Enjoying life

   The old, barely original, slogan, “Stop worrying and enjoy life,” seems to be the favorite message for our government. It could be translated into “relax!, don’t you worry about the crisis, keep on spending, while I watch out for everything.” This is said rather than meant, for after looking at the growing unemployment statistics, relaxing is but a remote dream. In spite of everything, the unions’ choir also keeps repeating that there is nothing wrong, meaning “stop worrying and enjoy unemployment—if it ends you will get compensation.” Therefore, stay happy, even if jobs come to an end.

Forms of Marriage

   At a very crowded pro-family demonstration which took place in Madrid, one of the placards read, “Pedro y Antonio, no son matrimonio” [Pedro and Antonio make no married couple], but those who support the gender ideology insist on calling two same-sex persons, whether two men or two women, a married couple. They defend that marriage is a merely social convention, much like a varnish somehow covering sexual relationships between opposite-sex people.

The twilight of duty

    Today, underlying the aim to destroy fundamental dogmas, there emerge new dogmas such as subjective morality and full individual autonomy.

Paradoxical situations

   “Do you remember a hundred years ago?” Whenever I pose this question to some friends, they reply, “What? Are you kidding me? I wasn’t born by then!”

   Of course, it is just logical—isn’t it a wonderful mystery to have ever come to existence? Then, how can dying ever be better than staying alive? What is hidden behind such gloomy and macabre actions by dominant ideologies?

Progress

   Throughout history, men have committed true outrages—one of them is cannibalism, or the practice of eating human flesh by an ancient Antillean people. There have also been cases of cannibalism among some tribes in South America, Africa and Oceania. Today this practice is opposed by all civilized peoples.

Manufacture or development?

   We could compare the manufacture of a bicycle with the development of the human fetus.

Who do you think you are deceiving?

   It has been many years now since I saw it, but I always clearly remember that scene in an American movie, which is etched in my memory, where the leading character is a married journalist who aspires to become a great, well-known writer but, while making his—so far unsuccessful—attempts, must live off his wife’s salary, because as a journalist he does not manage to get by. At a given moment, as he is typewriting the plot of a new novel he is drafting, his wife sees him devoted to his aspiration and with great realism asks him, “Who do you think you are deceiving?” Such a straightforward, accusing question, puzzles the journalist, who does not know what to reply to his wife, and goes on with his literary chore at the typewriter as the only choice he can think of at the time.

The intermediary Neighbor

    A few days ago, as I was watching and listening to a TV show, a prominent leading member of an Evangelical sect or branch was, in all good faith, trying to explain in simple terms the distinction between Evangelical churches, whose faithful address Jesus directly, with no intermediaries, and the Catholic church, which acts as an intermediary between God and human beings, or between Jesus Christ and human beings.

Sober Christmas

   The Pope has just denounced at FAO the opulence and extravagance in the Western hemisphere, while in other parts of the world millions of people are hungry and thousands of children die of malnutrition every day.

Christmas

   Those who understand the true significance of Christmas perfectly understand what it means to set up a crèche or to sing a Christmas carol. Christmas commemorates the birth of Jesus, born in a cave to bring to Earth a most sublime love message—also to the remotest, the most different, the one who does not love—, the utmost love taken up to the sacrifice of death. Therefore, anyone who wants to remove the symbol of love for life represented by the birth of Jesus, with its manifestations such as setting up crèches or singing Christmas carols, does not understand anything at all.

Attacked and Poorly Paid

   We often hear of teachers being verbally and physically attacked by students and their families. On top of the fact that they are poorly paid, their profession is increasingly falling into disrepute. An elementary or high school teacher must have many years’ seniority and significant bonuses to reach barely a limited salary.

Crucifixes in classrooms

    Recently, on November 3, 2009, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, in response to a complaint filed by the Italian Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics, based on a claim from an Italian couple that was allegedly annoyed that their children should see this religious symbol of the Catholic Church, issued a decision stating that, “the crucifix in classrooms is a violation of religious freedom.”

No Crucifix, yes Halloween?

    Following the decision by the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg concerning the crucifix at schools, I suppose many parents will be entitled to demand that the Halloween celebration should not be held at their children’s schools if they consider it an expression of Neopaganism. Similarly, at some Catalan schools where every now and then there appear pro-independence flags, those families that do not support independence will be lawfully entitled to demand their removal. Will also the republicans in this country be allowed to protest if the King’s picture presides over their children’s classrooms?

Form the criterion

   
In standard form the society we live in, children and young people receive many messages and phrases that convey ideals, which are not always positive to form the personality, or to help them be happy.
It is therefore important that children learn to form a personal opinion to distinguish right from wrong between what they see on the street, television and their friends.

To improve the man

   Can man improve economic and political systems, ideologies, or the mere passage of time?

   You can not improve the human race in general, but an individual it can try. We can only work every day in the good of all, striving to be a little better each of us, helping those around us to do the same. Economic or political systems do not improve the man, only love lifts us up on our misery.

The Battle of the TV

   Often appears in the newspapers news about the number of hours that the kids are watching TV. Concludes that they are always excessive and this impacts negatively on their studies. This problem is resolved within the family. One wonders if watching TV is the only way to use free time or if you could look for alternatives. Parents can encourage reading in families. First of all, they should read in front of them . If children see parents reading, they will be motivated to read well and be able to comment after positive or negative aspects of the book. This also encourages the creation of a serious climate in the family study.

The request for euthanasia

   Retirees have serious reason to be concerned about the danger of a law of death worthy or euthanasia. Because euthanasia does not respect the natural termination of life but is the “active termination of life”, ie that some health professionals are called to cause death by lethal injection or by other methods.

About apes and men

   I have just seen an exhibition of the stages of evolution. As might be expected, it is suggested that apes are our ancestors, a hypothesis supported by the latest findings on the chimpanzee genome. The team which has deciphered the sequence of DNA units has shown that less than 4% of that genome signals the differences between this animal and a man, but it has said nothing about the reason for these differences and about how these show themselves in their respective behavior. I understand that this 4% may be the cause of morphological and physiological differences, but not of the great gap existing between both beings from the cultural and spiritual points of view. Rationality, freedom, and the ability to advance are manifestations of the human spirit which cannot be explained by the scientific method based on sensory experimentation; however, I neither believe that they are only the result of this biological substrate where we coincide, nor that they are a mere consequence of evolution.

Considerations on the abortion law

   The ethical problems posed by abortion and embryo cloning boil down to agreeing or disagreeing to consider embryos as human beings; or to having a clear idea of how the human condition of an embryo occurs.

The desirable peace

   War is a too commonplace scene around the world. Some of us have been spared, even though the mass media bring closer this remoteness, which hurts those who live there, but images on a full stomach are always painless.