Author: Andy Uyboco

My wife asked me, how about the message of love? Isn’t that the central message that Jesus preached?

Well, I have no arguments against love. It is what makes life worth living for me. Yet the concept of love was not unique to Jesus as it can also be found in other texts, some of them older than Jesus, like those of the Buddha or the Tao Te Ching.

However, it is the very concept of love that makes me reject the central doctrine of Christianity – that unless one believes in Jesus, he will be condemned and punished for all eternity. That doesn’t sound like love at all. That sounds more like blackmail.

People make such a fuss about Jesus willingly going through suffering, pain and death because of his love for us. However, what is a few hours worth of pain and suffering for an eternal God when he already knows that he is going to live again anyway? There was no real threat, danger or loss so was it really that great a sacrifice? In fact, if God were indeed the all-powerful creator, then all of this seems to be just an elaborate drama he created to amuse himself.

“Oh but he is perfectly just. He can’t just forgive sins.”

Really? He can’t? Who’s going to stop him?

“But justice demands payment or punishment. God can’t go against his nature of being perfectly just.”

Again, really? Are you telling me that God cannot do what humans can do with relative ease — to go against our own nature, to forgive and forget, let bygones be bygones, water under the bridge and all that?

Probably the most quoted passage in the Bible is John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (NIV)

You know what that sounds like? Imagine yourself trapped on a roof in the middle of a storm. The water is rising fast. Out of nowhere you see a man in a lifeboat approaching. Then the man shouts and says, “Hey, the town mayor knows your situation. He loves you, that’s why he sent me to tell you that you can get on this boat and be saved but you can only do that if you also profess to love the mayor and promise to vote for him during the next election. So what will it be?”

If you think that’s ridiculous, well, I agree. Now think about John 3:16 again.

In fact, this passage only seems to about love but it is really about fear and guilt.

If it were really about love, then there would be no need for the artificial guilt created by trying to convince us that we are somehow to blame for the suffering and death of God’s son because our great-great-great-great-great grandparents decided to disobey a silly command not to eat a fruit that was so conveniently placed in the middle of the garden where they lived. It’s almost like placing a loaded gun on your child’s bed and telling him not to touch it.

If it were really about love, there would be no need for the threat of eternal punishment for those who don’t believe at face value, for those who question and ask for evidence, and who actually care about establishing truth in as logical and scientific manner as possible, knowing that there are many charlatans going about, and not only charlatans but people who are sincere, but wrong nonetheless.

A deity who possesses perfect love would have no need to use fear. Love would be the only language that deity would ever need. Sadly, that is not the Christian message — at least not the traditional one.

Perhaps those so fond of preaching hellfire and brimstone should reflect on yet another verse in the Bible that says, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” (1 John 4:18 NIV).

If you think about it, the most logical way that we can truly thrive and be happy on this planet is (cliche though it may sound) by truly caring for and loving our fellow humans, and also other beings, and our environment.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear. That is perhaps the only message we need to hear.

Originally published in Sunstar Davao.

Andy Uyboco is a businessman by profession and an educator by obsession. You may email him at andy@freethinking.me. View previous articles at www.freethinking.me.

 

I just read this on the status update of Seth Andrews, host of The Thinking Atheist Radio Podcast and I thought it was worth reblogging (with his permission, of course):

I get these kind of messages from theists quite often:
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Now lets just say for a moment you are right.THERE IS NO GOD. This world somehow created itself ,there is no meaning to this life,we are born,shuffle around for a few years and then cease to exist. Fair enough,good luck to you if you really believe that. BUT.If you believe all of us Christians and believers of God in other faiths are delusional why not be happy for us that we have found a delusion that makes us happyand more caring and gives us meaning.
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And again, my response:

The world didn’t create itself, but was instead the result of a singularity 13.7 billion years ago, its cause not yet known, but also not lending itself to the Magic Man in the Sky theories. In this regard, gods are no better explanations than fairies and pixie dust.

