I’d rather see this picture hung upside down.
Makes it more interesting to see
the familiarity
`top -> sky; bottom -> ground’
shattered -
now, it’s the other way around.

Still, horses don’t fly into the sky.
Their feet are hanging by the ceiling of verdant grass.
Chandelier trees are not uprooted to join the company
of the what used to be company of clouds.
Water of the lake, dewdrops on grass mountains
don’t rain to put the light out of the morning sun.

How I wish to see -
rose petals sprinkle on the opalesque sky.

One thing is quite surprising -
the rainbow,
which used to look like a giant frown,
is now a radiant prismatic smile.

Today’s top ten offer some new perspectives on religion.  Is it me or is secularism gaining ground? Check out the analysis on UK’s Equality Bill and Gordon Brown’s secularist government. Because the majority of MPs are not politically aligned with any church, sex ed bills and equal rights for homosexuals were passed, and no church has major influence on legislation.  Amazing, isn’t it?

“The unique feature of Gordon Brown’s government is not its economic incompetence. Rather, it is doctrinaire secularism. For the first time in British history, no one sitting around the Cabinet table holds traditional Christian views that defy the liberal consensus on social issues or sexual morality.”

Send your stories via The News Thread or the comments.  Theme suggestions are also welcome.

==========

Gay church blessings and a crisis of faith (via The Telegraph) link – Brilliant analysis of secularism in the UK and how it has allowed for certain bills to pass

3D BIBLE MOVIE IN THE WORKS!!! (via Deadline New York, Gawker) link

Pope’s brother: sexual abuse at choir school not discussed (via inquirer.net) link

“Koran says – you’re free in your religion” – Muslim cleric (via RT) link – Cleric issues fatwa against terrorism; insists ‘fatwa’ was mistranslated and does not mean ‘holy war’

Which came first – religion or the brain? (via Eurekalert) link – Press release on new book proposing that the brain needs religion; here is a good interview of the author by Mcleans link

Pope’s path to sainthood delayed by miracle doubts (via The Telegraph) link – Pope John Paul II is not a faith healer after all!

Funeral flap: religion and free speech rights (via wired.com) link - Apparently some bigots want the government to uphold their (alleged) free-speech right to disrespect funerals of homosexuals

Violence in Nigeria – food not faith (via The Guardian) link - Analysis on the murders in Jos

6 questions for an atheist undercover in an evangelical church (via The Huffington Post) link

Oregon faith healers get 16 months for son’s death (via AP) link – Faith healing could lead to negligent homicide!

-Ano ka ba naman anak, tingnan mo nga yang suot mo.
–Si Mama talaga, ako na naman ang nakita.
-Hay naku Judith, paano ba namang…
—Hindi ka makikita ni Nanay, eh halos makita na ang kaluluwa mo dyan sa suot mo? Mano po, nay.
-Kaawaan ka ng Diyos. John, samahan mo nga itong kapatid mong…
–MA! Ayokong kasama yan!
-At bakit hindi…
–MA!
-…matagal na ring di mo nakakasama ang kuya mong…
—Nay wag na. Alam niyo namang di na ako nagpupunta dun eh. Naaasar lang ako sa mga tao dun. Puro mga ipokrito.
–Kita niyo na Ma, wala ng pag-asa yang si kuya. Weird and…
—Anlakas naman ng amoy ng pabango mo, ansangsang.
–Masangsang ka diyan. Kaw nga tong amoy pawis kakabasketbol.
-John, magpunas ka na anak at magbihis tapos samahan mo itong kapatid mong…
–MA! —Nay!
-Sya sya. Judith, palitan mo nga yang damit mo…
–Si Mama talaga old-fashioned. Iba na ang panahon ngayon.
—Oo nga Nay. Paano nga naman magpapaligaw yang si Judith kung hindi siya maliligo ng pabango at magpapakita ng laman?
–Eeew!
-Susmaryosep John! Galangin mo naman ang kapatid mo!
—Respect is paid only where it is due.
–Paingles-ingles ka pang nalalaman dyan. UP ka nga di naman nakagraduate.
—Kung gusto mong galangin kita, galangin mo muna ang sarili mo.
-Tama na yan magkapikunan pa kayo. Judith, anak, magpalit ka na…
–MA! Anong oras na! Gusto niyo bang malate ako?
-Hay. Bahala nga kayo sa buhay niyo. John, magpalit ka na ng damit at baka magkasakit ka.
—Opo Nay.
-Judith, mag-iingat ka. At yung pinapabili ko, wag mong kakalimutan.
–Yes Ma. Tatlong tali ng Sampaguita.
.
.
.
–Sige Ma, magsisimba na ako.

