Atheista -

Exhibit Title: Living by Water
When: May 12 -27, 2008
Where: Alcove Perspective, Filipinas Heritage Library, Makati Avenue, Ayala Triangle, Makati City Continue Reading »

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It’s quite funny that people say stop and smell the coffee a lot. This suggests that most people have the innate ability to spot things that are logically amiss. Ironically, most people just turn a blind eye when it comes to the mishaps that their church have done throughout the ages. While there are surely intelligent people who subscribe to the teachings of the roman catholic church, those same group of intellectuals have chosen to ignore the misgivings of the upper tier of the church’s leadership.

A belief in a god doesn’t really need to exist within the trappings of a religion or an organized religion – and definitely not within one that is corrupt and utterly hypocritical. The values that govern the idea of having a personal god, savior and creator is mutually exclusive from having a group of supposedly celibate men telling what the millions of followers have to do. It’s quite ironic that a religion that actually promotes discrimination based on cultural beliefs and sexual orientation would continue to be strong despite its strong internal contradictions. Unfortunately, this what religion calls for – the suspension of inquiry and logic. Religion would simply destroy itself with its own weak dogma when subjected to the acid test that is applied to most things in the real world. Religion and religious organizations are always hidden behind a veil of protection that always obscures their bad judgments throughout the history.

Churches were started for primarily on thing – control. Through pretending that they have some sort of mandate to dictate upon their congregation due to divine providence, they could easily push forth their advocacies. Though for the most part they’ve used it to promulgate the idea of charity and goodwill (though through meritocratic and non epistemological reasons for the most part), much of the control has translated to the reining of the people’s right to think for themselves.

Practically everyone has the right and most importantly, the ability, to think and process information before passing judgment or acting on specific. Instead of having this exercise of critical thinking, the church cuts corners by laying down the law and making a single stand the only acceptable stand. We’ve seen it happen repeatedly on issues regarding population management, family planning and now much more recently, sexually-deviant behavior. Instead of castigating those who have clearly maligned and damaged the privacy of a patient in a recent incident in a hospital in Cebu, a high-ranking church official has decided to go after the aggrieved party instead.

Granted, the patient had a nothing-short-of-disturbing fetish. It may have even been his fault, but then again, don’t you think he would’ve realized that by now? The humiliation that he got is probably enough for him to lay off that type of “unconventional activity” for the mean time at least.

Astonishingly, people who want to want to play both sides of the fence have been profusely apologizing/explaining in behalf of the church on top of saying that the real people at fault are those who made fun of the procedure and curtailed the patient’s right to privacy. Though it seems noble, it’s quite clear that they’re turning a blind eye to the fact that their church truly discriminates and labels certain people to be sinners outright just because of one or two things about the totality of their being.

Yes, it is outrageous, Gibbs. But what’s more outrageous is that people continue to make excuses in their behalf and stomach these bone-headed statements time after time as if they don’t come that often.

People are so scared to step out of the church for some reason. Stepping out of the church isn’t turning your back from that entity that you would like to think of as god – far from it. Leaving the corrupt, hypocritical and illogical church just affirms your commitment to a sensible belief – one that is truly based on harmony, righteousness and fairness.

Although I’m atheist, I think a believer’s loyalty should always be to one’s god – not to some stubborn, judgmental, bigoted and sexually-repressed aging men who insist on wearing skirts.

Reference: News Article

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Disclaimer: I’m not really into proselytizing when it comes to atheism. Not all people have the necessary intellectual mettle to understand the premises behind it so I’d just leave it at the reality that most people are not intelligent enough to get it. Yes, that is my easiest measure of intelligence and reasoning – if one understands atheism for what it is, he is an intelligent person regardless of his religion. I’ve met Jehova’s Witnesses, Iglesia ni Cristo members etc. who understand the concept without necessarily believing it themselves so I guess it’s not really that rare a breed.

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This is a scheduled post – yeah, I wanted to make sure that I did good on my promise to nominate three blogs every week until the end of the nomination period. Since I’ve nominated two personal blogs last week, I’ll definitely try to spread the love out a bit this week.

The following are in my second set of nominees for the 2nd Philippine Blog Awards:

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If you’ve been reading about this blog for quite some time now, you probably already know that I’m driven by passion for the things that I love and values that I believe in. Whether it’s writing a deep, draining and provocative existential dirge or a jargon-filled debate review, I really put my stamp on my work. Currently, I have three blogs:

• this personal blog which morphs into a commentary page from time to time
• Phildebate – my impulsive contribution to the Philippine Debate Community
• and the project that I’m most proud of currently, Visit Sagada.

Most bloggers have a sense of entitlement. To them, the mere fact that they are writing brings tangible benefit to the people reading. It’s quite easy to fall into that trap. Comments, raves and praises aren’t that really hard to get in the ever-growing and ever-shrinking Philippine Blog Community. But in reality, those people are merely reading insights – personal musings that may or may not have a significant effect on things that they want to achieve in their lives. Our blogs were just fillers for the spare time that they had while waiting for their programs to compile or for their microwave dinners to get ready. Continue Reading »

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I’m a big fan of reality TV and this year, the show that has kept me entertained the most has been BravoTV’s Top Chef. The show is currently on its fourth season and the initial crop of 16 cheftestants have been reduced to nine. The current season was filmed in Chicago and the who’s who of the culinary world has appeared on the show to judge – Anthony Bourdain, Ming Tsai to name a few. Top Chef is not available on local TV so depend on torrents to keep up with the series. Since I love to cook myself, it’s great to see the contestants whip out greatly plated dishes despite an unrealistic time frame. I know it sucks that we can’t really taste the food as we’re watching the show and we have to rely on the judges’ comments, but seeing good food and the drama behind the preparation still strikes me as something interesting – even more interesting than seeing who gets the ax next. Continue Reading »

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This was taken shortly after my open water dive at Boquete Island near Puerto Galera.

I was fortunate enough to be exposed to scuba diving at an early age. I took lessons as a teenager and since the license that PADI provides doesn’t really expire, I could theoretically keep diving as long as I practice regularly. My last dive was at Boquete Island in Puerto Galera. It wasn’t exactly as memorable as my earlier dives in Anilao, Batangas but the experience sure rekindled my interest in pursuing the sport. I saw a scorpion fish up close for the second time and I even hovered over a huge sea turtle! Continue Reading »

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