Category: Essays

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A sure sign of getting old is when people ask you to be a ninong at their wedding, instead of being a ninong at their kid’s baptismal ceremony.

I attended a wedding ceremony this afternoon where my friend requested me to be the ninong. Unlike other ceremonies I have attended in the past, this was a first for me because it was to be a civil wedding held at a court of law, rather than a church. So I was at the venue a bit early, a bit excited and curious to observe how court weddings go.

The court was near the Ecoland Bus Terminal. Images of Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Flash and the Wonder Twins went through my head as I read the words “Hall of Justice” emblazoned on the building (For those too young to remember, the Hall of Justice was the headquarters of the Superfriends – a cartoon show that was popular a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, when I was a child).

The inside of the Hall, however, looked like a warehouse for old paper. Huge stacks of documents in folders lined the walls and corners of the place, a lot of them dusty and yellowed with age. I made my way to the back where the stairs to the second floor were. I had to wait a bit since I arrived during lunch break and the courts were closed. Most of the offices had their lights out. I walked around and peered through the glass doors and could see dark shapes sprawled on the court benches — employees taking their noontime siesta.

I hung out at the second-floor balcony waiting for the courts to open and the soon-to-weds to arrive. When they did, there were short introductions around and we waited for a few more minutes until the judge came out. She was about to begin the ceremony but noticed that the marriage form had the bride and groom interchanged. So she had the clerk correct the documents and we waited again for a while.

The clerk then came over and had the couple check the information he typed. Finally, everything was in order and we could begin. The judge said something along the lines of, “We know this is a civil wedding but let’s begin this ceremony with a prayer and know that you are committing yourselves to each other and to God in this Christian union.” Obviously the judge was using some kind of a standard script that she utilized again and again for these things. The vows were interspersed with “I promise to build a Christian home” and things like that.

I could only wince at the irony of those words.

I would liked to have stopped the judge mid-sentence but I was afraid of disrupting the ceremony and getting thrown out of court, or worse, jeopardizing my friend’s wedding. After all, there were huge signs all around that if your cellphone rang, you could be cited for contempt — what more if you interrupted the judge?

The irony of it was twofold. First, we have a very clear clause on the separation of church and state in our constitution, which the judge ought to have known. She had no business injecting Christian overtones in a ceremony that the couple had decided would be conducted in a secular setting. Even if those were her personal values, she should have used neutral and religion-free language to conduct the ceremony or at least did the couple the courtesy of asking if they were indeed Christians.

Which brings me to the second level of irony — neither the groom nor the bride was a Christian. The groom was sort of an atheist/agnostic and the bride was Muslim. I could hear the hesitation in their voices as they were forced to repeat sentences that became meaningless because of the insertion of religious phrases they did not even adhere to.

They expressed their frustration after the ceremony, outside the courtroom, but the damage had been done. And until our government realizes that their offices are not the proper places for crucifixes or other religious icons, and that mandatory prayer should be abolished, the battle for a truly secular government goes on.

Originally published in Sunstar Davao.

Send me your thoughts at andy@freethinking.me. View previous articles at www.freethinking.me.

One of the earliest Christian books I read was Josh McDowell’s More Than A Carpenter. The book outlines his initial mission to disprove the Bible but it ended up the other way, with him believing and defending it, becoming a preacher and a writer.

Perhaps one of the strongest arguments he uses in that book is the “Lord, Liar or Lunatic” idea (originally from C.S. Lewis) which, in a nutshell, is this: When one looks at the character, deeds and words of Jesus, one cannot simply say that he was a just a great teacher, or a superb human being. Here was a person who heavily implied that he was God — In John 10:30 he says, “I and the Father are one;” In John 8:58 “Before Abraham was born, I am.” — therefore, there are really only three things you can say about him. Either he is who says he is (Lord), he’s not who he says he is (Liar), or that he is deluded or crazy (Lunatic).

McDowell then proceeds to argue that Jesus’ actions and moral uprightness do not show him to be a liar, and that his wisdom in answering arguments do not show him to be crazy. Therefore, one is left with no recourse but to admit that he is Lord.

It took me a long time (around 20 years) to see the flaw in this argument. In hindsight, it was not because it was an airtight argument, although it seems to be, but because I was only too happy to have a logical-sounding argument that reinforced and strengthened my faith.

A few years back, in a discussion board for freethinkers, I advanced the Lord, Liar, Lunatic argument, and someone countered with a simple proposal — a fourth option that I never thought was available — Legend.

Lord, Liar, Lunatic only works IF you take the Gospels as accurate accounts of what Jesus said and did in his lifetime. But once you are open to the idea that not everything in the Gospels can be taken as “gospel truth,” then other options become available especially when one becomes aware of the historical background of that time.

Many pastors and church leaders proclaim the story of Jesus as “unique” and therefore could not have been invented. I swallowed that before but not now that there is overwhelming evidence against it. History is replete with stories and ideas of dying and rising gods — Inanna, Osiris, Zalmoxis, Dionysius, Baal and Marduk, to name a few.

