Bad Dogma! "Your karma ran over my dogma."

We are all guilty of our own dogmas in certain rights. We take on faith what our teachers (spiritual or academic) tell us and what we read in our respective texts. Most scientists and academics are just as guilty of this as anyone else. I take it on "faith" that the earth is round and revolves around the sun- cuz I "learned" it in school and read it in books, not because I've sat there with a telescope and personally made the observations and calculations that would corroborate this. I "know" evolution to be true, not because I've personally perused the fossil record but because that's what most biologists supposedly agree on.

Are we the believers of science not also guilty of our own dogmas as well, then? In this life, what we know to be true is limited to what we have experienced, and everything else is, in a sense, "faith," no? But it's the things that contradict that which we have seen and heard and know of life; sometimes our firm hold to dogma keeps us from interpreting these things for what they really are. Whereas the religious are too apt to believe in miracles; science is too hesitant to admit that often miracles (, or random anomalies if you prefer,) DO occur to which logic cannot always lend a reasonable explanation. (Though, whether or not you wanna attribute these to divine intervention is another question altogether.) Open your eyes (& mind) to what the world throws at you and try not to be blinded by your faith, whatever it may be.

Loosen your hold to dogma. (The Devil is in the details.) It is not now, nor do I think it will ever be, within the power of scientists to definitively disprove the existence of a god. It IS, however, within science's power to disprove the events, details, and minutiae claimed by scripture. The weakness of religion's armor is in the element which would interpret, believe, and adhere to the scriptures literally. In the end, it's just stories. Isn't religion supposed to be more about how to live a meaningful and "purpose-driven" life? Why is evolution such an enemy to religion? Cuz it goes against the idea of an all-powerful God that did everything EXACTLY as it's said in some book written by human hands? Is a 40 day boat ride with animals really that significant to the overall message of your religion?

Religion is a vehicle by which lessons of ethics and morality are more easily conveyed to the public. But people so easily miss the point and focus on the inconsequential details or follow orders long after their context is no longer relevant. It's like if you heard that fable about the ant and the grasshopper (the one about how the ant spends his fall gathering & storing food but the grasshopper doesn't; then come winter, one of them starves) and concluded from it that grasshoppers are lazy and contemptible, and that come their time of need, we should abandon them because they were too stupid to help themselves. You'd be missing the point entirely. And yet it seems that's what happens with literal interprations of religion everywhere. For instance, Jews & Muslims not eating pork. This supposedly had its origins in health & public sanitation. Pigs hang out with poop; don't wanna eat any residual poop, so don't eat pigs- simple. Or alternately, the original Muslims were a desert people, and meat from pigs slaughtered in the desert (without proper refridgeration, etc.) is prone to spoilage like within the hour- not healthy, so don't eat pork. Given the advances in food sanitation and the like, the original purpose no longer applies. Yet people of faith will do as their religion commands, despite how utterly delicious pork can be. People remember the orders they are given, long after they cease to remember the reason they were ordered to carry them out.

I dunno, I guess in life, you ultimately have to decide who/what you place your [faith] in. Life's too complicated to have to go through verifying every little fact for yourself. We all choose things/people to believe without question. I suppose ultimately, we can only hope for the openness of mind to recognize any possible contradictions between what we experience and what we've "learned."

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference."
~Reinhold Niebuhr, Serenity Prayer

Sarah Phelps' Modern Dance for Beginners. I went and watched this play yesterday evening that was not particularly about dance, but rather about relationships... and sex. To quote the program, "It's about having what you don't want and wanting what you can't have." It had me thinking for awhile afterwards. To put the general plot into a metaphor: Let's say you like eating sandwiches, love it. Then one day, you wake up and say to yourself, what am I doing with myself? I'm __ years old and I'm still here eating sandwiches like a pauper?? So in your confusion, you decide that in order to feel high class, you shall eat escargot instead... for the rest of your life. So you stick the sandwich in the fridge and have escargot, and you think you're making the right choice, but all the while, you're thinking about that sandwich. And the escargot's not all too happy about not being enjoyed either. And eventually the sandwich in the fridge goes bad hoping & waiting for you, and is thrown out. Then a hobo digging through the dumpster can't enjoy the sandwich either, regardless of how hungry and sandwich-loving he may be, cuz it's gone bad waiting. Then one day, passionate craving overtakes you, and you spring for a pita- cuz that's kinda like a sandwich, right? But it isn't- you're just fooling yourself; and it's not really fair to the pita either, to be confused for a sandwich. Well, enough with the food analogy; I think I'm just hungry, heh. But yea, I guess the moral of the story is: if you find the sandwich of your life, stick with it- to hell with what other people think about your food choices, otherwise you'll always be thinking about that one sandwich. Anyways, it was an amusing play; quite thought-provoking... and now I'm gonna go have something to eat. =P

