Bluer Than Blue

This season of winter solstice holiday is a time where family and our loved ones stay close together to keep the fire burning and sustain the warm in our hearts. A season I really miss because we all gather for family reunion celebrated by all. (Birthdays can be a get together but we do celebrate that for the celebrants, hehehe). Being not there makes me feel blue.

Just like the absence of melanin in the eye gave birth to a blue eye. But it’s not a bad thing after all. It has its own beauty that make us wish to have it as well. Well at least that’s one good news how being blue can be a good thing. We can always find reason to wish and move on.

Blue eyes have their hue because of a single genetic mutation that occurred fewer than 10,000 years ago in one individual and swept rapidly through the European population, according to a study published in the journal Human Genetics in January.

After studying some 800 individuals from Denmark, Turkey, and Jordan, the researchers pinpointed a single base-pair change in the human genome that showed up in all the blue-eyed people and none of the brown-eyed people. “There was one founder mutation that gave rise to all the people in Europe who have blue eyes,” says report coauthor Jesper Troelsen, a University of Copenhagen molecular biologist. “It was quite surprising.”

Those with blue eyes also shared a number of other genetic markers in the same region—a stretch of DNA that regulates production of the pigment melanin. The tweak causes the iris to manufacture less melanin, lending the eyes their lighter shade.

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Know Your Score

I really have this very bad habit. Maybe because I am used to this kind of job. I love testing people specially those who I care a lot. Or better yet, I find it worthwhile challenging the closest people I have. How far patience and understanding can bring us together. How much of their sense of self-security can protect them from my power trip. Yes, testing someone is a power trip, admit it or not. Because from the result we can evaluate and decide. What kind of character is hiding behind those flesh: smile, tears, laugh, confusion, faith, and other basic human traits and lapses. Yes, we have in us the yin yang of nature so don’t play god. By that I mean, trying to act as if you are the only good person ever produced on earth.
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Something to Think About: Ethics and Religion

"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." ---Albert Einstein

If We Only Have More Of It

Science and Technology's role in the development of the civilization is unquestionable. Without it, there may be no computers where I type this blog. Without it, my thoughts will not be known to the internet world. Without this, we will only suffer in vain with the unknown diseases which can be medicated by oraganic plants prevalent in the environment processed to make its amount useful to human needs. Without this, we are all held hostages in shock of the unknown or unexpected natural catastrophe using weather forecasting facilities.

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Something to Think About: Humanism

Open Letter to the CBCP


My Dear Catholic Bishops,

I should wish to share with you words from a psychiatrist M. Scott Peck, author of THE ROAD LESS TRAVEL. It is a bit about psychiatry at its best on top of Christianity at its worst:

“The learning of something new requires a giving up of the old self and a death of outworn knowledge. To develop a broader vision we must be willing to forsake, to kill, our narrower vision. In the short run it is more comfortable not to do this – to stay where we are, to keep using the same microcosmic map, to avoid suffering the death of cherished notions. The road to spiritual growth, however, lies in the opposite direction. We begin by distrusting what we already believe, by actively seeking the threatening and the unfamiliar, by deliberately challenging the validity of what we have previously been taught and hold dear. The path to holiness lies through questioning EVERYTHING.”

Well, in our sick society today, if we question the evils of corruption, we find that corruption is not a political or a legal or a medical issue. Corruption is a moral issue. During these past centuries under Christian authority, hasn’t it been your sole responsibility to shepherd the flock, to be in charge of the teachings of moral values? Especially to establish self-respect and human dignity as the foundation of a healthy and a sane society? Why is it that after 400 years of Christianity solidly established in this country, tens of millions of Filipinos in this 21st century continue to experience interior emptiness, still thirsting for some form of spirituality? No doubt, we still have deep faith in the holy Trinity known as the “Father,” “Son,” and “Holy Spirit,” but in our race to achieve a higher standard of living as a people, and to accomplish a higher standard of thinking as a nation – where is the Holy Trinity on our side as our “Creator,” “Redeemer,” and the “Sustainer?”


For my part, as a humanist, I embrace morality as one of the greatest of human values. Not, however, superstitious morality. I do not do good because there is a greater power out there who will reward me for my goodness after death. On the contrary, I do good precisely because of what’s higher and greater than me, namely, - my family, my country, and indeed, this planet earth as the home of humanity.