A Sumerian lore called The Descent of Inanna talks about the Queen of Heaven, Inanna, who leaves heaven and descends to the underworld. They believed the underworld or realm of the dead had 7 levels. At each level, she sheds off a piece of her royal vestments so that at the lowest stage, she was naked and no longer recognizable as a goddess.

She was judged before a court and killed and her corpse was “hung on a hook.” But she was resurrected after three days by two “asexual beings” created by another god, Enki. The beings sprinkled her corpse with the “food and water of life” and she was revived.

There are differences, of course, but one can see obvious parallels between this early legend and the story of Jesus, who descends to earth and was not recognized as god. He was tried before a court, the Sanhedrin, and sentenced to die by crucifixion — which is also popularly described as being “hung on a tree.” He was also resurrected after three days and according to the Gospel of Luke (but not the others), there were two angels (who most theologians concur are asexual beings) at the event. The “food and water of life” are also reminiscent of Jesus’ bread and wine — the body and blood of life.

Is it just coincidence that there are similarities in the Inanna story with the Jesus story? I don’t think so, especially since that is not the only story with those kinds of parallels. Many other stories have parallels and we know that people (whether ancient or modern) like to retell and reuse old themes from old stories, giving them a new spin, and so on.

Of course, none of this is conclusive proof that the Jesus story is legend. Probability, after all, does not mean certainty. However, it certainly opens the door a little wider to allow the possibility of it, and I believe there is a strong case to me made for it given the evidence we have.

*****

Originally published in Sunstar Davao.

Send me your thoughts at andy@freethinking.me. View previous articles at www.freethinking.me.

A friend of mine told me last week that when he opened his newspaper, there was an enclosed fly-leaf which turned out to be a dress-code reminder from the Catholic church to the ladies attending mass. Ladies were supposed to be dressed modestly and not show up in spaghetti straps or shorts, perhaps because their naked shoulders or thighs might distract the men, including the priests, or cause other women to be envious.

This got me to thinking of my own experiences of having to show up in my “Sunday best” when attending church. I remember sometime in my teens when I wanted to just wear a simple T-shirt and jeans but my dad chastised me, saying that I should wear something nice “for the Lord.”

I wasn’t too vocal about it then but I think the Lord couldn’t care any less what I wore. After all, it also says in 1 Samuel 16:7 that “man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” It is ironic that a ceremony designed to welcome everyone to focus on no one else but God, should have all these social conventions that keep other people from feeling too uncomfortable.

Some Christians will likely quote Jesus’ story in Matthew 22 where Jesus talks about a king inviting everyone to the wedding banquet of his son, but during the wedding finds someone who didn’t have “wedding clothes,” and so tied the poor fellow up and threw him outside. So it was on that principle that people were demanded to “show respect to the Lord” when appearing for Sunday service.

However, the Book of James 2:2-4 states, “Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?”

What I gather then from this is that, yes, you show a certain respect towards the occasion by dressing appropriately, but the ultimate arbiter of what “respect” means surely has to be the the person you are giving respect to, and not the doorman. That is what James seems to be saying, to not discriminate and judge others by their outward appearance.

I mean, why should it have mattered to the creator of the universe what I wore when he could see me naked day in and day out in the bathroom? In the gospel stories, Jesus certainly didn’t care what the people who associated with him wore. He welcomed whores, beggars, drunkards and the like. When a man shows up at the door with a beer bottle in hand, or a woman in a tight miniskirt and a tube top, do you turn these people away, look at them apprehensively, or welcome them with a warm and genuine smile?

Anyway, these are simply intellectual musings for me at this point in time as I no longer attend church but for those who still do, this might be something for you to think about.

Originally published in Sunstar Davao.

Send me your thoughts at andy@freethinking.me. View previous articles at www.freethinking.me.

Until now, I am still getting emails and questions on two articles I wrote a few weeks ago: “Is Emgoldex a Scam?” and “Defending Emgoldex and Failing Miserably.” Today,  I hope to share some of those questions and my answers to them in order to address a broader audience, in case you have the same questions lurking in your heads as well.

 

• Aren’t there legal pyramids and illegal pyramids?

 

No, by definition, a “pyramid scheme” is illegal. It is an “unsustainable business model that involves promising participants payment or services, primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, rather than supplying any real investment or sale of products or services to the public.”

What is legal is Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) or Network Marketing although there have already been a number of MLM companies taken down for operating as a pyramid scheme, and this is what plagues the industry because laymen typically regard all of them, scams or otherwise, as “pyramids.”

 

• You mentioned in your articles that you can prove mathematically why these schemes will fail. Can you please do that now?

 

Sure, this is a simple geometric progression. Emgoldex, in particular, operates on a 14:1 ratio — meaning to sustain 1 person, you need 14 participants. To sustain 2, you need 28. To sustain 3, you need 42…In other words, for all 14 non-exiting initial participants, you need another 14×14 people = 196.

Extending this (multiply each level by 14):

Level 1 = 14
Level 2 = 196
Level 3 = 2,744
Level 4 = 38,416
Level 5 = 537,824
Level 6 = 7,529,536
Level 7 = 105,413,504  ==> More than the Philippine population
Level 8 = 1,475,789,056
Level 9 = 20,661,046,784 ==> More than the world population

In this example, there will be a SURE collapse at Level 8 — because it will be virtually impossible to achieve Level 9.

