You probably heard of the latest stupid craze in America, “The Secret“. It is a book/film that suggests positive thinking to achieve what you want — a book heavily promoted by Oprah. For example, if you want a parking spot here and now, all you have to do is be optimistic about it and visualize it with your head, and voila, it would be there. It’s like having your average 30-year old housewife mastering the power of the String Theory to bend space and time.

Of course, that’s all gibberish. The trend promotes nothing but a modern twist on superstitions!

Personally, I am a pessimist, and this reflects on my review articles (one of the reasons that some of my readers don’t like me). In fact, I often find optimistic people naive. You see, there is a 50-50 chance that a specific bad thing will or won’t happen. I prefer to believe that it will happen, just so when and if it happens, I would be prepared for it and my world won’t collapse. That’s the way I protect myself. The problem with pessimism though is that it can lead to depression. I am often depressed. But at least I am not naive.

Stormrider blogged recently about a friend of his who got into the trap of cults and the supernatural. This is a good opportunity for me to write a bit more about my own similar experiences in my younger age. I have already blogged about my experience with a Christian sect, but I don’t think I’ve blogged about my time in Corfu, when I was studying to become a nurse in the early ’90s.

I hated the nursing studies. Computers was always what I wanted to do, but my parents had a different idea about my future. So, for the 8 months I was forced to be in Corfu (1991-2), I was miserable. I hated the job, the two female teacher-witches we had there, the whole sub-culture in the hospital between the doctors and the established nurses etc. Because I didn’t fit in, and because I am by nature a very curious person, I started reading books. Anything outworldish was welcome. Soon enough, I was the “weirdo” of the class — where my classmates would only be interested in clothes and clubbing, I would prefer to explore what’s beyond. It cost me dearly of course, as the one person I really cared for back then, would not take me seriously after finding out my little interest in parapsychology. Looking back at that era, I find everything and everyone around me at the time to be a complete joke. That includes myself, of course. I was an idiot among [complete] idiots.

I never got into any cults/sects, but I did learn as much as I could about both sides of the subject, and I do give credit to myself for that. I maybe never learned how to properly apply mascara, but geez, I did learn what frauds Uri Geller or astrology or crystals are. I bet my ex-classmate girlfriends still read the astrology column on their husband’s daily newspaper, or even worse, they might occasionally be visiting “readers”. Shortly after my time in Corfu I completely renounced the supernatural and today I am an agnostic and I prefer scientific answers rather than charlatanisms. However, I think it’s important that most young people do go through the process of exploration by themselves — even at the danger of falling at the pitt– by taking the journey and find the right answers and proofs on their own. It’s an age that’s filled by curiosity anyway.

In 1998 I got involved (in a very light manner) with a cult. That was a time where I was living in UK and I was feeling very lonely. I was working in Kingston as a developer, just by the river and I loved the job. But I was so alone and without any help from anyone at that point in time (I had just broke up with my fiance too), that naturally, I needed to find comfort and friendship.

I don’t remember how I met that young Polish woman, but I think she approached me in the train on the way to work. We talked about some things and then she asked me if I was a Christian etc etc. To make the long story short she explained to me that she was a member of the International Church of Christ (ICC) and she asked me if I would like to go to Church with her on Sunday or to do Bible study together.

While I was frequenting Catholic, Orthodox and ‘Church of England’ masses when I felt like doing so, I knew that the ICC was a cult of sorts, so I told her “why don’t we start with Bible study in our lunch breaks, and then we will see if I will come to your church”. And so we did a few times. Basically, they use the same Bible as other Christians do, but they are all about discipline and following the word of the Bible to the letter. So even if Christ or St Paul might have used allegory or being sarcastic (or even funny) about something, they would take the meaning literally. They were black and white in their belief and I also really disliked their “requirement” of giving 10% of your annual income to their “Church”.

Despite this, I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt and follow her in their church once, somewhere in the south-east of London. The mass was pretty nice, there was lots of singing and socializing. The people there all felt to me as being genuinely good people. Nothing really abnormal in them or even in the way the mass was performed. But when the time for getting the communion came (a sort of dry bread IIRC), the basket that was passed around fell off my hands! Of course, I felt really silly and bad about this, but on the other hand, I took this as a sign. In the Orthodox church, which is how I grew up, spitting out the communion or dropping it, is a major offense. IF God exists and wanted to give me a pointer as if I should have joined ICC or not, he would have chosen exactly this: me, throwing down the communion, even if it was by mistake, because he would know that I would react on this.

