Cagayan

It’s been almost one week since my escape from stressful reality. I feel like blogging my experience before the feeling fades away. Three days of temporary leave from home and school, how I wish our stay in Cagayan was longer. But longer stay would also mean that errands would also keep on queuing, much more than the requirements I need to accomplish as soon as I was back home.

[Quiz Show]

We attended some ICT quiz bowl that was held at LimKetKai Mall, Cagayan City on September 20 around 2pm. It was participated by 18 schools in Mindanao. The quiz show experience was truly memorable- the setup was remarkably high tech! The fact that it was held in a mall, could I say that I felt like a star for a short moment.  It would have given me more pride if we brought home the trophy.  We placed 4^th, not bad though. Actually if it were not because of my excellent partner, Niel, I doubt we could obtain that place. To tell you honestly I felt discourage at first, I don’t know how everybody who supported us would feel. Would they feel disappointed? We weren’t able to meet the effort of the faculty members who spent their time imparting their knowledge with us. [Before I forgot, I want to take this opportunity to thank everybody who gave their moral support and prayers to us. To the CSIT faculty, na todo suporta! And most especially the school for allowing us to experience this event] But come to think about it, those teams who won indeed were good! They were really inclined in IT technicalities. With this experience, God was telling me that perhaps the next thing we must learn are the more technical stuffs.

[Overall Experience]

            It seems that the trip to and from Cagayan is the most challenging one. Nevertheless, I wish to take another land trip to Cagayan someday but not the aircon bus.

            Malls in Cagayan are bigger and nicer compared to Zamboanga; however, goods are more expensive. Would you agree that the first we would more likely look for in another place is The CR? Their comfort rooms are clean, high tech and most of all free of use, unlike in here. Meals are delicious and super satisfying, actually I always feel full during my stay in Cagayan. In here, I virtually eat much lesser, and stick with veggie diet. [I would like to take this opportunity to give my special thanks to mommy Erlyn.. and Sir Eugene for taking care of us]

When my bisaya is not anymore slang, I wish to visit that place again alone. I think there are a lot of places to visit in Cagayan or perhaps I am wrong; but time was too short. If God permits, I would like to roam around Cagayan the second time around. I’ll do some crazy stuff like climbing the wall, crossing the bridge, etc… Wanna experience some adventure…hahaha.

Defending The Teleological Argument

One of the arguments that explains God’s existence is using the teleological argument or more commonly known as the argument by design.

            It explains the remarkable way how different things and processes in the world are able to integrate with each other and conform in mutual fitness with each other. This requires a need for an assumption of an intelligent designer or a divine architecture who planned the world and everything in it. Living organisms can maintain themselves in a variety of environments through virtue of their delicate mechanisms that allows them to adapt to environmental changes. There exists such an intricate pattern of means and ends throughout this inanimate world. These things have no intelligence of their own, which requires the existence of an Intelligent designer because these events could not be achieved fortuitously but designedly.

One argument against teleological argument is the use of Darwin’s theory of evolution. Using the explanation of this scientist, the account for the existence of variety of biological species is through their ability to adapt to their environment, thus the idea of a divine creator and his acts of special creation is no longer a sound reason. With Darwinian Theory, the existence of these creatures is explained in terms of chance variations in the structure of organisms and on their mechanism of selection which retains those variant forms that possess some advantages for survival.

Let us accept it that the evolutionary theory could not be denied, but is it adequate by itself to explain the striking and complicated appearance of design? I don’t think so. Therefore, it implies an intelligent mind has designed and controls the universe. Evolution will then be just the way in which God’s design works out.

Going on to refuting the argument against the argument by design; in order evolution to work, some organisms must have been present, which means they have existed. Otherwise, how can you imagine species being born and struggling for their existence? It would likewise be insane to suppose that inorganic matter come together to form an organism. That’s a miracle! There must be the birth of living organisms which is very complex that requires the touch of an intelligent design. Without design, evolutionary process will never get started.

            Fine! Perhaps by chance miracle had occurred. But probability of favorable variations is much lesser than that of the unfavorable. There are number of ways species could adapt to their environment, chances of failing is more likely to happen. The chance of survival then is so small. With this, I think to balance the chances, we must require a purpose. When we speak of purpose, we are implying an intelligent mind at work. This designer intervenes at odd moments but as controlling the whole process.

DOGMA review

Dogma is just a “work of comedic fantasy”. It contains countless foul words uttered and perhaps blasphemy for some Christians. However, if one is just keen enough on the details of the film, one shall notice that it is just fiction and humorous, that needs not be given serious attention. Nevertheless, the film doesn’t forget that God chooses sinners to carry His important missions.

