Saturday, March 31, 2018

Where Science and Religion Finally Met

Saturday Stories
March 31, 2018

Image result for faith science religion quantum physics

There is a scene in Dan Brown's Angels & Demons where one of the main characters made a speech that I still remember after all these years.

In the story, the Vatican was held hostage by a mysterious group called the Illuminati, and it was set to be detonated by anti-matter – in an explosion powerful enough to destroy half of Rome.

Carlo Ventresca, the camerlengo, spoke at the papal enclave in a live broadcast shown all over the world. He said the Church has lost – and Science is now the new God. 

But the price is too high, he says. The new God gives us power but without the moral compass to show what is right and wrong. If a man cannot explain natural phenomena, does this make him more ignorant than the man who defies the power of nature?

And since we reject the idea of a Creator, then everything came from  random chance, and "we would rather believe in mathematical impossibility than in a power greater than us."

His speech made me see religion in a new light (pardon the pun). A belief in a Higher Power not only gives a person a sense of comfort, but also the idea of being accountable for his actions. 

I've always had a deep respect for a person's religious convictions whether or not we share the same creed, but I see more clearly now the value of faith in our fast-changing modern world. We may not understand most things, but if we believe we come from something greater than us, then we can also believe that the same "something" also has the answer to all our questions.

I believe science is just a different road to the same destination. I don't agree with every point he raised although they are all valid. We probe into the atom and the spaces between the atom, and instead of finding answers, we find more questions – but we also feel the sense of wonder at the miracle of creation from the infinity of the universe to even the smallest details.

Quantum physics is where the enlightened scientists and men of cloth have finally crossed paths. God is infinite, with neither beginning nor end, and omnipresent. At the spaces between the atomic particles, there is only energy which cannot be created nor destroyed, and this energy is everywhere in the universe. 

"Both religion and science require a belief in God," says Max Planck. "For believers, God is the beginning, and for physicists he is at the end of all considerations."


Photo courtesy of kinopoisk.ru


Saturday, March 24, 2018

What Does Heaven Look Like?

Saturday Stories
March 24, 2018

Image result for heaven paradise bliss

"I believe in angels, something good in everything I see..." This line from ABBA's timeless song "I Have A Dream" says what I want to say a lot better. 

I still believe humanity is inherently good. I think we human beings have more in common with each other than we realize. 

We all want to live in peace, we all want our lives to be meaningful, and we all want a better future for ourselves and for those we care about.

We also hold on to the promise of a life after life. Whatever name we give to the source of our being, we want to see a better world than this.

Our ideas of the afterlife have evolved through the millennia but the core elements remain. There is no more boat on a river called Styx, yet there is still a passage. There is no scale to weigh our hearts anymore, yet we'd still see our whole life unfold before us.

A friend and I composed a poem about what awaits after the hour of our death. We named it "Heaven" because she is Catholic and I love the song by Bryan Adams.

Our poetry duet was published on March 8, 2018 in Galaktika Poetika Atunis, a magazine based in Albania. Here is one stanza from each:

Heaven
By Elizabeth Castillo and Jonathan Aquino
(Excerpt)

Elizabeth:

The Tower of Babel man even built as they wish to step into God’s gate
Sharing one language at the Genesis of it all but have they succeeded?
Man cannot fathom what the Creator has in mind,
Heaven is not a place for greed but of selflessness and compassion.

Jonathan:

Perhaps God does not exist, but maybe He is real,
and angels and demons too, and it seems to be true:
the creator of the world moves in mysterious ways,
yet we may even see: God is with us until the end of days.

See The Full Poem At Galaktika Poetika Atunis

Photo courtesy of Dreamstime.com


Saturday, March 17, 2018

Do You Have A Superior Mind?

Saturday Stories
March 17, 2018


I was six years old when I learned a wise lesson. In front of our first-grade classroom, above the blackboard, was a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt I would remember forever: 

"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." 

As time goes by, I see its wisdom more and more. I notice that people who only talks about people are those who spread gossip and intrigue. 

Imagine a whiteboard. Using a marker, put a dot in a corner. Now draw a circle around the dot. A small mind is like this: it magnifies the unimportant and perceives things out of context and out of proportion.

