An anti-Reproductive Health bill group composed of members of the Catholic laity is seeking accreditation from the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to run under the party-list name Ang Prolife. While the separation of Church and State prohibits the registration of religious denominations and sects as political parties, the prohibition does not extend to organizations with religious affiliations or to political parties which derive their principles from religious beliefs.

In a Supreme Court decision on the petition for disqualification filed against Ang Buhay Hayaang Yumabong, a party-list group backed by the Catholic charismatic movement El Shaddai, the court remanded the case to the Comelec with the directive to immediately conduct summary evidentiary hearings under the following guidelines for screening party-list participants:

[I]n view of the objections directed against the registration of Ang Buhay Hayaang Yumabong, which is allegedly a religious group, the Court notes the express constitutional provision that the religious sector may not be represented in the party-list system.  The extent of the constitutional proscription is demonstrated by the following discussion during the deliberations of the Constitutional Commission:

“MR. OPLE.  x x x

In the event that a certain religious sect with nationwide and even international networks of members and supporters, in order to circumvent this prohibition, decides to form its own political party in emulation of those parties I had mentioned earlier as deriving their inspiration and philosophies from well-established religious faiths, will that also not fall within this prohibition?

MR. MONSOD.  If the evidence shows that the intention is to go around the prohibition, then certainly the Comelec can pierce through the legal fiction.”

The following discussion is also pertinent:

“MR. VILLACORTA.  When the Commissioner proposed “EXCEPT RELIGIOUS GROUPS,” he is not, of course, prohibiting priests, imams or pastors who may be elected by, say, the indigenous community sector to represent their group.

REV. RIGOS.  Not at all, but I am objecting to anybody who represents the Iglesia ni Kristo, the Catholic Church, the Protestant Church et cetera.”

Furthermore, the Constitution provides that “religious denominations and sects shall not be registered.” The prohibition was explained by a member of the Constitutional Commission in this wise: “[T]he prohibition is on any religious organization registering as a political party.  I do not see any prohibition here against a priest running as a candidate.  That is not prohibited here; it is the registration of a religious sect as a political party.”

And the rest is history. With a Comelec that denied accreditation to the LGBT group Ang Ladlad based on “moral grounds” by quoting passages from the Bible and the Koran, it is no surprise that it did not choose to “pierce through the legal fiction” and instead dismissed the petition to disqualify Ang Buhay Hayaang Yumabong. And it should also not come as a surprise if Ang Prolife can ”go around the prohibition” and its application for party-list accreditation easily passes approval.

But all hope is not lost to the vanguards of secularism. While many are aware that the Supreme Court granted Ang Ladlad’s petition for Certiorari and directed the Comelec to grant its application for party-list accreditation, perhaps only few have read the jurisprudence where the decision contains many gems that can be cited as precedence in future cases involving not only the LGBT movement but the separation of Church and State itself:

• At bottom, what our non-establishment clause calls for is “government neutrality in religious matters.” Clearly, “governmental reliance on religious justification is inconsistent with this policy of neutrality.”

• Government must act for secular purposes and in ways that have primarily secular effects.

• The morality referred to in the law is public and necessarily secular.

• Religious teachings as expressed in public debate may influence the civil public order but public moral disputes may be resolved only on grounds articulable in secular terms.

• If government relies upon religious beliefs in formulating public policies and morals, the resulting policies and morals would require conformity to what some might regard as religious programs or agenda. The non-believers would therefore be compelled to conform to a standard of conduct buttressed by a religious belief, i.e., to a “compelled religion,” anathema to religious freedom.

• If government based its actions upon religious beliefs, it would tacitly approve or endorse that belief and thereby also tacitly disapprove contrary religious or non-religious views that would not support the policy. As a result, government will not provide full religious freedom for all its citizens, or even make it appear that those whose beliefs are disapproved are second-class citizens.

• In other words, government action, including its proscription of immorality as expressed in criminal law like concubinage, must have a secular purpose. That is, the government proscribes this conduct because it is “detrimental (or dangerous) to those conditions upon which depend the existence and progress of human society” and not because the conduct is proscribed by the beliefs of one religion or the other.

