Bali-cious! (Part 1)

Last week, I went out of the country again and this time to Bali. Nikki usually has a trip right around her birthday which she organizes and her friends can join as well. This was why I got to travel to Bali this time. To be honest, it wasn't on my list of countries to go to but the opportunity was there and so I took it.

Our trip to Bali trip was jam packed with activities. Our trip started last Monday with a day long layover in Manila. We left for Bali on Tuesday morning then left our hotel Saturday morning back to Cebu. So that's 1 full day in Manila plus 4 days in Bali. I stress the 1 day in Manila as I was able to do two things in my day trip to Manila that I haven't been able to do since I left Manila for good in 2014. So while everyone else on the trip considered the trip to have started on Tuesday, I consider Monday the start of my trip. For this post, however, I'll focus on Bali.

Upon arriving in Bali, I knew I was in a world class airport. Bali may be a small island (though bigger than Cebu) but they got their airport right. We had booked a tour of the temples nearby since we had to wait until the afternoon to check in to our hotel rooms. I noticed they had small roads which made going around by car more difficult.

We went temple hopping on our first day. We saw two, Taman Ayun (which I remember because it sounds like tama na yun!) and Tanah Lot. I enjoyed these two stops but I won't lie. The highlight for me was when I bought a ricecake-like food with a brown sugar syrup inside covered in coconut shavings. Yeah, if you have a free day in Bali and you think, "Let's visit some temples," your time might be better spent elsewhere.

That night, we did go to Potato Head Beach Club and it was here we got our first view of a Bali sunset. We enjoyed a really good meal and even celebrated Nikki's birthday a little early with the waiters surprising her with a small cake - the waitress literally sneaked up behind her. We didn't stay long in Potato Head and we knew he had to get a good night's rest to prepare for the next day's activities.

On Wednesday, we had two "extreme" activities lined up. In the morning, we went for a dive. Three of us already have licenses so we went straight to the dive spot while everyone else had a beginner course in a shallower area. Truth be told, Cebu has better dive spots than the one we went to. The dive master told us that Bali has a lot of beautiful spots but require a whole day to explore. As our time was limited, we had to make do. All the first time divers had a blast though. They saw a lot of fishes and I think some of them now want to get their license as well.

In the afternoon, we went surfing in Kuta beach. We had made the booking through Odyssey Surf School, which I can say is one of the best I've tried. This would have been my fourth time surfing and the instructor was able to have me paddling by myself and catching bigger waves than the rest of our group. Needless to say, that was one of the highlights of my Bali trip.

We ended pretty early actually and when we checked the schedule of the Bali Sea Turtles Society, we found out they were releasing more baby turtles than usual into the sea (partly because of the independence day celebration). We lined up and were able to release 7 of the 1,200 sea turtles they released that day.

I think I'll stop here. I have 2 more days to cover on some other day.

Healthy dose of Skepticism

A couple of months back, my parents and I went to the grocery store to do some shopping. My dad was pushing the cart while my mom walked beside him and in the cart was a huge watermelon. "That's strange," I thought, "we usually get our fruits from the market." My dad had this huge smile as he came up to me and started explaining the watermelon as if he'd read my mind.

He mentioned that when picking a watermelon, you need to pick a round one. An elongated one will not be so sweet. The color is another thing and he goes over his little mental checklist. I pause for a second and think that all these details he mentioned seemed very familiar. I ask him where he got this information and quickly followed with, "Facebook?" He laughed and nodded. My mom was beside him shaking her head knowing my dad doesn't check his sources or verifies what he reads online.

My dad still felt pretty good about his new found knowledge and decided to share it with my sisters. That night, we had watermelon after dinner to see if Facebook was a reliable source for picking fruit in a fruit stand. We all got a slice and as we expected, it wasn't all that sweet.

