From: RIPBC@CUNYVM.BITNET
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: Re: Do we need a religion?
Date: 24 Dec 92 22:43:32 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: City University of New York/ University Computer Center

-From: fafat@aludra.usc.edu (Vijay Fafat)
-NNTP-Posting-Host: aludra.usc.edu
-
-Rohit Parikh writes:
->I could not resist replying to this.  If we are talking about the
->existence or non-existence of God, at least no one has proved that God
->does NOT exist.
-
-        And no one has proved that 2-horned unicorns (bicorns?) don't
-        exist...
-
->On the other hand, Kenneth Arrow, the nobel prize
->winning economist did prove that democracy is mathematically impossible.
->What do we do THEN?
-
-        As a humour, :):). But I'm not sure Arrow proved the "impossibility"
-        If I got him right, he proved that you can NEVER *rule out* an
-        ambiguous vote or a downright inconsistency in voting. Maybe you
-        can elaborate. It's actually a very interesting topic.
-
   Supppose you have three voters:

A prefers:   Clinton to Bush to Perot
B prefers:   Bush to Perot to Clinton
C prefers:   Perot to Clinton to Bush

Suppose you have an election with Bush running against Perot.
A and B will vote for Bush and C for Perot so Bush wins.

Suppose you have an election with Perot running against Clinton
B and C will vote for Perot who will win

Suppose you have an election with Clinton running against Bush
A and C will vote for Clinton who will win.

So Bush beats Perot who beats Clinton who beats Bush.

So who is the `choice of the people'?  There is no one at all who can claim
to be that.

Arrow showed that this phenomenon is GENERAL.  Thus a `fair voting system'
is logically impossible.   But in most cases democratic elections sort of work
so we have them.  But belief in God also sort of works.  So why not have that
too?  There was a philosopher who prayed to God  on the grounds that  if God
exists,  then the prayer will help.  If God does NOT exist, then no harm
is done.  So why not pray?  :-)

But seriously, India has a low crime rate in many categories in spite of
poverty BECAUSE the people are religious.  If you destroy the influence
of religion, then your favourite saying `poverty breeds crime' will indeed
come true, and where will you find the kind of money for social services
that even the US finds it hard to pay for?  Think about it for a moment.

  The business about the Babri Masjid reminds of a joke.  A man goes out
for a walk and comes back holding something in his hand.  His wife opens
the door and recoils in disgust.  "What on earth is THAT?" she says.
"Look what I almost stepped into", replies the husband!!

  In New York where I work, there are a thousand murders every year.  But
when there is a `bias related' crime, the media go into hysterics, making
it into  a big tamasha.  The result is that there is much more racial hostility
than there was ten years ago, even though the media with their hysterics
are trying to `eliminate' racial violence.

   We have the same situation in the Babri case.  It is not so big an event
in itself.  But the Indian muslims, Pakistanis, the Press, the secularists,
Mr. Rao, and, of course, the BJP, will all make it into something big so
that we WILL have very unfortunate consequences.

   Life is not perfect - bad things do sometimes happen.  But to have
hysterics, OR to talk about doing away with religion altogether is just
plain silly, IMHO.  It makes a bad thing worse.

   Rohit Parikh