..

Hmm. And there goes the issue of uncertainty again, whose roots are from fears - the fear of losing oneself or losing something. Yet the predicament begins when one is asked to decide; for that person knows that he has to face the very fundamental situation in life: trade-off. Either way, whether there is success or failure, acceptance or rejection, or whatsoever, one has to face the reality of human predisposition - the propensity of man to seize melancholy or joy. Good morning.

Love.

Have you ever been in love? 

Whether it's a romantic love, platonic, the casual, puppy love, or love that you have for your family and friends, love in its simplest sense is being humble. 

And when we love, there is a risk of being humiliated. For an unrequited love, it is such a dilemma for a person to confess his/her love to that person, who neither loves him/her nor cares for him/her. Sometimes, we become so afraid of telling/confessing our love for the fear that it's not mutual. Yet perhaps, that is what is love is, after all, to conquer fear, to overcome fear. Love makes a person unstoppable.

Fear is not a subatomic particle of love. Love knows no fears, it just keeps on pressing on no matter what happens. Even if humiliation comes, love runs towards the horizon, bearing in mind its very goal: to be itself. And as it run, the bearer lets go of every possibility, including the possibility of being itself. That's why most mothers receive their very awards; during labor, the mother has to forget her identity - her posture, her aura, her makeup, her hair, and pose - everything about her, just to give birth of the one she loves.

When a person falls in love, or knows how to love, it should be celebrated. A person who does not know how to love is scarier than the ones featured in Halloweens!

And yet, what dazzles me the most about love is that it is patient. It does not hurry; it keeps an eye, or the five senses to the person, and it waits. It understands the changes that happen within and around it. It edifies, it builds, it connects. And some would say that pressure brings out the best in every person; but for me, people are not material things. We are living things. That's why there is love - everything should be out of love. Love strikes the balance. A tree bears fruit not because the owner puts pressure on that tree, but because it's full, it's healthy, it's nourished. Pressure is very mechanical, commercial, and frustrating. Pure love knows time, proper time.

Lastly, no, love should never be linked to regrets. When we did something for the ones that we love, we did it because we love. We do things because of love - reciprocity is no longer an issue. We regret because we expect something in return. Nothing can beat love but love itself.

Love makes us humble, patient, fearless, unstoppable, and makes us human.

"We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters."-1Jn 3:16

P.S. Love does not make us superheroes. Love is as simple as saying hello and as difficult as forgiving. That's giving up.

Banana

Frozen chocolate-dipped banana on stick

Oohh, one of my favorites. As much as possible, I try to make it to a point to buy some. It's sweet and makes me happy - the chemicals from banana and chocolate. Grab some. =)

Regrets

Aren't we allowed to regret?

All people regret and regretting is dependent on our decisions. Oftentimes, we regret because of wrong decisions - joined an organization, did something wrong, said something. We even regret when we make a good or/and right decision. But yesterday for me was a regretful day.

It was already 3 am that I went to sleep since I had to be busy about a paper that wasn't mine. I mean, I volunteered making a paper that wasn't mine and for my 19 years of existence here on earth, I haven't really made a paper that wasn't mine. I mean, paper, you know, personal ideas. Yet because I pitied that person, I volunteered, which the topic by the way was out of my field. And so I was still unproductive though I slept late. Before I slept, I even tweeted that I had to be in the school to work things out (e.g. thesis, etc.). And then I closed my eyes.

When I opened my eyes, my mom asked me if I'd go to school and talked about our financial status. I brushed off her statements since I was still sleepy that time. I finally woke up from my senses and realized that it's already late in the morning, 8:30 am to be exact. I hurried up, checked my twitter, ate breakfast and so on. I realized that I still hadn't prayed and read the Bible. I am by the way a Christian. And so I prayed and read the Bible and that took me almost two hours. Then I went to my laptop and realized that:
-unfinished paper
-CHEM 160.1 lab reports
-It's already late and I had to be in the school at that time.