• Succinctly put, a law could be religious or Kantian or Aquinian or utilitarian in its deepest roots, but it must have an articulable and discernible secular purpose and justification to pass scrutiny of the religion clauses.

• We cannot countenance advocates who, undoubtedly with the loftiest of intentions, situate morality on one end of an argument or another, without bothering to go through the rigors of legal reasoning and explanation. In this, the notion of morality is robbed of all value. Clearly then, the bare invocation of morality will not remove an issue from our scrutiny.

If we cannot stop religions from circumventing the separation of Church and State by filling congress with their party-list groups especially when there is little resistance from a Church-friendly Comelec, we can at least stay vigilant and expose potential and actual violations of the constitution when such groups try to impose their own brand of religious morality without having the decency of articulating their arguments in secular terms. That way we can prevent the Church from wielding political power and violating our much-cherished religious freedom.

Marriage is a right, or more specifically, a privilege. According to the Hohfeldian system for describing the form of rights, to say that one has a privilege-right to do something is to say that one has no duty not to do it. Do gay couples have the right to marry? No – not in this country, or at least not yet.  While there is nothing in our Constitution that prohibits same-sex marriage, our Family Code requires that the contracting parties must be a man and a woman.

And this is why same-sex marriage advocates would be wasting their time if they try to convince the bishops of their so-called rights. Aside from the fact that the Church hierarchy could never go against its own doctrine, the fight should be brought where it belongs – in congress – to lobby our legislators into amending the Family Code by giving same-sex couples the right to marry.

According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Rights dominate modern understandings of what actions are permissible and which institutions are just. Rights structure the form of governments, the content of laws, and the shape of morality as it is currently perceived. To accept a set of rights is to approve a distribution of freedom and authority, and so to endorse a certain view of what may, must, and must not be done.”

By giving gay couples the right to marry, we would be dramatically reshaping our country’s morality, and this is why the Church is vehemently opposed to same-sex marriage because it goes against its moral teachings.  At this point it is important to note that the bishops and priests are not violating the separation of Church and State by speaking out against what they believe to be a grave wrong; they are merely asserting their right to freely exercise their religion as guaranteed by the same constitutional provision that commands the State not to respect an establishment of religion by passing “laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another.”

While the non-establishment clause commands our lawmakers not to listen to the Catholic Church or any religion for that matter, the more important issue to be resolved is, why should we grant gay couples the right to marry in the first place? The moral philosopher Warren Quinn gives a very compelling argument:

“A person is constituted by his body and his mind. They are parts or aspects of him. For that very reason, it is fitting that he have primary say over what may be done to them—not because such an arrangement best promotes overall human welfare, but because any arrangement that denied him that say would be a grave indignity. In giving him this authority, morality recognizes his existence as an individual with ends of his own—an independent being. Since that is what he is, he deserves this recognition.”

It is high time our society truly recognize that lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgenders are individuals with ends of their own, and if we look deeper we will find that beneath the differences in sexual orientation, their ends are not really unlike our own, and that is to find happiness in love and companionship. Giving them the right to marry accords them the much-needed legal recognition and protection of their partnerships, including property rights, successional rights, pension benefits, presumed insurable interest on the lives of their partners, and especially next-of-kin rights in hospitals. Is that too much to ask?

Every conscious thing we do or choice we make is somehow motivated by the pursuit of pleasure or the avoidance of pain. The only variables are the kinds of things that bring varying degrees of pleasure and pain to each individual, the premises on which expectations of pleasure or pain are based, and the ability to delay gratification.

For example, many nature lovers go to work instead of spending the entire week at the beach because the former guarantees some future comfort that outweighs the immediate fun the latter brings. Some smokers quit because they’ve decided that the pleasure they get from cigarettes cannot compensate for the pain of a present or potential respiratory illness. Most people do not normally steal because the initial gain will be quickly neutralized if they get caught (or their conscience takes the fun out of taking things that don’t belong to them). And if they believe in an afterlife, getting away won’t even matter.