I finished reading Life of Pi last week or so; liked it a lot. I feel like I gained a lot of insight into how animals think. For instance, I learned that under the right conditions, animals are no less "free" in a zoo than they are in the wild. They're no more "trapped" in their enclosures than humans are in the houses they call their homes. Learned that EVERY animal in the wild is a vicious killing machine when it needs to be; no such thing as cuddly pettable animals other than domesticated ones. Also learned that lions in a circus do as they're told cuz they view the lion tamer as the alpha male; social hierarchy is apparently of utmost importance in animal society (and human society too, as I'll talk about in a moment). And of course, you pick up a bit about survival on the high seas- turtles are easy prey, apparently. Then at the end of the book, various levels of symbolism are revealed that make you sit there and think wow, what an intricately constructed story. Very good book- one of my new favorites.

All Hail the Alpha Male. After thinking about it a bit, I realized how much humans behave according to social hierarchy as well. Take the weightroom, for example. When you feel like you're the big dog, the alpha male, you walk with a bit more swagger, talk with a bit more bass in your voice. You're less likely to clear out and make room for others- it's your right, no? You're entitled to take your time in your territory. More likely to leave some weights lying around in your general vicinity- marking your territory. And when you lift, your grunts become a bit more audible- akin to the roar of the beast. And of course, the scrawniest guys often try to chum it up with the biggest guys- omegas trying to get in the alphas' good graces. If you're the small one, you're prone to let the big guys do whatever the hell they want. Anyways, I'm sure similar behavior happens in any environment- in the workplace, at home, etc. Just goes to show how people are still just animals deep down, I think.

*Also finished watching the anime series Getbackers. It was ok I guess. There were some pretty heavy yaoi overtones, and one of the main characters could get annoying at times. Overall though, the story was pretty good- decent overall resolution with only a couple loose ends.

I attended the wedding of Clara's sister this past Thursday (11/3) cuz I'd never attended a traditional Chinese style wedding (or at least not while I've been old enough to remember), and I was curious and thought it'd make for a culturally educational experience. So the way it goes down (or at least they do nowadays), things begin at the bride's (parents') house. The groom shows up with his entourage, and the bridesmaids & siblings test his resolution and intent, putting him through a series of mini-ordeals. The groom gives a series of red packets of increasing $$ value (of amounts ending in -8, cuz it's auspicious); when the siblings are satisfied, they let the groom into the house. The groom then works his way to the bride's room, more ordeals. Then the bride & groom see each other and do the usual bridey-groomy thing? Then the bride & groom leave to go to the groom's (family's) house. As they leave, the bride's father holds a red umbrella over her as she walks out. Once at the groom's (family's ) place, they have to kneel and serve tea to like every one of the groom's (older?) relatives- one couple at a time. (If they're not significantly older than the new couple, everyone just stands.) Then they go back to the bride's family's house and do the tea thing with those relatives. Then the younger relatives wish the couple a prosperous future and receive red packets. That's the general gist of things, or at least what I understood of the whole procedure. Oh yea, and the bride & groom ate (pink-coloured) dumplings at some point in there; I think that was important somehow.

But yea, apparently, there's not like an officially standardized process for this wedding thing. The elders just kinda recount how things are kinda supposed to go (or how they went in their day), and the young'uns just sort of use their imaginations? Oh, and they don't rehearse things beforehand at all; come wedding day, they just wing it completely. Bright colors (especially red, of course) appear to be important in the whole thing; I was asked not to dress up in black & white. And there was food like everywhere too; dunno if that's like a part of the tradition, or if it's just Singaporean- Singaporeans do love their food. (Well, I dunno, I guess that's like saying black people like their chicken... and watermelon, hahaha. =P *ahem* ...in that one could question the validity of both stereotypes.)

Afterwards, the reception had a lot of the makings of a Western style reception. The wedding cake wasn't real though. The bride & groom made a show of putting a knife into something resembling a cake, but that's all there is to it- you don't eat it afterwards. The food was served in a hybrid of Chinese & Western styles. There were many Chinese-style courses (like 9 or so, I think) but they were portioned and served to the diners individually by the wait staff, despite the presence of a lazy susan on each table. And the bride & groom, and VIP's weren't like separated from the other diners in any way to make them the center of attention. There weren't any speeches either, nor dances. Oh yea, and they do these toasts where everyone yells "Yom Seng!" (holding each syllable for like 10 seconds), which I believe translates to roughly "cheers" in Hokkien(?), prior to drinking.

But yea, the couple in question had been legally married for quite some time beforehand, but they didn't move (out of their respective families' houses and) in together until after the ceremony. This emphasizes the importance and precedence of tradition, I guess. Anyways, I think I learned a lot, and the wedding was quite a positive experience overall. Everyone was really nice to me, and I'm grateful for their hospitality in just letting a near-stranger like me join in on their special day.