Altar Decorations

I went to a Catholic wedding recently. Weddings are happy events, celebrating the continuity of life and intertwining of the couple's happiness. I see it as a happy moment for the couple and their family and friends.

Everything was decorated nicely. Each flower and fern has been placed aesthetically. The columns were draped with cloths. The seats have been wrapped in ribbons. A red carpet was on the center aisle on the marble floor. The altar - white and gold. Smiles were painted on people's faces. Everything looks fitting for a joyous celebration...

... except for that statue of a corpse of a bloody dude hanging by his hands and feet on nails attached to a barbaric torture device...

Tolerance vs Adherence

Several years ago when I was still a faithful christian, I sought to look at all religions open-mindedly, thinking that they all deserve their own special place in the world. I did some textbook readings about some of the major religions, especially the Abrahamic faiths, and looked at some of the common aspects. I respected others' beliefs.

I was young and rather innocent. I wasn't able to fathom why the Abrahamic faiths had to diverge from one another. Moreover, seeing as the Christian faith itself is split into several denominations, I failed to understand the reason why. Still, with my innocence, I regarded the religions as equal. I would've probably tried joining other faiths if I had the time, resources, or the opportunity. I merely settled with Catholicism out of convenience.

As a Catholic, I went to Church and prayed regularly. But sometimes, I was being bugged by the assumption I made that the three Abrahamic religions supposedly worship the same deity yet have conflicting beliefs. Christians believe in the prophets of the Old Testament and Muslims acknowledge that Jesus is a prophet himself (disregarding the "son of god" business).

It turns out that these differences in beliefs have caused several conflicts among religions, each wanting a bigger slice of cake than the others. Conflicts ensued to the point of death and destruction. Tolerance was out of the question.

Viewing the religions as individual humans, we can see that it is but a mere conflict of greedy egotistical narcissists who won't back down from a royal rumble until the other opponents are dead. Greed for the limelight. For sole supremacy. For not just the largest slice of cake, but the whole cake itself.

I say this to my naive younger self: "You can indeed respect and tolerate other religions. But a religion demands belief and adherence, not respect or tolerance. What are you hoping of achieving from mere tolerance?"

Those with a deep-seated belief are, ironically, beyond redemption..

Higher Dimensional Being

I'll go a bit deistic for this post.

Imagine a flat 2D universe on, say, a piece of paper. A resident of that universe, say, a stickman, would only be able to move in two dimensions only with movements such as up, down, left, and right. In his universe there is no forward or backward. It can't visualize the thought of an extra dimension the same way we can't visualize four. Forwards or backwards is impossible for two dimensions but we in three dimensions can do that pretty easily. Our daily lives involve moving in three dimensions.

Let's say you look at this piece of paper the stickman calls his universe. Anywhere he looks and anywhere he goes, you can see the stickman. No matter what the stickman does, it cannot escape you. To him, you could be considered omnipresent. Even if the stickman encloses itself in a square house, four "walls" would mean nothing to you.

It cannot fathom the simplest of things you are able to do. The ideas of "forward" and "backward" are, to it, very stunning and revolutionary. You would probably shrug it off like nothing but to it, you are everything. All it can see of you are your fingerprints.

We cannot turn our backs on a 4-dimensional being. Think about higher dimensions. No matter where we face, it can see us.

We cannot even notice the beings in our own dimension. What are worms and ants thinking about? DO they even realize that humans exist? Would they fathom the concepts of "capitalism", "mersenne primes", "neutrinos", or "skyscrapers"? No, they don't. Even if we give them the information, they wouldn't be able to understand it.

How the fuck can anyone even think that a being from a higher dimension would give a fuck about abortion, homosexuality, or pre-marital sex?

Carlos Celdran is an asshole

I've been reading some rather old news about Filipino atheists or freethinkers or whatever they call themselves. I am Filipino and an atheist but I'm not the type of person who joins a group for a cause no matter how noble or evil or how close their ideologies may be to mine.

A particular human caught my attention recently - a certain Carlos Celdran. His name appeared in the news for barging into a church, holding up a placard and yelling "Damaso" while wearing an outfit attributed to Jose Rizal, the country's national hero. Padre Damaso is a character in Rizal's book who symbolizes the wrongdoings of the Catholic Church during the Spanish occupation. Filipino atheists lauded Celdran as a hero for his actions, placing his name alongside Rizal's.

