Category: Essays

I was a young protestant in a Catholic school. One day, I went to a priest and asked, “Why do you Catholics have to pray to Mary and the saints? Why not just pray directly to God?”

He answered, “Oh we don’t really HAVE to pray to them. And you’re right, we CAN pray directly to God, but you know, it’s like sometimes when you have a favor to ask someone and you can’t ask them directly, so you try to talk to people who are closer to that person than you are — well, it’s sort of like that. We ask Mary and the saints to intercede, to ask, on our behalf because they are, in a sense, closer to God than we are.”

I never did understand that explanation. Is there some sort of palakasan (a system of who has the stronger connections) in heaven? Does God unfairly show more favor to some than to others?

Years later, as an active member of our church, I would join prayer meetings (the least attended church activity all week) and the pastor would lament that very few people took time to intercede on others behalf. I would often wonder, what if the prayer meeting was jam-packed? What if 300 people were praying for Mrs. So-and-so’s cancer to be healed or Mr. So-and-so’s blood sugar levels to go down, would God have been more inclined and moved to do something about it than if it had only been 10 people asking? Is that how this thing works? Is God merely waiting for how many people have “liked” or shared that facebook status before he does something?

In fact, why would God, who supposedly sees and knows everything (even before they happen), have to rely on our intercessory prayers in order to act?

If I had the means to cure cancer, I would surely try to share and get that information out to as many people as possible, even without anyone telling me to do so. You don’t even have to get my mother to convince me to do it.

It bothers me that I have to ask God to do something that he should have known (and done) in the first place.

Ah but here’s the kicker, the Christian defense – “but you DON’T know. You DON’T know that lowering his blood sugar will actually be good for him. You DON’T know that taking the cancer away is the BEST thing to happen. It may be what is bringing that person’s family closer together as they try to help each other resolve this crisis.”

All right, that’s fine, but it also makes intercessory prayer totally useless. Why should I keep praying for this and that to happen when clearly, I don’t know squat about what’s going to happen? Why bother interceding? Just hope for the best, then.

I wasn’t an agnostic then at this point. I still believed in prayer, but I became convinced that it was useless to utter prayers where you asked for this or that — it didn’t matter if you asked for yourself or in behalf of others — because clearly, what was going to happen was going to happen anyway, and if I believed that God knows what’s best for us humans, then what’s going to happen is THE best thing that can happen regardless of how awful and tragic it may seem at the moment. I became convinced that the only prayer worth uttering was one of gratitude, whatever the circumstances.

Why put yourself through the emotional roller-coaster ride that comes with asking and asking with faith, convincing yourself that if you believe hard enough, you’ll get what you ask, and then getting disappointed anyway? Why not just accept that everything that happens, well, happens and we make do, or we make the best out of it.

I no longer pray, whether for myself or for others. What for? I just live, enjoy the company of my family and friends, and accept whatever comes my way.

There is no better way to live.

 Originally published in Sunstar Davao.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Violent Reactions? Send me an email at andy@freethinking.me. View past articles at www.freethinking.me.

The first and second days of November is that time of the year when people go to the cemetery to visit the graves of their departed loved ones. I remember my dad bringing the whole family to the Chinese cemetery many decades ago. We would visit the graves of my grandfather (who died before I was born) and grandmother, as well as my uncle, my father’s eldest brother (who also died before I was born).

I would often dart in and out of the maze of mausoleums, breathing in the incense and candle-smoke, looking at old pictures and inscriptions of the departed.

I remember one particular mausoleum. In the many years that we visited, it never seemed to have any visitors. I remember it because there was a striking photograph of an old couple. I don’t remember much of the woman’s face but the man wore a scowl and his eyes bore deep into my own. That photo gave me the creeps and I used to imagine that the man was Count Dracula himself.

As I grew older, the yearly visits became more tiresome because of the heat and traffic, and the novelty of exploring to and fro had worn off. Even “Dracula” didn’t scare me as much as he used to anymore. I would often ask my dad if I could skip the visit and just stay home. He would say, “No, it’s just one day out of a year, and it’s important, even for just that one day, to remember the dead and reflect on how they have touched our lives.”

Well, I wasn’t able to do that because I was out of town and preoccupied with other matters. So I thought now would be a good time to pause and remember some old friends and relatives who are dearly missed.

Uncle Roland – My dad’s youngest brother, whom I got as a ninong during my wedding. I had met him only once before as a teenager as he was already based in the U.S. a few years before I was born. The second time around, he visited Davao after being away for around 3 decades and it was a delight touring him around, especially when we passed Uyanguren and he exclaimed, “Uy Giok’s! Wow! Still alive huh?” I brought him to my Toastmasters meeting where he saw an old friend in Dr. Evelyn Fabie (who has also passed on). We had great conversation that afternoon over coffee where he shared to me his life and experience in the U.S. It was probably the first deep conversation I had with any relative of mine.