Today is International Women’s Day! In addition to the usual, today’s top links were chosen because they discuss women and religion, women in science (at least for a day), and reproductive health.  I would also highly recommend the piece by Peter Hitchens and the expose on Scientology, which I know a lot of you are fascinated with.   Submit your links in The News Thread or the comments.  Theme suggestions are also welcome.

=========

Four Women and a Prophet – women fighting to reform their religion (via Times of India) link

Women will be staffing CERN on International Women’s Day (via Indiana University) link

Tamar Abrams: This International Women’s Day, let’s aim to end maternal deaths (via Huffington Post) link

Bishops want to debate Cabral on condoms (submitted by Justin Aquino, via gmanews.tv) link

(As a Catholic) Noynoy flip flops on RH Bill (submitted by Justin Aquino, via inquirer.net) link

Peter Hitchens: How I found peace with my atheist brother (via Daily Mail) link

On Christopher: “He often assumes that moral truths are self-evident, attributing purpose to the universe and swerving dangerously round the problem of conscience – which surely cannot be conscience if he is right since the idea of conscience depends on it being implanted by God. If there is no God then your moral qualms might just as easily be the result of indigestion.”

Breaking with Scientology (via nytimes.com) link

Top home-school texts dismiss Darwin, evolution (via AP) link

Today’s news links seem par for the course – we’ve all discussed this before, right? Nevertheless, there is some comfort in knowing that some things can be relied on in this effed up world of ours.  Submit your links in The News Thread or the comments.

==========

Bishops endorse the JC de los Reyes (via gmanews.tv) link

Bishops’ endorsement of a presidential bet cause colleagues’ concern (via gmanews.tv) link

Catholic school in Colorado boots student with gay parents (via AP) link

Jews, Muslims worry body scanners violate their religion (via The Salt Lake Tribune) link

Films with faith-based themes big at Oscars in 2010 (via Foxnews.com) link

Atheists, agnostics put ads in buses in Detroit (via freep.com) link

Darwin foes add global warming to targets (via nytimes.com) link

Learning from the Sin of Sodom (special mention to World Vision) (via nytimes.com) link

Papal aide linked to Vatican gay prostitution ring (submitted by Lawrence Salmingo and The Skyline Bugoy, via Irish Times) link

‘Idol’ finalist Jermaine Sellers: “It wasn’t in God’s will” (via USA Today) link

Last week there was this short-lived but hilarious Facebook phenomenon called the Movement To Stop Filipino Freethinkers. It was a fan page announcing that the Filipino Freethinkers, while claiming to promote reason, are actually attacking Christianity.

For some reason a lot of FF members jumped in to become fans and quickly dominated and hijacked the page, quoting disagreeable Bible verses and posting status messages using extreme fundie talk. Not surprisingly, some people actually thought they were serious, and the comments ranged from “Thank you sir, let us continue to spread Christianity” to “You are stupid and ignorant people. There is no evidence of your god”. And I guess that proves Poe’s Law, which states:

Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won’t mistake for the real thing.

It was crazy, with freethinkers besting each other’s satire. But I guess all good things must come to an end, and after about two days, the page was removed. Well, it was fun while it lasted.

Whoever was behind the Movement certainly did not expect this to happen. I’m sure they had noble intentions of doing God’s work in saving lost souls. However, they were dead wrong in their strategy, because religion only works when information is controlled by those in authority, where valid questions are conveniently silenced by “our minds are too finite to grasp God’s infinite wisdom”.

But once a religious group challenges freethinkers, it must be prepared to make arguments based on reason and science because dogma and doctrine are not recognized as authority.

Now some theists might say that freethinkers also appeal to authority like Wikipedia as if it was an infallible doctrine. But the truth is, scientific authority differs from religious authority in the sense that it is “willing to be challenged, although normally we would not go around challenging every one all the time. It is the willingness to be challenged that is important”. Moreover, Wikipedia gives sufficient notice when an article lacks citations or references, meaning its content might be questionable.

Are the religious authorities willing to be challenged as well, or will they be reverting to “we are not in a position to question God” when confronted with contradictions between certain Bible passages and reality and even between Bible passages themselves?

Long-held scientific theories are quickly discarded like yesterday’s paper as soon as contradicting evidence is found. However, the same cannot be said about religious ‘truths’ (remember Galileo?).

As such, any attempt to proselytize the Filipino Freethinkers will only be a waste of time, which would be better spent praying for divine enlightenment.  If there is an omnipotent deity, he doesn’t need second-rate evangelists spewing out pseudo-reason in order for humanity to hear and accept his word. But to the theist who truly attempts to embrace reason, you are very much welcome to discuss with us. We respect your right to your dogma-based belief for as long as you don’t try to shove it down our throats. And if you are willing to play by the rules of logic, we shall answer your questions as truthfully as we can. Try us, and it will be a great learning experience if what you are seeking for is the truth.

