azneita project

An atheist professor of philosophy speaks to his class on the problem science has with God, The Almighty. He asks one of
His new students to stand and…..
Prof: So you believe in God?

Student: Absolutely, sir.
Prof: Is God good?
Student: Sure.
Prof: Is God all-powerful?
Student : Yes.
Prof: My brother died of cancer even though he prayed to God to heal him. Most of us would attempt to help others who are ill. But God
Didn’t. How is this God good then? Hmm?

(Student is silent.)

Prof: You can’t answer, can you? Let’s start again, young fella. Is God good?
Student :Yes.
Prof: Is Satan good?
Student : No.
Prof: Where does Satan come from?
Student : From…God.. .
Prof: That’s right. Tell me son, is there evil in this world?
Student : Yes.
Prof: Evil is everywhere, isn’t it? And God did make everything.
Correct?
Student : Yes.
Prof: So who created evil?

(Student does not answer.)

Prof: Is there sickness? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things exist in the world, don’t they?
Student :Yes, sir.
Prof: So, who created them?

(Student has no answer.)

Prof: Science says you have 5 senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Tell me, son…Have you ever seen God?
Student : No, sir.
Prof: Tell us if you have ever heard your God?
Student : No , sir.
Prof: Have you ever felt your God, tasted your God, smelled your God? Have you ever had any sensory perception of God for that matter?
Student : No, sir. I’m afraid I haven’t.
Prof: Yet you still believe in Him?
Student : Yes.
Prof: According to empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, science says your GOD doesn’t exist. What do you say to that, son?
Student : Nothing. I only have my faith.
Prof: Yes. Faith. And that is the problem science has.
Student : Professor, is there such a thing as heat?
Prof: Yes.
Student : And is there such a thing as cold?
Prof: Yes.
Student : No sir. There isn’t.

(The lecture theatre becomes very quiet with this turn of events.)

Student : Sir, you can have lots of heat, even more heat, superheat, mega heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat. But we don’t have anything called cold. We can hit 458 degrees below zero which is no heat, but we can’t go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold. Cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.

(There is pin-drop silence in the lecture theatre.)

Student : What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness?
Prof: Yes. What is night if there isn’t darkness?
Student : You’re wrong again, sir. Darkness is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light…. But if you have no light constantly, you have nothing and it’s called darkness, isn’t it? In reality, darkness isn’t. If it were, you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn’t you?
Prof: So what is the point you are making, young man?
Student : Sir, my point is your philosophical premise is flawed.
Prof: Flawed? Can you explain how?
Student : Sir, you are working on the premise of duality. You argue
There is life and then there is death, a good God and a bad God. You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, science can’t even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing. Death is not the opposite of life: just the absence of it. Now tell me, Professor. Do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?
Prof: If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, yes, of course, I do.
Student : Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?

(The Professor shakes his head with a smile, beginning to realize where the argument is going.)
Student : Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going, are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you not a scientist but a preacher?

(The class is in uproar.)

Student : Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor’s brain?

(The class breaks out into laughter.)

Student : Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor’s brain, felt it, touched or smelled it?…..No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established rules of empirical, stable, demonstrable protocol, science says that you have no brain, sir.
With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures, sir?

(The room is silent. The professor stares at the student, his face unfathomable. )

Prof: I guess you’ll have to take them on faith, son.
Student : That is it, sir.. The link between man & god is FAITH. That is all that keeps things moving & alive.
You know who this young man was?

———— ———
ALBERT EINSTEIN
———— ———

9:41PM October 22, 2006

Itlogerz internet cafe, Pag-asa QC

I’m now officially dead. And so from six feet under i’m going to relay to guys what happened in the last 24 hours of my “life”.

3:00PM I just came in from a get-together with my uncle in Morayta, Manila. I was supposed to meet Ralph there but my cellphone’s battery went off leaving me with nothing to contact Ralph with and so, i traipsed around Recto and Quiapo area alone for about an hour or so before finally relenting to my conscience that i better head back home to do the things that i have to do.

4:00 - 9:00pm after having snacks and lying low for a while, i got to do my laundry consisting of big bath towels, shirts, some shorts and some jackets. fate intervened and it rained for a while leaving me with no choice but to take a break. i resumed my laundry after the rain stopped around 6:30 and finally finished the shirts, shorts, and jackets around 9:00.

9:00 - 11:30 i had my dinner and since Nat sent me a message that she emailed me an MRF design, i crashed an internet cafe to download the said designs. i emailed them to my engineer friend who will be helping me with the technical study for our PA 143 feasibility study.

i slept until late 7am.

after waking up and doing my morning rituals. i slumped down on the computer chair and tried to pick up where i left off yesterday. but damn! the thesis files which i tirelessly worked on for the past few weeks cannot be read. (I originally worked on the laptop i borrowed from my uncle and saved all my working files on a dvd). my world crumbled.

it has been more than six hours since ground zero and i’m still dazed. the incident set me back by about a week and the semester is already ending around me.

so after having a new radical haircut, i plan to climb out of this hole i got myself into by trying to get a design for an mrf. but so far, no such luck. either its so complex that its not applicable to a Philippine barangay, it is just text.

so for posterity’s sake, here is a picture of me from below six feet.

