Friday, June 26, 2009

Life goes on, and i'll never regret

In a time of letting go, leaving a big part of life behind and of new experiences that have surpassed and that are yet to come, I write that...

Life goes on and ill never regret
The times that i ventured the times that i spent
And as i go on ill make new memmories
But i wouldn't forget the days that i had
With company

And as the clockhand turns time goes by
That we cant replace
And we musn't look back
Only look back to appreciate
Cuz if one looks back only to regret
Then one will only start to neglect

They say life is short but this aint true
Life is full of memmories that we just forget
And people think its short cuz they never knew
That they forget and so it seems like life is a few

Monday, March 23, 2009

Chickenpox!

The Chicken Pox, 

A couple of weeks back my younger brother, 14, had the chicken pox. I do not know how or where he got it, probably at some pool or something. Anyways i stayed at least a few metres away I did not even sit in the T.V. room, speak directly with him, and guess what? Now I have it. Chicken Pox at 17 is definitely greatly agitating, it's my final year of I.B. and things at school are pretty important now, and so I'm resenting this completely. I discovered I had the chickenpox when I got back from school yesterday. In the morning I noticed my back was a bit overloaded with spots, and I said to myself 'wow, what kind of acne is this, is this a bit too much?’ Well I ignored it. When I got back home I found much on my chest and back and then asked 'the dad' and confirmed the chickenpox. What a bad time to get this horrible virus.

 

Today...

Got up from bed and immediately went to Starbucks Shatti with my older brother, we sat outside where there was no one, and had coffee and chatted for about an hour. Then it was back home, where I engaged in some organic chemistry revision, I had the energy. A movie, Batman Begins, followed and then lunch, more T.V., PC, and napping. Not a bad day except for the spells of fatigue and dizziness. 

 

 

Hatem-Out

 

PS. Resisting to scratch (it's hard), but I haven’t done it yet. 

 

Leaving you with a picture of my face (viewer discretion is advised)


Friday, March 13, 2009

B + F Roadside Diner...Review

A couple of friends and I decided to go and checkout this new hotspot in town at Shining Shatti (Bareeq Shatti). I have seen that they have been working on it for a while now, getting the place ready for opening, it sure did take a while and it's still a soft opening too ( The Grand Opening is in April). As we walked in we were greeted happily, albeit a bit too much, by the staff as they were eager to sit us down, at an already filled up restaurant. The place is not your traditional burger joint, mainly modelled with steel walls, and all sorts of accessories and unorthodox design, that gives the place a unique ambience. The menu itself was luring, with it's thick metal like cover and the wide choice of variety as you flip the pages (although they still do not serve milk shakes, smoothies, or any other juices or drinks apart from your regular soda). You can try some interesting starters such as chilli cheese fries, or nachos, and indulge into a classic burger or gourmet burger add some accessories such as fries to that and you have yourself a great meal! Overall the meat that they used was really juicy and tasty far better than your regular McDonalds. The only drawback I experienced was the fact that when I wanted to pay using my credit card they did not have that option available.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

BOR-FUN





Yesterday was a chill day. Although it started off as boring, with me sitting on the sand at the beach, headphones on listening to some music, alone, it was pretty cool.  I went over to my friend’s house. It kind of feels like your being watched over there. His family is pretty rigorously religious and you always feel self conscious, as you might expect. Well we managed to ditch the place, and head on over to the sand dunes. Of course we stopped at Haider's house so that he can change, and amazingly he was quite quick considering the deliberately sluggish way in which he moves and gets things done. Anyway we were on our way and it was my first time dune biking so it was amazing as you might expect. Not the first time biking, the first dune biking! :P All I can report is sand, speed, and recklessness. Oh yeah I think I also spoilt the rear brakes, maybe? 

 

The day ended as usual with us in M.Q. at Starbucks, just sitting there and not ordering anything, while my friend protested the fact that we will order nothing because Starbucks supports the Zionist Israelis, and sitting there so no one else can?!!! WEIRD i must say. Then I was back home, just me, to my secluded room to relax and watch "Role Models", which I would definitely recommend, McLovin is inít:P. So yeah I'm out with this latest update from Oh!man on VERTIGO 

Friday, March 6, 2009

A good friend!

