When i was a kid (or when i was in Nepal), i used to believe in God. I did however have reservations on religion but i still believed in God. Its been a year in US now and having met people from other cultures, the existence of a supreme being doesnt make sense anymore. 

I think that believeing in GOd instills in a person faith, confidence and positivity to get through good times and be appreciative of the bad ones. I want my children to have these qualities so i dont want to tell them that GOd doesnt exist. Moreover, i cant imagine what my parents/relatives will make of me when i talk to them about this. It isnt going to be pretty. 

It does give me great discomfort to think about all this. I must admit i feel less confident and more pessimistic these days. I want to believe in God but my logic doesnt give in anymore. In fact, i get irritated when i hear things like "God COMMANDED you to.." "GOd will PUNISH you if..", "We are SERVANTS in from of Him" "(on Christianity): "Jesus died on the cross for you"(THere are many who have made a similar magnitude of sacrifice). 

I think that God and religion are ancient theories that havent been discarded yet. And it hasnt due to the fear in people of what might happen if they didnt. One of my teachers once said "if there is no god and you believe in god, there is no harm but if there is god and you dont believe in god, there is harm". i feel this and cultural and social stigmas lead people to be religious and not question their beliefs. 

I wanna know what you guys make of this.

Bittertruth ji,

You are obviously a very learned person with a lot of great points of view. I have really appreciated your contribution and your attempt at neutrallity in this thread, despite your own limitations.

But I do differ from you in many perspectives. In the exchange of ideas, with people whom I feel close to, I like to set politeness and such aside. I feel that this kind of formallity is unnecessary. It prevents ideas from being exchanged in a speedy fashion. It is an unnecessary bureacracy in the exchange of ideas.

Needing to be constantly polite in the exchange of ideas, out of fear that the person receiving the communication will get offended, is very unfortunate and sad. In the realm of mature, confidenent people who trust each other and feel that their goal is good and beautiful and who live secure and healthy lives, this degree of caution is unnecessary.

I know that in sajha, this degree of caution and apology is VERY VERY necessary. You understand what I'm saying, yeah?

What I am trying to say is, in my exchange and communication with others, I will be very careful in how I word things. But in my posts addressing you, I want to be free enough to be irreverant so that the ideas are expressed directly.

I just want to ask your permission to do so. I feel you have the maturity and intellectual confidence and you're secure enough with yourself to handle that.

Am I correct? Let me know if I"m wrong.
Homey-G

homey-g, that's a nice thought.
and yeah I don't mind and you don't need to be in any obligation.
you are saying in a way, that the informality is a must during the fusion of the real ideas and experiences. and then again, you are acknowledging and being way more polite and formal to express yourself. don't need to be amongst some of these nutjobs out here.

you gotta say, what you gotta say. I gotta say what I gotta say. and we can maintain this balance rough and smooth without loosing decency.

the only way to help nepal is to get rid of those heretics. damned them..

record shows atheists die sooner and early(look around you)..
coz,
'son, here you are .. ' only for god to say/whistle that.

Bittertruth,

I think the main problem with this thread is that San Pradhan, the admin of this site, does not make moderators for sajha. He knows that he cannot manage a site like this all by himself. He should train and create moderators. Didn't you say that you are a moderator in another site?

In the minimum, for subjects like this, we should only let someone participate if they agree to respect someone who is playing a referee role in a neutral way. This prevents topics from getting out of hand.

Homey, I agree with you. But I don't think that San Pradhan cares enough about sajha members to go through the trouble of creating moderators. These moderators would have to abide by a higher standard than other members of sajha. And though it would improve the quality of sajha, since it would be more work for San to manage this. You have to admit, it is a lot easier to collect money for advertisements in sajha than to create moderators and referees so that the quality of sajha is improved.

Ki kaso?

I have been following this thread and here's my take on this:

Religion is a vast subject and naturally there will be people who have varying levels of belief and reverence to religion and god. Not one person can be 100% correct in his or his statements regarding god and in the end it boils down to personal preference.

In this thread insinuations have been made by both sides. There have been varying subjects from Prithvi narayan Shan to Aliens brought into the discussion. Some people's comment might be deemed outright stupid to others but for the one's writing it, it may seem like the ultimate truth. We operate everyday on the basis of our own perceived truth and personal biases. Some believe that logic and reasoning is the most important thing and some condemn people who don't believe in God. Even among believers of God, there is an underlying dissent regarding whose god is better.

