My Response to an Atheist in the Manila Times

The following is my response to a columnist at the Manila Times. It is printed on their website today. The Times freely discusses spiritual themes from different points of view, unlike most newpapers/web sites which tend to avoid the subject as much as possible unless it's a defamatory story.

The columnist, Rigoberto Tiglao is an atheist and points out some interesting fact on how "Acts of God" affect people in terms of faith. Of course, he is referring to Super Typhoon Haiyan, called Yolande in the Philippines. He also quotes Epicurus, a 4th century Greek philosopher who dismissed God through his own logic. 

The entire article can be read at: http://manilatimes.net/do-acts-of-god-create-more-believers/53511/

Epicurus argument: “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then, he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? The why is there? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

The first Super Typhoon - the Biblical Flood

Responses to Do ‘Acts of God’ create more believers?
Gary Wm Myers says:
November 17, 2013 at 2:31 pm

Mr. Tiglao,

Thank you for that well-written and well thought out article. You make some excellent points. However there are some gaps in your logic. For instance, Epicurus’ reasoning is very limited; he does not understand that God gave man free will and authority over the earth. Free will means the freedom to choose good or evil. The freedom to choose evil must come with the freedom to do evil, otherwise it’s just an illusion.

If God were to intervene (for instance, to stop the sexual abuse of 100,000 children in the Philippines), then man would have no free will at all. Man must have the ability to choose good or evil in order to spend eternity with God. That is why we are here on this planet – to prepare for Eternity.

God can, and does intervene at times, but He takes His authority to do so from those who pray. To do otherwise is to usurp the very authority He gave man over the earth. Then you would call him a hypocrite.

Your article ignores the question of Who Jesus Christ was (is), and it assumes that God doesn’t exist, therefore all communication with God is one way and God has never proved His existence.

God has proved Himself to millions of Christians in many, many ways. He is not part of our imagination but a very real part of our lives. That you cannot communicate with Him is because you are not willing to believe. It’s always a question of will. Once you are willing, God can begin to open your eyes to the truth. Are you willing?

Typhoon Haiyan and Climate Change, What's the Connection?

Reported by Der Spiegel. 

Many at the climate conference in Warsaw and around the world see a link between global warming and the devastating typhoon in the Philippines. But several studies point to other causes -- and even more worrisome trends.

Typhoon Haiyan

 The UN climate conference got off to a deeply emotional start in Warsaw on Monday. "It's time to stop this madness," said Yeb Sano, the lead Filipino delegate, fighting tears over the death toll of an estimated 10,000 from the typhoon catastrophe, in an address to his counterparts from almost 200 countries. The world must finally reach an agreement, he continued, to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions in an effort to halt global warming.

"We refuse to accept that running away from storms, evacuating our families, suffering the devastation and misery, having to count our dead, become a way of life," Sano said.

Environmental organizations back Sano's stance. "While we can't yet say how much climate change influenced this monster typhoon, we do know that extreme weather events are becoming more extreme and frequent because of climate change," wrote Daniel Mittler, the political director of Greenpeace International, on Sunday. Like other environmental activists, Mittler believes governments "in cahoots with the fossil fuel industry" have helped cause such extreme weather events, which they expect to become more frequent.

Stefan Rahmstorf, a researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), outside Berlin, also agrees. "How can those who do all they can to fight climate-protection measures sleep in view of the images coming out of the Philippines?" he asks.

Typhoon Haiyan was one of the, if not the strongest hurricane to hit land.

Can the deadly typhoon really be attributed to man-made climate change? Statistics reveal other causal connections. For example, the way in which houses, dikes and settlements are built plays a decisive role in determining how many people will be hurt by a storm. In the United States, this has led to a steady decrease in hurricane-related deaths since 1900 despite significant rises in both the population densities and storm frequencies in at-risk areas. For Haiti, there are studies claiming that "urbanization in and migration into storm hazard prone areas could be considered as one of the major driving forces of (its) fragility" when affected by storms.

This is a causal connection? I don't think so. While it is a factor in the degree of damage done by storms, that has changed little in the past hundred years. That storms are getting more violent is a given. The reason they are getting more violent is because ocean temperatures are getting warmer.

As a result of such factors, storms even weaker than "Haiyan" could result in even extremer catastrophes.

For example, tropical cyclone "Nargis" killed almost 140,000 people in Burma when it struck in May 2008 even though it was two categories on the hurricane scale below "Haiyan" when it made landfall.

