Abro

  Good afternoon, everyone! Look around you. You are the future of Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and beyond. You will be the CEOs, the District Magistrates, the corporate heads, and the politicians. Now, let's start with a scene you all know too well. Imagine you’re stuck in gridlock. The heat is sweltering, the rickshaws and chingchis (qinqis) are crammed together, and horns are blaring. Suddenly, a sleek, black Land Cruiser appears, tinted windows, maybe even an illegal siren, and it swerves straight into the wrong lane. It bullies autorickshaws and pedestrians out of the way. The driver assumes the road belongs to his father (road uss ke baap ka hai ). You know this figure. We call them the 'VIPs,' the 'Big Shots,' or the 'Sahibs'. We shrug it off and say: "They are powerful, so they must be arrogant." ( Ameeron ki bighri aulaad ) Right? But what if the causality is completely reversed? What if the very experience of having power phy...

  Good evening, everyone! Today, we will embark on a journey to explore one of the most profound and enduring features of human existence: the evolutionary origins of religion. Religion, in its thousands of forms, is ubiquitous. It structures moral norms, organizes cooperation, motivates extraordinary acts of sacrifice and creativity, and anchors our understanding of life's biggest questions: meaning, suffering, and death. But how did this phenomenon, which commands such immense devotion, ever arise in a species shaped by survival and reproduction? Using insights from diverse scientific disciplines we will try to answer this central, exhilarating puzzle. To start, let’s travel back about 60,000 years to a cave in Shanidar, Iraq. Archaeologists found the remains of a Neanderthal man there. Analysis of the surrounding area suggested he may have been interred with yarrow, cornflowers, and hollyhocks. Now, whether that intentional burial constitutes true proto-religious sent...