To be moral, according to Jesus, I must shackle my reason. I must force myself to believe and have faith in what I cannot understand. I must suppress, in the name of morality, any doubts that surface in my mind. I must regard as a mark of excellence an unwillingness to subject religious beliefs to critical analysis. Less doubts, less criticism leads to more faith – and faith, Jesus declares, is the hallmark of virtue. Indeed, “unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matt. 18:3. Children, after all, are always gullible enough believe even in the existence of Santa Claus.
As an atheist, - I am a man of self-esteem. I therefore cannot quality to be a candidate for the master-slave relationship that Christianity offers me.
A man lacking in self-esteem, a man ridden with guilt,
will frequently prefer the apparent security of Christianity over independence and find comfort in the thought that, for the price of total submissiveness,
God will love and protect and reward him especially
after death in heaven eternally.
I am an atheist. I have no need to pay a dear price for that deadly religious way of life: the mindless surrender of the self via the mutilation of the intellect.
- - - Poch Suzara
The Purpose of Life is to Grow.
What is the meaning of life? This meaning is not for you to find, but for you to define. The meaning of life is found in the purposes that we pursue as we grow older. Each one must interpret individually the meaning of life. You must read meaning into the situations you find yourselves in, case by case.
From my book, Philosophy of Religion, let me read for you:
“Even if life is meaningless, we have to go on living, as a form of rebellion against cosmic meaninglessness. Your slogan should be: ‘Dare to become what you are.’ If there is no God, and no other world than this one, then we are the creators of our own values. The supreme value is life-assertion. And the next highest value is the will to power over evil. We must confront the most difficult truth about ourselves. In a godless world, we have no alternative but to choose – and in that sense to create – our own values. In other words, we create the meaning of our life.”
Perhaps life has no meaning, but perhaps those who are religious can find meaning in the four categories of human experience: suffering, hope, effort, and grace. The various religions are responses to the realization of the agony of life. Religion seeks to transform the underlying agony and anxiety of life into the joy and gratitude we can feel for the gift of love.
—Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago
if you’re Christian / Catholic
if you’re Muslim
if you’re Jewish
if you’re Hindu
photo credits : HUG
Growing up in a lower-middle class family, I had the very good fortune of being in a situation where, despite the apparent hardships of Economic distresses, I could still live with as much comfort as my parents could provide. I didn’t starve or anything. I had a good education, and had been ingrained with the same values of family and love as most any other ordinary boy of my age.
I also remember being enamored by the fact that I was a Catholic. Wow. A Catholic! What could be better than being a part of a huge community that Jesus himself started before he died? What a great thought. I pondered that thought for many years, and have always looked up to that Galilean Carpenter as a role model; the ultimate Rebel.
I was also “blessed” with the fact that I had been educated in a string of Private Catholic Christian schools, to which I owe much of what I know now about the world. Ironic now, it seems then, that throughout all these factors, I still came out as an atheist.
To be honest, I think the irony lies in the fact that religious indoctrination has a tendency to backfire. The ability to think for ones’ self is innate, even if to use this ability is seldom practiced. It doesn’t take much thinking to see what is wrong about Religion, and why Faith fails to be a virtue.
“Religion is the opium of the people.”
Remember that one? Well, it’s not surprising. It’s probably the most circulated criticism of religion known in Modern History. But it’s also the most misapprehended and misrepresented of all.
Karl Marx did not utter the quote above verbatim. In his critique of Hegels’ Philosophy of Right, what he actually said was:
“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opiate of the people…”
He goes on to say:
“The demand to give up its illusion is the demand to give up the condition that requires illusions… Criticism has plucked the flowers from the chain, not so that man may wear the chain without consolation, but so that he may break the chain and cull the living flower.”
In its entire context, Marx used these metaphors only to describe religion’s failure to provide a “heart” in a heartless world. Try as it might, religion can never fix a “spiritless situation” because, much like an opiate or an analgesic, it only provides the temporary illusion of happiness.
So what is Faith, anyway? What is Religion?
Faith is the belief in something that you can’t prove at all. Religion is the practice of this en masse. Faith is the abandonment of Reason. Religion is the total absence of Reason; a manifestation of a more crucial despondency to cruel socio-economic realities. Faith and Religion are temporary reliefs from the hard facts of life. I therefore fail to see the virtues of faith in this context, so I find I must distrust it. It is the essence of wish-thinking wherein the rational mind is overtaken by the literal.
So how did I abandon Faith? I did so with as much self-criticism and curiosity as any child of my age would. Children are always curious. They’re not afraid to ask questions, or to be wrong at least once. The need to know flourishes within them, and it’s a crying shame whenever adults try to dissuade them from this innate need of pursuit of knowledge.
