Being wrong

 Donald Trump has an amazing quality - he's never wrong. The information given to him could be wrong. The way people understand/misunderstand him could be wrong. The way the media represents him could be wrong. But him - no way.

Over the last two months, I've thought a lot about why I do not trust a majority of Hindu priests and don't really care about going to temples and performing various rituals that can benefit me.

 I've concluded that it's not Hinduism that I don't trust - I maintain it is one of the oldest and most scientific religions (if that can be considered a thing) that's around. From Sanskrit to Maths, to Astrology, Astronomy, to Biology - nearly everything historically was scientifically driven. As with every religion, there are some ugly parts, but that's part of evolution.

It's also not that I don't trust in God. I've written previously that I believe in the existence of a singular power, though my thoughts slightly differ from others on what that is.

So what is it?

And this morning, it dawned on me - it's the fact that I have never seen a Hindu priest perform a ritual for their host's benefit and go to the host and say - "Oops! That wasn't the ritual that was supposed to be performed for your issue; I should've performed a different ritual; let me go fix that". Or "I made an error reading your chart or drawing your chart." Either it turns out to be incorrect information was provided. Or "Oh! That ritual didn't fix your issue, let's try this other more powerful one." Or "Let's try this other ritual that calls for a different deity that may be more relevant to your issue"

It's an approach that's neither science nor art. The utilization of this approach is almost an art, but the practice of it isn't. Science is straightforward. It may posit something today: find out the information is incorrect, recalculations are done, and the result is fine-tuned based on the latest correct information. But scientists admit that they made a mistake. When a rocket blows up, an RCA is done, and we find out which piece of calculation/assumption was responsible for it; we fix it and make the rocket again. I don't hear people go, "Oh! your rocket blew up. Let's try this more powerful fuel that I've always known about but didn't tell you earlier"

Art gives its practitioner creative license - so the sky can be blue, black, grey, brown, pink, yellow, white - whatever you want it to be. But no artist goes, "oh! Black didn't work for you. give me more money, and I'll make it bubblegum pink"

The thing is, mistakes are inevitable. That is what makes us human. Admitting that someone was wrong makes them human and more relatable. I would prefer a doctor who admits to their mistake when they make one, rather than one that passes off their incorrect diagnosis as correct but still changes your medication without telling you the actual reason coz they know their initial diagnosis was right.