Which brings us to a common theistic argument against naturalism-based morality: If there is no eternal punishment, there is no ultimate justice and evil people like Hitler and Stalin can get away with atrocities. But there are many answers to this. One, the fact that there can be no ultimate justice without an afterlife does absolutely nothing to support the existence of either Heaven or Hell. Two, if most people believe in the afterlife, civilized societies will have less reason to be vigilant in preventing another Holocaust because they can just leave justice to God. Three, if Christianity is true, a serial killer who rapes and tortures his victims can still enter Paradise if he repents and accepts Jesus as his personal Lord and Savior just before he dies (while his atheistic albeit innocent victims’ suffering will resume in the Lake of Fire).

As the Holy Week approaches and Christians prepare to meditate on the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus, many of them claim to worship Christ not out of fear of damnation or the expectation of eternal reward, but because of an overflowing gratefulness for His great love and “ultimate sacrifice.” If this is really the case then why won’t they worship the sun as well, or at least give it some devotion with the same level that Catholics give to the Saints considering the sun is the ultimate sustainer of all life on Earth and that we all get to survive because it burns itself up? Could it be because the sun can be expected to rise every morning and set every evening regardless of what people do or don’t do? If they argue that the sun is just mindlessly burning itself without intending to sustain life while Jesus purposely died so we could be saved, would such salvation be available to those who reject Christ?

No matter how people rationalize worship and obedience to God’s supposed commands, it still all boils down to pleasure and pain. It’s just a matter of adopting the premises set by one’s chosen religion and delaying gratification by giving up on earthly pleasures for the sake of some greater eternal pleasure in the next life. As a response to this, my fellow freethinker Andy wrote a short but profound piece on materialism:

The master passed by a minister preaching against materialism. He was exhorting the congregation on the virtues of sacrificing their earthly desires for the rewards of heaven.

“Our treasure does not lie here on earth,” he said, “But it lies in the bosom of our heavenly Father.”

“Interesting,” remarked the master. “You preach against materialism but yours is even worse because you desire to bring it to the next life. You tell people not to cling to their possessions here by guaranteeing that they will have all those and more in the next life. You are after intangible rewards, but a reward nonetheless. What is so virtuous about that?”

Indeed. And as Bertrand Russell said, “The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others.” In this country, people who officially gave up sexual pleasure preach that couples should not have too much fun while avoiding pregnancy and the consequential responsibilities and sacrifices that come with bearing and raising children. But in fairness to them, they are probably just acting on good faith based on the premise that God does not want us to enjoy life in this world too much because His plan is to give us the ultimate pleasure in Heaven. I just wish that our supposedly secular government would treat this premise with a little skepticism especially when crafting our reproductive health laws.

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Image by Jong Atmosfera

In The Bottomline episode aired last February 4, Red Tani agreed with Boy Abunda that no one actually wins in debates on the existence of God. And I concur because the god concept has too many facets lumped together and discussions often shift from one facet to another.

For example, in order to prove the existence of God (or at least the high probability thereof), apologists like William Lane Craig put forth logical arguments like First Cause and Fine-Tuning. Even granting that these are based on correct premises and sound reasoning, they only support the deistic concept of a generic creator that does not necessarily intervene in the affairs of the universe, while God with a capital “G” is a proper noun referring to the Judeo-Christian god who gave specific instructions on how to live our lives.

As such, I think what’s more important than the God/creator question is whether we have immortal souls, and especially if the welfare of our souls depends so much on us believing in God’s existence. Can the apologists offer evidence or even philosophical arguments for Heaven and Hell (as well as the entrance rules) that are at least as challenging to refute as the cosmological and teleological arguments?

Going back to Boy Abunda’s interview with Red Tani, I think it would have been more interesting if the discussion focused on secularism instead of atheism. As Red said, the only difference between believers and nonbelievers is their position on the God question, and this is really not a big deal because most of the day most believers act and make decisions without thinking of God, so belief (or nonbelief) does not necessarily dictate our actions, politics, or morality.

But if there is a specific god we are talking about, like the Roman Catholic god who abhors contraception, divorce, and gay marriage, then the issue is no longer about theism and atheism, but which religion or sect correctly represents God. And here the debate would degenerate into disarray because unlike the discussions on the existence of God where the contenders at least try to stick to the rules of logic in the absence of empirical evidence, different religions would simply attempt to ram their opposing “revealed” doctrines into each other’s throat.