By no means do I say that my side of the argument is superior [though it is, in large part]. Often I am falsely condemned for overreaching my views and supposing that I know more than there is to know about the Universe. The truth is, in fact, quite the contrary. It is outright wrong for anyone to say that he has complete knowledge of the Universe; that all answers can be known, and that man can take as much comfort in the fact that after he dies, he will live again in some kind of opaque dimension. I take this with a grain of salt. How can anyone ever truly know? Who gave you this knowledge and denied them to everyone? Who mandated you to propose such a ludicrous notion?
Well, I don’t know. I didn’t say I knew. But can any priest, preacher, rabbi, imam or simple believer admit to this as well? Apparently they can’t, because they already know everything they need to know. They already know the mind of God, and therefore can do just about anything that God mandates them to do. Funny how things like wars, bigotry, racism and homophobia are suddenly justifiable when the some holy book says so. It’s also funny that the same people that believers hate are the same people that their god hates.
In exchange of Faith, I put my trust in the arts and the sciences; the Humanist approach to living. I’m not a scientist, but I love science. It opens a lot of doors into wider possibilities for man to aspire and acquire a higher destiny of his choosing. It relies on evidence that is empirically quantifiable. It relies on the logical and the rational state of mind, where openness to the unknown results only in knowledge. It requires very little but fortitude and resilience in failure, as well as the acceptance of failure as part of the process of discovery. Science then has opened our eyes from the confines of our own self-centeredness and self-aggrandizement, where once we thought we were the center of the Universe, when in fact, we were hardly the center of our own solar system.
I would be the first to argue, that I know very little about the Universe. But I would argue further that I know very little about very much more. For one thing, I don’t fear doubt. I don’t fear skepticism, inquiry and the pursuit of objective truth. I can live with them with as much conviction as any religious person can with his beliefs. When I die, it is as much a natural occurrence as anything else in the world, so in effect, I try to live my life as if every day were the last. It gives me a reason for living freely, with more imagination and willingness to find out more about the world. The only difference between me and a theist is that I can change my views when new facts find their way into the open, whereas the believer sticks to all that he knows as sacred.
Unlike the believer, I do good for the sake of good, not in awe or fear of a reward or punishment. I do good because it feels good, and I know that somehow, the act itself benefits me anyway. I don’t need the image of hellfire and brimstone to know that doing bad things result in worse things. I’m more than capable of finding that out myself, and in this life, not in the next. Morality is not the property of religion, but rather a quality of human nature. You don’t need to have a god, or gods, or goddesses to know whether what you’re doing is right or wrong.
I don’t blame believers for believing. It’s only natural to want to believe in something. It is part of our being human; the need for community and uplift. We are not impervious to the supernatural and the awe inspiring. We all have a fondness for the numinous and the transcendent. We are impressed and afraid of what we can’t understand, that’s why we need answers from an authority figure: a Father, so to speak. We want them more than anything to explain the “hows” and the “whys” that we can’t answer for ourselves. But questions to these answers don’t stop at where our comfort zones start. That’s actually where the journey really begins.
It was Bertrand Russell who once said that, “The essence of the liberal thought, lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held.” I admit that there are things in the Universe that are unknowable. There could possibly be a god and an afterlife. I remember a joke on youtube about “What if there was a heaven and only atheists could go there? How bitter would those atheists be to be proven wrong?” Well, we might be bitter, but at least we know when to admit that we were wrong. We hold our ideas tentatively, rather than dogmatically. To be proven wrong is part of the greater pursuit of truth.
Sigmund Freud once pointed out that humans fear their own annihilation, so they must have faith, to confront this fear. And as long as this fear persists, faith will never be eradicable. This may be so, but the belief in something does not change reality. We will die, that is true enough. But I choose to emancipate myself from the chains of religion and the “mind-forged manacle” (as Christopher Hitchens would put it) of faith before I expire, because life it seems to me, would be pointless if one needs to follow and to be told how to live it.
I respect humanity and its imperfections. It would be insolent and erroneous for me to condemn individuals of devout faith, simply because of it. I respect people who are good to others, whether or not they do it out of faith or simple human kindness. They are welcome to do as they please, and find comfort and salvation from their beliefs if they can. My only request is that they leave me, my children to be, and my children’s children out of it. I don’t want their religion in my country’s constitution. I don’t want their religion teaching non-science in our classrooms. I don’t want their prelates dictating policy from their pulpits and into the senate. I don’t want their religion stepping on my civil rights and my rights to free speech and inquiry. I don’t want their religion telling me who I can only have sex with and how to do it. These, apparently, they cannot refrain from doing. I cannot imagine how they can possibly reconcile the concept of “free-will” and “democracy” with their religion whenever they deny all these things to me and many others. So no, I don’t respect their religion in action and in what they place their faith in. Never have, never will.
But I leave it now with a note of optimism. I do think that since humans have evolved thus far, we will continue to evolve further. Maybe we can outgrow our own fears of inadequacy enough to know that reality is beautiful and wonderful enough, without having to negate each other with our own opinions [Faith and Religion after all are institutionalized opinions]. Perhaps true solidarity and a secular future await us after all. Now that, ironically, is something I can put my faith in.
