Prof. Copernicus thinks I am right (Last of 2 parts)

"I'm sorry, if you were right, I'd agree with you."
Robin Williams

By Alex P. Vidal

NEW YORK CITY -- Three big historical events in February, March and April juxtaposed in the calendar of topics Professor Jozef Copernicus wanted to discuss with me one breezy afternoon in the blizzard-drenched Central Park.
First was the February 22-25, 1986 "People Power" EDSA Revolution in the Philippines; second, the March 15, 4 B.C. "Ides of March" in Rome; and third, the April 15, 1865 assassination of Abraham Lincoln in Washington D.C.
In the first article, I narrated to Prof. Copernicus why the Philippines had a bloodless revolution and how prayers worked wonders and averted heavy casualties in EDSA. February topic settled.
For March, Prof. Copernicus came out swinging: "Who were the conspirators in Julius Caesar's murder and why it was dubbed the 'Ides of March'?"
I quickly recalled the effervescent Brutus.
"Brutus!" I muttered. "Brutus and Cassius."
"Who else?" chortled Prof. Copernicus while rushing forward, his left eyebrow twerking.

SENATORS

APV: "As many as 60 senators conspired to kill Caesar but not all of them participated in the actual assault inside the Theater of Pompey."
Prof. Copernicus: "How about Brutus and Cassius?
APV: "According to William Shakespeare and Plutarch, while the senators and Cassius were starting to stab Caesar, who was caught unprepared, he backtracked and tried to seek refuge when he saw Brutus hoping the latter would shield or defend him. All of a sudden, Brutus stabbed him in the back. Surprised, Caesar turned his back and chided his adopted son, 'Et tu, Brute?' or 'you also, Brutus?'"
Prof. Copernicus: "Right. Caesar died on the spot. Nobody saved him?"
APV: "He slumped dead in front of Pompey's statue and Mark Antony, his trusted bodyguard who was outside, failed to save him."
Prof. Copernicus: "And the Ides of March?"
APV: "A soothsayer had earlier warned Caesar would be harmed in (or before) the Ides of March. He laughed off the seer's warning and proceeded to the Theater of Pompey."

CONSPIRACY

Exit March and Rome. Enter April and Washington D.C. Conspiracy to kill Lincoln.
Prof. Copernicus: "You said Lincoln's murder was a result of conspiracy? All I know is he was assassinated inside a theater by an actor,  a lone gunman by the name of John Booth."
APV: "John Wilkes Booth was the gunman but up to 10 people were hanged in public after trial when they were found guilty of conspiracy."
"The execution of the conspirators became controversial," I proceeded, "because a woman named Mary Surratt was among those convicted and hanged. She protested her innocence up to the last hours and became unruly, refusing to be hanged simultaneously with the nine others."

HOUSE

I added: "Her only crime was she owned the boarding house used by the conspirators to plan the assassination. I learned about this account in a book I read inside the Barns and Noble bookstore in windy Chicago in 2008."
Prof. Copernicus: "It's not yet clear to me if it was a conspiracy. You mentioned the name Mary Surratt. She was hanged also? Honestly, I didn't know it was a conspiracy and a woman had been meted a death penalty. To settle the confusion, can you Google Lincoln's assassination and check if it was really a conspiracy and if a Mary Surratt was among those convicted and hanged?"
APV: "Yes, professor. I will do that now."
I took my mini iPad and Googled "Conspiracy Lincoln assassination."
APV: "Here, professor. It's a conspiracy and (I pointed to him) here's the name of Mary Surratt: (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/biography/assassination-co-conspirators/)"
Prof. Copernicus (reading the link on the mini-iPad): "OK. You just taught me a piece of history. You are right. You win."

Isaac Asimov’s Guide To The Bible

"That God cannot lie, is no advantage to your argument, because it is no proof that priests can not, or that the Bible does not." THOMAS PAINE

By Alex P. Vidal

NEW YORK CITY -- This is one of a kind book about the Holy Bible. 
Written by a biochemist from the University of Boston, the book supports critical thinking, and the author did not take his analysis as gospel anymore than the Hebrew and Greek scriptures.
Because he was a Jew, Isaac Asimov’s (born Isaak Yudovich Ozimov) commentaries and observations of the bible are from a Jewish point of view, modified by his science fiction background and thinking.