Dad later claimed that the reason he bought the watermelon was because he wanted to see if what he learned on Facebook was indeed true. Whatever the case, a healthy dose of skepticism is always good. Since I started visiting this atheist website, I've noticed that a lot of people believe things which wouldn't normally be accepted by the vast majority of people. They usually hold on to these beliefs even if logic and history tell them otherwise. And this goes with both atheists and theists.

Sadly, people still hold to the logical fallacy of, "God is real because the (insert religious text here) says he's real. We can believe said religious text because it is the word of God." That line of reasoning may be fine but it only shows blind belief which pretty much means you're willing to put your belief in God on the Spin the Wheel at a fair. When people (rightly) show them that they're basing their belief on a logical fallacy, they simply fire back with, "You just don't see the truth." I'm sorry but even I can't follow truth in a circular argument.

On the other side of the debate, you have atheists who stick to a belief there is no proof for God's existence. When proof is then given, they simply fire back with, "I think that's false" or "I highly doubt that" or even, "You're just making things up" without stating a reason for the statement's falsehood.

One of my favorite atheists on this website -let's call him Joey- loves to shut me up by saying, "You believe in a made up religion/fairy tales," which hurt me at first then I realized why they hurt me. They were attacking my person, not my arguments. I then later began to see which arguments made sense, what fallacies I was making, and so on and so forth. I loved the exchange as it forced me deeper and deeper into my faith. An allegation would be made against my Catholic faith and I'd definitely want to know if that was true so I do my research, being skeptical of both the allegation and the Church's position, and every time, I find myself thinking that the Catholic position on that allegation actually holds more water.

Issues like the Spanish Inquisition, the Galileo controversy, the Crusades, and many many other issues caught me by surprise with how we buy into falsehoods these days. I went into my research with skepticism and told myself that if my faith is proven to be false during the course of my research, I'd leave it.

I won't lie, there are a bunch of points raised by some atheists that I've yet to dive into but I've dove into enough to know that many times, they're basing their "research" on poor to very poor research probably 80% of the time. And half the time they cite reliable sources, they stretch the meaning of the text further than what their sources say.

One of the positive effects I've experienced in myself lately with my new found skepticism is to always ask for sources. We can then try to verify these sources then see for ourselves if these sources can be trusted. The more sources we have, the better. Lies always hide behind a veil of truth but it can't hide all the time. Conflicting stories are usually a red flag for these instances.

My favorite atheist, Joey, once told me that the Catholic Bible has always been changing and that some books were removed when it didn't serve the political purposes of the Church then he gives me a bunch of links to check out. I was curious and upon reading the first link, I thought he had me. He lists a bunch of books which were in Catholic Bibles before the 1600s and were absent after. The names didn't look familiar save a few of them. I read another link he sent which asserted the same thing but placed the date in the 1800s. Now, I was confused. They both asserted that the Church removed 14 books from the Bible so I go through each one and checked it with my own Bible. All of them except one was in my Bible printed in 1987. The last one, I checked was never in the Bible to begin with. Some versions do include, as it's a very good prayer, but state that it was not part of Sacred Scripture.

I told Joey this then he simply shut me up again with his favorite line and added I refused to see the truth. So I ask him in return why he holds to an opinion which is clearly contradictory or can't even stand after the first round of fact checking. He then shifted the topic to something else which he could not prove again.

I realized that the past few months, I have been open to be proven wrong. I have a healthy dose of skepticism and I consider that a gift. Some people don't really have this and they're truly missing out. My parting words for you is this. Check your sources. Be open to be proven wrong. Question everything, even your sources. A lie, if it's hiding, will always pop out of it's hiding place. If none does, maybe you've found the truth.

On Writing

Before any blog post, I usually ask myself what new things happened in my life which I'd want to make a post about. Yesterday, I'd scratched the bottom of the barrel. Most of the things I considered would've been considered redundant to previous posts and other ideas, well, let's just say I'm not ready to comment on them in full detail.

So while thinking about a topic, an idea popped into my head -Writing! I'd write about writing. I realized I've never written anything about writing and how good of an outlet it can be for someone like me. It's a hobby I've picked up, yes. But it's our hobbies which keep us from insanity especially when work becomes repetitive.

