On Biblical Literalism

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One of the complaints commonly levelled against us born-again Christians is that we take the Bible too literally. Reading some Realm of Thought threads, and having perused some Christian literature and some material by Eli Soriano (He’s a local cult leader.), I’ve gotten to thinking a bit …

(I rarely think more than a bit. Gets tiring, you know. :P )

Do we take the bible literally? How so?

As a Bible Christian, I believe it is inerrant and infallible, the very Word of God itself, but that doesn’t mean I take it ABSOLUTELY at its exact word for every single verse that is in it. If Ecclesiastes declares, “Everything is meaningless!” (Ecc 1:2), I do not believe immediately that life is meaningless. If Psalm 137 calls blessing upon “he who seizes your [Bablyon’s] infants and dashes them against the rocks,” that doesn’t mean I should go down to Persia and start killing Iraqi babies.

What of Old Testament laws about food and sacrifice and uncleanness and the Sabbath? What of New Testament counsel by St. Paul for women to submit wholly to men (1 Tim 2:12), for men to pray with their heads uncovered and women to pray with theirs covered? (1 Cor 11:4-7) What of Jesus’ exhortation to gouge out our eyes or cut off our hands if they cause us to sin? (Mat 5:29-30)

I ask this from my perspective as a born-again Evangelical, who believes that these Words from God are inerrant, and that salvation is freely given to those who trust upon our Lord Jesus the Christ:

Christians, where do we draw the line on how literally we take the Bible? What guidelines are we to follow? We talk about context, about discernment, about guidance of the Holy Spirit, but are we being consistent in our communal interpretations of the basic doctrines found in the Holy Word? If I preach the absoluteness of our forgiveness through Christ’s sacrifice on cross, but I see no problems with keeping my hair long because I consider 1 Cor 11 to be a contextual verse, am I guilty of an inconsistent interpretation?

I’m still thinking about this. One thought keeps poking into my reflections: Jesus Christ came to fulfill the Law, and as disciples of Christ, we are no longer bound by the Law; we instead live by faith, by the Spirit. I know that has some bearing on this matter.

Care to add some meat to that idea?

By the way, it was Raffy’s birthday yesterday, coincidentally, the same day Mir went down. Drop by his site and wish him well.

Mir Down 2

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I’m watching live Mir coverage on CNN. About twenty minutes ago, their reporter in Fiji saw bright flaming fragments of the station soar overhead, plunging through the atmosphere, followed by a sonic boom several minutes later. At 2.00 pm Philippine time, (0600 GMT) what was left of Mir crashed into the Pacific Ocean.

Mir Down

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The space station Mir is on its way down today, rockets pushing it out of orbit, approaching a fiery re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. Farewell, then, to one of humanity’s first baby steps into outer space.

Now I must stop procrastinating and get back to work.

Scuba Diving in Anilao

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I went scuba diving in Anilao with the family last weekend. (FYI, you non-Filipinos, Anilao is a coastal region in Batangas province, south of Manila, well-known worldwide for its diving attractions.) Starting from last weekend, I’ll be logging — and blogging! — my dives, largely in preparation for our planned trip to Palau this summer. (I haven’t logged my dives for years, so I don’t know exactly how many descents I’ve made since I was certified in 1990. I’ll start from fifty. Most likely I’ve had a few dozen more dives than that through the years, but it should be a safe and conservative estimate.)

Saturday morning, We set off from Aquaventure Resort on rented bancas (large motor-driven outrigger canoes) with all our gear and tanks ready, accompanied by Fabi, one of the local divemasters. It was less than an hour’s trip across Maricaban Channel to Sombrero Island. The water was calm, the sun hot and bright. Pretty good day for a dive.

3/17/2001, 12 noon
DIVE 51: Sombrero Island
DEPTH (Avg/Max): 45 / 60 ft
DIVE TIME: 40 mins

Sombrero Island, east side. We descended into cool water in moderately poor visibility. I had a new mask, and it was constantly fogging up, despite the copious amounts of saliva I had spit into it before flipping off the boat. As a result, I missed most of the scenery because I was constantly busy flooding and clearing my mask to clear the condensation.

Not that there was much to see. Despite a moderate current, the water was green and cloudy, the corals lackluster. My normally wel-practiced neutral bouyancy was a bit off, and my brother Javi, still something of a beginner, was constantly bumping into me with his fins. He ran out of air early, and had to ascend with the divemaster while we tarried a bit under the boat, looking at corals.

