How we learn to handle Money

I live in the Philippines and as you know for sure it is a third world country. A 1^st, 2^nd or 3^rd world country does not mean the whole of the country is 1^st, 2^nd or 3^rd, it means the majority is. Even if you go to a first world county like the US you might find areas which barely have 3^rd world status. And in the capital of the 3^rd work country you will find things, places, gadgets, technology and attitude of a 1^st world place.

One interesting aspect to observe here is the handling of money. Due to my way of living I would not consider myself a financially stable person.

I guess as being self employed you only can be stable by either having a fairly big company or considerable savings.

What I wanted to say is that since I chose to become self-employed money became an issue.

From a spiritual point of view I understand it, because it is the weak aspect for most emerging or small companies and for me.

I currently have a cash flow problem and was sharing it with a local friend. She suggested I ask my friends. My reply was that I will do it if I really need it. She then replayed that they might not have when I need it. Sad but true. I think here and in many other places, parents do not teach their children how to handle money. I observed that most students here every morning get their allowance.

While talking with my friend this morning I realized this is teaching them to spend all what is in your pocket, because the next day it will be replenished. Later in life, if you get your salary spend it.

One or two years back I had a similar talk with another  friend and suggested she give her kids a weekly allowance. Of course she did not. By then I only saw that she was not training her children to handle money well, and now I saw that you train your children to spend or to live hand to mouth -money wise.

You may not agree with me, but I think the thought is worth being considered.

I understand the advantage of a tradition, but times and the world are changing so fast at the moment that the values valid for a rural society no longer fully apply to a melting pot like a modern mega-city. Maybe it is our duty as parents to reconsider our upbringing. We can keep the values but might need to change the techniques, if not for us, then for the sake of our children.

My appology to the Mormons

In the eBook "And Lead us into Temptation or: The benefits of a 'false' Prophet" in chapter The structure of the universe I wrote:
"And our Gods?

It seems they are basically planetary entities.

Sure in the bible it says: " … and the stars", but in the books it is more or less a name for some shiny dots in a far distance. Astronomy in the meantime has discovered more than 1000 planets in the galactic near vicinity of earth and there are millions of galaxies out there." 
There is not only the Indian Pantheon of the gods, there are also the Mormons.

One of my brothers is a member of the LDS (later day saints) and he had given me the Book of Mormon. I started to read it. As a German I started to read from the start and it was a genealogy, a family tree sort of. To say the least it was boring because none of the names meant anything to me. So I skipped a few pages and it was about fighting. 
I wanted to read about love, the love of God for its creation and I only found notes about wars. For you who do not know I am a conscientious objector, a person who is against war in general. To make a longer story short I put the book of Mormon aside and never again touched it This morning in Google + I came across this cartoon from the 1980.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7q6brMrFw0E
 The comments in Google + say that it is about 90% right. This clearly means that the outlook of John Smith war not local but actually galactic .
 Again my apology. But then I had been talking to a number of their missionaries here in the Philippines as well as in Germany and never ever got an idea about their galactic outlook. I will talk to them and probably will have to revise my attitude towards them.
And my book?
In the next edition I will have corrected this flaw. 
It is not a huge problem for me. It actually is the way I think the universe works. We start to learn about a subject and see a lot of things we do not know. It even may be overwhelming. But we learn and we master one chapter after the other and reach a point where we think we know everything. 
Many or most stop there!
For those who do not, often a whole new set of questions opens and so do doors for learning.
Have a great day and find a new level of learning for the field(s) you know all about!

No,my God is not stronger than yours!

If we look at history normally the winner writes history and we regard it as the superior force. I admit I am guilty of the same behavior. But I realized we leave out one big chunk of reality: TIME!
A few years ago America (mean the USA) undisputed were the strongest power on this planet. Now, a few years later, a power is rising in the east and in a few years may be the ruler of the world. For some time!
And what has this to do with my statement that my God is not stronger than yours? I was involved in a little accident yesterday. I was riding my motorbike going home from shopping for lunch, when a little child ran into me. Luckily I was very slow and luckily the child run into my knee and fell on its butt. Nothing had happened no bruise but of course the child cried. The grandmother from the other side of the street grabbed the child and without checking it ran for a hospital.