And so let's click the fast forward button and I found myself contemplating about the paper, chatting a few people including someone who said things that broke my heart, and starving (no lunch). It was 11:00 am.

I finished the paper, without giving my best at around3:30 pm, still starving, and filthy. Wa pakoy ligo at that time.I then realized that I was very, very unproductive. I wasn't able to do the things that I should do, first. The sadder thing was, I wasn't able to overcome this. This was one of my problems this semester that's why I did not get very good grades. Emotions, oh but I hate emotions. My classmates were already contacting me, since our teacher asked for my presence. Some were tweeting about subjects and I was nervous since I was not still settled with that subject. Fear consumed, anxiety, and so on.

But then again, the throne of grace never fails. I went to a place and decided to unload everything to Him - the unworthiness, the despair, the regrets, the hatred, the hurts, and the worries. Crying out to Him was not enough, it was also being humble before Him that made me free from the said negativities. Praying is purging. After I prayed, it was as if I'd been set free from captivity after a long time. O His sweet grace, mercy, love.

Perhaps, we are allowed to regret. Yet, after we regret, we learn something. Things happen for a reason. We commit mistakes but it is more important to learn and change. I learned that it takes humility to say no. You cannot keep on saying yes to things and end up regretting. Regretting will do you more harm than good. Last thing, decision - it breaks hearts, it builds up, it restores, it can heal, everything. Our decision determines our own condition or the people around us. It's always best to not just think before we decide, but pray. Is the door that is wide open opened by God or by you? REMINDER:

There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.

-Proverbs 14:12

Purging

"..to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit "

-2 Thessalonians 2:13

Speechless.

Doggone

I miss playing with him. Nope, he's not dead. I'm just busy. 

Of emphasis

Column: Science and religion aren't friends

By Jerry A. Coyne

Religion in America is on the defensive. [ =( ]

Atheist books such as The God Delusionand The End of Faith have, by exposing the dangers of faith and the lack of evidence for the God of Abraham, become best-sellers. Science nibbles at religion from the other end, relentlessly consuming divine explanations and replacing them with material ones. Evolution took a huge bite a while back, and recent work on the brain has shown no evidence for souls, spirits, or any part of our personality or behavior distinct from the lump of jelly in our head. We now know that the universe did not require a creator. Science is even studying the origin of morality. So religious claims retreat into the ever-shrinking gaps not yet filled by science. And, although to be an atheist in America is still to be an outcast, America's fastest-growing brand of belief is non-belief. [ =( ]

But faith will not go gentle. For each book by a "New Atheist," there are many others attacking the "movement" and demonizing atheists as arrogant, theologically ignorant, and strident. The biggest area of religious push-back involves science. Rather than being enemies, or even competitors, the argument goes, science and religion are completely compatible friends, each devoted to finding its own species of truth while yearning for a mutually improving dialogue.

As a scientist and a former believer, I see this as bunk. Science and faith are fundamentally incompatible, and for precisely the same reason that irrationality and rationality are incompatible. They are different forms of inquiry, with only one, science, equipped to find real truth. And while they may have a dialogue, it's not a constructive one. Science helps religion only by disproving its claims, while religion has nothing to add to science.

Irreconcilable

"But surely," you might argue, "science and religion must be compatible. After all, some scientists are religious." One is Francis Collins, head of the National Institutes of Health and an evangelical Christian. But the existence of religious scientists, or religious people who accept science, doesn't prove that the two areas are compatible. It shows only that people can hold two conflicting notions in their heads at the same time. If that meant compatibility, we could make a good case, based on the commonness of marital infidelity, that monogamy and adultery are perfectly compatible. No, the incompatibility between science and faith is more fundamental: Their ways of understanding the universe are irreconcilable.

Science operates by using evidence and reason. Doubt is prized, authority rejected. No finding is deemed "true" — a notion that's always provisional — unless it's repeated and verified by others. We scientists are always asking ourselves, "How can I find out whether I'm wrong?" I can think of dozens of potential observations, for instance — one is a billion-year-old ape fossil — that would convince me that evolution didn't happen.