And in the spirit of irony, I would also like to celebrate a Biblical verse, in the same vein as Christopher Hitchens once did.” Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” - Philippians 4:8
the first atheist and agnostic convention in south eastasia
Registration Booth
Dan Barker
Convention Crowds
all the videos of convention speakers can be seen in the PATAS website
visit www.patas.co
Filipino Celebrate Atheist Day!
The PATAS Cebu Chapter with theme Road to Reason,
PATAS Manila (Main)
held an Atheist Fun Day at QC Circle Park, Games and Foods
Filipino Freethinkers
held their FF Forum #3
lead by Red Tani president of Filipino Freethinker, spending april fools wisely!
April 1, 2012 was a fine sunny day and the weather was a bit hot but nonetheless, it was all good.
At noon, I was already excited to join the “Road to Reason” activity organized by PATAS-Cebu. It was going to be the first National Atheist Day celebration that I would be joining.
The Road to Reason walk is basically an event wherein we would walk through and visit the historical landmarks in Cebu City. The assembly time was at 1 P.M. at the Rotary Club waiting shed in front of Cebu Normal University.
First, Josephil discussed the routes that we were going to take and the walk leaders that we would be following. From there, we walked through Jones Avenue through M.J. Cuenco Avenue.
We had passed by one of the oldest learning institutions in Cebu City which was the University of San Carlos. It was one of the Universities built since the 1930’s. After taking some pictures we then continued to walk through Barangay Day-As and stopped over at the Heritage Monument in Pari-an.
We took a 30 minutes break, pictures, and videos. We also met a few foreigners on tour who were also there to learn about the history of Pari-an monument. The monument was built to commemorate Cebu City’s rich history. It was just disheartening to know that they spent MILLIONS on this brass wonder and didn’t focus on developing the area as well.
Public hospitals like the Cebu City Medical Center, with its dilapidated buildings and budget cuts don’t get the much needed attention.
Then, we continued our walk until we reached the Colon Street Marker. This signifies the border of the oldest streets in the heart of Cebu City and in the entire country. We went on to our next location, which was the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral, but we did stop by the Cathedral Museum of Cebu and took a few pictures in front of it since we didn’t have enough time to go in.
As we entered the Cathedral we saw that there were a lot of people, different colors, sizes and nationalities all around us listening to the Sunday mass and taking pictures. We moved on towards Basilica del Santo Niño and more and more people were crowded everywhere. A lot were there to attend the mass and some were there to sell almost stuff. A lot of things greeted the eyes, ears, and nose. Everything tempted the senses from native delicacies, palm crosses to statues of different saints in different sizes, clothes, accessories, food, etc. It was really hard getting through without worrying about snatchers, thieves and all sorts of mishaps that might happen though because even though it is considered “holy” grounds crime still happens there.
We were even set apart by all the people, which made it even harder to get through since they came from all sides. Entering the church was even worse, the crowd got thicker and thicker. We weren’t able to take pictures while we were inside but we managed to get through after all the pushing, the smells from different sides and the loud noises that came from everywhere. It made me so tired that by the time we got to Magellan’s Cross, I was famished. We had another break from all the commotion we just went through, ate a few snacks, took some pictures and went on to the Freedom Park.
There we had the luxury of sitting down on the ground after the tiresome walk; well not before we could take a couple of shots first. We had a hearty snack, barbecue, chips, biscuits and Coke. We weren’t even done and smalls groups had already formed nearby. We found out that some debaters had already been there waiting for us, expecting our arrival and were preparing for us too. With our stomachs already full and our energy back into gear, we moved to the part of the park where the debates were going to take place. We spread our banner on the ground, arranged our books and fliers, laid down our pin badges and we were ready. Of course, before the sun could go down, debates were already flaring. It wasn’t until about 7 PM that we decided it was time to head off to the headquarters and have our dinner. After a sumptuous meal, our movie began. It was titled, “The Agora” which was a story about the philosopher Hypatia. I have watched this movie and I couldn’t stop the tears falling down from my eyes and sobbing hysterically as to why that happened to her, (I didn’t cry during the film showing by the way). But moving on, we had discussions on some important matters like building our committees and our new library. All was great; no hang ups, no mobs throwing rocks of some sort, thankfully no rain and all the good stuff happened on this day. It was a very memorable experience and hopefully one of many more to come.
I hope this entry would convey to everyone that as atheists, agnostics or just non-believers we too are capable of having fun. We can respect other people’s right to follow their religion. We can also go to “holy” places without simultaneously combusting. I would encourage the people who are still just reading this from their computer screens to come out and join us. The fun never stops and you will get to know the real face of disbelief.
And no, we don’t eat babies.
http://patas.co/2012/04/road-to-reason-an-atheist-day-celebration/
The Philippine Atheists and Agnostics Society will be holding its first convention in Bayview Hotel, Manila on April 21, 2012, possibly the first ever atheism convention that will be held in the Philippines.