While I do not mean to assert the logical positivist position that any unverified proposition is meaningless, being a freethinker compels me to require evidence that is more than circumstantial before accepting something as true. And such skepticism is one of the foundations of secularism, which is “a form of opinion which concerns itself only with questions the issues of which can be tested by the experience of this life.”

So going back to the question of souls and whether nonbelief or even doubt jeopardizes them, I think an even more important question would be, whose representation of God, assuming God exists, should we follow for the sake of our souls, assuming we have souls? And if we cannot figure that out, doesn’t this demand that we give precedence to our welfare in this life instead of denying ourselves carnal pleasures for the sake of some imaginable spiritual pleasures in the next life?

We really don’t know if there is an afterlife, and we have absolutely no idea how to secure our welfare in it – unless we seriously believe that the Bible is the true word of God (which is highly questionable given its circular claims) and that God revealed his will to certain individuals as claimed by the popes and some charismatic ministers (which is mere hearsay). All we really know about is the here and now, that there is real joy and real suffering in this world, and that we humans have the capacity to multiply this joy and reduce the suffering. Isn’t that a lot more important than trying to convince each other that there really is or isn’t a god?

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Image from Starmometer

I’ve been dabbling in macro photography recently and it’s like having a new set of super eyes, one that allows you to appreciate the beauty of flowers and insects by seeing their vibrant colors and intricate eye patterns, like the weevil above and the fly below.

Such beauty compels some people to conclude that there must be an Intelligent Designer, a Loving Creator who creates and sustains life. However, naturalists argue that it is the sun which is the ultimate sustainer of all life on earth. The sun makes the plants grow, and certain animals feed on them, like this bee sucking nectar from a flower.

Other animals prefer animals for food, like this spider waiting on another flower for a bee just like the one above.

This is a colorful jumping spider. Handsome creature, isn’t it?

Does it look as beautiful now when it’s holding a small dragonfly in its jaws, paralyzing it with venom and slowly sucking the life out of it?

There is much debate about whether or not insects and even higher animals are capable of suffering pain from physical injury, e.g., being eaten alive, but even assuming that they don’t does not change the fact that certain lives must be ended in order to sustain other lives. That’s just the law of the jungle, the natural order of things – nature, red in tooth and claw – and it doesn’t look very lovingly designed at all. As Richard Dawkins observed in The Greatest Show On Earth,

If we are going to postulate the creator of the cheetah, he has evidently put every ounce of his designing expertise into the task of designing a superlative killer. But the very same designer has equally evidently strained every nerve to design a gazelle that is superbly equipped to escape from those very same cheetahs. For heaven’s sake, whose side is the designer on? Does the designer’s right hand not know what his left hand is doing? Is he a sadist who enjoys the spectator sport and is forever upping the ante on both sides to increase the thrill of the chase?

Now consider an artificial world inside a butterfly sanctuary, an environment tended by a Gardener who loves butterflies. The Gardener is not very powerful, but within his limited ability he provides a safe and abundant haven for the winged residents by putting a large screen dome to keep predatory birds out, removing spiders and their webs, planting different flowers, and even placing sliced peaches on a table for the butterflies to feast on all day.

And this butterfly-loving Gardener did not plant a forbidden flower anywhere in the garden, a flower that would cause the banishment of the butterflies that would feed on its nectar.

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Now contrast this garden world to the world we live in…

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All images by Jong Atmosfera

The Philippines won the Guiness record for having the largest Ten Commandments tablet. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, considering that our country likes claiming to be one of the ‘most Catholic’ in the world. But will the Philippine Catholic hierarchy be happy and proud of this record? Probably not.

That’s because the gigantic Ten Commandments erected in Baguio happens to be the Protestant version, and if we look closely we will find that there is a significant difference from the Catholic version:

President of Teaching the Word Ministries Dr. Paul M. Elliott wrote:

The Roman Catholic revision is obvious: The Vatican eliminates the second commandment against idolatry, and subdivides the tenth commandment against covetousness in order to keep the number of commandments at ten.