In March, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will publish its fifth and newest assessment report on the state of climate change. In the second part of a draft of the report, the organization stresses the importance of constructing more robust buildings that can better withstand storms. A richer world might be able to protect itself better: Measured in terms of global economic output, one study finds, increasing prosperity could cut storm-caused damage in half by the end of the century.

Duh? Increasing prosperity could solve a lot of problems. But they offer no suggestions as to how to accomplish this. Nor do they offer any probability of that happening. Frankly, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for third world countries to become wealthy.

But that is only one side of the story. The other is the long-debated question of whether global warming can change the nature of storms. A lack of data makes analysis more difficult, and it wasn't until roughly 30 years ago that it became possible to make systematic observations based on satellite data. Before that, storms were appraised in large part based on data related to damage and sea level. And flights by courageous pilots into the eye of the storms.

In its most recent assessment on global warming, released in September, the IPCC stated that there were no identifiable long-term trends when it comes to tropical cyclones, which are also known as hurricanes or typhoons. However, there are fears that the strongest storms could grow even more destructive.

Map shows very warm water where Haiyan developed

Tropical storms draw their energy from warm water. But the equation "warmer oceans equals more storms" doesn't hold true. The phenomenon known as wind shear as well as airborne dust particles can weaken them. Indeed, some have posited that reductions in air pollution in the Western world since the late 1970s have contributed to an increase in hurricane activity over the Atlantic since then. This ignores a significant drop in tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic in the past few years.

In 2012, researchers from the University of Copenhagen reported that hurricane activity in the Atlantic had been rising for decades and had now grown as strong as it was at the end of the 19th century. However, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) states that this trend was broken in the Atlantic at the turn of the millennium. The 2013 storm season, which ends in November, has so far been especially mild, with only two hurricanes, especially considering all the pessimistic forecasts published at the beginning of the year.

The WMO also reports that, over the last decade, there has been below-average tropical storm activity. In fact, Ryan Maue, a climate researcher at Florida State University, wrote in 2011 that worldwide tropical storm activity has reached a low point. Another study, from 2012, calculates that the number of storms has been declining since 1872.

Nevertheless, there is still the question of where things will go from here. The IPCC states that simulations predict there will be fewer tropical storms as the global temperature rises. Brilliant, since that is what has been happening.

But the most unsettling finding is that the strongest storms could get even stronger. The consequences of this could be grave, writes Yale University researcher Robert Mendelsohn. According to his estimates, the strongest 1 percent of storms could cause more than half of the damage of all storm activity combined.

So there you have the reality. Hurricanes will be less frequent, but some will be much stronger than we have become used to.

However, since these giant storms come so infrequently, experts say it might be centuries before it is possible to actually measure the effects of climate change. Personally, I don't think they will be so infrequent in the coming decades. Just a year ago we had Superstorm Sandy, in 2005 Rita was the 4th strongest Atlantic hurricane on record, at the time.

For the Philippines, other changes in the earth's climate might prove much more worrisome. For example, there are hardly any other places where the sea level is rising as quickly, and storm floods there continue to get higher. What's more, climate researchers expect to see more precipitation in a warmer world, as milder air can retain more moisture. As a result, typhoons could trigger even greater flooding.

Massive Festival in Santiago, Chile, to Push for Gay Rights in Elections

Tens of thousands of Chileans will gather outside the presidential palace on Saturday in support of same-sex marriage and transgender rights — social issues backed by seven out of the nine presidential candidates set to go head to head Nov. 17.

Great! Because the world needs more of these, whatever they are. Personally, I couldn't care less about same-sex marriage, as long as I don't have to perform the wedding service. But adoption rights - that's a form of sexual abuse in my world. God help us!

The Movement for Integration and Homosexual Freedom (MOVILH) — the event’s organizer — is the author of “Por un Chile Diverso,” a legislative platform for combatting sexual discrimination in Chile. With the exception of Regionalist Party of Independents (PRI) candidate Ricardo Israel and Evelyn Matthei — candidate for the right-leaning Alianza coalition — all presidential hopefuls have expressed support for the platform, which calls for same-sex marriage with adoption rights, the creation of a Diversity Ministry and a gender identity law which would allow individuals to change their name and sex without having to go through a judicial process.

Churches Using Beer to Attract New Members

In an attempt to combat dwindling attendance levels and add new members to their shrinking congregations, some churches in the U.S. are starting to think outside the box -- by embracing the bottle.

