Sin : As I Understand It !

All religions and religionists talk about sin.

But then, what is sin ?

As I have understood it, let me try to explain it like this.

First, sin is some thing that is applicable to only living beings like human beings who are provided with an intelligent mind capable of distinguishing between right and wrong.

For example, animals and plants have life but they are not provided with a mind of that sort. They cannot differentiate between right and wrong of their own.

So sin is not applicable to them !

A free willed living being like a human being with a sane mind inherently knows what is wrong and what is right.

If the person keeps acting against what is right or keep doing what is  wrong will fully, then a situation of error or mistake is created which can eventually matures as sin if repeatedly done will fully.

A person in sinful situation degenerates to the status of a living being without a free will mind, such as a plant or animal.

Such a person's life ends when death occurs.

But those who have not embraced a sinful life, there is the possibility of life even after death !

A life much more real and fruitful than what was experienced before death !

Are you in a mindless state or tending towards sin or in a position to safeguard yourself from slipping to sinful state ?

Just think about it !

Adam and Eve : Did God Create them for Making Us Sinners for Ever ?

The Bible says the story of Adam and Eve and the original sin that was committed by these first human couple. They were told as created by God for the first time to live in this earth which was made ready for them to live happily.The place that was prepared was the garden called Aden. They were supposed to take care of this world. They were to  progress and prosper with their progeny and rule over every thing in this world. 

For those who are not familiar with this Bible story of Adam and Eve, I am providing this link to read it on line [The Creation of Man and Woman : Bible Narration from the Book of Genesis]

Chapter three of the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament Bible tells the story of 'the fall' of this couple from the grace of God. God had given them permission to eat every fruit in the garden except the one from one called the tree of knowledge. But they were lured to eat that forbidden fruit  by 'Satan' in the guise as a clever serpant. Thus they violated God's command and that violation was the 'original sin'. Because these two great great grandparents of humanity sinned like this, all humans became natural sinners! [You can also read that story from the Bible here: The Fall-Bible Narration ]

Now that was indeed a simple narration useful for children and simplistic people . But the whole of Bible is built on this narration. Human beings are 'branded' sinners as per this theory, whether they actually commit sin or not. For people of the advanced types, far more greater theories and philosophies are built over that simple narration by successive generations of intellectual people.

By this theory of the original sin, all peoples who are descendants of Adam and Eve who lived on this earth through the successive ages till the crucifixion and ascension of Jesus Christ were all borne sinners and had to die as a 'punishment' for their sins.

God could simply not forgive the generations of people from their sins till such time He made a big plan of sending His only son, Jesus Christ, as a human being to be killed and as a 'sacrificial goat' and as a ransom for the sins of all mankind ! And those who believed this are assured of an everlasting and gloriful life after death in the heaven ! This is the second part of the story that the Christians are made to believe and are believing !

Is our God, who is all merciful and benovalent and always loving so 'stonehearted' that he would ever make such a plan?

My heart tells me 'NO'.

Then what do all these writings  that are in the Bible mean ? Am I to reject all these as mere fables of the old, supplemented with narrations of various other kinds ?

Is there an iota of truth in all these Bible narrations ?

If I have to reject it as such, then where do I stand as a 'believer' of my faith and religion?

Is there a God who listens to the predicament of people like me who are born in this modern world of science and technology who no longer would be satisfied with illogical and irrational stories that were sufficient to keep the old timers believing without ever questioning ?

But to my surprise and great relief, I found that God exists and all those things that are told in the Bible are true ! Truths are hidden in those writings from the past generations, but I need to augment those old stories with new inputs and knowledge, commensurate with my present day brain capacity !

To my great surprise, I got the opportunity to realize that my God is so infinitely great that it would not be ever possible for me to comprehend Him ! And yet He cares for me and loves me !

He knew for sure that people like me would ask such questions.

And to my great relief, He had made plans to provide me and those like me with satisfactory answers. Satisfactory in the sense that our brains do not have the capacity to dissect and digest more than that for the time being.

Since I was curious, He guided me by giving me mental inputs that helped me to find the knowldege book that He had got prepared for people like me in this earth to go quench our curiosities.

So I happened to read that book. I was overwhelmed by reading all those truths that I was so curiously inquisitive to know all these years. And I keep reading it and trying to digest the huge resources of knowledge that it contains.