Rome claims that it follows a version established in the late fourth century by Augustine, which in turn was allegedly based on a then-current Jewish synagogue version. But this is one of the many cases where Roman Catholicism (like Judaism) places the traditions of men in authority over the Word of God. The commandment against idolatry is clear, strong, and specific.

The Vatican must maintain the fiction of the revisionist Ten Commandments in order to perpetuate its extensive idolatry. Rome commands its faithful to bow before statues and crucifixes…

Vatican teaching alleges a distinction between what it calls dulia (venerating saints and bowing before statues and human remains) and latria (worship directed toward God). But it is a distinction without a difference. Idolatry by any name is an abomination to God.

I guess this only makes religion all the more suspicious of being a human construct. How could two major churches both claiming to represent the same God disagree on something as fundamental as the Ten Commandments?

And if it’s true that it was the Roman Catholic Church which caused the difference by eliminating the graven image clause, why make up for it by simply subdividing covetousness into thy neighbor’s wife and thy neighbor’s house? This could have been a golden opportunity to add a much needed commandment like “Thou shall not commit rape.” But perhaps such revision would be too obvious and put even more doubt on the supposed divine origin of the Commandments.

As for the Philippines’ record of having the world’s largest Protestant Ten Commandments, it would be interesting to see the Vatican put up an even bigger tablet with the Catholic version just to save face. This defensiveness and pettiness would stir up lively discussions and get people to examine their beliefs more closely instead of blindly following whatever their religious leaders say. Some of them might even be compelled to question doctrines deemed sacred in an attempt to seek the truth. That way they will be one step closer to becoming freethinkers. That way we will be one step closer to becoming a more enlightened nation.

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Image from Yahoo!

I cause the death of animals for my pleasure. Not directly, but ultimately, because the butcher or fisherman would not end the lives of sentient beings if not for consumers like me. And yes, for my pleasure and my pleasure alone; I cannot justify the killings in the name of survival, because I know I can very well afford and survive on a purely plant-based diet that would even result in me having a healthier body and a longer life.

If it’s any consolation, as much as possible I try to eat only those animals that live in the oceans, animals that were not raised in cramped captivity in order to minimize production cost and maximize profit for the growers. My philosophy is that all animals die; what matters is how they live. A lapu-lapu (grouper), for example, would experience the same gruesome death whether in the jaws of a bigger fish or some other sea predator as it would in a fisherman’s hook, net, or spear so it could end up on my plate. And no matter how it died, it was lucky to have lived free to swim in the ocean, infinitely luckier than the farmed chickens and pigs who were forced to spend all their lives in tight cages and never got to see the sun or breathe fresh air except on their way to the slaughterhouse. Bottom line, by eating fish I am not adding to the overall suffering of sentient beings in the world.

Every once in a while, however, my beloved mom cooks her specialty, which is humba (braised pork legs), and other meat dishes. While I do not crave for meat (I prefer the lighter taste of seafood), I cannot afford to break my mom’s heart by shunning her dish in the hope that such an act would result in fewer animals dying in the long run (by eating animals that were miserably bred in captivity, I take part in perpetuating the inhumane meat industry where animals suffer unimaginably). Besides, her cooking is really great. Call me a speciesist if you must because that’s what I am, and I value my aging mom’s feelings many times over the physical pain of non-human animals. Even the thought of an animal’s lifelong suffering distilled into a piece of meat only manages to make it lose some of its appeal, but never my appetite.

A vegan once asked me why, in spite of my keen awareness of animal suffering, I continue to eat them. While I can justify eating fish and seafood, at least to myself, I regret to say that such awareness never caused me to totally give up meat, including farmed meat. What it did, however, was to make me grow cynical of man’s morality and compassion. It seems most of us are capable of loving only our own kind – or even only our own kin. Which reminds me of the Old Testament where God commands His people to “love thy neighbor as thyself” (probably because in those times their neighbors were mostly their kinsmen) but to kill the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.

But what I really find disturbing is seeing people gather around the table and pray in front of a lechon (whole roasted pig) and thank God for the bountiful blessing they are about to partake. Here lies the body of a dead animal who never once got to enjoy a natural life of freedom and whose death was predetermined by this very occasion. Instead of a thanksgiving prayer, a eulogy would seem more appropriate.