Despite this again, and of course, with the untiring effort of my friend to get me in their cult, I agreed to visit a house in South London with her to do Bible study with some other ICC members. It was me, her and two more women present in the house, and for about 30 minutes we read the Bible. So far, so good. Then, one of the women there suggested to… baptize me. Of course, I was already baptized in an Orthodox church, but ICC claims that baptism from any other church does not count, because it had happened without the consent of the follower in that early age. They also claim that you can be baptized by any other Christian, not just by a priest. This actually does makes sense, because this is how the first Christians in the 1st and 2nd century A.D. were doing it too (ICC tries to recreate the first Christian life up to a point).

But I wasn’t sure that I wanted to do that. Getting “baptized” by them, it would mean that I would become one of them. I needed time to think… I asked if there was a bathroom around. I visited the bathroom, and guess what: my period had just arrive. And while I have a very steady cycle of period throughout my adult life (28 days), this period has arrived just within 15 days of my previous one! And this is another major pointer for me, because again, according to the Orthodox Church you can’t be baptized, or get communion, or kiss the pictures of the saints if you have your period. Sure, it can all be a coincidence, and it could all be my own subconscious ordering my body to do things it wouldn’t normally do because of my underlying objection to cults. But no matter if it was all a coincidence, or my subconscious or God himself, I didn’t need another pointer. I did not get “baptized” by the ICC members and I never went to their mass again.

Of course, the Polish friend did not stop trying to get me back (aka “bothering me”)… I decided to give her faith one more chance, but this time I was the one who was doing the preaching. One Sunday afternoon that we met up I told her a little story and asked her opinion on it. The story was a 300-year old Greek story about Saint Cosmas o Aitolos (aka ‘Cosmas the Aetolian’). During that time the Greeks were under Turkish occupation. St Cosmas was living in a mountain, in his monastery and he had the respect of both the Turks and the Greeks for known to be being a wise man. One night, a man knocked on his door and he said “Father Cosmas, please hide me! The Turks are after me, I committed a crime in the village at the planes… I killed a man tonight”. Cosmas replied “who did you kill?” and the man replied with a name. True enough, a few minutes later the Turks were banging on the door of St Cosmas. Cosmas hid the killer, and the Turks didn’t even bother to look at the monastery, as they were trusting the monk with his word because of his good reputation.

Then, I asked my Polish friend what did she think about what Cosmas did. And she replied that what he did was wrong to give refuge to a killer and that according to the Bible he should have given him to the authorities. Then I told her the remaining part of the story: the man that was killed was Saint Cosmas brother, and yet, the monk forgave the killer in an act of immense love and care. She replied that this is not what the Bible says that we should do. That was the last straw, I politely told her that I don’t want to see her again. Through this parable and her reaction it was obvious to me that these people are making “dry readings” of the Bible and they don’t even understand the most basic Christian values: love and forgiveness.

“A clutch of modern pagans honored Zeus at a 1,800-year-old temple in the heart of Athens on Sunday — the first known ceremony of its kind held there since the ancient Greek religion was outlawed by the Roman Empire in the fourth century.”

How more stupid people can get? This is a good example of how love for your country goes bad. There is a reason why these pagans are actually educated people. Educated people can see that the modern Greece has nothing to show for itself compared to the old Greece. And because they can’t do anything to fix it, they turn to –foolishly– into the ancient higher powers to bring them hope. In light of this news all I see is people who feel betrayed by modern Greece. But they should get out of it and get a life.

I do hope that the Orthodox and Catholic Churches unite some time soon. Not because I am a believer (I am not), but this will buy them some more time in a growing world where science is the only religion. Strategically, it makes sense for them.

I was discussing with my JBQ after our Sunday lunch about the seperation of Church and State. This exists on most western countries but it’s not as a clear cut in Greece. On Greek public schools you have 3 hours per week learning about Orthodoxy for almost 12 years of public schooling. I personally find this terrible, unbalanced and useless (plus it’s stealing time from more important topics that could be taught, e.g. computer programming).

From all these 12 years, only 1 year (towards the end of high school) Greek teenagers are learning about other religions. To give you an idea, there are about 2-3 pages about Islam, another 2-3 pages about Budhism etc. Even if this sounds like a terrible non-balanced education for Greek kids, it is better than the non-existant religious education on other countries. From all my years on the Greek schools studying about “theology”, that year where we very scarcely were educated about other religions is the only one that actually stuck with me and that I found interesting.

So I thought that it would be nice if western public schools were having 1 hour per week to study religions of the world, just for “general knowledge” purposes.

JBQ argues that it’s not legally possible though to:
a. Put together a few pages per the most followed religions in a book (e.g. 10 of them) without breaking the law, because according to the law all religions are equal so you can’t just study only a few, even if these are the most followed religions.
b. You might have to team together all kinds of Christian churches under the same chapter and that might not acceptably by some organizations. If you do that then Jews, Christians and Muslims must be under the exact same chapter too because they fundamentally believe in the same God. This can create lots of problems with religious organizations because nothing is clear cut.