      (Haider Al Zaabi)

My friend Haider is a person I admire, he's got a great sense of humour weird ideas, and great fun to talk to. He stands out in a crowd, just look at his hair and then big head of his, postured on top of that short body of his (:P). 2 nights ago was Haider's birthday and instead of us surprising him, he surprised us. We were standing in the school car park and a limo passes by and he's like get in, but I didnt believe him, and then he went up to it and we all got in, drove around Muscat for 2 hours and had a great time. Good Idea Haider I must say. Yesterday Haider was also carageous enough to jump off the bridge in the Qurm beach road into the water(which we all did) but didn't think Haider would! He also likes to take my clothes to wear. He loves punck rock, a lot of other rock, Panic at the Disco I must mention, like them too. Haider has just turned 17! So Happy  17th Birthday Haider! One of my best friends :P:D!

Monday, March 2, 2009

Update :P

This week as been a very awkward week for me personally with all the work at school and the mind boggling course called I.B. Not just that but personal issues. I finally got to the that blog everyone was talking about, and all the bullshit that people were gossipping about wasn't really there so to speak, but nevertheless, it was quite an entertaining read, got me reading! Hamdan and Nizar HAHA! 

Besides that the Mocks were alright did as expected with a few minor exceptions! Oh yeah and paintball is out in town at last, can't wait to try it out, but i know it would be as good as that which i tried in England. But oh wtf!

 I do hope this weekend is far better than last week's, which wasn't really one. Got a high fever missed a concert in Oman, James Blunt, you might think why does he care about that? Well we don't really get award winning artist in Oman...EVER! So yeah pretty pissed about that.

That dude yeah Modee, warning you, is acting a bit weird these days with his , i dont give a shit attitude and your so infintile accusations, guess he'll get over that. I asked him for 3 Rials today, he went crazy and started coming up with some weird ass shit. Oh well the world never ceases to amaze me. 



Thursday, February 5, 2009

A very interesting article I read!

WHILE many institutions collapsed during the Great Depression that began in 1929, one kind did rather well. During this leanest of times, the strictest, most authoritarian churches saw a surge in attendance.

This anomaly was documented in the early 1970s, but only now is science beginning to tell us why. It turns out that human beings have a natural inclination for religious belief, especially during hard times. Our brains effortlessly conjure up an imaginary world of spirits, gods and monsters, and the more insecure we feel, the harder it is to resist the pull of this supernatural world. It seems that our minds are finely tuned to believe in gods.

Religious ideas are common to all cultures: like language and music, they seem to be part of what it is to be human. Until recently, science has largely shied away from asking why. "It's not that religion is not important," says Paul Bloom, a psychologist at Yale University, "it's that the taboo nature of the topic has meant there has been little progress."

The origin of religious belief is something of a mystery, but in recent years scientists have started to make suggestions. One leading idea is that religion is an evolutionary adaptation that makes people more likely to survive and pass their genes onto the next generation. In this view, shared religious belief helped our ancestors form tightly knit groups that cooperated in hunting, foraging and childcare, enabling these groups to outcompete others. In this way, the theory goes, religion was selected for by evolution, and eventually permeated every human society (New Scientist, 28 January 2006, p 30)

The religion-as-an-adaptation theory doesn't wash with everybody, however. As anthropologist Scott Atran of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor points out, the benefits of holding such unfounded beliefs are questionable, in terms of evolutionary fitness. "I don't think the idea makes much sense, given the kinds of things you find in religion," he says. A belief in life after death, for example, is hardly compatible with surviving in the here-and-now and propagating your genes. Moreover, if there are adaptive advantages of religion, they do not explain its origin, but simply how it spread.

An alternative being put forward by Atran and others is that religion emerges as a natural by-product of the way the human mind works.