I am a Filipino and an atheist but I think of Celdran's actions as downright despicable in my opinion. What he did was creative but tactless. If these humans want to get things done, this flamboyant attitude won't help their cause.

I've been to the arrogant gnostic atheist stage myself when I was just in my first year (or so) of "enlightenment". I admit I was rude, arrogant, and closed-minded as most gnostic theists - defeating the point of agnosticism. But as time passed, I tried to become more and more open-minded as I became more attuned to the agnostic part of agnostic atheism. Celdran is branded as a hero by these upstarts and whatever arrogance they had with their immaturity is exacerbated by Celdran's own arrogance. Oil has been spilled over the fire. I have never met anyone with this level of serious arrogance.

And I hate seriously arrogant people. I don't want to meet him. Ever.

I have no respect for religions for what they strive to be; rather, I only respect religions for what they are: lifestyles, though not all lifestyles have primitive beginnings and *ehem* child-molesting priests. Since most Filipinos are Christians, being rude won't help get your point across, especially with age-old traditions and indoctrination. Let's face it: the Filipino masses are helplessly blind and religious (or blindly religious). The population is still attached to the umbilical cord of religion. Severing the cord recklessly won't do it any good.

I am a passivist, the opposite of an activist, and I ceased pushing my own beliefs to others. Instead, I post on this blog to share to my friends (and hopefully, to the world) my views. I admit that posting on my blog isn't gonna do much to change the world. But hey. I like what I'm doing.

I won't reclassify myself as just an agnostic like what Neil deGrasse Tyson did, since "agnostic" implies "agnostic theist". I'm a Filipino who doesn't believe in a deity because I think the evidence that points to one is lacking, making me an agnostic atheist. Celdran and his immature joiner flock, on the other hand, are "antitheists" rather than atheists.

Plus, I'm also apolitical.

Edited.

Pushy Hypocrites

There comes a time when a christian would damn someone, telling him to "Go to hell" for his atrocities towards the christian god. Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist followers are undeniable examples of this but there are also some less extreme christians with minds of temperamental 16-year-olds who say the phrase without meaning it... Or sometimes actually meaning it.

So they're the polar opposites of well-wishers, wishing instead for a person's eternal punishment. When atheists like George Carlin and Christopher Hitchens died, there's the typical "He is now in hell" send-off. One thing is clear: they expect people to be sent to hell.

Though, if they really expect people to be sent to hell, then why do they have to try to mess with their lives and push their "values" unto them? If they're pretty much okay with condemning someone, why can't they just simply leave them alone? They're going to hell (so they say). They're gonna live their afterlives in hell anyway so why not just let them live their "sinful" lives in peace?

If they seriously cared for a person's afterlife, they wouldn't wish for his eternal punishment - not that I believe in any of that bullshit.

Suicide

Like murder, suicide is also taboo. The traditional Catholic way of thinking condemns those who have committed suicide, saying that it will automatically send them to hell without any chance of salvation. However, more recent Catholic ways of thinking state that one shouldn't condemn suicide victims but should be prayed for. Indeed, that is a better thing to do than flat-out damnation but still, I'm not really a fan of prayer.

Most people commit suicide due to mental instability and thus, have lost control of their rational minds. Others who do it with a rational mind, however, have stronger feelings than just being unwanted and unloved. Take for instance the Japanese soldiers who commit the honorable seppuku or the atrocious kamikaze. Muslim terrorists also commit suicide with bombs and take the lives of others with them in the name of their god. That being said, people usually think "Is there really no way for an act of suicide to be moral and just?" In fact, there are.

Picture this scenario: Two hikers were walking on a rope bridge when the bridge suddenly snapped. Hiker A was luckily able to hang on to Hiker B's leg but the latter was not strong enough to pull them both up and both of them will eventually fall. Hiker A decided to let go because he thought that it would be better if at least one of them had lived.

Suicide that leads to a better good is just. Anything that leads to a greater good is always just. The end doesn't always justifty the means, but in cases like heroic suicide, it does.