So yes, there are problems putting together such a book that could be taught in a public school. But on the other hand, we both recognize the need that kids must learn (from a 10,000 ft point of view) about other religions and cursory study them. Be careful, we are not talking about learning about these religions in order to endorse them, but because this is a very good way about learning about PEOPLE of the world and why they do the the things they do or why do they behave the way they do or why they wear the clothes they wear. Learning about their beliefs is about learning about people and this is very good for general knowledge and social acceptance.

But religions are still such a taboo that it’s very difficult to objectively write or teach about them. A shame really.

What’s the meaning of life? What are we suppose to do in life? Well, I had a philosophical thought about it at 2 AM last night while trying to fall asleep (no, not a middle-age crisis and subsequent insomnia but I was just finishing up a review really late). I came up with the following diagram in my head:

The most important thing is procreation, even if this strikes you sour for becoming “just a tool”. The survival of the species is of outmost importance. Procreation is what nature requires of you.
The second most important thing is love. Without it, relationships, understanding, emotional stability wouldn’t work. Love is what family and friends require of you.
The third most important thing is work. Work is good for the person, his/her family and the society. Social progress happens when all types of work take place. Work is what the society requires of you.

I think I have blogged about it in the past but I can’t find the URL at my old Slashdot blog. When I was 14 I asked my (only grammar-school educated) mother what’s the meaning of life. She was at my age back then and she had replied “to have children”. This morning, I called her on the phone and asked her the same thing (she of course got surprised to my question). This time she replied “to work and have fun”. People change I guess, but what they want doesn’t really mean that this is what’s important.

I personally feel that if a person does not satisfy all three rules is not a complete (or even a happy) person. I don’t satisfy all three rules (no children), but most people do and this is actually very encouraging. Monks and other religious people don’t satisfy the procreation rule (and they do that on purpose) and I personally don’t like that (read my justfication in the Bible itself).

If you want to become a better person, just follow the “triangle of life”. It won’t make you “happy” instantly (in fact the goal is not to necessarily make YOU happy) but when you are older and you look back at your life in retrospect, I bet it will fill you up with fullfilment. There is no way you had done a good work and you got paid for it, you have loved & you were loved back and you had healthy children, and not eventually find happiness and balance in this simple life. Your (eventual) happiness that comes out of this simple lifestyle is actually a byproduct, but maybe that’s enough.

Many people make fun of the Amish people, but they are amazing people and we should learn more from them about forgiveness, love and courage.

* Amish girl asked to be shot to save others
* Amish grandfather: ‘We must not think evil of this man’
* Amish leaders set up fund for Roberts’ widow and three children
* Amish mourn gunman who killed 5 girls

From CNN today. The one side says that: “One has to consider the wisdom behind the veil for women. The wisdom behind the veil is for the protection of the woman. It is not oppressive, rather, it is empowering. In a world rampant with sexuality and nakedness, it is refreshing to see a veiled woman with a strong statement about her body: judge her by the contents of her mind, not her body. It is also sign of obedience to the Almighty Allah.”

The other side says that: “I am personally offended to see any woman covered up in the 21st century. I often see them wearing the full burka in Harrow, yet they are always accompanied by men in baseball caps, jeans and trainers. As with a lot of faiths there are always double standards between the sexes.”

Personally, I am sided with the second guy. I am cool for women to wear it if they want to and if it doesn’t interfere with their jobs or activities, but on the other side I think that the veil is something that women were originally imposed to wear rather than something they would agree to by themselves. After hundrends of years I guess it’s now something that they see as “normal”. I just can’t visualize myself ever wearing it, for any reason. If a man wants to judge me for my body, then so be it, he is the one who I would consider an animal, eventually it will be his loss and not mine. Besides, I am ugly enough that he will be probably judging me “for my mind” anyway. Women in some Islamic countries do not have the same freedoms as men do and this is something that I really dislike about their culture.

In other news, life goes on, I am getting this new PMP for a review.

You probably heard of the upcoming movie “The Queen“, starring Helen Mirren portraying the Queen Elizabeth II. Apparently she does a great job and some say that she might get an Oscar.

One thing that it’s a bit uncomfortable though is the fact that the director did not hide Mirren’s Masonic-like tattoo on her left hand while filming and so some people who don’t know that the actual actress has the tattoo and not the Queen, might think that the Queen belongs to a Masonic Lodge. Of course, the Queen might do belong to one (although they don’t like accepting women too often), but the point is that this can lead to misconceptions because the Queen doesn’t have such a tattoo on her hand in reality. If this was any other tattoo I would say “whatever”, but having specifically a Masonic symbol on your hand while portraying the Queen might be seen as ‘messy’ by some. I wonder how the director or the producers missed that.

Mirren has said that she had this tattoo done while she was drunk many years ago.