3/17/2001, 2pm
DIVE 52: Sepok Point, Maricaban Island
DEPTH (Avg/Max): 80 / 90 ft
DIVE TIME: 45 mins

After lunch on the beach and a short siesta (Actually, the others slept while I walked around the beach and got myself badly sunburnt), we got back on the boat to move the gear to fresh tanks while the banca headed for Sepok Wall.

Sepok is a popular spot: a short wall on the edge of an expanse of sand, tapering to a lush coral reef in the shallows. All sorts of fish and coral live on the wall and along the top of the ledge, braced against a strong current, which makes the dive challenging but keeps the water wonderfully clear.

As expected, there was a strong surface current, but it weakened along the bottom. My equipment gave me no trouble this time, but it was a bit of a trial to swim against the current, and my muscles ached with the strain.

We spotted a small baby lobster clambering across corals along the slope at the top of the wall, eyestalks curiously staring at us. My brother Francis also managed to catch a small puffer fish in his hands. The puffer angrily inflated itself into a spiky ball. Funny little fish.

After we surfaced, I had planned to spend a little time snorkeling around, but the water was so cold, and the surface current so strong, that my aching muscles decided against it.

3/18/2001, 8.30am
DIVE 53: Cathedral, Anilao
DEPTH (Avg/Max): 50 / 65 ft
DIVE TIME: 50 mins

The next day, we woke up early to squeeze in a couple more dives before we headed home after lunch.

Cathedral is one of the most popular scuba attractions in the Philippines. Very near the major dive resorts, the “Cathedral” is two pillars of coral, about a hundred meters from shore, stretching up from the sloped bottom at 50 feet, to about 20 feet at the top. Between the pillars, a group of divers from decades ago has placed a stone cross, about five feet high and two feet across. Near the cross is a small castle made of stone, big enough for a diver to fit in the open “courtyard.” Cathedral is teeming with fish of all shapes and sizes, all around both coral pillars.

A strong current made for tiring diving as we made our way from the buoy (where the boats were tied) to the cross. The flow was a bit weaker there, as it was blocked by the pillars of rock. On arrival, we took out bags of leftover bread to feed the fish — schools of which happily swarmed around us in a huge cloud, pecking at floating bits of liquefied bread.

We also saw a giant puffer fish, probably three feet long, hovering near the south pillar. It was almost stationary, finning against the current, but as I approached it stealthily, it was quick to move away. Later on, when I thought it had left, I spotted it again, hovering in the same place. I’d love to try and get a hold of him. He could quite possibly puff up bigger than two basketballs.

3/18/2001, 10am
DIVE 54: Koala, Anilao
DEPTH (Avg/Max): 40 / 65 ft
DIVE TIME: 50 mins

Our last dive for the morning was at a relatively new spot nearby, called Koala. I found the site largely nondescript. Lots of fish, and lots of coral along a gentle gradient, but nothing you can’t see elsewhere in Anilao.

The current was strong enough to warrant a drift dive, so we just floated along while the bankeros up on the surface followed our bubbles. That way, we wouldn’t have to fight against the current to get back.

We saw a baby shark resting underneath a large table coral. That was about it for the highlights of this dive. Afterwards, we spent the last ten minutes or so of our dive in a shallow, calm part of the reef, about 15 feet, for a safety decompression stop, before climbing up the anchor rope of our banca and heading home.

Just one more travel note: There’s a new expressway in the South. After you exit from the South Superhighway towards Batangas, you’ll see an exit, a few kilometers down the road. Take that, and you’ll find yourself on the “Star Tollway,” which will take you straight through the province across gently rolling hills right up to the doorstep of Batangas City. It cut our travel time by more than an hour.

Well, that’s the last you’ll hear from me for a few days. I’m rather busy, working on a Flash interface for the New Media website. (That’s my company.) So my blog and homepage will have to be relegated to sub-secondary priority for the time being while I juggle the Flash site with other suddenly-active aspects of my professional and personal life.

Fleecy

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She was huddled up on the steps, so thin you could see every bone in her body. Ants and parasites were swarming all over her, but she had no strength to shake or brush them off. Her eyes, sticky with crusts, were swollen shut: from infection or insect bites, I don’t know.

