

oxymoron, like “Ancient

Wisdom”.

Madhavan has read a lot and has written about

Jiddu Krishnamoorthy, and Balu wanted to

know more about what drove him to the

writings of JK.  Madhavan said, JK’s writings

promote freethought.  He asked people to

question everything and to question him first.

He said that religions of the world has caused

havoc to the masses and that people are not

42

honest to admit their ignorance. He advices

people to listen without preconceived

opinions.  He also advices for environmental

conservatism.  

Just because he happens to

be a priest, we won’t reject

his ideas on Genetics.  Same

way we would reject a bad

idea even if it comes from

Richard Dawkins. 

Balu asked whether JK’s writings have

changed before and after his association with

the theosophical society.  Madhavan said JK

quit the theosophical society as they wanted

him to be a world teacher to propagate their

own brand of religion.  Madhavan also

mentioned that although JK wouldn’t have

liked it, his followers hold him up as a god-

head. JK talked about achieving a state of

mind where time doesn’t exist and that

everyone should endeavor to seek the truth. 

Geetha wondered what ‘truth’ they talk about,

as it is quite commonly used by spiritualists

too.  She asked if there can be any such thing

as the one truth.  Ganesh said that he is using

“Truth” for a lack of better word.  Balu

wanted to know if JK prescribed any method

or path to attain this truth, something along

the lines of the scientific method.  Sanjay

wondered what the use of being in the

“peaceful timeless state” is.   Seshadri

requested not to look at JK’s writings from a

utilitarian point of view.  Balu said that his

intention is not to deride JK but just to learn a

bit more about him.  Madhavan said that the

state of mind suggested by JK is not dull and

static but a vibrant mind.  He gave the

example of “Gayatri Mantra” recited in

Brahmin households supposedly to calm ones

mind.  JK said that merely dulls the mind. 

One might as well recite “Coca Cola” a

thousand times and attain the same effect.  

 

Balu mentioned that complete non-bias would

be impossible as every information that we

gather interacts with what we already know.  It

is ultimately up to the individual how he

stores up the data so that it doesn’t form

wrong prejudices.

Ganesh mentioned that the scientific method

is a good tool to that end and the best way so

far for attaining unbiased knowledge.  He

gave the example of Gregor Mendel. Just

because he happens to be a priest, we won’t

reject his ideas on Genetics.  Same way we

would reject a bad idea even if it comes from

Richard Dawkins, said Ganesh. 

43

Human beings are incapable of performing

multitasking, said Sanjay.  He was referring to

a TV program where an alleged master of

Multitasking was not able to perform two

simple tasks simultaneously.   So if the

scientists can prove that the subject fails in

multitasking then the control group would

perform much worse, since the person in

question was supposed to be master multi-

tasker. Ganesh said it depends on how they

define a “task”.  If it is listening to an

audiobook and driving the car, he said he

does it all the time.  Balu pointed out that

while one is brushing the teeth, are we really

thinking about brushing?  Sanjay said that it

was shown that it was evolutionarily

impossible for humans to multitask.  Ganesh

said he might think of a case where it might

have been an evolutionary advantage.  Balu

wanted to know how this can be concluded by

just a sample of one. He said there are

thousands of tasks, and the two tasks assigned

to the person in the experiment cannot be a

proper sample size.  Sanjay said that this is

prejudiced thinking. He was pointing out a

scientific study and Balu is not accepting it. 

He said since Balu is not a psychologist, he

may not have the necessary information to

form the conclusion.  Ganesh intervened and

said that sounded like appeal to authority. 

Balu replied that he is not refuting the study

but merely questioning the methodology. 

Sanjay said he would send the link to the

study to Balu for his reference. 

 

...the general beauty available

to the poet is also available to

the scientist, but the beauty

seen by the scientist is not

available to the poet.

Madhavan pointed out that, when one is

listening to Carnatic Music or seeing a

sunrise, one merely admires the beauty and

not think of it consciously.  He wondered if

you have to understand Carnatic Music in

order to appreciate the melody.   Ganesh

mentioned that, when it comes to the natural

world, understanding does increase the

beauty.  He gave the example of the song from

the film Roja.  Suppose he played the

instrumental version, and the tamil version,

although the instrumental version is

hauntingly good, the tamil version would be

better because one can understand the lyrics. 

Same way understanding how the rainbow

forms only increases the beauty of the

rainbow, and doesn’t decrease it.  Geetha

mentioned how the poet Keats derided

44

Newton for taking away the wonder of the

rainbow by explaining it away using science. 

This formed the title of Dawkins’ book

‘Unweaving the Rainbow’.  Ganesh noted the

famous Feynman video where he says that the

general beauty available to the poet is also

available to the scientist, but the beauty seen

by the scientist is not available to the poet. 

 

...not a single law that prohibits

people from hurting rational

sentiments. However if one hurts

religious sentiments, they might

get in trouble.

 Balu noted that when it comes to music,

people like different genres, and what might

be music to one person’s ear might be

cacophony to another.  Like the “Kolaveri”

meme, noted Geetha.  Ganesh pointed out

that one of his colleagues who listens to

Carnatic music got so interested that he

started to take music lessons.  He later found

out that he likes one particular ‘raaga’.  

