Reflection

Mr Vardan Kabra was invited to our class as a guest speaker. The objective was to help the students understand their beliefs and its sources. They were even made to ponder over their own beliefs. Few of the questions raised to them are given below:

• What qualities is God supposed to have?
• What work is God supposed to do?
• What is the reality of the world and our nation (good things co-exist with hunger, poverty, war, illiteracy, terrorism, crimes, corruption etc.)?
• If God is all-powerful (omnipotent), all knowing (omniscient), and present everywhere (omnipresent), then why doesn’t he/she/they solve all the problems of the earth?
• How can God be caring and yet tolerate so much suffering in the world? Is it because of freewill or because of sins of the past of that person? If indeed we have freewill then does God have a role in our lives?
• Do people who claim that they can perform magic / miracles really possess some supernatural powers? If yes then why only them? And why are they unable to perform the magic / miracles under all conditions?
• Does God really exist or not?

The learners were provoked to think and ask questions themselves. Of course the guest speaker mentioned that there is no right or wrong answer. The answers to these questions lie in what we believe in and each person is free to believe what they wish to. What’s important is to understand that we get influenced through a variety of sources (Human Societies) and ultimately we need to make conscious choice to believe something as true or not.

Our guest speaker also talked about the law of probability. Many times when things which have very low probability of happening occur, you feel as if you are blessed in some way. However, you mustn’t forget that however low the probability of an event occurring, they still happen sometime or the other.

So don’t just believe anything. Always think on the scale of probabilities. The thing which you think as illogical or meaningless, put under low probability and the thing that seems to be reasonable or possible, you may put under high probability. He also emphasized more on “questioning” and further added “believe things only after questioning” because once you believe anything you ultimately stop thinking about it. And you act from your beliefs – so your actions could be wrong if your beliefs are not well thought of.

All in all it was a stimulating discussion for our children and helped them clarify their understanding about the Unit’s central idea in a big way.
by RITU.CHOPRA@FOUNTAINHEADSCHOOLS.ORG on JULY 12, 2011