That's not to say that the human brain has a "god module" in the same way that it has a language module that evolved specifically for acquiring language. Rather, some of the unique cognitive capacities that have made us so successful as a species also work together to create a tendency for supernatural thinking. "There's now a lot of evidence that some of the foundations for our religious beliefs are hard-wired," says Bloom.

Much of that evidence comes from experiments carried out on children, who are seen as revealing a "default state" of the mind that persists, albeit in modified form, into adulthood. "Children the world over have a strong natural receptivity to believing in gods because of the way their minds work, and this early developing receptivity continues to anchor our intuitive thinking throughout life," says anthropologist Justin Barrett of the University of Oxford.
So how does the brain conjure up gods? One of the key factors, says Bloom, is the fact that our brains have separate cognitive systems for dealing with living things - things with minds, or at least volition - and inanimate objects.

This separation happens very early in life. Bloom and colleagues have shown that babies as young as five months make a distinction between inanimate objects and people. Shown a box moving in a stop-start way, babies show surprise. But a person moving in the same way elicits no surprise. To babies, objects ought to obey the laws of physics and move in a predictable way. People, on the other hand, have their own intentions and goals, and move however they choose.

Mind and matter
Bloom says the two systems are autonomous, leaving us with two viewpoints on the world: one that deals with minds, and one that handles physical aspects of the world. He calls this innate assumption that mind and matter are distinct "common-sense dualism". The body is for physical processes, like eating and moving, while the mind carries our consciousness in a separate - and separable - package. "We very naturally accept you can leave your body in a dream, or in astral projection or some sort of magic," Bloom says. "These are universal views."

There is plenty of evidence that thinking about disembodied minds comes naturally. People readily form relationships with non-existent others: roughly half of all 4-year-olds have had an imaginary friend, and adults often form and maintain relationships with dead relatives, fictional characters and fantasy partners. As Barrett points out, this is an evolutionarily useful skill. Without it we would be unable to maintain large social hierarchies and alliances or anticipate what an unseen enemy might be planning. "Requiring a body around to think about its mind would be a great liability," he says.

Useful as it is, common-sense dualism also appears to prime the brain for supernatural concepts such as life after death. In 2004, Jesse Bering of Queen's University Belfast, UK, put on a puppet show for a group of pre-school children. During the show, an alligator ate a mouse. The researchers then asked the children questions about the physical existence of the mouse, such as: "Can the mouse still be sick? Does it need to eat or drink?" The children said no. But when asked more "spiritual" questions, such as "does the mouse think and know things?", the children answered yes.

Default to god
Based on these and other experiments, Bering considers a belief in some form of life apart from that experienced in the body to be the default setting of the human brain. Education and experience teach us to override it, but it never truly leaves us, he says. From there it is only a short step to conceptualising spirits, dead ancestors and, of course, gods, says Pascal Boyer, a psychologist at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri. Boyer points out that people expect their gods' minds to work very much like human minds, suggesting they spring from the same brain system that enables us to think about absent or non-existent people.

The ability to conceive of gods, however, is not sufficient to give rise to religion. The mind has another essential attribute: an overdeveloped sense of cause and effect which primes us to see purpose and design everywhere, even where there is none. "You see bushes rustle, you assume there's somebody or something there," Bloom says.

This over-attribution of cause and effect probably evolved for survival. If there are predators around, it is no good spotting them 9 times out of 10. Running away when you don't have to is a small price to pay for avoiding danger when the threat is real.

Again, experiments on young children reveal this default state of the mind. Children as young as three readily attribute design and purpose to inanimate objects. When Deborah Kelemen of the University of Arizona in Tucson asked 7 and 8-year-old children questions about inanimate objects and animals, she found that most believed they were created for a specific purpose. Pointy rocks are there for animals to scratch themselves on. Birds exist "to make nice music", while rivers exist so boats have something to float on. "It was extraordinary to hear children saying that things like mountains and clouds were 'for' a purpose and appearing highly resistant to any counter-suggestion," says Kelemen.

In similar experiments, Olivera Petrovich of the University of Oxford asked pre-school children about the origins of natural things such as plants and animals. She found they were seven times as likely to answer that they were made by god than made by people.