KING JAMES

Asimov brings us through the books of the Bible in King James Version order, explaining the historical and geographical setting of each one and the political and historical influences that affected it.
He went further as providing biographical information about the main characters. In essence Asimov seems to consider the bible as one of the most important history books ever written, and treats it as such.
What is so extraordinary about the book is it is just purely information and no commentary. 

If we want to know what's really going on as well as what's happened before this book to the Old and New Testament includes biblical verse, footnotes, references and subject indexes.
We should not miss this book.

Why we are part of a long history

"Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total; of all those acts will be written the history of this generation." Robert Kennedy

By Alex P. Vidal

WE are part of a long history and the present is what it is because of all that has gone before -- because forgotten empires rose and fell in antiquity; because unknown Greeks obeyed the Greek captains who defeated the Persians; because the Romans destroyed Carthage; because Mark Antony fell in love with Cleopatra; because the Western Christians grew tired of trying to drive the Arabs from Egypt; because the merchants of the west traded with India and China for profit; because Columbus discovered America; and Martin Luther preached against the pope, and Napoleon overran Europe.

Why we shouldn't get mad

"One ought not to return a wrong nor an injury to any person, however strong the provocation." SOCRATES 

By Alex P. Vidal

NEW YORK CITY -- When popular but mediocre candidates file their certificates of candidacy (COC) to run for public office, will our blood pressure shoot up because we can't stop them?
When some people assassinate our character because they can't think and write the way we do, will we stoop down to their level?
Will we engage them in mudslinging, their forte, to get even? 
Come to think of it. 
Jesus Christ mocked and nailed on the cross. 
Mary Magdalene stoned and called a whore. 
Socrates found guilty of "introducing new gods" by a slender majority in a jury of 501 and forced to kill himself by drinking hemlock. 
Pompey decapitated. 
Julius Caesar stabbed in the back by envious senators led by neurotic Brutus ("Et tu, Brute?") and ambitious Cassius.

WOUNDED

Darius severely wounded before being killed in losing Persia to Alexander The Great in the Battle of Arbela. 
Montezuma humiliated in his own territory in Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City, by Hernando Cortez. 
Napoleon Bonaparte in Waterloo. 
The Battle of Acium. Holocaust.
Love birds Mark Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide. Ben Hur and El Cid. Pearl Harbor. 
The Bay of Pigs. Gomburza. Jose Rizal. Andres Bonifacio. Antonio Luna. John F. Kennedy. 
Martin Luther King. John Lennon. Moises Padilla. Ninoy Aquino.

INQUISITION 

Bruno burned at stake by the Catholic Inquisition. Galileo forced to recant the heliocentric theory and spent years in jail. 
Bloody Mary beheaded. Thomas Moore beheaded for refusing to solemnize the marriage of Queen Elizabeth's father King Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn. Marie Antoinette and the French Revolution guillotine.
Diego Silang and his wife Gabriela executed. 
Dona Aurora, wife of President Quezon, and their daughter Baby Quezon, killed in ambush by Hukbalahap. 
Alexander Hamilton, Magellan, Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, Rasputin, Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler all died violently. And so on and so forth.
These great men and women suffered humiliation and cruel deaths. 
Why should we bawl out our jealous and envious critics?

MILKY WAY

According to Jewish editor, Harry Golden, there are at lease four billion suns in the Milky Way, which is only one galaxy. 
Many of these suns are thousands of times larger than our own, and vast millions of them have whole planetary systems, including literally billions of satellites, and all of this revolves at the rate of about a million miles an hour, like a huge oval pinwheel.
Our own sun and its planets, which includes the earth, are on the edge of this wheel. 
This is only our small corner of the universe, so why do not these billions of revolving and rotating suns and planets collide?
The answer is, the space is so unbelievably vast that if we reduced the suns and the planets in correct mathematical proportion with relation to the distances between them, each sun would be a speck of dust, two, three, and four thousand miles away from its nearest neighbor. 
And, mind you, this is only the Milky Way -- our own small corner -- our own galaxy. 
How many galaxies are there? Billions. 
Billions of galaxies spaced at about one million light years apart (one light-year is about six trillion miles).