Morality is such a divisive issue. In simple terms, morality is “the quality of being in accord with standards of right or good conduct.” The divisiveness lies not in whether an act is in accord with certain standards of right and wrong, but on which standard should the rightness or wrongness of an act be judged.

In society, Church morality and secular morality often come into conflict with each other because their standards, and especially their underlying premises which dictate these standards, are as different as night and day. As such, their moral conflict is essentially a matter of premise, as follows:

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With such opposing premises, it is of no great surprise that the Church blames secularism for destroying the morals of society, while secularists accuse the Church of trying to impose a misogynistic and bigoted moral system straight out of the Middle Ages.

For instance, on the issue of birth control, the Church asserts that it is God’s will that the unitive aspect of sex cannot be isolated, through man’s initiative, from its procreative purpose, meaning sex should not be done only for the sake of pleasure and bonding while avoiding the responsibility that comes with bearing children. And on the issue of gay marriage, the Church insists that God designed marriage to be the exclusive union between a man and a woman.

Secularism, on the other hand, operating on the premise that no one really knows the will of God – assuming he exists – has no objection towards contraceptive sex as long as the state laws on marriage, rape, and abortion are not violated. As for gay marriage, secularism has no opposition to its legalization as long as it is between two consenting adults.

If a moral system is based on the premises of the Church, it is easily justifiable to ban contraception and gay marriages since both are condemned by God, and the pleasures as well as the sacrifices of this life are nothing compared to the potential happiness and suffering in the next. But as the blogger Philosophy Bro once tweeted, ”‘Because God said so’ isn’t a bad excuse if He really said so – proving that is the hard part.”

Since it is clear to the secularist that this life is the only life we really know exists, welfare and happiness in this life should take precedence over any imaginable but unverifiable condition after death – especially since we have absolutely no idea how to secure an advantage in the next life, if there is one. What’s wrong with passionate sex without the possibility of pregnancy if both partners are enjoying it and hurting no one, not even a fetus or a zygote? What’s so objectionable about two people of the same gender falling in love with each other and wanting nothing more than to publicly proclaim such love and enjoy the legal rights and benefits of a state-sanctioned union?

These intimacy and relationship issues appear to go beyond the appreciation of the Church hierarchy, who in turn seem intent on imposing a great deal of self-denial on others not only by preaching against hedonistic sex but by actually blocking laws that help poor couples enjoy sex without having more children than they can feed. As Bertrand Russell said, “Religions, which condemn the pleasures of sense, drive men to seek the pleasures of power. Throughout history power has been the vice of the ascetic.” Indeed, what can one expect from powerful men whose own institutional tradition bound them to become lifelong virgins?

The official news website of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) recently published an article titled “Church and state: Why can’t they be friends?” which tells of the Pope’s warning on the dangers of secularism.  The following are some key excerpts pertinent to the Philippine situation and worthy of analysis, in an attempt to answer the title question why the church and state can’t indeed be friends.

[T]he pope warns that societies without the moorings of Christian values will be lost at sea, unaware of or indifferent to the truth that anchors humanity to justice, peace, respect and solidarity.

This statement implies that the principles of justice, peace, respect, and solidarity are held exclusively not only by religion, but by a particular religion, which is Christianity. It is a very arrogant statement that insults not only nonbelievers but believers of other faiths as well. Such a premise alone is already reason enough as to why church and state cannot be friends.

The separation of church and state, which is a hallmark of a democracy, “has also gone onto the separation of God and life unfortunately,” in which religious beliefs and values are expected to be left not only out of the process of public decision-making, but out of people’s own personal lives, too, he [Fr. Theodore Mascarenhas] said.

Secularism does not really intend to eradicate religion as much as keep religion a private affair. In our country alone, millions depend on religion for hope, happiness, and peace of mind, and secularism has no problem with that. It’s one thing to want to keep religion separate from government; it’s totally another thing to try to wipe it out.

One key topic, in fact, under discussion at the 2010 special Synod of Bishops for the Middle East was how to promote “positive secularism,” a form of separation of government and religion that still allows people’s faith to have a role in society without consecrating one religion as the religion of the state. The church supports a form of church-state separation that ensures religions have a voice in society and that laws reflect moral values — including laws dealing with life and marriage.