These cognitive biases are so strong, says Petrovich, that children tend to spontaneously invent the concept of god without adult intervention: "They rely on their everyday experience of the physical world and construct the concept of god on the basis of this experience." Because of this, when children hear the claims of religion they seem to make perfect sense.

Our predisposition to believe in a supernatural world stays with us as we get older. Kelemen has found that adults are just as inclined to see design and intention where there is none. Put under pressure to explain natural phenomena, adults often fall back on teleological arguments, such as "trees produce oxygen so that animals can breathe" or "the sun is hot because warmth nurtures life". Though she doesn't yet have evidence that this tendency is linked to belief in god, Kelemen does have results showing that most adults tacitly believe they have souls.

Boyer is keen to point out that religious adults are not childish or weak-minded. Studies reveal that religious adults have very different mindsets from children, concentrating more on the moral dimensions of their faith and less on its supernatural attributes.

Even so, religion is an inescapable artefact of the wiring in our brain, says Bloom. "All humans possess the brain circuitry and that never goes away." Petrovich adds that even adults who describe themselves as atheists and agnostics are prone to supernatural thinking. Bering has seen this too. When one of his students carried out interviews with atheists, it became clear that they often tacitly attribute purpose to significant or traumatic moments in their lives, as if some agency were intervening to make it happen. "They don't completely exorcise the ghost of god - they just muzzle it," Bering says.

The fact that trauma is so often responsible for these slips gives a clue as to why adults find it so difficult to jettison their innate belief in gods, Atran says. The problem is something he calls "the tragedy of cognition". Humans can anticipate future events, remember the past and conceive of how things could go wrong - including their own death, which is hard to deal with. "You've got to figure out a solution, otherwise you're overwhelmed," Atran says. When natural brain processes give us a get-out-of-jail card, we take it.

That view is backed up by an experiment published late last year (Science, vol 322, p 115). Jennifer Whitson of the University of Texas in Austin and Adam Galinsky of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, asked people what patterns they could see in arrangements of dots or stock market information. Before asking, Whitson and Galinsky made half their participants feel a lack of control, either by giving them feedback unrelated to their performance or by having them recall experiences where they had lost control of a situation.

The results were striking. The subjects who sensed a loss of control were much more likely to see patterns where there were none. "We were surprised that the phenomenon is as widespread as it is," Whitson says. What's going on, she suggests, is that when we feel a lack of control we fall back on superstitious ways of thinking. That would explain why religions enjoy a revival during hard times.

So if religion is a natural consequence of how our brains work, where does that leave god? All the researchers involved stress that none of this says anything about the existence or otherwise of gods: as Barratt points out, whether or not a belief is true is independent of why people believe it.

It does, however, suggests that god isn't going away, and that atheism will always be a hard sell. Religious belief is the "path of least resistance", says Boyer, while disbelief requires effort.
These findings also challenge the idea that religion is an adaptation. "Yes, religion helps create large societies - and once you have large societies you can outcompete groups that don't," Atran says. "But it arises as an artefact of the ability to build fictive worlds. I don't think there's an adaptation for religion any more than there's an adaptation to make airplanes."

I don't think there's an adaptation for religion any more than there's an adaptation to make airplanes

Supporters of the adaptation hypothesis, however, say that the two ideas are not mutually exclusive. As David Sloan Wilson of Binghamton University in New York state points out, elements of religious belief could have arisen as a by-product of brain evolution, but religion per se was selected for because it promotes group survival. "Most adaptations are built from previous structures," he says. "Boyer's basic thesis and my basic thesis could both be correct."

Robin Dunbar of the University of Oxford - the researcher most strongly identified with the religion-as-adaptation argument - also has no problem with the idea that religion co-opts brain circuits that evolved for something else. Richard Dawkins, too, sees the two camps as compatible. "Why shouldn't both be correct?" he says. "I actually think they are."