Eric Solon – My next door neighbor and one of my very first friends. He was two years older than me, taught me how to ride a bike, play ping-pong, climb walls, and basically, if I was not over at his house, he was over in mine. They had a large German Shepherd that I never quite got to befriend (I usually had a way with dogs, but not this one) — it bit me on the back when I carelessly leaned on their iron-railed fence one day. When Eric was in high school, he had cancer in his leg and it had to be amputated. But we later found out that the cancer had already spread to the rest of his body and he passed away soon after.

Uncle Frank – I didn’t really like him at first as he tended to be rough and brusque when talking to me. Also, he smoked like crazy and I didn’t enjoy inhaling the second-hand smoke. When I was in college, I remember being on a bus along EDSA, then I saw a car in the distance — and I thought, “That looks like Uncle Frank’s car,” but I wasn’t really sure because I couldn’t see who the driver was through the tinted glass. Then I saw the window open and dark smoke comes belching out of it, and then I thought, “Oh yes, that’s Uncle Frank for sure.”

It was only later that I learned of his tender and caring side, from my mom and some cousins who were closer to him than I was. I was there at his funeral and cremation, where one cousin playfully put a cigarette over his folded hands — one last stick for him as his corpse rolled towards the furnace.

Ernest Tan-chi – a good friend of mine and my wife who died in a car accident just a month before our wedding. I had met Ernest during my college years and I particularly remember a cold night in Tagaytay during a church conference. I had wandered out of my room because I couldn’t sleep and there was this dog wandering around so I sat with the dog and played with it. Ernest comes passing by and sits beside me and we talked for hours about life, death, God, and all sorts of things.

Eric Ramos – my classmate ever since we were in grade school all the way to high school. He had a unique and wacky take on things. I remember when our barkada was dining out at a fast food joint. After the meal, we were talking and drinking and Eric was noisily crushing the ice from his drink with his teeth. He then remarked to the waiter passing by, “Boss, ang sarap pala ng ice niyo dito” (Your ice tastes delicious). In a surreal repeat of what had happened earlier to Ernest, I would come to read of Eric’s demise in the U.S., also of a car accident.

My dad was right. It is good to take a little time and reflect on those who have departed, to think about what their lives meant, and how they have touched us. And when we do that, they continue to live on in our memories and in our hearts.

Originally published in Sunstar Davao.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Violent Reactions? Send me an email at andy@freethinking.me. View past articles at www.freethinking.me.

It’s Halloween and many people celebrate it by wearing depictions of hell’s denizens — demons, witches, ghosts, zombies, vampires, and so on. As a child I grew up believing in heaven and hell, as taught to me by my elders. As a teen trying to understand my faith, I raised a lot of questions about it, trying to understand how a loving God could create such a cruel fate for the unfortunate souls that get sent there (of course, I wasn’t one of those because I was “saved”).

A friend of mine posted an article entitled “What Kind of God Would Condemn People to Eternal Torment?” by Tim Challies, and it contains the usual sort of justification that moderate or conservative Christians would have of hell. These are the salient points of the argument:

1. A God who is totally just and holy must necessarily have a hell. Or according to Challies, “God’s goodness doesn’t negate eternal punishment in hell. It demands it.”
2. The punishment is eternal because humans have sinned against an eternal God. “When you sin against an infinite God…you accrue an infinite debt.”
3. The punishment must also be conscious and must be in the form of torment because God’s holiness is “unable to tolerate anything or anyone that is unholy” and because all sinners are “active rebels” against God (there are no passive unbelievers) — because the Bible says so.
4. Challies then concludes by saying that “To wish away eternity in hell is to wish away eternity in heaven. It is not that they exist in some kind of mutual dependence so that one can only exist alongside the other. But sin demands eternal punishment, while grace calls for eternal love and joy, the re-establishment of the good and holy relationship that our Creator intended to enjoy with us forever. How can I believe in a God who condemns people to hell? I must believe in this God, for He poured out the punishment of hell on Jesus Christ through whom I have hope.”

I wholeheartedly disagree on all points.

First, no justice system in any civilized society condones torture and active torment of its criminals. In fact, a better justice system would focus on correction and rehabilitation instead of merely punishment and torment. If someone were to start taking hardened criminals from their cells, and strap them to a table, and burn off their skin with a lighter inch by inch until they die — with no hope of reprieve or redemption, would we see that as an act of justice or as an act of sadistic perversion? Yet millions of people take delight in a God that does that. Why is that so?