I guess this is what happens when the Holy Spirit is not present and active in your church. When He is, he draws people to the church. When you have to use beer to draw people to the church, it's time to revisit your relationship with the Lord.

Church-in-a-pub is a Forth Worth, Texas congregation that enjoys craft beer with Sunday evening services. The meetings are described as "salvation and everlasting life with really good beer." 

NPR reports that the Lutheran service attracts 30-40 parishioners each week at a local brew pub, where they order pizza and pints of beer and then have church — communion included.

"I find the love, I find the support, I find the non-judgmental eyes when I come here," said 28-year-old church member Leah Stanfield to NPR. "And I find friends that love God, love craft beer."

Forget Rob Ford, Remember Mel Lastman?

The mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford, is under some pressure to step down because of his admission of using crack while in office. His hilarious defense was that he was in a drunken stupor at the time. That's a lot better. 

Rob Ford

The things he says in press conferences are just mind-blowing. Like after his admission of using crack, he said he felt 1000 pounds lighter. One look at Rob Ford and that doesn't even need a punch line.

But we should hardly be shocked by Rob Ford; Toronto has a history of electing whacky mayors. Remember Mel Lastman, Mayor of Toronto from 1997-2003? Here is what Wikipedia has to say about him:

Having adopted the nickname "the Bad Boy" for himself and developed Bad Boy Furniture into a chain of stores around the Toronto area. "Bad Boy" Lastman was associated with many publicity stunts, including travelling to the Arctic in the 1960s to "sell a refrigerator to an Eskimo."

In 1993, Lastman saw Clinton impersonator Tim Waters on television, and shortly afterwards contacted him and arranged for a commercial to be shot. The commercial featured Waters dressed as Clinton delivering the classic Nooooooobody! line. While merely a mildly amusing commercial to most of the viewing public, Lastman's move attracted attention, as he soon received a letter from the White House requesting that he "cease and desist all unauthorized use of the likeness of the President of the United States of America in advertising of commercial services and products". Lastman refused to stop airing the commercials, and even produced several more, featuring both Waters and a Hillary Clinton impersonator. "Last time I checked," Lastman quipped, "this was Canada, not the 51st state."

Lastman gained national attention after multiple snowstorms, including the Blizzard of 1999, dumped 118 cm of snow and effectively closed the city.[3] He proceeded to have the Canadian Forces (Army) aid in helping to shovel snow, and use their equipment to augment police and emergency services.

In June 2001, shortly before leaving for Mombasa, Kenya to support Toronto's bid for the 2008 Summer Olympics, he jokingly said to a reporter "What the hell do I want to go to a place like Mombasa?... I'm sort of scared about going out there, but the wife is really nervous. I just see myself in a pot of boiling water with all these natives dancing around me." The remarks sparked a firestorm of controversy, with much speculation that they would offend African IOC members and endanger Toronto's bid. Lastman apologized profusely for those remarks. IOC Vice-President Dick Pound later stated that the comments did not affect the outcome of the bid.

In January 2002, Lastman was ridiculed for hugging and shaking hands with members of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang when they held a convention in Toronto. Lastman later claimed that he didn't know that the Hells Angels were involved in selling illegal drugs.

During the 2003 SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) crisis, Lastman did an interview on CNN. When he was asked what the World Health Organization was doing about the crisis, Lastman replied "They don't know what they're talking about. I don't know who this group is. I've never heard of them before."

After his wife Marilyn was caught shoplifting from an Eaton's store in Toronto, he threatened to kill CITY-TV reporter Adam Vaughan unless he stopped reporting on his family.

During his reign as mayor, Lastman and his wife held a surprise news conference announcing that he had a 14 year long extramarital affair with Grace Louie, a former Bad Boy employee. Louie, along with her two sons by Lastman, sued for 6 million dollars claiming that they were his illegitimate children but had not received sufficient child support. Lastman denied responsibility for the two children and successfully fought them off when they tried to claim a share of his estate, although it was already revealed that he was indeed their father.

To be fair, he did accomplish some things. Among his accomplishments as mayor of Toronto, Lastman brought World Youth Day to Toronto in 2002. He also succeeded in pushing the construction of the TTC Sheppard line, the first new subway line in decades. He played a key role in the negotiations that had the Empress Walk condominium complex developed and two leading schools refurbished, all without using public funds.