Physicist Richard Feynman observed that the methods of science help us distinguish real truth from what we only want to be true: "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool."

Science can, of course, be wrong. Continental drift, for example, was laughed off for years. But in the end the method is justified by its success. Without science, we'd all live short, miserable and disease-ridden lives, without the amenities of medicine or technology. As Stephen Hawking proclaimed, science wins because it works.

Does religion work? It brings some of us solace, impels some to do good (and others to fly planes into buildings), and buttresses the same moral truths embraced by atheists, but does it help us better understand our world or our universe? Hardly. [ =( ] Note that almost all religions make specific claims about the world involving matters such as the existence of miracles, answered prayers wonder-working saints and divine cures, virgin births, annunciations and resurrections. These factual claims, whose truth is a bedrock of belief, bring religion within the realm of scientific study. But rather than relying on reason and evidence to support them, faith relies on revelation, dogma and authority. Hebrews 11:1 states, with complete accuracy, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Indeed, a doubting-Thomas demand for evidence is often considered rude.

And this leads to the biggest problem with religious "truth": There's no way of knowing whether it's true. I've never met a Christian, for instance, who has been able to tell me what observations about the universe would make him abandon his beliefs in God and Jesus. (I would have thought that the Holocaust could do it, but apparently not.) There is no horror, no amount of evil in the world, that a true believer can't rationalize as consistent with a loving God. It's the ultimate way of fooling yourself. But how can you be sure you're right if you can't tell whether you're wrong?

The religious approach to understanding inevitably results in different faiths holding incompatible "truths" about the world. Many Christians believe that if you don't accept Jesus as savior, you'll burn in hell for eternity. Muslims hold the exact opposite: Those who see Jesus as God's son are the ones who will roast. Jews see Jesus as a prophet, but not the messiah. Which belief, if any, is right? Because there's no way to decide, religions have duked it out for centuries, spawning humanity's miserable history of religious warfare and persecution.

In contrast, scientists don't kill each other over matters such as continental drift. We have better ways to settle our differences. There is no Catholic science, no Hindu science, no Muslim science — just science, a multicultural search for truth. The difference between science and faith, then, can be summed up simply: In religion faith is a virtue; in science it's a vice.

But don't just take my word for the incompatibility of science and faith — it's amply demonstrated by the high rate of atheism among scientists. While only 6% of Americans are atheists or agnostics, the figure for American scientists is 64%, according to Rice professor Elaine Howard Ecklund's book, Science vs. Religion. Further proof: Among countries of the world, there is a strong negative relationship between their religiosity and their acceptance of evolution. Countries like Denmark and Sweden, with low belief in God, have high acceptance of evolution, while religious countries are evolution-intolerant. Out of 34 countries surveyed in a study published inScience magazine, the U.S., among the most religious, is at the bottom in accepting Darwinism: We're No. 33, with only Turkey below us. Finally, in a 2006 Time poll a staggering 64% of Americans declared that if science disproved one of their religious beliefs, they'd reject that science in favor of their faith.

'Venerable superstition'

In the end, science is no more compatible with religion than with other superstitions, such as leprechauns. Yet we don't talk about reconciling science with leprechauns. We worry about religion simply because it's the most venerable superstition — and the most politically and financially powerful.

Why does this matter? Because pretending that faith and science are equally valid ways of finding truth not only weakens our concept of truth, it also gives religion an undeserved authority that does the world no good. For it is faith's certainty that it has a grasp on truth, combined with its inability to actually find it, that produces things such as the oppression of women and gays, opposition to stem cell research and euthanasia, attacks on science, denial of contraception for birth control and AIDS prevention, sexual repression, and of course all those wars, suicide bombings and religious persecutions.

And any progress — not just scientific progress — is easier when we're not yoked to religious dogma. Of course, using reason and evidence won't magically make us all agree, but how much clearer our spectacles would be without the fog of superstition!

Jerry A. Coyne is a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at The University of Chicago. His latest book is Why Evolution is True, and his website is www.whyevolutionistrue.com.