The main problem here is that different religions disagree among themselves on important issues including those involving marriage, such as birth control and divorce – both of which the Roman Catholic Church condemns while other religions accept. If our laws were to reflect religious moral values, the halls of congress would be filled with a cacophony of voices and our laws would conflict with one another.

In the West, secularism is understood as the problem of God being foisted out of the public sphere; but for the East, it’s a positive state of affairs in which governments show respect and protect all religions, letting them have a voice and not treating anyone better than the others, he said.

In the Philippines, one religion has the loudest voice and is listened to more than others.

“A real church-state separation would be that the church can freely express and ask its followers to adhere to the principles it holds dear,” Father Mascarenhas said.

Sounds just about right, for as long as the legislators, most of whom are members of both state and church, do not forget that they represent the former when they are in congress, even as they heed the latter for guidance on how they live their personal lives.

“Show me one human situation that is not reflected in the Gospel,” he said. Not only are the human challenges of death, fear, doubt and persecution detailed in the Bible, it also spells out the solutions, too.

How about three: cloning, stem cell research, and genetic engineering. But there’s a situation about disobedient servants that the Gospel of Luke (12:47) talks about and spells out a solution to: “The servant who knows the master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows.” Should this be incorporated in our Labor Code?

“The answer to death is the resurrection, and the answer to doubt and anguish like Jesus felt in the garden of Gethsemane is give yourself over to the will of God,” he said.

But who gets to declare what the will of God is, assuming he exists? The Vatican? What about the other sects and denominations? What about the other religions?

In The Science of Good and Evil, Michael Shermer wrote:

“Religious freedoms must always be protected, but the price for this security is the separation of religion from government. Historically, where church and state were wed, individual liberty suffered, including and especially religious liberty.”

Former supreme court justice Isagani A. Cruz explained this separation as follows:

“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.”

Indeed, Church and State can be good neighbors for as long as the strong fence of secularism stands between them, because rights are trampled every time either of them crosses that fence and steps into the other’s territory. And no matter how noble their intentions are, they can never, ever be friends.

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Image from www.thesimsupply.com

One of the arguments against legislating divorce in the Philippines is that spouses will no longer promise to love each other forever. For instance, in the ANC Harapan debate which took place last June, Bishop Teodoro Bacani asked rhetorically how many women would like to be told by the groom at the wedding ceremony that he will love her only until divorce.

While the answer is obviously “none,” the fallacy of this argument lies in the underlying assumption that love will last for as long as the partners stay married to each other, and that making the option of divorce available not only renders the marriage provisional, but trivializes the spouses’ love as well.

A rhetorical question can be asked in return: In the only remaining country in the world without divorce, how many married couples actually love each other until death? More importantly, how many women complain that when they were still sweethearts their men treated them well, but shortly after they got married they were being neglected or even abused, because the husbands had become complacent with the assurance that marriage is a lifetime contract so the wives can just suck it up?

If marriage is made provisional by legislating divorce, there would be one less reason for either spouse to be complacent. Instead of relying on the perpetuity of the marriage bond, husband and wife will have to prove themselves worthy of each other everyday.

One of the milestones in our country’s legislative history that suggests that marriage should be a continuous courtship is the enactment of The Anti-Rape Law of 1997, wherein marital rape is impliedly recognized with the following provision:

Article 266-C. In case it is the legal husband who is the offender, the subsequent forgiveness by the wife as the offended party shall extinguish the criminal action or the penalty.

One doesn’t have to be a lawyer to interpret that to mean that the husband can be charged with rape unless the wife forgives him. Marriage doesn’t constitute “continuous consent”; just because a woman has freely and voluntarily entered into the contract of marriage doesn’t mean that she has also agreed to have sex anytime and every time he wants.

Unfortunately, this principle of marital freedom, where the wife can say no to the husband when it comes to sex and other matters, is somewhat undermined by no less than the Bible. Ephesians 5:22-24 mandates, “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church…Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.” While the succeeding verse (25) tries to balance this with the command, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,” the complication starts when the husband fails to do his part of loving the wife. If that happens, is the wife still obliged to submit to the husband “in everything”?