We have the tendency to follow the strongest sports team, king, brand.... Sometimes I ask myself why, but then I think it is a matter of identification. We need a role model. I was passing the accident in my head. I found noting I was to blame for and did not want to blame the others for letting a toddler play in the street.
When the grandfather, a little official of the barangay came, he wanted to grab the keys of my motorbike and demanded to see my Id with a raised voice, without identify himself first. He was in plain street cloth except a hat which stated something of a function in the barangay. I raised my voice too, not because I was angry but I learnt that in Rome do as the Romans do. Later I learnt that he was the grandfather of the child, which to a certain degree explains his agitation. I had thought he is an "official" which sees the chance to have his big moment.
A while later a counselor of the barangy came and we could speak nicely. And a while later the child was back from hospital, things were sorted out.
It made me again understand how much we or I live on a fine line. I also could say I was protected. Anyway I was looking at the incident in my head. You know how this goes you jump from one picture to the other, if you are not emotional - if you are emotional and if it is a problem we do the same, but we do it in a loop and go back to the first picture and start all over again. It is also called worrying.
Well from this incident I jumped to the stories of the Bible, I think it was Eliah who was competing with a priest of the Baal religion which God was stronger.
Let us assume there is only ONE God out there.
So all other religions pray to the same God, but "their" God wears different clothing!
I am sure you have seen at least one movie where one and the same actor plays different roles. So God can do the same for sure!
Maybe I am a bad follower of my or our God because I do not want to fight you. Maybe fighting entertains God, but maybe God gives us something to fight to become stronger!
I love God! Not because IT makes me fight, i love my God because IT gives me the freedom to grow in my own speed. And I love God because with little incidents like yesterday I am reminded that live is NOT a random walk!
So my God is not stronger than your God, it is the same God in a different "disguise"!

Are you afraid to die?

I know we life in the fun time and death is not something we like to talk about. It makes us uncomfortable. I guess everything we do not know makes us uncomfortable.
Fact is, when we agreed to be born, we also agreed to die! And feeling uncomfortable probably is the baby brother of feeling fear.
As an atheist I understand the feeling "uncomfortable" because it is difficult to imagine how it is to be switched off.
But why do the followers of a deity fear death? Ask a Christian to go to heaven NOW, for sure he or she will find a way to ask for a delay. I am an adventurous spirit and I would like to play survivor or Robinson Crusoe for a month or two, but being stuck for eternity in a place without Internet and mobiles probably would not be my first choice!

Maybe the heaven of the Christians would need an update. But the ruler is an old man - was an old man 5000 years ago - and we all know that the older we get the less we like change.
So, are you afraid to die?
You still have some unfinished business here?
This might be an understandable excuse, especially if you are fairly young (below 100 or so) but let's face it, even without me asking, it could happen to you any day!
Hence it may be wise to tie some knots at their open ends, especially if things like forgiving or letting go is concerned. Just a suggestion!
You know the saying, that "the test is the pudding".
It is easy to say I am not afraid of this or that, as long as the situation is far.
I always was wondering - with my scientific mind - how I would react in situation that might end with me being dead. Imagine you are in a hostage situation and the "gangster" takes a young woman or a young man threatening to shoot them. Would I stand up and say: "Take me instead"?
I am currently a little sick; one aspect is a bad and painful cough. After it did not go away after two weeks I lost faith in the self-healing ability of my body and started self-medication. I had started after a night when I hardly had slept due to continuous painful coughing. I took the drugs and fairly exhausted fell asleep.  After a few hours of sleep I awoke from a serious cough which ended me getting no more air. I jumped out of bed, ran to the bathroom trying to spit out what seemingly blocked the pathway of my breathing. I thought it was a flame.  Well nothing came out and unfortunately no air went in either.
I became calm and I 'knew': "This is the end". No panic, not though "Oh Lord help me".
Did you observe that when you are coughing you breathe through your mouth? With the calmness of my mind I started to use the nose to breath (despite my open mouth) and lo and behold it worked! After a few very conscious breaths the blockage in the throat vanished. As a matter of fact, for the curious among you, there was no flame, nothing material that caused the blockage!
Am I the same today as I was yesterday?
No!
I know now that I am mortal. I know that I have to tie some loose ends and I am happy to still be alive! Let's enjoy life!
No, I do not mean to have "fun", I mean lets enjoy life by being aware THAT this IS life!

And Lead us into Temptation or: The Benefits of a 'false' Prophet

If you still wonder if your religion is the right one, I suggest you read my book "And lead us into temptation or: The Benefits of a 'false' Prophet". 
It is and Amazon eBook. It is light in price not in content!