TELESCOPES

Within the range of our biggest telescopes there are at least one hundred million separate galaxies such as our own Milky Way, and that is not all, by any means. 
The scientists have found that the further you got out into space with the telescopes the thicker the galaxies become, and there are billions of billions as yet uncovered to the scientist's camera and the astrophysicist's calculations.
When we think of all this, it's silly to worry whether the allegations of our critics will really change the way we live in society. 

Wisdom in being human

"The four characteristics of humanism are curiosity, a free mind, belief in good taste, and belief in the human race." E.M. FORSTER

By Alex P. Vidal

LOS ANGELES, California – In October 1521, five years before Martin Luther King was to begin to shake the very foundation of the Roman Catholic Church, the great Renaissance painter and humanist Michelangelo had just finished decorating one of its ceilings.

“And what a ceiling it was!” exclaims Portland-based Ronald B. Allen, professor of Old Testament and Exegesis, in The Majesty of Man. 
The Sistine Chapel in Rome, named for Pope Sixtus IV who had begun its construction in 1473, has a ceiling that measures approximately 133 feet by 43 feet, with the crown of the vault some 70 feet above the pavement.

In conditions of terrible discomfort, Allen points out, the great artist Michelangelo spent nearly four years painting in the fresh plaster on the ceiling. 
“He lay on hard scaffolding board, breathing intolerable air and having eyes and skin constantly inflamed with plaster dust. All the while, the impatient Pope Julius II would periodically climb the scaffolding and threaten to toss the master to the ground if he did not finish his work more quickly,” narrates Allen.

The formal unveiling took place on October 31, 1512. 
What an event in the history of man this unveiling was—one of the finest artistic achievements of the Renaissance. 
Here Christian theology and humanism learned to hold hands. 
In his recital of the significance of this event, Charles H. Morgan says that Michelangelo “had joined two powerful philosophies, the Christian ethic and the perfect human, at the moment of their most sympathetic coexistence.”

CREATION OF MAN

This blending of the Christian and the human strains was perhaps nowhere more evidence than in Michelangelo’s portrayal of the Creation of Man. 
One of the most famous panels of the masterpiece is the scene of Adam reclining inertly on a brown field, his left arms stretched out languidly over his upraised left knee. Rushing toward him is God, surrounded by storm and cloud, attended by cherubim, and stretching out his hand in a dynamic gesture to the extended finger of Adam. 
Our attention is drawn to the rushing power of the finger of God and the small space left between God’s finger and that of man.

“In this painting,” suggests Allen, “we are there a microsecond before the giving of life!”

What are we to make of this imagery? 
Morgan sees in it the notion that the church had given nourishment to humanism, and that in this painting they both meet on an equal scale. 
Despite the tranquility of the scene, Morgan senses the irony in the painting, for a struggle was about to burst out between the church and humanism in which the power of God would be challenged by man whom heaven had empowered.

Allen says another view of the significance of the Creation of Man fresco is presented by the renowned American biblical theologian Samuel Terrien of Union Seminary, New York.

“Dr. Terrien, in a meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in San Francisco several years ago, observed that there is another figure in the painting in addition to God, Adam, and the cherubim,” Allen observes. “This other figure is a beautiful woman whose head is nestled in the left arm of God, and who looks with anxious interest on man whom God was enlivening.”

SPACE

We almost miss this woman because of our interest in the latent energy in the space between the finger of Adam and the finger of God. “But there she is!” Allan stresses. “And her presence causes us to ask, Who is she? Is she the as yet unformed Eve, awaiting the awakening of need for her in her mate?” Is she, as some Catholics have imagined, the Blessed Virgin Mary, anticipating a significant day long in the future when God would have a ministry of mystery for her? Terrien brushes away these and other conceptions with his great discovery: This woman is wisdom. It was with his arm around wisdom that God created man, his finest creature.”

Allen observes further: “I suspect that Morgan’s point of view more accurately represents art history. But I am convinced that the viewpoint of Terrien is the one who need in order to understand theology rightly. For this painting points us to one of the most significant elements in our understanding of what it means to be truly human: We were created by God to be wise.”

