WWJD or Shakespeare??

Blogging is a funny thing. Sometimes what you first think of is not what you eventually post. Sometimes the topic takes you elsewhere. And sometimes you change your mind before you even post.

And then sometimes you just can't make up your mind.

Today I had to endure mass. No need to explain why, I tried to get in late but was actually on time and it took 50 minutes, which was long for a weekday mass. The priest's homily upset me. He was commenting on the gospel reading (Matthew 15 - 21 and on, the woman from Canaan) and of course he embellished the story by making it appear as a lesson on perseverance. For some reason that I cannot fathom, You Must Persevere When Asking Things Of God.

That is not what the gospel says. If anything, those people asking themselves all the time what would Jesus do (WWJD) should realize this is not good behavior.

Jesus did not want to help the canaanite woman because she was not jew. (No, I am not going to quote scripture here - read the passage elsewhere as I have placed a link to it above). Of course, in light of the mindset of jewish Jesus and his jewish disciples, he was not doing anything wrong - the gospel was to be preached to the jew people, not to the outsiders, who were not "worthy".

That was OK for the jews at that time in that place. It would be bigotry today. So if you are asking yourself WWJD, he would show you how to be racist and intolerant.

Anyway, on the way home my daughter asked me for help doing homework, she had to paraphrase one of Shakespeare's sonnets. I never studied english literature (didn't have to... I studied spanish and latin american literature...) so I have never really read Shakespeare in the original english.

And it made up for my 50 minutes at church. And I will quote Shakespeare here for your enjoyment. What a beautiful little poem of love!

SONNET 18
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee

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2012 and the end of the world

This morning I was listening to the NPR news and they mentioned the Mayas and 2012 and the end of the world

I do have a comment to make about that:

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...Sorry, where was I?

Mr. Deity is back...! and He is watching me!

I have made a momentous decision today: I am officially shifting my allegiance from the mighty Flying Spaghetti Monster to Mr. Deity.

After all, he is the Deity...

Mr. Deity came upon us via the glorious service that we mortals denominate YouTube. His Word spread far and wide about two years ago with a series of memorable and wise short Videos each containing about 5 minutes of His Allmightiness. I learned much of the world we live in and how we came to be by watching His Performances. That was Season One.

Illumination came upon Crackle, a service owned by Sony, whereupon they were bestowed the opportunity to collaborate with the production of 10 more short Stories. Hence, Season Two of Mr. Deity came to pass.

Alas, Crackle has abandoned the Path and Mr. Deity is now requesting our help by donating via PayPal to his Noble Cause. I wonder, if Mormons tithe 10% of their earnings, how come we of other Non-Faiths cannot come with some help for our very own Deity?

In answer to our prayers and counting on our good Intentions, Mr. Deity is back in all His Allmightiness and Wit on Season Three. He comes to us with all of his good Allies that we have come to know and love: Larry, his faithful assistant, Jesse (or Jesus, depending on the time of the day) and the always beautiful Lucy(fer).

As a member of His Flock, I vow to watch his Videos as they come out, PayPal some monies but not much, and never leave Him any voice mail by never praying to Him. I am very happy he will not turn on his Omniscience and leave me alone and never worry about me!

So, come see the light. Check out Mr. Deity, donate and purchase His Merchandise. I never did like all that old pirate stuff and the global warming and all so I am much more comfortable with Mr. Deity. And I know He Will Read my blog since he is now following it in Facebook's Networked Blogs... Could I be more Honored?

After all, he is the Deity... and he is on iTunes as well. What more can you pray for?

A reluctant atheist?

I recently went to the cinema to watch Angels and demons. I enjoyed reading the book, which was a fantastic thriller, and enjoyed the movie, which is no less of a thriller than the book.

Cinematic emotions aside, I found it intriguing when Tom Hanks' character, Robert Langdon, gets asked by a priest "Do you believe in God, Mr. Langdon?"

His very diplomatic answer was "I am an academic... My mind tells me that I will never understand God." The priest then asks "And what does your heart say?" to which Langdon responds "My heart tells me I am not meant to...

In these days of personal domestic turmoil, my Angels and demons is stashed in a box out of reach so I could not inmmediately reference the dialog. But it seems that Langdon never uttered those words. Rather, it was CERN's scientist Vittoria Vetra who has a similar dialog in the book as you can see in this link. According to this article, Dan Brown is a believer which may be the reason his "atheist" characters are so reluctant to admit their lack of belief.