Cool moves on and off the road.
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Triskaidekaphobia is the fear of 13, a number commonly associated with bad luck in Western culture. While fear of the number 13 can be traced back to medieval times, the word triskaidekaphobia itself is of recent vintage, having been first coined by Coriat (1911; Simpson and Weiner 1992). It seems to have first appeared in the general media in a Nov. 8, 1953 New York Times article covering discussions of a United Nations committee.

This superstition leads some people to fear or avoid anything involving the number 13. In particular, this leads to interesting practices such as the numbering of floors as 1, 2, …, 11, 12, 14, 15, … (Sloane’s A011760; the “elevator sequence”), omitting the number 13, in many high-rise American hotels, the numbering of streets avoiding 13th Avenue, and so on.

Apparently, 13 hasn’t always been considered unlucky. In fact, it appears that in ancient times, 13 was either considered in a positive light or (more commonly) not at all (Adams). The association of bad luck with the number 13 has been attributed to the fact there were 13 people at the Last Supper of Jesus, although this association seems to have originated only in medieval times.

The association has also been linked to that fact that lunisolar calendars (such as the Hebrew and Chinese calendars) must have 13 months in some years in order to synchronize the solar and lunar cycles, while the solar Gregorian calendar in universal current usage always has 12 months in a year.

Triskaidekaphobia also may be related to Norse mythology, which tells how the god Odin invited eleven of his closest friends to a dinner party at his home in Valhalla, only to have his party crashed by Loki, the god of evil and turmoil, thus giving a total of 13 people. The legend further relates how Balder, one of the most beloved gods, tried to throw Loki out of the party, resulting in a scuffle and ultimately Balder’s death with a mistletoe-tipped arrow.

Fear of the number 13 also leads to fear of Friday the thirteenth (a fear recently dubbed paraskevidekatriaphobia), despite the fact that Friday turns out to be the most common weekday on which the 13th of a month can occur in the Gregorian calendar. The association of bad luck with Friday appeared in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in the late 14th century (”and on a Friday fell all this misfortune”), but references to Friday as a day associated with ill luck in general first appear around the middle of the 17th century (Mikkelson and Mikkelson). In particular, it appeared in numerous publications as a particularly unlucky day to start a new venture (beginning a journey, giving birth, getting married, moving, starting a new job, etc.) beginning around 1800 (Mikkelson and Mikkelson).

While 13 is associated with the number of people at the Last Supper, the Crucifixion took place on a Friday, thus leading to an association of back luck with the combination of this number and day. Note that the association of Friday the thirteenth with the arrest of Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Knights Templar, on Friday, October 13, 1307 by King Philippe IV of France–as repeated, for example, in D. Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code (Brown 2003, p. 163)–is a modern-day invention (Mikkelson and Mikkelson).

Paraskevidekatriaphobia is probably the most widespread superstition in the United States, possibly affecting tens of millions of Americans. Interestingly, a study by Scanlon et al. (1993) published in the prestigious British Medical Journal which analyzed the relation between health, behavior, and superstition surrounding Friday 13th in the United Kingdom by comparing the ratio of traffic volume to traffic accidents on Friday the 6th and Friday the 13th over a period of years found that, “The risk of hospital admission as a result of a transport accident may be increased by as much as 52%. Staying at home is recommended.”

While there does not appear to be hard evidence to support the claim, it has been suggested that $800 to $900 million are lost each Friday the 13th (Roach 2004) as a result of people avoiding travel, wedding plans, moving, and so on.

(500 x 300)

Earlier i have tried posting a screenshot of my SPSS application. It didn’t come out well.The image gobbled up all the space of the post and even took up the space for the sidebar. i’m now trying to get the ideal image size for a wordpress post.

(500 x 300)

after a scantily prepared for final exam in stat 101, i broke into sigh. it was ok. the stat 101 exam was ok. but not yet. i still have a thesis to finish. an incomplete paper to submit. another final exam on the offing. a big feasibility study to get off the ground and a newsletter to fill my grade whirlpool. my schedule i shot in the head and my things are all strewn on the floor. it is INDEED finals week.

 Just then, i saw this picture off Flickr and it struck me as something is should think about. Should i just see the balackness swirling about or the light that is beginning to expand from the center.

It is good to be optimistic about things, but its more prudent to keep your head over your shoulders.

It may be true that rainclouds have silver linings on their undersides but it is no help if your too devastated to start with. Minimize liabilities and live another day.

reading back, where did all those thoughts came from? maybe it is but an outpouring of sentiments during hard times. Did i passed the Final Exam? I sure did!  

Help! I need somebody! HEELP!

working on our thesis is really stressful. we already ditched our presentation engagement and we are still nowhere near finished.

Moreso, finals week is almost at hand and i’m fried.

It’s my birthday today! Hooray!!!

October 4, 2006 | 23rd year on earth