Barely alive.

She couldn’t have been more than three months old.

We took her inside the office and washed her off as best as we could, and she struggled a bit then, but weakly. The parasites would not come off. She had lost a lot of blood, I noticed. Her color was faded. Laying her down in a warm corner of the office, we tried to feed her, but she was too weak to even lift her head. Fed a small morsel, she chewed at it pitifully, but she was too feeble to take another bite after that. The ticks swarmed over her body, so many I wondered how she could still be alive, how she could have any blood left in her at all.

She would not eat. I decided she needed to be brought to the doctor. Carefully bundling her up — how thin she was! — I went downstairs and hailed a taxi. It took about 10 minutes to get to the clinic. I wondered if she would make it.

So still, so limp, as she was lifted onto the table. She was hardly breathing, her leg giving an occasional twitch. I could see her heart, her tiny heart, a pulsing lump beneath the painfully visible rib cage.

The doctor sighed and told me the best thing would be to put her to sleep. I agreed. She was still breathing. She didn’t even struggle, didn’t even make a sound, when the syringe went into her vein, and the clear violet liquid mixed with what was left of her blood.

It took less than five seconds for her heart, her tiny, tiny heart, to stop.

The doctor sprayed some alcohol, and wrapped the feeble corpse up in newspaper. She would be buried later on, he told me.

Poor, poor kitten. So little blood left in her that even her nose was no longer pink. Parasites crawling through her fur. We knew her only two and a half hours, from 6:30am to 9am, and she was dying the whole time. Tiff and I were glad to be able to do something, even if the only thing that we could do was end it.

We named her Fleecy. Just two and a half hours, but we’ll remember her.

Not President Anymore!

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Former President Erap’s contention that he is still legally the President of the Philippines has been unanimously overruled by the Supreme Court, and a 9-4 vote has removed his immunity from criminal prosecution. He now faces the very likely possibility of arrest for economic plunder. And now, it will be a criminal trial, before a judicial court, not a sentorial jury. Political alliances have less to do now with Erap’s criminal case.

It’s some of the most wonderful news I’ve heard. Erap can’t go on bragging anymore that he’s still president, and now prosecutors can start legally digging into his unexplained wealth, the purchase and construction of properties and mansions for his many mistresses, inside trading in the Philippine Stock Market, and bribes from illegal gambling operations. Of course, he insists that this is all just a conspiracy by the “rich elite” of the country. Ha! From what we’ve seen, he’s richer than most: mansions, limousines, mistresses. The man lives the good life, living high on the hog, spending liberally on almost anything, and he claims to be an advocate for the poor? It’s time to roast this pig.

Adulation from Raffy

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Aaaaww, thanks for the kind words, Raffy. The funny thing is, I’ve always been envious of your wit and writing skills, which, if a bit different from my style are in a uniquely proficient — if informal — class of their own.

Now put that little statue back on its pedestal. :D

You’re watching The Mole? You might want to read this. And this.

Paranoid Little Kitty

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Last night, I met a paranoid little kitten, who, in his panic to get away from me, ran up the stairs and chased himself right into my apartment, and into my room. It took almost an hour of coaxing him out from under my bed to get him out, with many hisses, spits, bites, and claws. The first time I got him, he clawed his way up my neck and jumped off my face. (The wounds are still scratched onto my cheek and neck right now.) The second time I managed to grab him, I took him by the scruff and faced him away from me so he didn’t realize it was a big ugly human holding him. Then, as I carried him out, he took a midair crap and littered the kitchen floor. Stupid, hostile, spiteful little shit. I left him in the area of the trash bin beside the village power generator station, where a bunch of stray cats hold their nightly covens. His mother was there, an affectionate, stub-tailed stray I made friends with a long time ago. I call her Tallis. I have named her bitchy little son Thomas. Because he doubted me.

In other news, I am going to get off this stupid Survivor horse and stop trying to ride the fad, effective immediately. I simply cannot muster up enough interest in a bunch of people with largely abrasive personalities, deliberately thrown together to bicker among themselves and kick each other out of the middle of nowhere, all for a million dollars.

Hey, there was a pretty strong earthquake up in Washington state. Check these Seattle blogs for what’s up after the tremor.

Funniest blog-entry I’ve seen today, from /usr/bin/girl: “Having earthquake. Be back later.“