Ultimately, discovering the true origins of something as complex as religion will be difficult. There is one experiment, however, that could go a long way to proving whether Boyer, Bloom and the rest are onto something profound. Ethical issues mean it won't be done any time soon, but that hasn't stopped people speculating about the outcome.

It goes something like this. Left to their own devices, children create their own "creole" languages using hard-wired linguistic brain circuits. A similar experiment would provide our best test of the innate religious inclinations of humans. Would a group of children raised in isolation spontaneously create their own religious beliefs? "I think the answer is yes," says Bloom.


God of the gullibile
In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins argues that religion is propagated through indoctrination, especially of children. Evolution predisposes children to swallow whatever their parents and tribal elders tell them, he argues, as trusting obedience is valuable for survival. This also leads to what Dawkins calls "slavish gullibility" in the face of religious claims.
If children have an innate belief in god, however, where does that leave the indoctrination hypothesis? "I am thoroughly happy with believing that children are predisposed to believe in invisible gods - I always was," says Dawkins. "But I also find the indoctrination hypothesis plausible. The two influences could, and I suspect do, reinforce one another." He suggests that evolved gullibility converts a child's general predisposition to believe in god into a specific belief in the god (or gods) their parents worship.

Source: NewScientist

Thursday, January 29, 2009

A little rant of mine on everything going on in our world at the moment.

My first blog posting of the new year, so a belated happy new years to all our readers.... all two of you.

First I'd like to share an amusing video with you
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAnjJDQ7ey4
Your welcome

Next I'd like to talk about a topic which I think everyone has heard about
and has been moved by the events that followed, and that is Israel's
illegal seige on Gaza. Yes, illegal
Illegal why? Several reasons which I believe Hatem has covered in one
of his previous postings.
I'd like to make a comment though on what president Barack Obama
made in one of his pre inauguration speeches. He said that if someone
was attacking him with rockets while his children are sleeping he'd fight
back and that Israel has every right to fight back.
I'm sorry Mr Obama but I believed you to be an educated man. However,
an educated person does not make foolish statements such as those.
I know from my postings it seems that I am critical of Mr Obama, it may
seem that I don't like him, but your wrong I'm just making points on his
faultings. Why do I say a person who is educated would not make a
comment like that? Because a person who is educated ( and I don't
mean edcucated in the sense of degrees and honors and everything),
a person who is educated looks into a topic before making blank
statements.
I don't think you know this Mr Obama but Israel broke the ceasefire while
you were partying over your presidency win. Yes, Israel broke the ceasefire
, I'm sorry if i disappointed our fox news viewing readers but that is the fact.
On election day 2008 Israel fired rockets into Gaza, Hamas responded.

I myself am not entirely convinced with Hamas, but as Mr Obama said, if
someone is firing rockets at you while your children are sleeping you have
the right to defend yourself.

Another point I have to raise about the seige is (and excuse my language)
Where the f*** is the international community???? When Russia invaded
Georgia last summer it was all over the news. Why? Because the western
media opposes Russia, whereas they are in aid of the Israeli cause.
Western supremacy controlling media at its best. Not only was the seige
on Gaza illegal it was inhumane. Over 1300 killed and over 4000 injured
compared to 10s of dead Israelis is inproportionate attacks according to
Israel. YES IT IS inproportionate you dumb f***, just not the way your
describing it.I do not understand how the whole world could just watch a
massacre like that and do nothing about it? Where is our empathy? Where
is our compassion?
Lives are being taken, families broken, a country in carnage. And all
America the world's superpower can do is withdraw its vote from a UN
resolution seeking peace.
That my friend reminds me of a saying "with great power comes great
responsibility" (yes I know its from spiderman) and the USA is not at all
being responsible with the power that it has.

I don't understand how a country of 300 million individuals can be controlled by a tiny zionist state. Yes, controlled. If tomorrow, the UK decided to
attack some country, the US wouldn't allow it. However Israel decides to
commit genocide and the American government starts singing "you can do whatever you like".

Next topic, the credit crunch. coming soon.....