So in the end, it all boils down to personal choice and any moderation of this discussion would be simply wrong since discussion in sajha is about expressing ones own opinions witout using foul language. Having moderators for this topic would bring in their own biases into the mix and may be unfair to individuals who are simply expressing their own opinions. This is the nature of discussion in sajha. In my opinion, noone is 100% correct in matters of God - but we are free to practice and express what we believe. We need to have that basic respect for other human beings.

San dai,

Not just for this thread. Don't you feel sajha in general would benefit from having moderators? Would that be too much work for you to manage?

The thing is, in many ways, instead of monitoring the whole site and all the threads, you would only have to manage moderators. And then you have a complaint box where people can submit if they feel any moderators are abusing their power.

So basically, you make all the people who want to become moderators, sign a contract of your expectations of how they should act. And if any of them abuse their power, you kick them out of sajha. I thought that this would make it easy for you to manage and it would improve the quality of sajha and make it a more enjoyable experience for all Nepalese who come to this site.

Thanks San dai. What do you think?

 @homey ji, don't really matter to me, yeah, I'm a moderator to other sites, and also having more than 30 professional sites for business under my portfolio , this site is the utmost disgusting and ugly looking one. If you just look at the clutter in the front and very hard to navigate menus, it takes a while even for veteran to familiar himself/herself with how this site runs. 
But just like buddies of mine used to say , ' thotro galli ko mitho momo pasal' .. I can't help coming here. Most probably, the 'mitho momo' here being the interesting discussions brought up by interesting ppl like you . 

But I think this forum has at least the capacity that's granted for the post owner who can delete the posts on their thread. But the fact is that the one who began this thread is lost or hibernated or gone for some reason. So, let it flow

@sajha admin, I don't have any qualm towards you and your site, the above statement that I put forth can take it as a construtive criticism. It'd be harsh not to mention that no matter what, I don't know about others but personally I do appreciate your effort to become a online junction for bringing nepalese all around the world together in one place. 

@san I agree with san's paragraph at the end. 

Bitterthruth brother,

I am still here but i am not going to delete any post.

Bittertruth,

I take your statements as constructive criticism. I like your analogy of ' thotro galli ko mitho momo pasal'. Human perception is so varied and so many factors influence one's perception that the same thing could be considered 'jhupadi' by some and it could be considered a 'mahal' by some depending upon their own individual status, goal, thinking, experience and interests! However, you are absolutely correct that there are many improvements that could be done on sajha. It is not organized at all! Everything seems to be tightly packed everywhere. On top of that there are no moderators to moderate the flow of things. How could a site like this even survive?

The answer is very simple. Sajha is a personal hobby of mine to run a website to bring together Nepalis to provide the resources to discuss freely matters related to Nepal and or Nepalis. I have created the structure to allow for free discussions using the resources that I have and it seems to be going fine for last 10 years and it seems to be going fine even now.

The reason I have stayed away from creating moderators is because each moderator would bring his or her own biases into the equation and it would be unfortunate to have to have disagreements with moderators' actions, or if two moderators do not agree with something, it just becomes a more commercial production which would require moderation of the moderators as well.

Since the Reclaiming Sajha Back movement in sajha, things seems to have been relatively better. There have been better and automated filters set to discourage use of foul language. Participation seems to have been much better than before, because now people are more comfortable in general now that users who do not have common courtesy or respect have been either banned or restricted in their access. The following data from google is a good representation of sajha viewership.




All in all, I am pretty satisfied with the way sajha is. There are always room for improvement and definitely sajha is an ongoing project. I'm just happy that a lot of you have joined us. Together we can have more fun!

Happy Holidays.

BitterTruth,

You have 30 professional sites that are better managed with better quality and look better than sajha? Well why don't you create one site for Nepalese? It seems San Pradhan is getting lazy and is just completely happy sitting back watching all the dollars flow into sajha.

BitterTruth, create a website that gives some serious competition to sajha.com. My guarantee to you is that if you make an amazing site like that, you have my support. I will do whatever it takes to make that the next top Nepali site.

Let's give sajha.com some serious competition. It needs it. Without that San Pradhan will remain lazy and happy with easy money and will do little to improve sajha.

When you compare sajha with the quality of popular forums in other countries or communities, it is very backward. We already tolerate coming from a backward nation. Why do we have to tolerate being in a backward website also just because the leadership in sajha is lazy?