Writing allows me to make permanent the thoughts in my head as they flow. I may not have any readers and writing would still be amusing to me. Ten years from now, I could look back at my posts and be either impressed or disappointed in my 2017 self. Either way, I'm excited at the prospect. I may believe in something totally and radically different from what I believe now. My posts may even serve as an eyewitness to this gradual change in belief and I find that exciting.

Writing allows me to pour out into words my thoughts which otherwise would've just stayed there. I believe that ideas are like wine. Before you let them out, you need them to age well. As a result, I hold off writing any essay until a few days before the deadline or hold off writing a blog post about an issue until the issue becomes stale and commenting on it would be useless. Writing allows me to let my ideas free. They never stop aging in the old head factory as they remain my own, but at the very least, they see the light of day.

Writing allows me to think more about my thoughts. You can't tell the number of characters you see in this post is the number of times I press the backspace key. I know I'm not the best typist and that has some effect but as I write these ideas down, I think on their truth value. I think about what difference it makes if I change the word "thought" to "idea" and if I get the thought idea through better that way (Also, strikethrough is a great tool).

Writing allows me to chain certain posts one after another. Let me explain. One of my posts was about the LTFRB disallowing Grab/Uber  from operating in the Philippines. While writing about that issue, I realized I actually want to write about authority. While writing about authority, I realized I wanted to write about mothers and this string of posts will eventually have a big bow wrapped around it in the end. It's addicting really. I'm not changing any lives but my mind feels like it can shout to the world more.

Writing allows the little writer in me to grow. Had you asked a 15 year old Jonathan, he'd probably tell you he wanted to write for a living. After studying engineering for 5 years and working with engineers for the next 4 years, there wasn't much in the way for creative license. Most of my reports involved numbers and I usually just let the figures speak for themselves. Now, I'm getting back to writing and it feels good. It's like the little child in me is jumping for joy at the chance at writing again. 

I can go on and on about how much I enjoy writing and the positive effects it has on my life but I'll stop here. Point is, I enjoy writing and hope one day I can write for a much wider audience. But even if I'm never given such a platform, I'd still continue to write. Maybe to sum it all up, I don't write to be read. I write because it's good for me.

Dipping my fingers into the world of Atheism

Just recently, I've tried participating in some atheist forums. My point was not to convince anyone. My goal was to learn. And learn a lot, I did!

Just to clarify. I'm in no way considering atheism. It's just that in the past few weeks, I've been engrossed by the amount of content that's out there in the internet talking about this topic. I didn't take as many philosophy classes back in college so it was all new to me.

I've learned quite a lot from this atheist blog I went to. All the atheists, save for one agnostic, were very condescending and proud. Very quickly, they would assert things that weren't at all rooted in truth. They'd take one article or blog post and claim that to be true. Statements like, "Jesus never walked the Earth," or "The Bible is a myth," or "Jon, you believe in fairy tales and unicorns." They weren't alone though. Some of the theists were the same saying things like, "They have seen the evidence and chose to ignore it." This does make the threads more heated than they should be. To cleanse my palate, I tried listening to some good and intellectual debates on the issue. This made all the difference to me.

Hiding behind the internet, people can call you "stupid" or "idiotic" without any consequences. I have friends who are atheist or agnostic who wouldn't talk to me like that to my face. I know some of them might talk negatively about my views behind my back but that's true of anyone. We never push each other to the point of disrespect though.

The problem with the belief of atheism is this. When you ask the question of whether aliens exist, you can answer with one of three answers - Yes, No, and I don't know. If you say Yes or No, you have the burden of proving your point that aliens do or do not exist. The only one exempt from any burden of proof would be the one who answers, "I don't know". Now, replace alien with God and you can see that atheists aren't exempt from proving their stance. It's common for atheists to shift the burden of proof solely on the theist to prove God exists. It's very easy for them to win in this case, all they have to do is say, "That's not real evidence" and his position stands. This, however, doesn't absolve the theist from presenting evidence.