What Brown and the author of the article I am linking do not realize is that non-believers are many and are everywhere. As Richard Dawkins indicates in his http://www.outcampaign.org/ site "... atheists come in all shapes, sizes, colours and personalities. We are labourers and professionals. We are mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, sisters, brothers and grandparents. We are human (we are primates) and we are good friends and good citizens. We are good people who have no need to cling to the supernatural."

Given the current state of affairs, I can understand why so many atheists can be so reluctant to admit their non-belief. We are demonized every week in church by the priesthoood and are, very unjustly, blamed for the crime and evil in our world.

Nothing could be further from the truth. If anything, religion may be the real culprit.

I place a strong emphasis on good friends, good citizens and good people. And it looks like popular media is now begining to portrait atheists in a more favorable manner - check the popular TV series House and Bones, where the main characters are very strong atheists.

Like the Gay movement did many years ago, non-believers need to begin working on our image to change the perception that we eat babies for breakfast. We are good people. And we are many.

Join the Out Campaign. Or, if you are a believer, don't hold it against us.

Star Trek Rocks!

Although I am very aware that many of my friends in Guatemala are engaged with other concerns, I could not delay posting my thoughts on this latest installment of the Star Trek franchise, which I finally got to watch last night.

And it was AWESOME!

During the week I read Phil Plait's review of the movie and, after watching the movie, I do see Phil's points. Being a skeptic by nature it is sometimes difficult to suspend disbelief but this movie made it easy: it was so engaging it was difficult not to follow...

And (spoiler alert!) the "parallel timeline" premise in the movie was, I think, a stroke of genius by the writers! Not only it allowed the movie to break away from established canon in an unprecedented and fully trekkie-acceptable manner but it also left the door open for more non-canon trek movies where further exploits of Kirk, Spock and the gang can be explored in a whole new universe.

The full 126 minutos of this movie are trekkie-candy. I got to see (more spoilers ahead!) how Kirk beat the infamous Kobayashi Maru test, which as I told my wife during the movie, every trekkie knows he passed by cheating... And, yes! there is a bikini-clad green girl!

Go see the movie! And check this fun review!

New look for the Chapin Skeptic

Thanks to my good friends Adelou and Guillermo I have changed today the look of The Chapin Skeptic. The new layout allows for wider images and videos and (I think) looks cool as well. The picture above was sourced from the Wikipedia Commons and depicts, among other things, the Horse Head Nebula, which features prominently in one of good doctor Asimov's Foundation books.

Hope you like it.

Another one bites the dust!

Father Alberto Cutié from Hispanic on line

It was inevitable. Young, dashing, handsome father Alberto Cutié became a celebrity hosting his talk shows on Telemundo and EWTN, where he intelligently discussed everyday issues and gave catholic advice. He is perhaps the best known priest in Latin America and many tourists, myself included, have attended mass in Miami Beach at his charming little church. Newsweek dubbed him "father Oprah" which he preferred to "father Springer" and "father Cristino" (after Cristina Saralegui, another well known latin talk show hostess).

Just two days ago, pictures surfaced showing father Alberto kissing and getting his hand under the lower backside of his female companion's bathing suit. Bid scandal ensued. The paparazzi who took the pictures shopped them around, apparently asking as much as US$700,000, which apparently no one gave him. Finally he sold them to the mexican magazine TVNotas, which apparently is publishing them tomorrow, Thursday.

Unlike so many other priests involved in scandal, Father Alberto is too high profile not to punish. He has been removed from his parish and taken out of his church-sponsored media activities in radio and TV, as well as print.

His website http://www.padrealberto.net/ is featuring a public apology to all his fans. All other content has been removed.

I always liked father Alberto even if I did not agree with his catholic views. It is hard not to sympathize now, as so many of his parishioners have indicated. After all, he is just a man.

The point is, who is the culprit? Dogmatic catholics will indicate the man is the culprit. I submit that, with so many examples and cases of priest-related scandals, what is at fault is the system.

Celibacy is too much to ask of a young, healthy, personable and good looking celebrity priest. As I discussed with a friend today, a man like that does not find it difficult to get female companionship. I guess being a priest doesn't make it much harder.