Babal Khate,
I like your enthusiasm but sajha is what it is. I am not running sajha to compete with any other site. It's just a hobby that I enjoy doing. It's just that, along the way few businesses saw the benefit of advertising in sajha, and I had to oblige because let's face it, everyone has to pay their bills!, and the fact is the presence of these ads does not deter anyone from being able to participate in sajha since none of the ads are intrusive in nature.

Internet is a free world, anyone is allowed to make their own site and I have full moral support for anyone who wants to create their own site.

Although sajha is not competing with any site, if any site wishes to compete with sajha, then please have the decency to not advertise freely on sajha!

Question for Homeyji: You have brought up the topic of moderation in this thread. I am curious at which point (at which post) would you have moderated this thread if you were playing the referee role in a neutral way. Please answer this question so I can get a good input on how to moderate in future.

Addition: Internet is a very fluid world, and one cannot stay lazy like you have indicated. There are some more new projects under way. It will be coming out soon.

 San, if I were you, I would have moved these technical posts to it's designated category rather than haggling over the issue. 
Don't you think it's so irrelevant to have these discussion when ppl only wanting to see the posts related to religion and god, cos that's the topic of the thread. 

@babal khatey, I make money spending my times on designing sites for business. I don't spend money and time on things which takes long time for return. If I get financier  , they can use my expertise. and then may be..  :D :D  I mean, I'm happy with what am doing at the moment :D 

San,

Though I agree the spirit of what Babal is saying, I differ in some of the details.

There are different types of conversations.

Some conversations are open-ended and exploratory. Sajha is great for such discussions. Like there is a very healthy discussion of homosexuality going on on different threads in sajha right now. I think it is wonderful that sajha has these open discussions.

Then there are other types of discussions where a more moderated and disciplined approach produces a better quality of conversation. This particular thread we are on is an example of that.

Budmash is right in painting this thread like a game of chess. Intellectual and Philosophical discussions are a very strict discipline. And as such, it requies all participants willing to engage in such a discussion to agree on certain ground rules. When you open the forum up and let everybody rush in and say whatever they want when they want, it ruins the quality of conversation for everyone.

So maybe I was wrong in saying that you, San, needed to moderate this thread better. Perhaps it was Pinpoint who needed to.

But I understand that Pinpoint started this thread not have a philosophical discussion...but rather as 'reaching out in an attempt to self-help.'

So in summary, the solution is for someone who is interested in having philosophical discussions to create their own threads and to explain the ground rules and scope of the discussion before hand. And these people need to moderate their own discussions and kick out any one in the thread who they feel are being delliberately disruptive.

There is a big difference between being deliberately disruptive and having a different philosophical stance. I'm sure you all agree with that, right?

Not everyone needs to agree on god, religion, athiesm or agnosticism. But, everyone needs to know the basics of having an intellectual and philosophical conversation, if they want to contribute to the quality of conversation.

Everybody is allowed to play basketball. But you are not going to send the person who is holding a basketball for the first time in their life to the NBA, right?

So in summary, the solution to this thread, is to start a new fresh thread with fresh new rules and have a healthy discussion.

The thing is that whatever philosophical stance you take, you should be very passionate in defending your position. This is very healthy and is along the rules of debate. This provides a great experience for both the debator and the audience.

The problem is that not everyone is used to this style of confrontational educational entertainment. So some people who are not used to it, or are immature, take this type of interaction very personally. They get offended. And instead of defending their existential stance passionately in a humorous or intellectual manner, they get personal and start to insult the people they are debating with. This is unproductive for everyone and ruins the mood.

This is what I was explaining to bittertruth a few posts above.

Do you guys have any suggestions?

Back after a few days hiatus and sad to see that the main topic of discussion has been changed because few believers are crying foul over freedom of expression.

GrgDai,

If you're that enthusiastic to discuss it, there is an open Facebook group called: 'Hindu Apologetics' explicitly there to argue with people like you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apologetics

Best of luck to you.

"with people like you."

Homeyji I love people like you who  take the higher ground and condemn others who don't support your philosophies.

If you had to ask albert einstein if he believes in god and religion, this is what you get to hear:

I do not see a reason to believe in religion. I think life is wonderful as it is. To think that the very constituent of life, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen are manufactured when a star dies, crushing the hydrogen and helium and spitting heavier elements out of a supernova makes me feel special. That we are all part of the universe, and all of us are 13.1 billion years old and a star had to die so we can be alive and we can be conscious. That's the truth and it's wonderful and if there is God, he would want us to explore the truth. This video sums up a lot of atheist perspective in a nice way.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6w2M50_Xdk>

FF