Ganesh too, gathered all his favorite songs,

and realised that almost all of them are of a

particular raaga called “kaapi”.  Madhavan

wondered that while we dont seek the help of

knowledge to wonder at the sun rise, beauty

of the moon, feeling the fragrance of flowers,

taking in the cool breeze etc, why many

people tend to say they don't know Carnatic

music hence are not interested in listening it.

Why cant we listen it without knowing

anything about it, as we do when we wonder

at nature, he wondered.

  

Balaji narrated an incident in his office where

a “meditation and naadi particha” camp was

held.  He said they distributed medicines for

Rs.150.  The practitioners of this quackery

would just look at a person’s face or feel their

pulse and deduce their illness.  However the

illness is mostly common ones like back pain,

headache etc.  Balu pointed out how they

never detect lymphoma or AIDS.  Balaji noted

how the pratitioners saw one employee with

saggy eyes and ‘deduced’ that he must be

overworked.  The sad part is that the people

who fall for this are all quite well educated. 

Ganesh enquired if they gave anything in

writing, as this can be used in the court of law. 

Balaji said it was all done orally and no

records were kept.  Seshadri pointed out that

since this was a private office it can atleast be

tolerated, but conducting “Ayudha Pooja” in

government offices is not acceptable.  There

might be Buddhist, Muslim, Christian and

also atheist employees.  Ganesh pointed out

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that the views of atheist are never considered

and that there is not a single law that prohibits

people from hurting rational sentiments.

However if one hurts religious sentiments,

they might get in trouble.

 

Venkataraman, who is attending our meet for

the second time, was silent for while and was

asked about his thoughts and influences.  He

said he was not influenced by anybody into

atheism. He had an interest in science and

through Girish, who is a regular member but

couldn’t attend this meet, got more exposure

to the freethought movement.  He initially

thought Evolution was wrong for a reason he

could not recall.  When he asked probing

questions to his mother, she replied that when

he reads enough books, he would understand. 

One of the books he read was The God

Delusion and that turned out to be the

turning point. He is currently studying

sociology in Loyola College. He said one of

his professors seem to think that morality is

derived from religion, and that many of his

friends look down upon him once he reveals

that he is an atheist.  Ganesh pointed out that

if you can find 10 good messages in any holy

book, there will be a 100 horrible things

alongside.  To choose the good and to neglect

the rest means that one already has a moral

compass inside with which they are judging,

and that could not have come from religion.

Ganesh pointed to the case of Jehovah’s

witness, who according to their own scripture

believe that there is only room for 144,000

people in heaven.  He said there are now

around 6 million Jehova’s witnesses and he

wondered why they are converting more.  He

also noted that in order to enter heaven, one

doesn’t necessarily have to lead a good life,

but simply has to accept Jesus at the very last

minute.  Seshadri pointed out the case of a

muslim woman raped by her own father-in-

law.  A religious court gave a judgement that

the woman should from now on treat her

father in law as her husband and her husband

as her son.  Sanjay noted that such morality is

called objective morality.

 

To choose the good and to

neglect the rest (from

scriptures) means that, one

already has a moral compass

inside, with which they are

judging, and that could not

have come from religion.

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The program for our next meet was discussed

in detail.  Since next month marks our first

annual meet, we decided to do something

special.  The general suggestion was to have a

seminar like Thinkfest but for in-group

members.  Other suggestions included a trip

to Athirapakkam archeological site with

Prof.Dayanandhan, or to the Sharma Heritage

centre or Crocodile bank.

 

Other important dates were Darwin Day on

Feb 12th and National Science Day on Feb

28th.  Events for these are yet to be planned.

 

Although he read about

evolution, it was not as helpful

as the Bible in turning him into

an atheist.

Seshadri intervened and said it is better if we

stayed away from celebrations like

anniversary.  Geetha replied that it is

necessary to look back on how far we have

come in the past one year as a stocktaking

exercise.  Balu said this is not like a religious

ritual and the dates and events are quite

flexible.   Bala Bhaskar said that celebrations

like these can give us wider visibility. He

noted a similar discussion on the Nirmukta

Saturday Night podcasts a while ago.  He said

the the two things to keep in mind is that we

should know what we are celebrating and the

it shouldn’t turn into a dogma over time.  Balu

said we avoid cermonial rituals like draping

the chief guest with finery and seating them

up on stage etc.  It will be as informal, yet

organised as possible.

 

Blaise Leslie said the two main things that

occupy much of people’s time is astrology and

theism and we should be tackling them in our

meets.  He said he, growing up as a christian,

never even heard of astrology, as he had a

personal relationship with Jesus.  He said he

saved 3 hours every Sunday after becoming an

atheist.  Although he read about evolution, it

was not as helpful as the Bible in turning him

into an atheist.  He pointed out how god has

killed nearly 2 and a half million people in the

Bible.  Blaise wanted to know more about

people speaking in tongues in churches.  An

equivalent can be found in Hindu practices as

well as other religions.  Blaise said that he

went to those churches and was confused

because, even though he was a devout

christian, he couldn’t speak in tongues.  He

wondered why.  Listening to the way Blaise

narrated these incidents, Geetha suggested

that he should have become a preacher.

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Balu said Blaise can give a lecture on Bible

during our next meet.  This would equip

others to counter the logical fallacies that one

usually encounters. He said we could have

Ajita Kamal take up a topic and give a talk. 

Sanjay pointed out how he has learnt so much

during the past year after he found out about

Nirmukta.  Arvind Iyer’s piercing articles and

comments were particularly praised.

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2012

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