  

'Liberty of the thought is the life of the soul'

"Work keeps us from three great evils: boredom, vice and poverty." VOLTAIRE

By Alex P. Vidal

Voltaire (the pseudonym of Francois-Marie Arouet), while contributing little that could be described as entirely original to the philosophical canon, poured out to the world a most extraordinary mixture of novels, plays, reviews, pamphlets and historical words.
In many ways, with his total commitment to the world around him, he was the epitome of the Age of Enlightenment.
Voltaire's early satirical works earned him a year in the Bastille and later, in 1726, exile to England. 

RADICAL

Already a radical and liberal, he quickly saw in England a society that enjoyed far greater justice and freedom than France.
In his Letters Philosophiques he praises social, religious and political liberty and uses social utility as the definition of good political institutions.
He was a firm believer in God, but was entirely opposed to the views of the Church and proposed that doubt should be the beginning of wisdom and enlightenment. 
He saw evil as essentially man-made, and a mystery that refused to be solved.
His most famous tale, Candide, highlights a world where human life and dignity are of little importance. 
Voltaire's portrait of Pangloss in the novel was at the expense of Pope and Gottfried Leibnitz.

NON-VIOLENCE

Voltaire, unlike many of his supporters, was a strong advocator of non-violence and believed with passion that the fight against authority, tradition and conformity could be won without the spilling of blood.
Although he died before the onset of the French Revolution, his style of thought did much to inspire the events in 1789.

Thank you, medicine!

"Therefore the most effective way of preventing mental illness is to remove causes of worry and tension, to explain the effects of such emotions to people who suffer from them, and to educate people in general to accept themselves and their lives as they are."

By Alex P. Vidal

OUR discussion was about the burning of Alexandria by different figures in history when the subject matter shifted on the Theory of the Four Humours introduced by the father of medicine, Hippocrates, thousands of years ago–before Christianity, Judaism, and Islam became dominant monotheistic religions.
The Greek doctor, best remembered for his so-called “Hippocratic Oath”, believed that the secret of health lay in the proper mixture of four body fluids, blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. 
If the wrong mixture was present, disease resulted.
That during the Middle Ages, disease was attributed to devils which were supposed to have entered the body and which could be forced to leave by spells and incantations.
Earlier, in 100 B.C., immunity from disease was already being practiced. 
King Mithridates tried to protect his body against certain poisons by taking increasing doses of them over a period of time. 
In China and India, children were clothed in the shirts, or slept in the bed, of smallpox sufferers. 
Although dangerous, this often produced very mild attacks of the disease and prevented future occurrence of more severe cases.
In the 14th century, more than 25 million people died of bubonic plague in Europe. 
In the 18th century, smallpox killed 60 million people throughout the world. Statistics reveals that even today over 100 million people a year have malaria in India and that about one million die of it annually.

MENTAL HYGIENE

Just as physical hygiene attempts to promote physical health, so does the newer science of mental hygiene attempt to promote mental health.
Here’s for those who carry the world on their shoulders; Atlas Shrugged, in the book of Ayn Rand. 
Most authorities agree that among the chief causes of mental disease are worry, fear, unhappiness, and envy (Facebook and other social network users, take note).
They point out that all of us are subject to these emotions, but that some people are so sensitive to one or more of these that their entire outlook on life is thrown out of focus.
Therefore the most effective way of preventing mental illness is to remove causes of worry and tension, to explain the effects of such emotions to people who suffer from them, and to educate people in general to accept themselves and their lives as they are.
Mental disease often shows itself as an unreasoning fear of certain situations, or an involuntary “compulsion” to perform certain acts. (Phobia, neurosis, and psychosis are some of the terms used to name these conditions, according to Alexander A. Fried of the Department of Biological Sciences, Christopher Columbus High School in New York).
These abnormal reactions may be so mild as to cause very little inconvenience to the individual, or may be so violent as to make the person dangerous to himself or others and require commitment to an institution for special care.