The second point may seem to make sense but it really doesn’t. Your debt does not depend on the nature of the debtor but on the debt itself. In other words, if I borrow 20 pesos, then my debt is 20 pesos regardless of whether I borrowed it from a poor man or a wealthy man.

A finite being cannot produce anything infinite, thus his sin is also finite, regardless of whether he commits it to a finite or an infinite being.

The third point is strange because Jesus was supposed to be God and thus holy, yet he was more “a friend of sinners” than those of the so called holy men of his days. So that claim pretty much shoots itself in the head.

Also, it’s quite a stretch calling passive disbelief (or even ignorance) as willful disobedience or active rebellion. It’s such a stretch that the only justification the author has for it is to appeal to the correctness of his holy book, of which he has no proof whatsoever.

The conclusion is wishy-washy — to wish away hell is to wish away heaven, he says. In other words, he is not willing to give up his dream of living it up in paradise for the sake of those suffering eternal damnation. Is this the vaunted, unselfish Christian love that he so self-righteously preaches?

If I were given the choice, I would choose annihilation for everyone in a heartbeat, never mind heaven or hell. Just wipe the slate clean after death. How can I enjoy eternity, singing and dancing in heaven, knowing that some of the people I dearly love are suffering excruciatingly in hell?

So what kind of a God would condemn people to eternal torment?

I have but one answer — the worst kind.

Originally published in Sunstar Davao.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Violent Reactions? Send me an email at andy@freethinking.me. View past articles at www.freethinking.me.

A couple of readers chimed in on last week’s article when I asserted that secularism means “government neutrality in religious matters” — a phrase not of my own invention but quoted from Fr. Joaquin Bernas, a noted constitutional lawyer and Jesuit priest.

The first claimed that there is no such thing as neutrality and that I “shouldn’t be telling people that removing “God-loving” is neutral when it is not (referring to my own example of DepEd removing the words “God-loving” from its vision statement). This reader stated that doing so already favors unbelievers.

I countered that it is neutral because removing the words “God-loving” does not prohibit private individuals from loving God. It was not as if DepEd changed “God-loving” to “God-hating” or “God-denying,” which would be equally atrocious to a secularist. In fact, this is what the rephrased DepEd vision statement looks like:

“We dream of Filipinos who passionately love their country and whose values and competencies enable them to realize their full potential and contribute meaningfully to building the nation. As a learner-centered public institution, the Department of Education continuously improves itself to better serve its stakeholders.”

In terms of religious tone, this statement is perfectly neutral and what makes it so is the absence of any mention of God or religion. This absence, however, favors neither believers or unbelievers as both parties can easily adopt the statement as their own, without making any concessions to their beliefs.

Another reader based in the US gave an example of a Colorado judge who ruled that a baker named Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop discriminated against a same-sex couple by refusing to bake them a wedding cake, and was now forced to make wedding cakes for an occasion or ceremony that went against his deep religious convictions.

Admittedly, this is a matter more prickly to resolve than a vision restatement. I will also concur that neutrality is easy to write on paper but much more difficult to implement in practice because humans are naturally subjective and opinionated (this writer included) and thus have to make extra effort to see past one’s inherent biases.

I will again turn to the writings of the late former Associate Justice Isagani A. Cruz, who writes “the right to religious profession and worship has a twofold aspect, freedom to believe and freedom to act on one’s beliefs. The first is absolute as long as the belief is confined within the realm of thought. The second is subject to regulation where the belief is translated into external acts that affect the public welfare.”

In other words, the government guarantee of religious freedom and neutrality holds perfectly and absolutely while belief is confined to one’s mind. Any individual is free to believe or disbelieve as he sees fit. He may even believe in evil deities or worship demons and the state has no right to punish him for doing so.

However, once the individual acts on these beliefs, it is now a different matter because these actions may affect the welfare of other individuals or the general public. For example, if the above-mentioned demon-worshipper were to abduct children because his religion advocates child-sacrifice, the state would well be within its authority to arrest that person and he cannot justify his actions in the name of religious freedom.

In the case of W. Va. Board of Education v. Barnette in the U.S.A., Justice Frankfurter noted that “The constitutional provision on religious freedom terminated disabilities, it did not create new privileges. It gave religious liberty, not civil immunity. Its essence is freedom from conformity to religious dogma, not freedom from conformity to law because of religious dogma.”

So let us go back to the controversial case of Mr. Phillips. Was he within his rights to refuse his services to a gay couple because of his religious convictions? Colorado has a law that prohibits business establishments from refusing service based on race, sex, marital status or sexual orientation. In this light, it is easier to see that Mr. Phillips violated this law and how his religious beliefs do not grant him “freedom from conformity to law.” He was not “forced” to make gay wedding cakes (as claimed by one news site). Rather, the state was only ensuring that he provides the same level of service to everyone who walks into his store regardless of their sexual orientation.