I started a thread on this atheist website which goes, "What would constitute as evidence that a god exists?" Some of them were saying things like, they'd have to see a miracle happen during a religious ritual. Some others said that a voice from heaven might convince them. Rather quickly, it turned sour with people accusing me to believing in fairy tales. Some of them were accusing me of using circular argument to prove there's a God when I hadn't even tried to make a case for God.

Some other forums phrased their questions a certain way with the assumption that God does exist. One such forum asked, "To theists: What happens in heaven?" His question was asking if free will still existed given you couldn't commit sin in heaven. I answered the best I could only to be answered back with, "Your heaven doesn't exist - Like your god." This caught me off guard as the question was phrased in a way to assume that God and heaven exist.

I used to hold on to this notion that people who are atheists or agnostic must be at the very least intellectual or intellectually honest. I admired them as I saw that they were a group of people who were honestly trying to find the truth and not accept any religion as true right off the bat. I now know this is not the case. These are the same people who rant about how religion tries to stifle them and here they are doing the exact same thing.

I'm not talking about all though. My previously held positive stereotype of atheists and agnostics was definitely shattered. I might still visit that atheist website from time to time. It still amuses me to read from different points of view.

Momma knows best

I've been thinking about this for some time now. Mothers and fathers and their roles in our lives. I may be a bit late for Mother's day but better a late post than none at all. This post will focus on mothers and how they shape our lives.

I remember this scene from Disney's Tangled from a while back. But this isn't the kind of Momma I want to focus on. Everyone has a mother and most mothers will have a special place in their kid's hearts - no matter how old they are. A meme, which I can't find for some reason, comes to mind. It goes, "No matter how old I get, I always want my mom when I don't feel good."

The past few weeks, I've been noticing how people talk about their moms or other people's moms for that matter. I love going to the mall or eating at a restaurant and watching kids cling to their moms, or seeing how moms would discipline her kids. My mom never really disciplined me. That was my dad's department. But one common theme I find with anyone, is that they can say no to their father but it takes so much to say no to a mother.

Most of my friends (and probably yours as well) will say that mothers don't know much about pop culture or technology. My mom and aunt still ask me how to "give them internet" on their phone. But when it comes to the basic truths, the truly know best. Got a cold? Ask your mom. Remember your favorite childhood dish which you want to recreate today? You know exactly who to ask. Have you had measles already? Or dengue? When was your last asthma attack? Mom's got you covered on your medical history.

They also say that mom's are the first to know if their children have homosexual tendencies while fathers are usually clueless. They seem to know your secrets no matter how hard you try to hide them. It's one of their many talents which belong to them alone. It's as if they have psychic powers like Jean Grey or something. But really, I think they're more powerful psychics than even Sansa Stark Jean Grey.

So about my own mother. She's a super woman. Maybe she forgets hot to use her phone properly but the important stuff, she remembers. She remembers all of her relatives, their spouses, children, and how we're all related to them. She also remembers all of my dad's relatives, their spouses, their children and how we're related to them. She remembers her cooking and baking recipes and can dictate to you the exact measurements while she's out 

Stick her in any group of people and she'll make a best friend right away. She has a knack for socializing while the rest of us don't have that talent. She's the social butterfly in our family. And our family is all the better for it. She's the one who finds people we need the most, like a good pulmonologist, a good vet, a good supplier for something we need in the family business. She's got her powers and I'm happy I have her as a mom.

Mothers in general are able to compensate for what their family lacks as shown by my mom. A friend of mine has a very religious mother. He and his dad are not religious at all. Another friend's mom is very frantic and cautious of everything while the rest of the family is chill, calm and collected. That may not sound good but momma's always right so her frantic opinion does serve their family well. Another friend's mom has more of the authoritarian role in their family while their dad takes the more loving father role.

Mothers never appear in the same shape or form but are always what their family needs. Take some time to think about your mother and how her quirks serve your family for the better.