What is it like to be a ‘Manglik’?*

Every society has a mechanism to tag people to make sure only a small set of them can become chosen few. Indians used most simplistic way. You get whole bunch of tags at your birth which restricts your fate right away. For example, every person is tagged with a caste and you are allowed to marry a girl only from your own caste. There is another relatively complicated thing which is called ‘Astrology’. It refines tagging system more systematically.

Let me give you a small introduction of Indian Astrology.** Indians thought earth is at the center of universe and all the stars are moving around earth in a strict discipline. All the stars revolve around the earth in 23h56m from east to west. They also observed that 9 objects in the visible sky don’t follow this strict rule. They started calling them planets. These objects were Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Rahu, and Ketu. Rahu and ketu are imaginary planets. (Indians are very good in imagining mythical things.) Two main things they observed about planets. First, They all move in same circle which is called Ecliptic.*** Second, they also revolve around the earth from east to west same as stars but with a slower speed. For example, sun revolves around earth in 24h.

So, Indian view of sky was that stars create a fixed backdrop scene and planets are skidding along the ecliptic with a slow speed over this backdrop. Indians divided this ecliptic in 12 parts. So, planets move slowly from one part to another. These parts are called zodiac. For example, sun is 4 minute slower than stars. So, sun takes an year to make full round over the backdrop of stars. Sun crosses 12 Zodiacs in a whole year. A zodiac every month which you might have noticed when you read your daily horoscope in news paper.

Each time instant can be characterized by location of these 9 planets in Zodiacs. It is like a clock with 9 hands. You have to say location of all the 9 planets to be able to say time according to this ‘planetary clock’.

Now, the astrology kicks in. Indian scholars thought that there must be a divine plan. They imagined that God does things according to this planetary clock. If God gives you birth at certain time according to the planetary clock, then he will use some unknown (to us) formula to decide what you are going to face in the life. So, they developed a field of study Astrology-”To decipher God’s plan!”. They started studying people and listing the events of their life with planetary clock time. They tried to observe if there is a correlation between people’s life and planetary clock time. They came up with thousand of correlation results. For example, If You are born in a time when Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter are exactly 4 zodiacs away from each other then you are born in ‘Raj Yog’. ‘Raj Yog’ means a luck of ruling power. These are the rules of astrology. To become a good astrologer, you need to learn many such rules and develop an ability to detect these patterns.

I don’t have eloquence to describe the folly of this wishful thinking of deciphering God’s plan. Once I saw comedian Bill Maher acting like a Religious dude and saying, “Hey, even I can understand how this world works.” It is not bad that once some one created astrology. Can’t we now say that it is a failed hypothesis after advancing to today’s knowledge base?

These predictions play with peoples mind. It is like telling someone at ones face that he/she is ugly/beautiful. They boost or kill peoples moral. If your prediction says you will do well in rice business and you believe the prediction then you may end up doing rice business. This prediction system helps to keep society in order. People know their prediction before hand and follow the society obediently.

One of the rules of Astrology is ‘Manglik’. Literally means ‘cursed by mars’. There are certain configurations of planetary clock. If you are born at the time of those configurations then you are cursed by Mars. So, You can be born with a tag called Manglik. You will not notice this tag until you will reach to the age of marriage. You are cursed. If you marry a person who is not cursed then he/she will die within 7 years. [For non Indians: This is not a joke.] People take it very seriously. It is very hard to find someone who is also cursed and fits with your expectations. Parents of cursed child have to hunt the world end to end to find a cursed match. It must be traumatic for someone who believes that most important person of ones life can die within 7 years because of the curse.

I am not a Manglik. I don’t know what it is like to be a ‘Manglik’.

*Inspired by: “What is it like to be a BAT?”. I barely passed cognitive philosophy course in my bachelors but the title of this paper is cool enough to be used here.

**I am trying to present it in a way which helps you to understand Indian Astrology but facts may not be historically accurate. Please comment if you think i have written something wrong.

***Because whole solar system is approximately flat in 3D space.

Why are Creationists winning the battles?

Here is a YouTube video which shows the argumentation between a creationist and a evolutionist.

Creationist’s position is very safe in a setting of debate. There are very limited ways to disprove them. They build their theory on top of some set of holy scriptures. One can disprove them by finding a contradiction within those scriptures. Other way to disprove them is to find a wrong natural fact stated in the scriptures. A creationist doesn’t have to show any evidence for his theory. Absence of an alternative explanation makes him right.

Creationists had observed problems with their theory long before scientific methods can notice. They have developed detailed list of escape routes from the attack of science. If you think naively that I understand science so i can easily refute creationist claims then you haven’t engaged with creationists. They know better about science then you would know about religion. Creationist’s objective of debate is not to find a right answer but to make sure that arguments of the other side don’t reach to the audience. During the debate if scientist doesn’t see this happening, she will certainly fail to make a point.

How does creationist escape?

Holy scriptures has been a dominating source of knowledge for a quite long time. You are not the first person who is examining them critically. In medieval times, there has been lots of effort to re-interpret holy scriptures again and again as any reasonable objection had risen. There has been mutually contradictory interpretations of the same scripture at different times by different people. In essence, they fix some set of holy scriptures and try to come up with a sane interpretation. This whole interpretation business has evolved in last 2000 years such that all possible inconsistencies can be removed. It is not the case they have removed all of them. It will be very hard to find an inconsistency in holy scriptures which can’t be fixed by a little twist of interpretation of the holy scriptures.

One can also try to find a wrong claim about a natural fact in holy scriptures. Creationists have already prepared its answer. All the holy scriptures are written in poetry. So, it is hard to decide that which part of the scriptures is direct description or which part is metaphorical. Again, this freedom of choice is subject to ones interpretation. Creationist will say that scriptures are not wrong but the interpretation is wrong.

Why does scientist fail to win the battle?

Creationist use people’s week understanding of scientific methods as their main tool. He just want to show common people that science is not the answer of all their questions and problems. Science is incomplete. It doesn’t answer everything. He will push scientist to the point where she can’t answer any further. At this point, she has to say I don’t know. Creationist will catch up right at this point and provide religious explanation. He can always do it because religion explains everything.

Science depends on experimental data. If an hypothesis is supported by enough data then it becomes a theory. Creationist will ask scientist what if all of your data is wrong. An honest scientist will say that it is quite possible. Creationist will immediately claim, “See! these scientists are not sure of their own theory. So, How can we believe them?”

All human knowledge, including science, is axiomatic. Creationist will show you that religion has axioms. Science also has axioms. Hence both are same. No one has an advantage over another. At this point of argument scientist feels lost. She doesn’t want to actually say the right answer to creationist’s claim because the difference between scientific axioms and religious axioms is subtle.* If she tries to explain then people may not listen.

The essence of science and its power can’t be explained in an hour long debate. Someone has to spend time and learn the ideas of science. Only after spending some time one can make sense of it.