Being a born unbeliever that I am,  I tried hard to find out some inconsistencies and illogical things in this book. And I failed miserably. At least with my present brain capacity it would not be possible. Thus I got satisfied with the explanations of everything that those authored the book offered through this book. And those explanations made Bible now meaningful to me !

From this book, I learnt that Adam and Eve indeed lived in this earth. That was some 38000 odd years ago. The book tells exactly the date as per our present system of counting years. But that is not that important.

Adam and Eve did not sin by eating some banned fruits of a mystical tree. But Eve did commit some error. A gross error that caused grave consequences to the people of this earth for all the generations afterwards! An error of judgement that was not according to what God wanted them to do! Ofcourse, there was another influence that caused her to commit the mistake !

Had they not done that mistake, we would have made greater progress in this earth and our lives would have been much better. We would have got a greater opportunity to know and understand God and live according to His plans- A plan that would ensure a fulfilling life not only during our lives in this world but even after our present bodies perish by death in this world.

We even now have that opportunity.

Had this Adam and Eve not made this mistake, we would have an opportunity for a better life in this world!

That's the point.

Adam and Eve were greater personalities than what they are actually made out in the simple story of the Bible. The mistake they committed had caused them great hardships.

But God is not that harsh and cruel that He made them to suffer by irrevocable death or everlasting spiritual sufferings in what has been designated as 'hell' !

Adam and Eve were God's chosen couple of a superior status who were materialized on this earth to guide evolutionary human beings who existed and populated this earth from thousands of years before them.

Those human beings had the 'mark of the beast'. That simply means they were evolved from the animal kingdom by a process of evolution.

But not by the automatic evolution that Charles Darwin and those scientists who break their heads to prove their theory of evolution. But by a process of controlled evolution which is one of the methods of life creation according to the plans of the incomprehensible and Omnipotent God of the Universes. The word 'controlled evolution' is explained well in this book that God provided me to study together with the Bible that I had.

What is now clear to me is this: God did not create Adam and Eve for making us sinners for ever.

It is the immature minds of we the human beings that keep trying to make stories and theories suiting to our minuscule intellect about this incomprehensible God and His plans !

So I am happy reading this book that God gave me to know more about His plans in an elaborate manner. This book tells about the factual story of Adam and Eve in the manner that it all happened, though my old bias created some difficulty to understand this history as told in the most matter-of-fact manner in this book.

The more I read it, the more I get convinced.

Convinced not only about Adam and Eve, but also about God and His Love to me and all those like me in this world ! 

Chemical Engineering : A Launch that Failed to get Momentum after Take Off !

As an engineering student I learnt chemical engineering, the modern day engineering discipline which equips a student to get familiarized with various knowledge inputs, theories and mathematical tools that are required for designing and operating various kinds of process plant systems concerned with all kinds of gases, liquids and solids and their physio-chemical conversions.

As part of the curriculum, I remember getting introduced to various topical concepts such as Fluid and Particle Mechanics, Thermodynamics, Transport Phenomena, Instrumentation, Process Control, Stoichiometry, Unit Operations, Unit Processes, etc, etc with necessary equipping inputs in Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and fundamentals of established conventional engineering such as civil engineering, mechanical engineering and electrical and electronics engineering.

Those who devised this relatively new branch of engineering perhaps thought of having a better trained lot of professionals for designing and operating complex automated chemical process plants such as the oil refineries, the fertilizer plants, the petrochemical complexes, mineral processing plants, bulk industrial chemical production plants and the like with a better understanding of the multi-disciplinary skills required for such complex industrial production units of modern times.[For those interested in knowing the history and origin of chemical engineering click here or here !]

If  conventional engineering disciplines such as Civil Engineering and Mechanical Engineering   originated as what we know today as a result of the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries in UK and Europe which instigated professionalism in modern civilization, Electrical Engineering and Chemical Engineering was on account of a similar professionalism of some US academicians a century later.

Chemical Engineering being more modern got a curriculum cramped with much of the information from the former engineering disciplines and some more of its own from the Industrial Chemistry and Applied Physical Sciences.

In that way, Chemical Engineering offered the students a much broader aspects of knowledge about the modern industrial technology and was thought to equip the newly trained engineers with better inter disciplinary skills that are required to work in the complex industries of the twentieth century.

