RE: Your comment on January 6, 2010 @ 4:55 am

You say;

“Even if it is a good theory don’t you think it can have exceptions?”

Not really, no. I haven’t yet seen a convincing reason why it would be more fair to have a non-secular state.

……………………………………………..

If I ask somebody, how much is one plus one, he will definitely laugh at me, saying ” you don’t know such a simple thing”? But you must have heard that Bertrand Russell, had taken a book of about 500 pages to prove that 1 + 1 = 2.
Except for a few of us, many really don’t know that 1 + 1 = 2, but we take them for granted. We don’t know to prove it, but thousands of day to day evidence we experience don’t contradict it, and therefore consider it as a theory. However, even a million of non contradicting evidences do not ensure the accuracy of the theory. However, one single contradicting evidence breaks the whole theory into nothing. That is the nature of any theory.

There is no perfect theory. A theory is just a model constructed to represent some reality. When a theory is closer to the reality it represents, that theory said to be a better theory. Usually theories cannot be proved except in the case of Pure Mathematics and Logic. In Pure Mathematics, theories which can be proved are known as “Theorems” and Pythagoras Theorem and Apollonius Theorem are example. Even the Theory of Gravitation or the Laws of Motion of Isaac Newton are not theorems. Therefore on the basis of a theory you cannot be 100% assured that an outcome of a theory is correct. None can say that it doesn’t have any doubt about it. That is why the saying “Every law has its exceptions”.

In the case of theories of Natural Science, the doubt is comparatively law. But in the theories in Social Sciences, this doubt factor is comparatively very high, and therefore the certainty of an outcome is comparatively law.

This is the theory about theories.

But in your comment to my post you are assertively say that there cannot be an exception for the Political theory, which says “Religion should be kept out of Politics”. I don’t know whom to tell?

Thanks!

2010-01-07

One of President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s sons, Yoshitha Rajapaksa had followed the course at the Royal Darkness Naval Academy in violation of Navy regulations.

Although it was stated that Yoshitha was granted an opportunity to follow the course as he was the President’s son, the Sri Lanka Navy has had to pay a large sum of money amounting to Rs. 200 lakhs for the course.

According to Navy regulations only a commissioned officer who has completed the fundamentals of the course could be sent to follow the course. However, Yoshitha had studied the fundamental course only for about two weeks. The Darkness Naval Academy awards

a scholarship to provide training to a Sri Lanka Navy officer every two years.

Sources from the Navy said that the scholarship was granted to Yoshitha by the Sri Lanka Navy spending a large sum of money and in violation of Navy regulations following an order received by higher authorities.

I have an interim question arisen from your comment datedJanuary 6, 2010 @ 4:55 am, before my next post.

In the above post you say;

What are your reasons for advocating such a notion? Can you fully justify it? “

As I mentioned earlier, the main reason is fairness. This country belongs to all its citizens. As such, the fair thing to do by all would be to separate religion and politics. I believe religion to be a personal matter and best kept that way.

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Can you explain me how fairness is ensured by seperating religion from politics?

Thanks!

Try reading this:

In any event, had foreign countries like India, Pakistan, USA, UK, Libya, Israel not contributed money and weapons to the Sri Lankan Begging Bowl [had the SL army not counter shelled], so many [thousands] would have not died indeed, as a land invasion [of the Tamil homeland] against the [LTTE] (who were willing to fight to the death) would have ended much faster.

Here is a total list of Japanese combat casulaties:

1,555,308 from 1941-45 in the Pacific War.

1. Against US – 485,717
2. Against UK/Netherlands – 208,026
3. In China – 202,958
4. Against Australia – 199,511
5. French Indochina – 2,803
6. Against USSR – 7,483
7. Other overseas – 23,388
8. Japan proper – 10,543
9. Navy 1941/45 – 414,879

Here is a list of casualties from the dropping of the two atom bombs:

Casualties from the Atomic Bomb

Hiroshima: 70,000 dead, 130000 wounded

Nagasaki: 20,000 dead, 50,000 wounded

Here is info regarding casualties from air-raids on Japan:

“The United States strategic bombing of Japan took place between 1942 and 1945. In the last seven months of the campaign, a change to firebombing tactics resulted in great destruction of 67 Japanese cities, as many as 500,000 Japanese deaths and some 5 million more made homeless.”

