New year thoughts

Cheers to a new year and we get a chance to set things right. 2016 is at our doorsteps. Let us ring out the old and ring in the new-with fresh hope and faith for a better tomorrow. I wish Happy New Year to all my friends and acquaintances worldwide. 

2016 should never repeat itself.

It is no time for hatred or terror as it happened in 2015. We have just an average of 100 years or little less on this earth. No god or religion shall make us live with the illusion of an after life. If anyone of you get fooled by the promises of any god and put an end to your life, your allotted time is over once and for all.  Let us use each second of it till the last one: it is a wonderful cosmic experience, not to be thrown away for any material heaven promised by anyone or any god.    

We have seen heartbreaking terror in the bygone year.

On 7 January 2015 at about 11:30 local time, two brothers, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, forced their way into the offices of the French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris. Armed with assault rifles and other weapons, they killed 11 people and injured 11 others in the building. After leaving, they killed a French National Police officer outside the building. The gunmen identified themselves as belonging to the Islamist terrorist group Al-Qaeda's branch in Yemen, who took responsibility for the attack.

On the evening of 13 November 2015, a series of coordinated terrorist attacks occurred in Paris and its northern suburb, Saint-Denis. Beginning at 21:20 CET, three suicide bombers struck near the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, followed by suicide bombings and mass shootings at cafés, restaurants, and a concert hall in Paris. The attackers killed 130 people, including 89 at the Bataclan theatre, where they took hostages before engaging in a stand-off with police. There were 368 people who were wounded, 80–99 seriously so.

There has been over 27535 terrorist activities by terrorists since September 11 attacks  when 4 passenger airliners—which all departed from airports on the U.S. East Coast bound for California—were hijacked by 19 al-Qaeda terrorists to be flown into buildings. Two of the planes, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, were crashed into the North and South towers, respectively, of the World Trade Center complex in New York City. Within an hour and 42 minutes, both 110-story towers collapsed, with debris and the resulting fires causing partial or complete collapse of all other buildings in the World Trade Center complex, including the 47-story 7 World Trade Center tower, as well as significant damage to ten other large surrounding structures. A third plane, American Airlines Flight 77, was crashed into the Pentagon (the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense) in Arlington County, Virginia, leading to a partial collapse in the Pentagon's western side. The fourth plane, United Airlines Flight 93, initially was steered toward Washington, D.C., but crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after its passengers tried to overcome the hijackers. In total, the attacks claimed the lives of 2,996 people (including the 19 hijackers) and caused at least $10 billion in property and infrastructure damage.

Despite 14 Years of the US War on Terror, Terror Attacks Have Skyrocketed Since 9/11.74 percent of all terror-related casualties occurred in Iraq, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Syria.

Even in today's world religions do more bad than good. A considerable percentage of man’s resources and time have been wasted for religions. Moral principles would have evolved anyway as they are essential for the peaceful co-existence of man. Religion has not contributed much even to this and each religion enforces different moral standards. Non-religious societies have been found to be more humane, loving and good to one’s fellow travelers.  

Millions of innocent people have been tortured and killed in the name of religions and holy fight in the bygone eras.  This is still going on and terrorism is still rampant. Major religions, although they deny accepting this fact, ill-treat Women.  There is, I think, no reason to believe in the superiority of the male although this is extolled by them for their own selfishness

If there was no religion, there would have been no Anglo French war, no suicide bomber, no 9/11, no Crusade, no witch-hunt, no Hindu Muslim rivalry/war, no Arab Israeli war, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacre, no persecution of Jews, no gas chamber, no honor killing, no Jihadi, no terrorist, no Taliban, no Osama   Bin Laden, no oppression of women, no beheading of blasphemers and no persecution in the name of religion

World mourns the lives lost. Only emotional attachment to a god can make men do such evil as that in Paris now, earlier in the Twin Tower massacre or in the Mumbai blasts. The world should take concerted action to wipe out religions from the face of the earth so that terror disappears.

Let no life get lost in 2016 because of a religion or a god.  Let none keep ill-feeling to a fellow traveler-after all we are all of the same stock.  If religions disappear from this earth, man will live happily here forever more.   As Tennyson wrote "Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering it will be happier."