Feeling intellectual right now? Try this: Philosophy of Work

Here's a summary of my Philosophy class on why persons work:

Work is part of the humanization -- that which makes a person more human, and different from animals -- process of man. By definition, "work is the activity which man exercises in a free and burdensome way, with the purpose of acquiring the means to satisfy his own needs and wants."

Let's face it. We have to work if we want to achieve something. Analyze the statement closely. Work is clearly a means, and not an end. it is an activity that has an end outside itself. The activity that does not have an end outside itself is contemplation, an end in itself.

Distinguishing roles, as in your role as a CEO and your role as a father or mother, has a tendency to split the personality of the person as if he or she is a different person at work, and at home. [Maybe that's why there are schizophrenics... hmmm.]

Although work humanizes us, it can also dehumanize us when we start becoming workaholics. We know that we are workaholics when we have already destroyed our social life.

To end, "Work is for man. Man is for others. Man is for God."

What's your worth?

I just saw an episode of Grey's Anatomy season 3 (don't ask me how I got to see it already) when our dear Dr. Preston Burke deals with his nerve problems in his right hand. He has lost control over his right surgical hand. The girlfriend forces him to practice and do home therapy to improve his "nerves" because she says, "You're Preston Burke. You need to practice." Christina implies that Dr. Burke won't be Dr. Burke without his surgical hands because he is good at it.

That episode promotes function as our worth. If we don't function, we are nothing. Same philosophy that drives people crazy and eventually to suicide (or at the least depression). People who lose one of their body parts undergo some sort of crisis. They start feeling worthless. When a painter loses his sight, he suddenly feels worthless. When a pianist loses his hands, he feels worthless. When a runner loses one or both his legs, he feels worthless.

It is as if our value as persons lies on how we function. But we are not just our eyes, our hands, our legs. We are our whole body. Our being, our soul, is not concentrated in our little pinky or in our hands. Our soul is in our being. Our worth is based on the fact that we have souls.

We will really commit suicide or euthanasia if we think that only people who function are worth keeping or loving. Might as well terminate the life of a sleeping person right?

Going back to our dear Preston Burke. Christina Yang should not later decide to break up with Dr. Burke because he "stopped" being that Preston Burke she originally fell in love with (i.e. the famous cardio-surgeon in Seattle Grace Hospital).

Haaay, love. When you have finally married your boyfriend now, would you give him up if he loses one of his body parts or even his sanity? Just remember, he may not be the same old guy before he lost his hand, but he is still the man you fell in love with and made a vow of being with him "'til death do [you] part".

So, what's your worth based on?

Very Catholic at the Core

Last night, like any other time when I drop Veevs at her place, we have an hour or so "car talk" before she really goes down from my car. Yes, with the A/C and engine running. Good thing we still haven't been poisoned. :P

She was telling me how the people in her workplace were. She told me that most of her openly gay colleagues have recently gotten converted to "Victory", a Protestant sect popular among the famous celebrities. She told me how her colleagues tried to convince her to join Victory with them, and how Victory has turned them into a celibate. Now they are turning their conference room into a Bible study sessions room.

What's funny is that the Catholic faith does exactly the same. We have a group called "Courage" that encourages admitted gays to live a celibate life. We are also encourage to study the Bible although memory of the text is not the key to going to heaven.

The thing is about Victory and similar protestant sects, they give their constituents a picture that it is very easy to go to heaven as opposed to the apparently rigorous teaching of the Catholic Church. Well, for a fact, nothing is really easy in this life. It is just that we want the "easy way out".

Veevs, for the first time, has felt that she is part of a minority, and has strongly felt the need to protect her faith even more strongly. A director she has worked with also told my friend that she did try to attend of the Vitctory sessions, but as soon as she heard the Pastor badmouthing the Pope, she exclaimed, "Ah that's it. I'm outta here." Mind you, this director is openly a lesbian. She confesses to my friend: "You know, although I am like this, inside, I am a conservative."

For people like this director, they know that the Catholic faith is The One. The true faith. They just find it difficult to embrace everything about the Catholic faith. It's like you know that ampalaya is good for your blood, it's just hard to eat it because it is so bitter to the taste. Nevertheless, people eat ampalaya and have grown accustomed to its taste because they use their heads and think that it is indeed good for them to take ampalaya.

For the converts out there, we try to look for other religious organizations, only to find that whatever it is that we liked in our newly found "family", it was there all along in our Catholic faith. We just didn't give the true faith a chance.

Talking to an Atheist

Yesterday afaternoon, while my students were busy fixing their Reading
Corner for the competition, a student of mine called my attention
saying that "how can Jesus feed 5,000 people with just 5 loaves and 2
fish?". Of course, my adrenalin rushed out to explain to my
self-proclaimed atheist student that it is because it was a miracle.
God does exist. He counterargued saying that science cannot explain
that, therefore, it is not true. It couldn't have possibly happened. I
have tried all arguments philosophical and theological, but typical of
atheist, he was closed to any dialogue about the thought that God may
exist.

His
point is that everything is based on science. I asked him to look
around him, and see the grandeur of the structure of the universe, and
he said, "Miss, it's all the art of science." Even if I asked him if he
actually believes that science created the tree, he would not budge and
just be convinced that everything is science. I asked him who created
science, and he said, science.

The problem with the way he
thinks is that science does not create. They invent. They discover what
already exists, and try to reinvent what is already created. Science
synthesizes parts of creation to make some new things like a space ship
or a car or a skateboard.

I am not saying the science is not
right. It is right when it only deals what it can. Theology and
philosophy studies the abstract things of love, happiness, sorrow.
Science studies the physical world, the non-abstract world.