Here is a list of casualties from the Nanjing Massacre that Japan perpetuated on China:

300,000 (dead) Chinese, approximately 80 – 90,000 Chinese women raped

What about the number of Philipino’s, Cambodians, Laotians, Vietnamese, Koreans, Indonesians, and Burmese whom the Japanese killed, in addition to the Chinese?

The historian Chalmers Johnson has written that:

“It may be pointless to try to establish which World War Two Axis aggressor, Germany or Japan, was the more brutal to the peoples it victimised. The Germans killed six million Jews and 20 million Russians [i.e. Soviet citizens]; the Japanese slaughtered as many as 30 million Filipinos, Malays, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Indonesians and Burmese, at least 23 million of them ethnic Chinese. Both nations looted the countries they conquered on a monumental scale, though Japan plundered more, over a longer period, than the Nazis. Both conquerors enslaved millions and exploited them as forced labourers—and, in the case of the Japanese, as [forced] prostitutes for front-line troops. If you were a Nazi prisoner of war from Britain, America, Australia, New Zealand or Canada (but not Russia) you faced a 4% chance of not surviving the war; [by comparison] the death rate for Allied POWs held by the Japanese was nearly 30%.[18]

Unfortunately, Observer, the above statistics indicate that only 500,000 died from the firebombing of Japan, and only 100,000 died from the dropping of the two atom bombs combined. Whereas, the Japanese slaughtered 23 million Chinese civilians during WWII. My advice to you: find someone else to defend, the Japanese are not a good choice.

I would also like to point to you that not only was Japan firebombed, so were many European cities. E.g. Battle of Britain, bombing of Dresden, etc. How many Soviets died from the siege of Stalingrad?

As for the atom bomb, it was an international effort. While the US coordinated it, the Manhatten Project had scientists from all over the world, including Albert Einstein, Hans Boethe, and Enrico Fermi (all Nobel Prize winners). If these refugees from Nazi Germany like Einstein and Boethe had not been chased out of Germany, chances are they would have done atom bomb research for Germany, which is exactly what Werner Heisenberg (another Nobel winner) was doing in Nazi Germany. If the Italian scientist Fermi had not figured out nuclear fission, atom bomb research would not have occurred at all. So every time you assert that the atom bomb was the idea of the big bad USA, you are wayyyyy off the mark.

And the last point, Germany was trying verrrrryyyy hard to build an atom bomb. Had they been successful and passed one on to Japan, I doubt you would be alive today (hint: your loongi-clad grandfather would have been the 23,000,001st casualty).

Heshan, the millions include all the Japanese casualties due to the entire bombing raids carried out by Allied forces. Japan had to ally with Germany due to geographical reasons. Japanese was a race that put death before honor. They simple could not surrender and they made a grave mistake there. But the allied bombing raids were totally unjustified and most experts looking back agree. Yet they were never tried for war crimes! It was USA that decided to drop the bomb. Keep on white washing USA!

Japan only bombed SL due to allied presence. Had they invaded 1st they would have setup base just like the allied forces and attacked the other side.
Of course I am glad it was the allied forces since it was not an option to take the Nazi side like the Japanese did. But the force that was used, was not proportionate and amounts to a war crime. Had it been a Christian nation the allied would have never Nuked! Especially in a RESIDENTIAL area! That’s all I’m saying.

I have not yot completed justification of my stance. I forgot in my last post to mention it. Please let me post a few moe posts before answering your questions.

Thanks!

As I mentioned I understand your motivation and don’t question that. But I would like to know
1. What do you see as an equitable society in Sri Lanka?
2. What are the rights of the minorities in relation to the majority? Are they different?
3. Do you believe in forming a plural society?
4. What role would Buddhism play in politics?

Would appreciate some clarification to the above questions, as I currently do not have a clear picture on your stance on the above. I believe I have a reasonably good idea of Off-the-cuff’s stance, as he/she has explained them on several occasions.

Thanks!

In any event, had the atom bomb not been dropped [had the SL army not counter shelled], millions [thousands] would have died indeed, as a land invasion [brutal civil war] with the Japanese [LTTE] (who were willing to fight to the death) would have been drawn out over several years [an eternity].

Japan only bombed SL due to allied presence. Had they invaded 1st they would have setup base just like the allied forces and attacked the other side.
Of course I am glad it was the allied forces since it was not an option to take the Nazi side like the Japanese did. But the force that was used, was not proportionate and amounts to a war crime. Had it been a Christian nation the allied would have never Nuked! Especially in a RESIDENTIAL area! That’s all I’m saying.