Now erase the circle. The dot is still there, yet it is insignificant compared to the rest of the white spaces. This is how broad-minded people think - they see things in the proper perpective.

Character has nothing to do with intelligence. It's not about how high is the IQ: it's about how open is the mind.

I have the highest respect for those who discuss and create ideas, like my three favorite physicists Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman and Stephen Hawking who passed away last March 14, Einstein's birth anniverary.

Hawking made one of the greatest scientific discoveries of all time. He showed that black holes generate and emit sub-atomic matching pairs of particles and anti-particles (known as Hawking Radiation) just outside the event horizon. This thermal radiation comes from the positive particle, while the negative anti-particle will be drawn back, which causes the black hole to lose mass and eventually disappear. 

His breakthrough has unified the two major theoretical frameworks in physics: general relativity and quantum field theory. Stephen Hawking is one of the most brilliant minds in the history of mankind, and he is now at one with his beloved infinite universe. 

Photo courtesy of TheRecord

Saturday, March 10, 2018

Embracing Your Authentic Self

Saturday
March 10, 2018


One of my greatest self-discoveries is that I am free to be who I really am. I'm not obligated to wear masks to gain other people's acceptance. Sometimes I felt like an outcast, but as I've said a million times: I'd rather be me than by anyone else. 

And then I found Nicolai Hel. "Never have I identified with a character with this soul-stirring intensity," I wrote in "Shibumi: My Favorite Novel," a 2013 blog post.

As I write about my favorite novel, by coincidence, I also have the theme of my favorite movie as our featured Filipino song of the week. 

The story of Nicolai is my inspiration for "The Art of Understated Perfection," a 2014 two-part blog story in 2014. "I have chosen a path where I found inner peace. Then the story of a young man led me to an even deeper understanding."

"Like Nicholai, I, too, am an orphan with a disdain for the superficial, a need for solitude and an unfathomably deep streak of independence," goes my second part.

I was also inspired to write a poem, "Shibumi." I first posted it on January 2017 on the same Facebook cover photo. It was also published in the online literary sites Our Poetry Archive (June 2017), The Poet Community (July 2017) and Destiny Poets (March 2018)

Here is a brief passage:

A Zen garden
express the ineffable
that lies hidden.
It is true beauty,
as delicate as gossamer,
as real as a tree.



Photo courtesy of AlphaCoders.com

Saturday, March 03, 2018

My Favorite Miriam Santiago Jokes Part 2

Saturday Stories
March 3, 2018


I have five close friends from way back who are not active on Facebook but we are constantly in touch through PM. Three of them want to see what I look like now. That's 3 out of 5: not bad, and to think that 2 out of that 3 are my ex. So I sent them my latest photo.

Then another friend asked through Messenger for a "Part 2" of my English translations of my favorite Miriam Santiago jokes. This would be fun, and though it's not "Due to insistent public demand," here is the sequel to our Miriam lines.

I

Gosh you're rude! You didn't even knock but you went straight into my heart!

II

A crush is like a math problem: if you can't get it, just stare.

III

Let's play, but anything except hide-and-seek – because someone like you is hard to find.

IV

Let's have an exhange gift: What's yours is mine and I'm yours.

V

Are you Google? Because everything I'm looking for I found in you.

VI

Can I walk you home? Because my mother told me to follow my dreams.

VII

Can I have a blood test? So you'll know you're my type. 

VIII

I wish you were my cardiologist – so you'll take care of my heart.

IX

I wish I was a scientist – so you will be my lab.

X

I wish I were your exam – so you'll give me your answer.

XI

How do you tell a person that her underarm is dark without offending her? 'What's deodorant do you use, shoe polish?'

XII

How do you tell a woman she's fat without offending her? 'What lotion do you use, gravy?'

XIII

Two students were talking after an exam.

B1: Do you have answers?
B2: All blank!
B1: We're dead!
B2: Why?
B1: They'd think we copied from each other! 

XIV

And here is my favorite in this batch: I'm not fat – I'm just so sexy it overflows!