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Barack Hussein Obama on Tuesday the 20th of January, has become the 44th president of the United States of America

It was a moment in which 100's of millions of people around the world watched, from the biggest of cities to the tiniest of villages, a moment that 'defines a generation'. Although we watch the American Presidential Inauguration we must consider that America and the American President will become the most powerful man on earth "officially". In times of crisis, economically and wars and conflict the world seeks for new hope and a dream of a better tommorow. The inaugural speech personally was captivating and had many themes and messages which struck hard and rough but at many times it was promise of rebirth and prosperity.

The main themes of the address include the very critical financial crisis that will be one of President Obama's toughest challenges. U.S. foreign policy, domestic issues, and a message of change, renewed freedom and leadership.

The address was in many ways a head-smacking of former president Bush, who disagreed on many of Obama's initiatives such as funding of embryonic stem cell research, which was one of the first changes made to federal spending in which Obama removed the limit of federal spending on this research. Facing a changing world and the leading role of America Obama said 'we must lead once more' which is an indication of the fact that the influence of America as a nation on the world is deminishing.

To the muslim world Obama addresses the fact that both the U.S. and the muslim world must find common interests and help each other, and to defeat the threat of terrorist violence that plagues stability, prosperity, and development.

Yet, at the end of the day one asks himself. Is this 'New' president all that he seems? Is he as good a leader and a changer as he is good at speaking(rather amazing actually, one to remember)? Well we will watch carefully at his actions and his initiatives especially in the first crucial 100 days of office, which will definetly include th closing down of the Guantanamo Bay Prison.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Gaza. Solidarity and Sympathy

The new year has come in with some bad news, Gaza. Although we must always look at the previous years' problems we must not forget the good times we've had even if it was just for a few seconds. Appreciating every moment and remembering the good always creates postive hope for the future. However, for the people of Gaza the New Year continues to bring in oppression and so I offer my sympathies, since there is little I can do apart from donate money, to the people of Gaza. May justice serve your cause and may God honour that who is righteous.



My condolences and respect and pity for all those who have died in this absurd conflict, however these are my thoughts on this:

1.It is ironic that Israellis call Hamas terrorists, when Israel has occupied the "Official" Palestinian land for over 40 years since 1967 and till this very day remains an occupant of these lands. Is this not terrorism is this not disrespecting other peoples' rights. Israel has continued to call any movement against it terrorists such as the PLO, Hezbolla and Hamas. When all these organizations are not aiming to kill for the sake of killing but defend the rights of Palestinians and voice the oppression they are feeling. If Israel really wanted to achieve 'peace" then they would have left these lands to the Palestinians quite a while ago. They still occupy the Golan hights even though it is rightfully owned by the State of Syria. Is this not terrorism.

2. The situation in Gaza has been dire following the total blockade of the strip. People struggle to find basic neccessities such as bread and clean water. Which is causing catastrophic humanitarian problems.

3. Hamas should not blame the Arabs, for example the Egyptians for not supporting them because when they ended the cease-fire and started shooting rockets at southern Israel they did not negotiate with the Egyptian and Arab governments they did not let them know of their strategy or motives. and so the questions is should a country such as egypt base and change it foreign policy to suite the organization of Hamas. Is this justifiable.

4. I personally find that Hamas is not doing a good political job. It has to learn to control it's anger for the sake of it's people. By keeping the area stable and providing necessities. Do not throw stones at someone if your house is made from glass.

5. The Palestinians within themselves have to come up with a suitable agreement. The same agenda, even if they have to compromise when they don't agree with certain issues. These are peoples' lives at risk and their future which has to be considered more seriously.

6. Israel has previously had a plan to deport palestinains to the sinai, egyptian land, and take over the gaza strip. The plan is still not off the table, and the opening of the egyptian-palestinian border, rafah, might trigger and mass migration or continuous migration of Palestinians from Gaza into egypt strengthening the Israeli plan. Finally. After years of negotiation on the side of the PLO and Mahmoud Abbas' government in the West Bank and the rest of the Arab states with Israel there has not been one positve action taking, a slight improvement might be israel leaving the gaza strip. So is fighting the only way to solve problems?