I duly recognize that there is little difference between the goals of the Christians and the humanists. We both value helping others. But as a humanist I am drawn to this goal out of unselfish love and empathy – which arises from education in rationality. As a humanist my goal in life is to try and spread the virtues of felicity via intellectual growth and maturity. Indeed, to keep ignited the torch of enlightenment. To see things now as they will seem forever, - “in the light of eternity.”


The Christian, however, is driven to it out of fear for his own eternal welfare. For the Christian, helping others is not an end in itself, but only a means of saving himself from damnation.


As a humanist I realize that I could be mistaken about what is best for my fellow-Filipinos; so I am willing to listen to criticism. I am willing to have my ideas torn apart and will listen to the power of reason.


The Christian, however, cannot admit that his ideas of right and wrong might be mistaken, because to doubt would imperil his immortal soul. He must have faith in Christian doctrines – out of fear of eternal torture if he does not. He must be anti-intellectual in order to maintain his faith – out of fear of torture if he does not. And he must never doubt that his action is correct – again out of fear of torture if he does not.


What is happening to us, I ask? Why is it that we Filipinos do not, and cannot as yet enjoy social unity, moral sanity, and political maturity in our own country? We only continue to be a people of childish followers; hardly a nation of intelligent thinkers as leaders. Why is it that in this day and age, under your moral guidance and inspiration, we Filipinos only continue to believe that human life is but a defect, and that we must only live our lives seeking not reconstruction, but only obliteration!

My dear bishops, as citizens of our country, isn’t it time for you to take a deeper look at our spiritually poor and morally bankrupt nation - the Philippines - the only Christian country in Asia since 400 years ago? No doubt, Christianity has been a great success. But what has been a greater success, however, is the Filipino way of life. We are still faithful to a higher power out there, but paying for it at a expensive price down here: the horrors of spiritual corruption, moral degradation, economic stagnation, political delusion, educational deception, not to mention the lack of national health, hygiene, and sanitation in our country everywhere!

In the final analysis, I say it again: it is time for us Filipinos to stop fooling around with our silly “free will” for the sake of heavenly salvation. We should, instead, begin to believe and have faith in our intelligent “good will,” especially for one another for the sake of Philippine civilization?

Yours sincerely,
Poch Suzara
Chairman
Center for Inquiry, Philippines
December 13,2008

Today In the History of Freethought: Dec 12

There are 2 entries for this date: Gustave Flaubert, and Jay Gorney.

Gustave Flaubert

On this date in 1821, novelist Gustave Flaubert was born in Rouen, France. Destined by his family for medicine, Flaubert preferred the world of literature. He traveled widely for nearly two years, and ascended to the top of the Great Pyramid in Egypt. After trying his hand at poetry, Flaubert became a novelist. His classic, Madame Bovary, which took him five years to write, was published in 1857. Its realistic portrayal of adultery offended religious sensibilities. Flaubert was criminally prosecuted, but escaped conviction. Flaubert's friends and correspondents included many leading skeptical literati of his day, including Zola, George Sand and Turgenev. Flaubert also wrote four other novels, including Salammbo (1862) and The Temptation of Saint Antoine (1874), which reveals some of his skepticism, a book of short stories and a play. Flaubert is widely quoted as saying, "It is necessary to sleep upon the pillow of doubt." D. 1880.
“And I can't admit of an old boy God who takes walks in his garden with a cane in his hand, who lodges his friends in the belly of whales, dies uttering a cry, and rises again after three days; things absurd in themselves, and completely opposed, moreover, to all physical laws, which proves to us, by the way, that priests have always wallowed in squalid ignorance, and tried to drag whole nations down after them.”
-- Pharmacist in Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert. (Source: Warren Allen Smith, Who's Who in God)


Jay Gorney

On this date in 1896, songwriter Jay Gorney was born, the son of Polish-Jewish immigrants who came to the United States when he was a young child. The composer of "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" was, like the lyricist Yip Harburg, a nonbeliever who ended up being blacklisted for his liberal views. Jay Gorney is the man who discovered Shirley Temple and for whom he wrote her first movie song "Baby, Take a Bow" (in Stand Up and Cheer). He wrote such standards as "You're My Thrill" and "What Wouldn't I Do for That Man?" plus hundreds of popular songs for theater, film, and television. "We were not a religious family," his widow Sondra Gorney said in a telephone interview. They were not married in a church or synagogue. His memorial was held at the New York Public Shakespeare Theater, not in a religious setting. D. 1990