The Incredible, Horrific Story of General Butt Naked

For years, Joshua Milton Blahyi, better known as General Butt Naked, was one of Liberia's most feared warlords. Then he became a pastor. Today he visits the families of his victims to seek forgiveness for his sins.

Blayhi aka General Butt Naked

On a Tuesday about six years ago, an attempt was made to quantify Joshua Milton Blahyi's guilt. The president of his native Liberia had appointed a nine-member commission of human rights activists, lawyers, journalists and priests to determine what he had done during the civil war. At the beginning of the 132-minute hearing, they asked him a question: "How many victims were there?" The camera images from the hearing show Blahyi sitting there, dressed in white trousers, a white shirt and white shoes, pondering the question. How many had he killed?

He looked in front of him, into the large, opulent room in which the hearing was taking place. He seemed both focused and completely relaxed. During the war, the spot where the commission was now sitting had been occupied by an overturned presidential throne, a pile of feces and a shiny black Steinway piano. Its legs had been carefully removed, as if surgically amputated. At the time, Blahyi controlled the streets of the Liberian capital Monrovia and went by a different name.

The war, which lasted from 1989 to 2003, claimed 250,000 lives. A million people left the country and up to 20,000 children were recruited as soldiers. Reporters brought home photos of child soldiers wearing Halloween masks and women's wigs, eating human hearts and decorating streets intersections with bones. Families paid for magic spells that they hoped would offer them protection, either with money or by sacrificing a family member. The leaders adopted noms de guerre that could have been taken from films, or nightmares, which they often were: General Rambo, General Bin Laden, General Satan.

Blahyi had a reputation for being more brutal than other military leaders. Everyone knows his nom de guerre, which he says he will never lose: General Butt Naked. He was a cannibal who preferred to sacrifice babies, because he believed that their death promised the greatest amount of protection. He went into battle naked, wearing only sneakers and carrying a machete, because he believed that it made him invulnerable -- and he was in fact never hit by a bullet. His soldiers would make bets on whether a pregnant woman was carrying a boy or a girl, and then they would slit open her belly to see who was right.

Blahyi is now a priest who goes to chess club on Saturdays.

When asked about his victims, he turned his head to the side and wiped his neck. He had only learned to speak English a few years earlier, and he chose his words carefully. He had shaved his cheeks and his massive head, and sweat was running down his forehead. In the end, he said: "I don't know the entire… the entire… the entire number… but if I… if I… were to calculate it… everything I have done… it would be… it shouldn't be fewer than 20,000."

A Murderer with Few Peers

There are only a few people in the world accused of a similar number of murders as Blahyi. But no one responded to the accusations against him in the same way he did. Kaing Guek Eav, the head of the Khmer Rouge prison camp in Cambodia, where about 15,000 people were tortured and murdered, referred to himself as an ordinary secretary who had obeyed orders, like everyone else in the machinery. Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic, accused of acts of genocide that led to the deaths of 8,000 people in Srebrenica and 11,000 in Sarajevo, called the accusations "monstrous words" that he had never heard before. And General Augustin Bizimungu, who helped write the death lists in Rwanda, said nothing at all.

Blahyi answered each question conscientiously, even when he was asked about the taste of human flesh. The record of the hearing, in which he is confronted with his earlier statements, is kept on file in Liberia's national archive.

"'I recruited children who were nine or 10 years old.' Is this correct?"

"Yes."

"'I planted violence into them. I explained to them that killing people was a game.' Is this correct?"

"Correct."

"'When I shot and wounded an enemy, I would rip open his back and eat his live heart.' Is this correct?"

"Let me be more precise…I also laid down the body and had my child soldiers cut the person to pieces, so that they wouldn't have any feelings for people."

"Are you the same Joshua Milton Blahyi they now call Blahyi the Evangelist?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Why did you decide, in light of this … past, to come to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission?"

"For my faith. I was told that I should tell the truth, and the truth will set me free."

Man of God, or Fraud?

On a Sunday in July, five years after the hearing, Blahyi is preaching to his congregation. The odor of slaughterhouse waste permeates the church in Monrovia. Outside, a child is urinating in the sand. It's the rainy season, but the church is filled with young women in colorful dresses, businessmen wearing ties and parents cradling their children. They have spent three hours singing, dancing and praying. It was more like a festival than a church service, and now, as the event reaches its climax, the man they have been waiting for appears: Pastor Blahyi. He is wearing a white vest. He takes the microphone in his hand and says: "Take your seats. Hallelujah. I want to talk to you about blessings. Praise the Lord!"

