Mass of the rooster

Last year Lolo (my husband) got up at 3am to go to mass for nine days before Christmas. (i stayed in bed...sorry, I love sleep).
It's an old custom, early am mass so the farmers can make a mass novena before they go to the fields.

Another Filipino custom is singers. Every evening we have carolers. Most are kids singing off key but also there are small bands that go from door to door and stay there until you give them a couple pesos (five cents).

A third custom is the beautiful star lanterns that they hang up, a parol.

Downtown, the trees were decorated with lights three weeks ago. No "christmas trees", but hanging lights and lights along wires.

And yesterday we went to our farmer's house for a fiesta. They are poor. But they had a tiny Christmas tree in the corner.

Melanesian martyrs

I wonder how many people heard the story of the Anglican martyrs of Melanesia?

Francis Tofi (left), Tony Sirihi and Robin Lindsay (in black) lost their lives along with Nathaniel Sado, the first one who was martyred

LINK

"...On the 8th of August 2003, Christians throughout the world were shocked to hear the tragic news that the six Melanesan Brothers had been murdered on the Weather Coast of Guadalcanal. For three months the Melanesian Brotherhood and members of the church had been waiting and hoping and praying that these brothers were alive and would return safely. But on the 8th of August our worst fears were confirmed. The Melanesian Brotherhood was officially told by the Police Commissioner William Morrell that they had been informed by Harold Keke that all six were dead. These were brave, talented and greatly loved men and it has been hard for us to come to terms with the greatness of their loss and tragic ending of such good, young and holy lives. ..."

Go to the links for the rest of the story.

Remember this story the next time some proud American or European scoffs at the depth of the faith of those who live in Africa, Asia, South America, or Oceania.

It is from in these places that will inherit the Christianity that the secular leaders of Europe and some in the USA are trying to destroy.

Evolution debate: missing the point

One of the silliest things that children do is, when you make a statement about one thing, they then use that statement in another situation that is quite different. My two sons, who learned English as a second language, we well adept at manipulating words to completely different meanings to confuse and manipulate their exhausted mother. Usually an angry threat would lead to them laughing and running to their rooms, gleefully aware that they had won the argument with their mother, but of course what they had done is play word games that ignored the heart of the matter.

We see similar word games being played when people argue about evolution.

In today's magazine "The Scientist" , Professor Jack Woodall argues that a blue butterfly destroys the idea of "intelligent design", because the ecology needed to sustain the butterfly's existance is so fragile that only an idiot would design it. Ergo, no "intelligence" behind evolution, ergo no God.

But if you take a look at his argument, it is actually against Darwinian evolution, that insists on the survival of the fittest. The butterfly who precarious existance is cited shouldn't exist, since it is unfit.

The argument about science versus God too often reminds me of my sons' word games.

For example, too often "intelligent design" is merely a micromanaged version of "God made the animals one by one", or the famous cartoon with two scientists standing in front of a blackboard with a long mathematical equation, which at the end says: And here God did a miracle. That is why scientists rightly says that this is not science, and does not belong in Biology class.

However, Darwin's theories are also implicitly "religious" in the way they are taught, because the metaphysical meanings (i.e. religious ideas) behind the theory are ignored: The idea that only science can find truth, ergo if it's not scientific, it's not true. This idea is not science, it is theology.

Bluntly speaking, there is either a "god" or no god. There is a meaning for life, or there is no meaning for life. We can argue about it, but our arguments don't make things true. Science is a tool, a means to truth, not truth itself, and the existance of God doesn't depend on our arguments. After all, I can argue for years about the existance of life on Mars, but the presence of life on Mars is either there or not there. It's existance doesn't depend on my opinions.

That's why educated Catholics hold back from the fight between the Darwinists, who infuse the science of evolution with metaphysical ideas that deny God's existance and can easily evolve in the social Darwinism of Eugenics, and "intelligent design", which is a sophisticated version of "God made the animals two by two".

You see, Catholics have allowed the scientific idea of evolution since the days of St. Augustine.
What Catholics don't allow is the metaphysics hiding behind the "Darwinists": the idea that evolution is "blind" and that the ones who survive are the fittest, and that there is no ultimate meaning of life. And we find it silly that scientists untrained in philosophy ignore the metaphysics behind their arguments, while feeling superior to half trained scientists who ignore the scientific theory behind evolutionary arguments.

A better metaphysics of evolution is the ancient idea of the great designer, or the great composer who designed the symphony of evolution, and then directs it as it is played. It is only when the players get it wrong that he "tweaks" the program or intervenes in directing the symphony to put things right.
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cross posted to Bloggernews.net.

And so the metaphysical or "religious" answer answer to Professor Woodall's religious argument would be that a the beauty of the blue butterfly shows a creator with a sense of beauty, and that the fact it exists at all shows a loving creator that cares for it, and the fact that it will die off will show that life is precarious, but that in the long run "everything works for the good", and in a million years, the end result will be another creature that is perhaps more beautiful that will fill the same niche in life.

HIV in Africa

Today is World Aids day. Alas, since most American HIV activists are homosexuals who have an agenda to destigmatize their behavior, you will read condemnations of countries that try to limit drug abuse and prostitution by marginalizing these behaviors.

My essay on it is HERE, and I argue that "virginity" promotion and other moralistic approaches actually work, and are one reason that HIV has not peculated into the mainstream population of Asia (or the United States, for that matter, a fact that the MSM usually ignores).