From my personal experience, I can say that those who got trained as a chemical engineer is in a better position to grasp the interdisciplinary complexities of the modern day industries where physio-chemical processes are employed for various kinds of production activities.

Stringent statutory stipulations in industrial safety and environmental issues coupled with the economics of production caused greater opportunities and challenges for chemical engineering. Higher demands of instrumentation and process control automation incorporating modern day advances of digital electronics added more complexity to this field of studies. Developments in corrosion sciences and modern materials of construction technologies enhanced the burden of diverse knowledge in chemical engineering.

As a result chemical engineering began disintegrating into more and more specialized fields. Petroleum and Petrochemical engineering, Bio-chemical Engineering, Environmental Engineering, etc came into being as a result of academic initiatives in the last few decades.

However, the enthusiastic universities that went ahead with specialized fields of studies some how appeared to care little to create equivalent awareness about such courses and their benefits in the minds of the industrial planners and decision makers.

This has caused the recruiters often forgetting to include such advancely trained candidates from their essential qualification specifications for their new recruits or to allot a lesser intakes for such candidates.

The result was lesser career opportunities for those who ventured to learn more. This resulted in vacant seats in the universities which offered advanced courses.

This in turn created a shortage of adequately trained people for the industries, the latter resorting to place conventionally trained engineers even in specialized interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary areas for which they lacked the necessary background knowledge. This resulted in poor technical management of industries causing poor industrial safety and higher Operational and Maintenance costs.

A vicious circle has been created !

Let me cite the example of India. In the days when I was a student some four decades ago, chemical engineering was one of the most sought after disciplines of engineering.

Now it is not. No new engineering colleges which came into existence in this country in the past one and a half decade period offer chemical engineering as a course of study. Chemical engineering is offered only in the elite and old institutions. Even in those, the responses from the students are lukewarm due to the collapse of career opportunities in this branch of engineering.

At the same time engineers who work in the industry, like me in senior positions, feel the shortage of adequately trained chemical engineers in the intake levels who could take up the industrial challenges.

In India, the massive exodus of fresh engineers of any discipline to non-engineering field of works should be another concern for any body who has long term thoughts on human resource planning.

I would like to get feed backs and opinions on the issue that I just highlighted from engineering academicians, students and engineers working in the industries.

Update-1 [4-12-12]

Let me thank all those who gave their comments so far.

There are two professional bodies in India which are supposed to take care of the professional development needs of the chemical engineers. These are:

1. The Institution of Engineers (India) : This body is for all engineers including ChE.

2. The Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers (IIChE) : This body is exclusively for ChE.

Though these professional bodies are doing some work in organizing professional seminars and conferences or conducting associateship examinations, their contribution in ensuring good career prospects to those who have chosen this discipline, on a broader perspective, is not so commendable. They lack the will to take up major issues with the government or the Industry. Their activities in the recent years appear to be more of a routine nature than some thing of a proactive nature.

There are some industries in India who have realized the benefits of having ChEs in their technical and general management streams. These industries usually provide a good career opportunity for the ChEs.

However, in many other industries and areas, jobs which are most suited to ChEs are professionally diluted due to the ignorance of their top management. In such industries, brilliant ChEs get entrapped in an intellectual and professional dilemma, making them soon losing their interest in professional work.

Many bright ChEs are compelled to switch over to other areas of work which has nothing to do with their background training and education.

In the 1950's handful of ChEs passed out with degrees in India from one or two engineering institutions. In 2012, this should be to the tune of about 6000 [ I do not have any correct information. This is a mere estimate. There are nearly 165 engineering institutions now having a department of ChE. Assuming that they are capable of training an average of 40 ChEs every year, then the number should be about 6600. Besides, the IIChE and the IE(I) conducts their own associateship examinations in ChE which is equivalent to a Bachelors degree such as the BSChE, BScEngg (ChE), BE or BTech (ChE). All the engineering colleges that impart training in ChE are reputed institutions who have been in existence for quite some years. The majority of Indian engineering colleges established in the private sector in the last 10-15 years do not have a ChE department.

For a country of India's population and size, this is a small number. Since ChEs are comparitively short supply, their employability is better as compared to the other disciplines now.

In this context, I find this paper  presented by Mr Sharu S Ratnekar in one of the conferences of ChEs an interesting reading.

[Chemical Engineers-Yesterday-Today-Tomorrow ] 

It would be of help to all , if you express your views and reactions.