He now calls himself Joshua, after the biblical successor to Moses. He preaches the Word of God. He has built a mission for former child soldiers he finds in the streets, and he gives them food and clothing. He has adopted three children. He has more than 2,500 friends on Facebook. He is grateful when he is praised, and he is as happy as a small child when someone embraces him. "He is a good boy," says his mother, who now cooks for the former child soldiers. "Generous and funny," say his children, who now live with him. "A new person," says his wife.

Is it possible that a war criminal can become a man of God? Or is he a fraud? That's the accusation: that he puts on the mask of a preacher every Sunday, but that beneath the mask he remains a murderer.

Blahyi, 42, is sitting on the terrace behind his house in the northern part of Monrovia. He is a heavyset man who once had the body of a fighter. Neighbors are hanging up their laundry. Children are shouting in the garden of the house next door. His daughters, who are on school vacation, are in the kitchen making a salad for the chicken dinner that is about to be served. Blahyi likes having his family around him. He talks about his eldest son Joshua, who is now 12 and about to enter high school, and who wants to become an aeronautical engineer. Blahyi watches a butterfly flying over the palm trees. His eyes become soft when he talks about his children. "I think they're proud of me," he says.

"Do you sleep well at night?"

"I am blessed with good sleep."

"Are you happy?"

 "Yes, very."
"Will you go to heaven?"

"That's what it says in the Bible. He who believes in Jesus shall not be condemned."

Does he deserve to go to Heaven? Absolutely not! But while we are nowhere near guilty of the atrocities Blahi committed, we, nevertheless, do not deserve to go to Heaven any more than he. "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God". But by the grace of God through the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ, we have forgiveness of sins.

Gender 'Indeterminate'?

In the black and white world of evangelical Christians, this phenomena does not fit well. We believe that all life is created by God, and that God makes no mistakes; and yet, how does one explain this?

One can't help but think that it is better to wait and see how the child develops before making a decision, if indeed, a decision is possible.

Germany has become Europe's first country to allow babies with characteristics of both sexes to be registered as neither male nor female.

Parents are now allowed to leave the gender blank on birth certificates, in effect creating a new category of "indeterminate sex".

The move is aimed at removing pressure on parents to make quick decisions on sex assignment surgery for newborns. However, some campaigners say the new law does not go far enough.

As many as one in 2,000 people have characteristics of both sexes.

They are known as "intersex" people because they have a mixture of male and female chromosomes or even genitalia which have characteristics of both genders.

The intense difficulty for parents is often that a gender has to be chosen very quickly so that the new child can be registered with the authorities, the BBC's Steve Evans in Berlin reports. Sometimes surgery is done on the baby to turn its physical characteristics as far as possible in one direction or the other, our correspondent says.

The law in Germany has been changed following a review of cases which revealed great unhappiness.

In one case, a person with no clear gender-defining genitalia was subjected to surgery. The person said many years later: "I am neither a man nor a woman. I will remain the patchwork created by doctors, bruised and scarred."

German passports, which currently list the holder's sex as M for male or F for female, will have a third designation, X, for intersex holders, according to the interior ministry.

It remains unclear what impact the change will have on marriage and partnership laws in Germany.

Current laws define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, and civil partnerships are reserved for same-sex couples.

Silvan Agius of IGLA-Europe, which campaigns for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and intersex people, said the law needed to go further. "While on the one hand it has provided a lot of visibility about intersex issues... it does not address the surgeries and the medicalisation of intersex people and that's not good - that has to change," he told the BBC.

While Germany is the first country in Europe to legally recognise a third gender, several other nations have already taken similar steps.      

Third gender recognition
Australia - passport applications since 2011
Bangladesh - passport applications since 2011
Germany - on birth certificates from 2013
India - electoral roll since 2009
Nepal - census since 2007
New Zealand - passport applications since 2012

Australians have had the option of selecting "x" as their gender - meaning indeterminate, unspecified or intersex - on passport applications since 2011. A similar option was introduced for New Zealanders in 2012.

In South Asia, Bangladesh has offered an "other" gender category on passport applications since 2011.

Nepal began recognising a third gender on its census forms in 2007 while Pakistan made it an option on national identity cards in 2011.

India added a third gender category to voter lists in 2009.

While transgender or intersex people have long been accepted in Thailand and are officially recognised by the country's military, they do not have any separate legal status.