We aren’t preaching as much as responding. Religion, by design, ripples outward. It has a Great Commission to “go ye into all the world and preach.” It indoctrinates children, often with a fear of Hell. It infects political systems. It contaminates science books with pseudoscience. It posits false history. And in the Age of Information, it is crumbling as a reputable source for facts, purpose and morality.

If religion wasn’t on the offense, pounding on our doors and seeking to make converts worldwide, if it only stayed blissfully and innocuously inside the happy-clappy hearts of the believers, the need for a response wouldn’t be so great.

But religion doesn’t stay locked up. It not only seeks to spread, but it also claims the high ground, spewing nonsense from a mountain of superstition. It must be addressed, countered and ultimately run through the gauntlet of science, reason and the evidence.

“Happy” is certainly something we should all strive for. But “Happy” isn’t our measuring stick for determining truth. We’d rather know an uncomfortable fact than embrace a happy falsehood. And in our lives of evidence-based discovery, we have plenty of joy, purpose, meaning and love.

Face it. Religion is simply upset because, finally, somebody’s holding up a hand of skepticism about its wild claims and requiring the pastors, preachers and pundits to substantiate those claims. This doesn’t make religion a victim. It makes religion accountable.

And it’s about time.

I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions. Well, perhaps I did when I was much younger and still in school — but only because the teacher required us to write a paper about it. At that time, I hated writing anything longer than a simple sentence so that seemingly trivial assignment was pure torture for me and totally nullified whatever happiness I derived from the recently concluded Christmas break.

Perhaps that early trauma turned me off to writing or making new year’s resolutions, but then again, maybe not. I really can’t tell now. What I know though is that I am not a very goal-oriented person. Oh, I try to be, especially when I read about highly successful people I admire — and how committed they were to their vision, but I never found a goal that would drive me relentlessly.

I don’t dream of pricey vehicles nor large mansions. I am happy with inexpensive shirts and jeans. I may splurge occasionally but I don’t feel pressured to always wear top-of-the-line brands. I don’t get people who are obsessed with watches or bags that cost as much as a small car. I’m not really into travel either — except perhaps with the idea of backpacking — but it’s really something I can do without.

Aside from good health and basic needs for my family, give me a laptop, internet, books, the company of a few good friends, and there isn’t really much more I could ask for materially.

My drive doesn’t come so much from a set of targets than it does from enjoying every moment and savoring new experiences.

I recently read an article by James Clear at Entrepreneur.com where he urges people to forget setting goals and instead create systems which will inadvertently lead you to the goal. For example, I’ve always wanted to write a book and I’ve attempted it several times in the past but I’m now 40 years old with still no book to my name. In fact, I don’t think I’ve even completed a single chapter in all these attempts.

But just last year, I came up with an idea to write a weekly column (yes, the one you’re reading right now). Since it was weekly, I had to make a few adjustments to my schedule to allow me time to compose and reflect every week. So I usually write on Wednesdays and submit the finished product on Thursdays. That became a system, a pattern I follow week after week.

I write an average of 700 words per week. That might not seem like much but by this coming February, I would have been writing for a year and would have turned out an average of 40,000 words. Clear says in his article that the average book is 50,000 to 60,000 words.

So without really setting out to write a book, I’ve written almost enough to complete one and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the process and I’m now a total believer of systems.

This is not to say that goal-setting does not work, because I know it works for a lot of people and I’m happy for them that they’ve found something that works for them. But now I’m doubly happy because I’ve found something else that works for people like me. It doesn’t involve a big change or trying to pump up my desires to achieve a goal that I don’t really feel passionate about in the first place. All it takes is tweaking a few things here and there in my daily schedule and letting time and habit run its course.

In the book, Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch, the author asks God, “What is your will? What do you really want me to do?”

God answers, “Nothing. I don’t want you to do anything.”

If you understand that, then you can understand the joy of having no goals and no New Year’s Resolutions.

Originally published in Sunstar Davao.

Andy Uyboco is a businessman by profession and an educator by obsession. You may email him at andy@freethinking.me. View previous articles at www.freethinking.me.