Okay guys, this is, among other things, a work/list in progress, so please feel free to suggest others I might have missed/forgotten. I’ve very limited time but I managed to draw these out of the top of my head. In no particular order, here they are:

“John Connor gave me a picture of you once. I didn’t know why at the time. It was very old – torn, faded. You were young like you are now. You seemed just a little sad. I used to always wonder what you were thinking at that moment. I memorized every line, every curve. I came across time for you Sarah. I love you; I always have”

-Kyle Reese, father of John Connor, talking to Sarah Connor in the movie Terminator (1984) while hiding form the terminator. Aaww. That is so romantic,  moving across time (and space) to be with the one you love. 

Mulder’s email to Scully:

I’ve resisted contacting you for reasons I know you continue to appreciate. But, to be honest, some unexpected dimensions of my new life are eating away at any resolve I have left. I’m lonely, Dana, uncertain of my ability to live like this. I want to come home. To you, and to William.

Scully’s reply to Mulder’s email afterwards:

I hold no hope you can respond to this. Or that it reaches you. I only hope that you are alive.

I cannot help believing that you jumped off that train because you knew what I now know – that these “super-soldiers,” if that’s what they are, can in fact be destroyed. That the key to their destruction lies in the iron compound at that quarry.

I am scared for you, Mulder. And for William. The forces against us are unrelenting. But so is my determination. To see you again. To regain the comfort and safety we shared for so brief a time.

Until then, I remain forever yours… Dana

- In ‘The X-Files’ season 9 episode, ‘Trust No 1″. Mulder is separated for a time from Scully and their son, because if he hadn’t, he would be putting Scully and their son in danger. Aaww. Sniff sniff. 

Just remember…no matter what happens…I’ll always love you. ALWAYS.

- Superman to Lois Lane, before finally dying at the hands of the monster Doomsday, in Superman #75  (1993). The line really isn’t something new, but the situation and the overall atmosphere made it really special in my opinion.

So there you go sci-fi buffs, geeks, and nerds. Happy Valentine’s day. 

I was cheated. I was cheated when I was in school, not by my classmates but by the very exams that were supposed to measure my ratings and academic performance.

Grade 1: Math Subject

We were given an exam on multiplication. Part 1 was a timed exam due within 5 minutes. We were supposed to answer a set of items such as 8 multiplied by four and 7 times 51 using mental math. No calculators were allowed.

With a snap of a finger, the teacher shouted, “Finished or not finished, pass your papers.” I was hesitant to do so. I was not finished with ten items to fill up. But, hell, I had to move on to part 2.

The second part was easy. No time pressure. You just have to solve the problems given.  For example: Your father gave you a daily allowance of 100 pesos. How much will you be able to save in a week after spending 65 pesos a day?

The teacher checked the papers and after a day we were informed of our grades. I was given a perfect score for part 2 but the results of part 1 were devastating. Bottom line, I failed the test because part 1 had more items and thus had more bearing.

I was cheated that day. I felt that part 1 should have less bearing on exam. Why? Because part 1 is not a math exam. It doesn’t measure how good you are in applying mathematical principles. It just tests how good you are in memorizing the multiplication table.

I was not just cheated in math. I was consistently cheated in my other subjects due to the traditional belief that memory retention is the ultimate measure of academic success as thus success in later endeavors.

High School: History Subject

I was given an exam. The first part was enumeration. I had to write down names of Filipino Heroes. There was a question: Who was the Filipino hero who killed Magellan? I was tempted to answer Lapu Lapu because that was written in the history book that we were asked to memorize. I didn’t answer Lapu Lapu. Why? Because I believe he was not a Filipino in the first place. There was no national identity back then, only tribal identity.

This is just my opinion and I may be wrong. What bothers me is not just that we are expected to memorize what is written in our textbooks but that we are also expected to believe what’s written as if it was the ultimate truth.

I’m sure you can relate to what I am saying: that one time or another, we are expected to memorize and believe what our teachers and textbooks say. We are taught to believe that what’s written in our textbooks are ultimate truths and that memorizing these texts will make us succeed later in life. This is misleading because wrong measures lead to wrong results.

If we make our children memorize the multiplication table instead of making them understand the application of mathematical principles, we are inhibiting their learning and analyzing skills, making them good memory chips but poor mathematicians. If we strictly enforce the ideas of our social science textbooks to our children as if these were ultimate truths, we are prohibiting them to think independently.