There are lots of ideas that struck me. To enumerate: a.) God was given anthropomorphic descriptions when we know God is neither man nor woman; b.) A 13^th apostle that wasn’t listed because he is black; c.) Jesus’ bloodline was found in the person of Bethany, making Mary not an eternal virgin. Although, Bethany can’t be considered any relations with Jesus because Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit; d.) Angels could become human when their wings fall off, which is a child’s idea of angels because angels would never become human. There are many more funny scenes that somehow mock Christianity but they could just easily be rebutted. But what really struck me most is the idea that God has a habit of adopting a human form and coming to earth, disguise in a form of an old man, he was ambushed by a trio of hooligan hockey players from hell, who beat him into a coma and left him helpless in a hospital. And that He could not escape from His mortal form and restore Himself to his full divine glory and omnipotence. At the same time, the film says God is a woman?

Okay…let us assume then that the idea ‘God loves to adopt a human body and comes to earth to be with His creation’ is true. Well, this would just explain that God indeed is neither man nor woman perhaps something supernatural beyond man’s comprehension. Otherwise, He would not need to contain Himself in some form to be with us, for He has body of His own and having a body means that the soul is trapped inside the body. A contradiction to what the film director wishes to depict that God is a woman. If the film portraits our assumption, this only means that the human body just serve as His capsule to travel from somewhere to earth to be with mortals and step out from it anytime He wants. This makes the scene God disguised as an old man and was comatose, that God was trapped and was unable to escape from that body a loophole.

Indeed the film is just a comedy fantasy from start till end; I would like to remain unshaken by this plain art of entertainment. I still believe that God’s omnipotence would not allow that to happen. In the times when God seems to be in comatose, that evilness seems to prevail in this world… God is just making a joke and in His omnipotence allows them to happen to bring out the good masking in them. For evil must exist in order for good to be realized; as, it is in the existence of darkness that light could shine through.

Are we really free?

The first time I watched the documentary film, “Minsan lang sila bata”, that was years back. I remember feeling so thankful that I am given the chance to enrich my knowledge through the school; together with it, is the sense of sympathy for these individuals whose youth has passed so rapidly that they weren’t able to savor the joy of their childhood.

Well, after watching this film once again, just the same old feeling with me but with one question bothering me…”Where is freedom? Can I still say that we are free?” Man is free when he practices his gift of choice, following the path towards his good and for the good of people around him. Freedom therefore is defined as liberty from the controls that serve as hindrances towards the act to be performed. Among the few and common controls that continue to suppress our exercise of freedom are social pressures, violence, fears, habits, sin, physical defects, etc. Everyday in our lives when face with these kind of dilemmas, we are actually free to choose and be committed on the decision we choose to follow. Freedom is a word easy to define but hard to conceptualize. Freedom is a difficult exercise especially when it involves the choice of doing what must and forsaking the other that is relatively important to you. Going into the film…

The issue in this film is poverty and the dilemma is whether child labor is justified. Work is important because the family needs income to be able to cope with poverty. Education is equally important and is the key to change one’s status in society. And the complication is that obedience is a value highly treasured by society. In this kind of picture, it seems that one has no other choice but to accept that the best thing to do is to labor and this is also what these unfortunate kids felt. Putting myself in their shoes, damn! Through the years, it must be hell for them! That wasn’t just labor, that was what I call ABUSE!

I might have a different definition of Labor, perhaps of the culture I came from and I beg you not to judge me. Labor is to work physically and mentally with great effort. From my view, labor is good in itself. In our culture, we are actually trained as young as we were to labor to satisfy our needs. Poverty was once an issue in our family and I don’t want to go back to that state. As with these kids, I might not have savored every joy of being a child, because young as we were our minds age rapidly. Work is not just necessary to satisfy my needs but for the needs of everybody in the family. Hard as how it seems but this is reality. And I chose to value obedience, understanding and hoping that it would do me good in the future. However, it differs from their situation because despite the difficulty we experienced, raising us to be independent individuals, our parents still are just behind us- ready to back up whenever they see that we could not make it. Thank God my parents are responsible!

Going back…Are we really free? I still believe that we are still free. We are capable to remove ourselves from the bondage of the obstacles around us. Our exercise of our freedom of choice is a practice that requires mastery. In my opinion, it is being able to control will to overcome passion so that we may be able to have control over our lives. A difficult yet possible practice that could be mastered by everyone!