Now, you might say, that will still take a long time so why not make some money on the side in the meantime? But take note that we are ASSUMING that everyone will eventually join Emgoldex…which is NOT the case in reality. In reality, A VERY SMALL percentage of the population joins ANY networking company and a MUCH SMALLER percentage of that will join Emgoldex specifically.

What I mean to say is this. It seems that for the level 1 people to exit, they need to talk to 196 people only. WRONG. They need to talk to MUCH MORE than that because most of the people they talk to WILL NOT JOIN. So in order to get your 196 people, you may already have “burned” through a thousand or more people who REFUSED to join. Therefore, the collapse may happen SOONER than you think it will.

 

• But Emgoldex people say that they can keep on reinvesting their money so the system will never collapse.

 

NOT EVERYONE will reinvest. In fact, only a small percentage will do so. When that happens, it will collapse because the system as it is constantly NEEDS NEW FUNDS for it to keep going. Consider this. 15 people invest approximately 35,000 each and only one exits with 180,000. Total cash into the system is PHP 525,000, total cash out of the system is PHP 180,000. That means, for every peso you put into the system, you lose close to three pesos. That’s not very smart, is it?

Tell me how this is sustainable if no new investor comes in and the same people keep putting their money in. And these people have to question, where does the difference of 345,000 go? Why to the pockets of the Emgoldex owners, of course, who are laughing all the way to the bank.

 

• I have a friend who is heavily into Emgoldex. Can I please ask you to write her and hopefully talk some sense into her?

 

I think the best you can do is to show her the articles I wrote. If that doesn’t convince her, I don’t know what will. I don’t think a chat with me will do it because I don’t have a personal connection with your friend. And besides these people are trained not to listen to “negative” people — which is how they look at me, for sure. There are people who simply cannot be swayed by logic or reason and talking to them is like talking to a religious fanatic. Some people just like to take lessons the hard way, I guess.

 

• Can you also do a review of Company X or Company Y which appeared in this particular TV show or which has that particular person as its endorser?

 

I’m sorry but I would have to decline. It is not my full-time job hunting down every bogus scheme, or analyzing the business model of each scam that pops up every now and then. What I hope to have done is to give readers a general sense of how to detect scams and to make them analyze better. I wrote about Emgoldex because it kept popping up on my Facebook feed and it was getting annoying and someone close to me asked me to look more deeply into it.

In closing, my advice is to exercise extreme caution and due diligence before you invest your hard-earned money somewhere. The old adage still holds true — that if something sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. And for those who haven’t heard, Emgoldex has already changed its name to Global Intergold, but a scam by any other name will suck money out of your pockets just the same.

Originally published in Sunstar Davao.

Send me your thoughts at andy@freethinking.me. View previous articles at www.freethinking.me.

Dear Christian Friend,

If you are bothered by my unbelief, please do not just tell me you are praying for me. I welcome questions, conversation, and dialogue. But what I find really irritating is when you just give me that look — a look that makes me feel like I have some sort of disease — and then tell me you’re praying for me.

I understand that in our society, saying “I’m praying for you” is a great source of comfort for many. It is an expression of sympathy that encourages most people — especially the religious — and so I do not blame you if you think it will also encourage me.

But it does not.

When you say “I’m praying for you” to my face, I feel like you see something very wrong with me. And you probably do because you think that I am on the road to hell. However, please understand that to me, prayer is a meaningless exercise and hell is just a fairy tale. I do not say these things to your face because I respect your right to believe as you do. I hope you also respect my right not to believe as you do.

Saying you’ll pray for me is just as meaningless as a Catholic giving a rosary to a Protestant. It’s as meaningless as telling a Hindu to swear by the Bible.

It also sounds condescending. It’s as if you are saying you’re in a better position than I am — that your belief is better than my unbelief and that you are praying that I’ll come around to my senses and believe as you do so we can all hold hands and sing happy hallelujahs once again.

Now I know you most probably don’t mean it that way, but that is how it seems to me, especially if you’ve never bothered talking to me. If you did, you would find out that I’m happier and more content with my life. There is more honesty and congruence in my thoughts, feelings and actions. I don’t have to pretend to be sure of god’s mysterious ways and call it an act of faith. Perhaps I should be the one praying for you, if I had anyone to pray to.

But don’t get me wrong. I am not telling you not to pray for me. You are, after all, free to do whatever you want. And you are most probably sincere in your desire to help. I just do not want nor need to hear about it because hearing it does nothing good for me. It doesn’t encourage me and it doesn’t give me hope and it doesn’t even make me happy.

If you really want to understand me, you are always free to talk to me. I don’t bite. In fact, I appreciate the handful of pastors and other Christians who are not afraid to be open and honest with me, who would even visit our little community of doubters and skeptics. “I cannot understand why, but I am happy to be here. I am even happy to be offended,” said one pastor.

If there is a heaven, that must be what it is like — full of people giving and taking offense, and being happy anyway.

Originally published in SunStar Davao.

Send me your thoughts at andy@freethinking.me. View previous articles at www.freethinking.me.