 

It is Christmas day as I write this article and I thought it fitting to write some of my thoughts about the man to whom this day is dedicated. In the process of letting go of my religious beliefs, Jesus was the last to go.

As a Christian, I was a big fan of preacher and author, Josh McDowell, who claimed to have spent his younger years in an earnest effort to disprove Christianity, yet could not do so because he couldn’t find a way to refute the person, death and resurrection of Jesus. For many years, I felt the same way as well.

However, this argument presupposes two things: One, that Jesus was a real, historical figure; and two, that the accounts of his miracles (especially his resurrection) are factual, accurate and reliable.

For most of my life, I was convinced that I had a “personal relationship” with him. I could “feel his presence” and talk to him, sing praises to him, worship him. Then I began to realize that all I ever knew about Jesus, I learned in Sunday School, or through the Bible, or through a sermon or books written by Christian authors.

And then I thought it was such a joke for me to claim to have a personal relationship with an entity whom I only know about through second-hand sources, an entity I have not even seen, heard, touched or smelled (or tasted, just to round out the senses).

How do I know that the picture of Jesus in my head was the real and actual Jesus? Was there even a real and actual Jesus?

So I set out to learn and study more about him. I was especially interested in material that was scholarly and as unbiased as possible. I didn’t want anything with an agenda (although that is quite difficult), and I had to do a lot of reading, cross-referencing, listening to debates, arguments, counter-arguments and finally letting everything sink in, letting the emotions dissipate, and doing my own thinking and reflection.

I would just like to share my personal realizations so far in this little quest of mine.

I do not have a clear stand on whether or not Jesus was a real, historical figure. I am around 60% convinced that he is historical because of traditional scholarship and also because of agnostic scholars such as Bart Ehrman. I used to scoff at the idea that Jesus is pure myth but Robert Price and Richard Carrier make some intelligent and compelling arguments for this case and I am intrigued enough to do further readings and reflection on them.

I have reason to highly suspect the miracle accounts. Jesus may have been a real person who existed in history, but much about him may have been embellished and even contrived. The gospels are not first-hand accounts of Jesus’ life as most people believe. They are most probably not written by the people whose names they bear (e.g. the book of Matthew was not really written by Matthew). One has to remember that Matthew and John were illiterate, Aramaic-speaking Jews while all the copies of the gospels that we have are written in highly literate Greek. Moreover, they were written at least 30 to 60 years after the events had taken place — that is more than enough time for legends and fiction to develop. Besides, we do not even have the originals of these documents but rather copies of copies of copies of copies.

We might think that it would be easy for actual eyewitnesses to refute the gospels if they had not been factual. But how exactly would they do that? If a document reaches another city where no one has heard of Jesus, and one person preaches it so fervently there, would there be an eyewitness to refute what he says?

Even in our generation, we have charismatic personalities able to convince large numbers of people to believe their slant of “truth” — think of political leaders like Hitler or Mao, or religious founders like Joseph Smith or Felix Manalo.

Even with the internet, we still get our fair share of people believing in myths and false tales. Just look at your Facebook page at the people who still post the hoaxes about those colored bars found in toothpaste tubes, or who tell you (wrongly) how to circumvent Facebook’s new privacy policy.

Many historical documents (even supposedly reliable ones) are full of “miracles” simply because people at that time were more superstitious and less knowledgeable about science and hence explained the unexplainable with magic or stories of divine intervention.

I do not claim to have all the answers about Jesus, or that my ideas are right, and honestly, it’s more confusing now than before when I only listened to one side of the argument. But I would not have it any other way. I was raised believing that this man’s life was the most important thing in my life (and in all life, for that matter) — and millions around the world, including many of my closest friends, still believe it. I owe it to myself and to them to find out the truth.

Originally published in Sunstar Davao.

Andy Uyboco is a businessman by profession and an educator by obsession. You may email him at andy@freethinking.me. View previous articles at www.freethinking.me.