Remember that it was only a few decades ago when many establishments likewise refused to serve customers just because they were black, and many of these establishment-owners had deep religious convictions about the matter as well. Did the law “force” them to serve black customers or did it only ensure fair business practice? How would Mr. Phillips feel, I wonder, if he walked into a restaurant and the owner refused to seat him because it was against his religious beliefs to serve food to Christians?

Originally published in SunStar Davao.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Violent Reactions? Send me an email at andy@freethinking.me. View past articles at www.freethinking.me.

A lot of people in our country misunderstand secularism. No, let me rephrase that. Majority of Filipinos do not even understand what it is. Yet, secularism is a basic principle of our government that is embedded in our constitution as stated in the Bill of Rights (Article III, Section 5):

“No law shall be made respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference, shall forever be allowed. No religious test shall be required for the exercise of civil or political rights.”

Secularism is the principle of separation between church and state. In other words, the affairs, authority, principles, activities, teachings of one should not automatically carry over to the other. An example of this is that even if a priest, pastor, bishop or imam is head of a church, he has no power or authority in a government office. He cannot march into City Hall and demand all workers to stop working immediately and attend mass. Likewise, a mayor cannot simply march into church and collect the funds in the offering plate in favor of the government.

Some people have the mistaken notion that secularists want to promote atheism. Just recently, a student group from a religious school invited me to give a talk on secularism. The school authorities thumbed down the proposal because they thought it was going to be about atheism. In truth, the secularist abhors state-imposed atheism as much as state-imposed religion.

What secularism is all about, in one word, is neutrality. The late Isagani A. Cruz, former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, writes:

“The rationale of the rule is summed up in the familiar saying, ‘Strong fences make good neighbors.’ The idea is to delineate the boundaries between the two institutions and thus avoid encroachments by one against the other because of a misunderstanding of the limits of their respective exclusive jurisdictions…The doctrine cuts both ways. It is not only the State that is prohibited from interfering in purely ecclesiastical affairs; the Church is likewise barred from meddling in purely secular matters. And the reason is plain. A union of Church and State, as aptly remarked, ‘tends to destroy government and to degrade religion.’ It is also likely to result in a conspiracy, well nigh irresistible because of its composite strength, against the individual’s right to worship.” (Constitutional Law, 2007)

An interesting case is the recent brouhaha over the change in the Department of Education’s vision statement. The original phrasing had the intent, among others, of producing “God-loving” individuals while the restated (and current) text has removed that particular phrasing. (The core values though still include “Maka-Diyos” but that is a battle for another day).

The change prompted some strong reactions from the religious community and some media outlets capitalized on this by writing such sensationalist and provocative headlines as “DepEd No Longer God-Loving.” I myself penned a strong reaction against one religious leader (published in the Filipino Freethinkers website) and later wrote a satirical article in this column in an attempt to show how ridiculous it would be if the government made concessions to each religion instead of simply omitting the phrase altogether.

This is my argument, in a nutshell: DepEd, as a state-institution, cannot attempt to mold citizens to be “God-loving” for to do so would be to favor religion, or even only a certain brand of religion (what if the student’s religion involves a goddess, instead of a god, or involves honoring animal spirits, or a pantheon of deities?). This is not to say, however, that by removing the phrase, DepEd suddenly becomes anti-God or anti-theistic. That is a silly notion, especially considering the fact that the organization is headed by a religious brother. DepEd is only practicing neutrality and fairness, as mandated by the Constitution. Rather than include all sorts of concepts and definitions of “God” in the vision statement, it is much more efficient to simply remove the loaded phrase altogether.

Fr. Joaquin Bernas, a noted constitutional lawyer and former president of the Ateneo de Manila University, writes:

“What non-establishment calls for is government neutrality in religious matters…Government must not prefer one religion over another or religion over irreligion because such preference would violate voluntarism and breed dissension...Government funds must not be applied to religious purposes…Government action must not aid religion…Government action must not result in exclusive entanglement with religion because this too can violate voluntarism and breed interfaith dissension.” (The 1987 Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines)

Secularism is important both for the religious and irreligious alike because it safeguards against abuses, and likewise preserves individual liberty and freedom of choice. A secularist is not anti-religion but simply someone who lives true to the idea of fairness and justice for ALL, not just a select few.

Originally published in Sunstar Davao.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Violent Reactions? Send me an email at andy@freethinking.me. View past articles at www.freethinking.me.