I was listening to a charlatan on a popular Kannada TV Channel this morning. He was telling his audience that the dates of 8, 17 and 28 of the months, whose digits add up to 8 are inauspicious.
What Bunkum, I thought, when he claimed that “all natural disaster or calamities” occur on those days. He even said that the break up of the Reliance Industries was because it was incorporated on the 26th of some month. He also said that unhappy marriages, divorces are the results of weddings that took place on those days.
I did a small test. I looked for a list of natural disasters on Google. I opened the first one that came up and found that out of the ten listed, the numbers of only one added up to 8 – the Chernobyl disaster. The REMANING NINE DID NOT. Of course, this was a listing based on some yardstick chosen by the compiler of the list. But still it should have at least had more than one, don’t you think?
I looked for other lists and MOST of them did not meet this specification.
I wondered:
Why does god/fate follow the Gregorian calendar? Why not any of the innumerable other calendars available and followed for religious purposes? For example: the lunar calendar of some Hindus, the solar calendars of other Hindus, or the Islamic or Jewish or Chinese calendars? Does it mean that the Judeo-Christian god is the true god, perhaps?
Which was a bad day in the days before the Gregorian calendar came to be accepted as the universal calendar? The number of days was changed sometime in the calendars history. What happened to in those days. If disasters then too occurred on such days, did god /fate change to the new calendar along with humans?
When it is 26th here, elsewhere on the globe, it is still 25th or it is already 27th in some other places. Which is the correct date then?
India became a republic on 26, January. Does it qualify as a natural disaster or a political disaster or what?
India lost the Boxing Day test (starting on 26 Dec, 2007). National disaster? But Australia won. What?
What Bunkum, I thought, when he claimed that “all natural disaster or calamities” occur on those days. He even said that the break up of the Reliance Industries was because it was incorporated on the 26th of some month. He also said that unhappy marriages, divorces are the results of weddings that took place on those days.
I did a small test. I looked for a list of natural disasters on Google. I opened the first one that came up and found that out of the ten listed, the numbers of only one added up to 8 – the Chernobyl disaster. The REMANING NINE DID NOT. Of course, this was a listing based on some yardstick chosen by the compiler of the list. But still it should have at least had more than one, don’t you think?
I looked for other lists and MOST of them did not meet this specification.
I wondered:
Why does god/fate follow the Gregorian calendar? Why not any of the innumerable other calendars available and followed for religious purposes? For example: the lunar calendar of some Hindus, the solar calendars of other Hindus, or the Islamic or Jewish or Chinese calendars? Does it mean that the Judeo-Christian god is the true god, perhaps?
Which was a bad day in the days before the Gregorian calendar came to be accepted as the universal calendar? The number of days was changed sometime in the calendars history. What happened to in those days. If disasters then too occurred on such days, did god /fate change to the new calendar along with humans?
When it is 26th here, elsewhere on the globe, it is still 25th or it is already 27th in some other places. Which is the correct date then?
India became a republic on 26, January. Does it qualify as a natural disaster or a political disaster or what?
India lost the Boxing Day test (starting on 26 Dec, 2007). National disaster? But Australia won. What?
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ReplyDeleteI would like you to read this article before you read my comment any further -
ReplyDeletehttp://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1185685.cms
It is very exasperating that a renowned newspaper published this article long ago. What impact will it have on those people who are already blinded by these irrational acceptance of beliefs/notions and who have faith in ominous significances, which are not based on any reason!
I firmly agree with Anil. It is just a deplorable notion, which is not related to any knowledge. Sad. These issues flare up even more when the Media(of all sorts) portrays such a portending picture of a particular natural occurrence or the like.
Nice attempt, Anil. And please do not delete this lovely post :-)
Good one. I strongly agree with you & add my lines (Which i belive) :
ReplyDeleteThere is no bad time to do good work.
I suppose, even today, many people believe in many myths, which do not have any potential logic.
Some times back, i read in google, that myths are considered to be a psychological dis-order in human beings. The more a person has myth, the more he has that dis -order.
In psychological terms, it is called " Magical Thinking"