Get High, way up in the Sky

Imagine coasting over the clouds in a transparent tube enjoying dinner while you are chasing the setting sun. Imagine partying all night literally on the stratosphere right under the shining stars. Imagine moon-roof on your flight that opens to give you a breathtaking view of the night sky. I’m not scripting a cheesy science fiction here; I’m talking about the next generation star-lit cruises!

In my opinion, there is a vast and potentially profitable market of aerial cruises that is currently untapped. We would need to build air-crafts with these capabilities. I’m not an expert in aerodynamics or materials, but it is difficult for me to believe that there are technological limitations to aerial luxury liners. If there is a market for space tourism – something that companies like Virgin galactic is trying to build – it is hard to imagine why aerial tourism would not flourish. Of course, a detailed economic analysis will help answer the profitability and sustainability of this air tourism industry, but I suspect that there’s enough novelty and panache in the idea that the first movers will make a killing.

Now if you want to get on the Sunset Express, I suggest you follow the news for you may soon be able to make an early bird reservation! For the others who wanna talk about the details, buzz me and I’m all ears!

Oh God, Where Art Thou?

This morning, I decided to move on from latest escapades of Paris and her poodle and rashly chose to take the Lord’s name in vain. Blasphemy, you may exclaim, but I promise not to be any more ludicrous than things that you already might have read, heard or even said. After all who ever said that pointless publishing was an exclusive club.

But, of course, any good argument stems from strong research. So after perusing through links stemming from a google search for about 1.5 seconds, I choose to theorize. The general idea of religion seems to be that it is a tool that was created and that was propagated over time so that it can be used to hedge against several forms of uncertainties that afflicts an individual over his/her lifetime. I like to think of religion as the oldest form of insurance. Prayers and offerings are the currency through with people pay the premium. Religious institutions are the banks where you deposit your currency. In the face of sorrow and uncertainty, people evoke their insurance card and seek returns in form of mental strength to quell the tides of darkness. Greater the diligence in making the religious deposits, larger is the reservoir and more forceful is the belief of reprieve from evil times.

The beauty of religious insurance is that its promoters seem to have successfully convinced the practioners that even if sometimes relief is not provided, it is not the fault of the insurance provider but it is because of insufficient deposits. This leads to a greater transaction of the intangible religious currency, thus giving birth to a continuous positive feedback loop for the development of this institution. Over time, this barter system was ossified and religious institutions were immortalized.

But, as in most cases, the problem of high principles and low practice plagues most people. There are those kinds who don’t pay their premium regularly. Not all of them can be called atheists though for takes a lot of strength and courage to practice atheism. These religious free-loaders can be classified into the following forms. There are your regular agnostics, convenient theists (theists who pay the heavy premiums only in times of crisis), opportunistic atheists (atheists who choose to seek divine help in bad times), social atheists (they believe in God but don’t profess it openly for fear of being socially ostracized) and lazy theists (these are the ones who believe in God but find little time from their hedonistic lifestyles to practice it). Most people, including myself, fall in one or in some combination of the above.

True believers of atheism are those who at no point seek the powers of the holy insurance provider during times of adversity. Instead true atheists dig deep unto themselves to battle their troubles. In fact, I contend that the greatest atheists of the modern world were the messiahs – Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha – themselves. They were strong willed individuals who did not subscribe to the religious structures that existed during their times. The strength of their personality created a strong stream of admirers who slowly turned into powerful propaganda machines giving birth to modern forms of religion. This might be an over-simplification but can very well be true. In fact, it is likely that there were several such strong personalities at different points in history but they weren’t atoned to holy status as, perhaps thankfully, they lacked the much needed marketing muscle.

Another interesting aspect about religion that I notice is that people tend to being more and more ritualistic theists as they grow older. I think that this is because they not only have to manage personal uncertainties but now need manage uncertainties arising out of conjugal, filial and parental responsibilities. In many cases as they cannot influence the actions of those that they want to influence, they call upon divinity more frequently than before to help them.

Often this call is carried out by a means of a pre-ordained process that requires an ample transaction of both real and religious currency. Despite this being a common practice that has continued for ages, I wonder why religonomics is not a field of study. While it may be sacrilegious to offer such courses, but it’ll indeed be interesting to see the “balance-sheets” of religious institutions!

At this point, it appears as if the philosopher in me decided to step out on yet another long vacation. I, therefore, am going stop this Morpheus-que babble. In the meantime, I am definitely open to all forms of discussions – serious or otherwise. And, of course, I apologize if I have ruffled any of your feathers (or beliefs as the case may be). But despite this if you choose to issue some form of a fatwa, I suggest that you hold off as it is not a particularly polite thing to do!