Yes, the educational system sucks and we are all cheated. But the fact that you are reading this article right now is a proof that you keep an open mind and that you search for learning beyond the classroom walls of traditional education. You reflect on what you do and why you do it or why you believe what you believe. Instead of asking what, when and where, you ask the more important questions of how and why. How we all wish others would ask these questions too.

We are freethinkers. We were cheated once before and we do not want to be cheated again.

Warning: For those who haven’t seen this episode yet, spoiler alert!

This is the first, and hopefully won’t be the last, of a series of short reviews I’ll try doing each week for ‘The Big Bang Theory’.

This week The Big Bang Theory (TBBT) episode ‘The Einstein Approximation’ came out,  and is the 14th episode of the show’s 3rd season.
Let me just start this quick and short review of the episode by further stating what the guys there and I have in common, apart from the quite obvious facts that we’re all geeks/nerds by heart.
Even before TBBT, I’ve admired and idolized Einstein myself, because of his great mental feats (which were of course, backed up by other physical theories and experiments at his time). Great because by just the power of his mind Einstein was able to revolutionize our lives and the 20th century, paving ways for faster transportation, not to mention telecommunication and computing, which drove and is still driving the information revolution today. And of course, so much more benefits which we more or less take for granted in our daily lives. In fact, Einstein is oftentimes synonymous with the word ‘genius’.
Einstein was also very much interested in philosophy and politics, not just physics. He’s written several books, articles, letters to people outside the scientific community. He also has a quirky sense of humor, as seen from this  picture of him. At first I thought this photo of Einstein was edited. But as it turns out it was really him, tongue hanging out and all.  It was at the time he was making fun of people taking pictures of him. Great stuff.

Of course Einstein is not without criticisms. Great and accomplished a scientist he maybe, history tells us he left much to be desired when it came to being a father or a husband.

Now, back to the episode review of TBBT. At this point I shall establish a partially objective, partially subjective point system of each episode relative to the earlier 2 seasons (which I have watched at least 2 times…) and a number of judging criteria.

This episode is a classic Sheldon episode, which is great in itself. Again we expected lots of ‘weird’ humor: Sheldon’s ability to complicate relatively simple things, as well as him belittling his friends, most noticeably Penny. Hilarious stuff once again. Bravo to TBBT production team.
Not a lot of scifi or comic book references were made though. But lines such as:

Howard: How long has he been stuck? (referring to Sheldon)
Leonard: Umm…intellectually about 30 hours, emotionally about 29 years.

And

Howard: Have you tried rebooting him? (referring to Sheldon)
Leonard: No I think it’s a firmware problem.

Are classics. 

The part where Leonard and Sheldon were arguing inside the ‘ball play room’, with Sheldon going ‘bazinga’ everytime, was also hilarious.

Sheldon, and of course the rest of ‘the guys’ are fans of Einstein no doubt. Sheldon of course thinks he’s at the same level with Einstein so he tries to do what Einstein did in order to come at the epiphany that is the special theory of relativity: to work for a menial job so he can occupy his basal ganglia with a routine task so he can apparently free his pre-frontal cortex to solve his physics problem.

Another classic moment in this episode is the guest starring of Yeardley Smith, the not so well known voice actor behind the famous cartoon character Lisa Simpson (yes, of ‘The Simpsons’ fame). Absolutely entertaining piece of the episode.

Another classic dialog is again with Sheldon and Penny:

Penny: What are you doing here?
Sheldon: A reasonable question. I asked myself, what is the most mind-numbing, pedestrian job conceivable? And 3 answers came to mind: toll booth attendant, an Apple Store “Genius”, and “What Penny does”. Now, since I don’t like touching other people’s coins, and I refuse to contribute to the devaluation of the word “genius”, here I am (meaning at the cheesecake factory).

Lines like these make me think of the real meaning and application of LOL. 

I suppose myself and those guys, as well as the show’s production team, can’t help cracking jokes at Apple. 

Overall I’d give this episode the following scores:

* reference to sci-fi, comic books, and other geek/nerd pop culture: 6/10

* reference to physics and other fields of science: 9/10

* dialog humor factor: 9/10

* techie/technology factor: 8/10

which gives an overall score of: 8/10

Article originally published here.

Films:

• Letting Go of God
• Root of All Evil
• Enemies of Reason
• Sex, Drugs, and Religion

and short films about

• Reason
• Science
• Secularism

Plus a short documentary on freethought in the Philippines presented by the Filipino Freethinkers (who else?).

More details about the films, the documentary, and the event itself will follow (plus a prettier poster) so please stay tuned

In the meantime, RSVP on our Facebook group page now!