PSYCHOSOMATIC

Mysterious relationships exist between the mind and the body, according to some medical experts. 
It is now known that mental illness can produce symptoms of physical disease in many organs of the body, when actually the organ affected is healthy and sound.
Headaches, upset stomachs, fever, vague pains, rashes, etc., may be signs of a known disease, or may be the effect of mental upset, doctors say. 
They add that in the second case, where the symptoms are brought about by the mind, it is called a psychosomatic illness.
Many phobias and neurotic conditions have been traced to forgotten incidents in childhood, which continue to influence behavior even though the sufferer has no recollection of the event.
Methods of treatment aim at finding these causes in the patient’s “subconscious” and revealing them to him; usually the condition disappears once the patient understands its cause. 
Various types of psychiatric treatment (analysis) have been proposed and used by different psychiatrists; these different methods have the same general goal of finding and removing the cause from the patient’s mind.

RULES

The following rules are useful in keeping mentally healthy, according to Fried:
1. Get plenty of rest, relaxation, fresh air, and good food.
2. Avoid worrying excessively. Most things that people worry about seldom happen.
3. Face your problems squarely, realistically. Be ready to make changes and adjustments in your plans to meet new situations that arise.
4. Use up some of your excess energy and strength in interesting hobbies, sports, and other types of recreation.
5. Do not magnify unimportant happenings into major events. Example: The fact that your friend didn’t smile and wave at you when he passed by was probably because he didn’t see you, not because he was angry at you.
6. Seek satisfaction from those things you do well, and from those natural advantages which you possess (we all have some). Do not yearn for things that are possible only in daydreams. Do not envy others who seem to have more than you; they are probably envying you from “their side of the fence.”
7. Set yourself a goal–certainly! But make sure that it is a realistic one–one that is within the reach of your abilities.

Adultery as proof of 'loyalty'

"If Magellan did not Christianize the Philippines, we would have been ruled by Muslims and the most dominant religion today would have been Islam."

By Alex P. Vidal


WHEN the Spanish expedition led by Portuguese Ferdinand Magellan arrived in the Philippine archipelago on March 16, 1521, Reformation was already fast spreading in Europe. 
Rev. Martin Luther was the precursor of Protestant movement when he posted 95 Theses in the Cathedral that infuriated both Pope Leo X and King Charles V.
Luther was declared an outlaw by the emperor at the Diet of Worms in 1521 and was excommunicated by the pope.
If Magellan did not Christianize the Philippines, we would have been ruled by Muslims and the most dominant religion today would have been Islam.
Muslims, by the way, are allowed by their Koran to have multiple wives. 
If our national religion is Islam, many Filipino males today will have more than one wife--as long as they can afford to rear multiple families. 
No need to maintain a concubine.


RESTORED 


In Europe, when Charles II was restored to the throne after the death of Oliver Cromwell, the five judges who had sentenced Charles I to death were arrested and convicted of treason against the Crown. This was the final sentence:
You shall go from hence to the place from whence you came, and from that place shall be drawn upon a hurdle to the place of execution,  and there shall hang by the neck 'till you are half dead, and shall be cut down alive, and your privy members cut off before your face and thrown into the fire, your belly ripped up and your bowels burst, your head to be severed from your body, your body shall be divided into four quarters, and disposed of as His Majesty shall think fit.
Thus began a historic era, which interestingly enough has had its parallel in our own day. 
We have all seen how folks have become superpatriots and vigilantes out of fear that they may be suspected of subversion.


INTERESTING


This happened in a more interesting way at the beginning of the reign of Charles II. 
The Puritans (who were now the traitors) had imposed a very strict moral code upon the people, which brought in its wake the same old villainy which has oppressed people through all the ages; being reported by friends, neighbors, and their own children for violating Puritan taboos against sex, dancing, kissing on the Sabbath, play acting, and gaiety of any kind. 
Thus the best way you could show your loyalty to the Crown was--to have fun.
Adultery was the most convenient way to prove that you had never been a follower of Oliver Cromwell, and the folks went--all out. 
If a man and woman were on a journey and they suspected the coachman of being a Government agent, they went to all sorts of extremes to prove their "loyalty" and throw the fellow off the track.
And so when the coachman peeked, and saw what was going on back there, he shrugged his shoulders: "Those people are all right, they ain't no Puritans."