Commenting on the U.S. statistics that ironically list Christians and Jews as having higher divorce rates than atheists and agnostics, American Atheists spokeperson Ron Barrier said:

With Atheism, women and men are equally responsible for a healthy marriage.  There is no room in Atheist ethics for the type of ‘submissive’ nonsense preached by Baptists and other Christian and/or Jewish groups.  Atheists reject, and rightly so, the primitive patriarchal attitudes so prevalent in many religions with respect to marriage.

One doesn’t have to be an atheist to reject female submission as a marital principle. It only requires that we shed off cultural notions of machismo to appreciate and value women as equal partners. And while disallowing divorce will impose a rigid permanence on the marriage bond, legislating divorce will make the marriage provisional and puts the spouses on their toes so that if the marriage is going to last, respect and especially seduction will have to continue long after the wedding day.

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Image from modernreject.com

Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III asserted that “only” four or five mothers die everyday of maternity complications instead of 11 as claimed by the pro-RH advocates. He further argued, “How many more (mothers) die from cardiovascular, respiratory and other diseases? Why don’t we just concentrate on the 20 deaths a day from other causes and not on this, (which promotes) contraceptives?”

While his lower estimate has already been refuted through showing how the figures were arrived at erroneously,  it must be pointed out that even four to five deaths per day amount to about 1,600 deaths per year. For comparison, the following are the number of fatalities in some of the recent disasters in Philippine history:

Typhoon Ondoy – 747

Sinking of MV Princess of the Stars – 800+

Air Philippines Flight 541 plane crash – 131

Cebu Pacific Flight 387 plane crash – 104

Tragic as they were, these catastrophes that shocked our nation for months actually pale in comparison to the maternity-related deaths; even with Sotto’s “low” estimate, annual maternal casualties are the equivalent of two Ondoys, two shipwrecks, or more than a dozen plane crashes.

More importantly, by saying that more deaths are caused by cardiovascular, respiratory and other diseases in order to divert the focus from maternity-related deaths, Sotto is employing one of the dishonest arguments described in Robert Thouless’ book Straight and Crooked Thinking:

Its general form is to discourage action against some admitted evil by pointing to some other evil which is stated to be worse than the first evil, but about which the user of the argument is making no proposal to do anything. For example, as an argument against attempts to abolish war, it has been pointed out that more deaths have resulted from road accidents in this country during some number of past years than the total casualties of the Boer War. This would be a reasonable ground for trying to reduce the number of road accidents, but it is a dishonest argument when urged as a reason for not trying to prevent further repetitions of the Boer War. The dishonesty of this use of the argument lies in the fact that there is no good reason why we should not try to do both: to prevent people from being killed on the roads and also to prevent them from being killed in wars.

So there you have it, Mr. Senator. Just because more people are dying of other diseases does not mean we should no longer provide for the reproductive health of our mothers.  If you are pro-life, the more you are expected to protect the very people who bring life into this world. After all, it’s very ironic and hypocritical that you make so much fuss about letting nothing stop the sperm from meeting the egg without giving a damn if those who are actually born ever get the chance to meet their mothers alive, to experience and cherish one of the most precious of human bonds, and to grow up to thank Mom for the gift of life. It takes a lot more than fertilization to achieve that.

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Image from politicalarena.com

Bishop Teodoro Bacani has argued that the proposed divorce bill is “unconstitutional because the family is recognized by the State as the foundation of the nation” and that it “requires a lot of imagination” to say that separating spouses and giving them a chance to remarry strengthens the solidarity of the family.

He is presumably referring to Article XV of the 1987 Constitution:

Section 1. The State recognizes the Filipino family as the foundation of the nation. Accordingly, it shall strengthen its solidarity and actively promote its total development.

Section 2. Marriage, as an inviolable social institution, is the foundation of the family and shall be protected by the State.

But if Bacani is correct in his interpretation of the Constitution, why does the State recognize Muslim divorce? Are Filipino Muslims exempted from the above sections of our Constitution? And why do we have legal separation that entitles the spouses to live separately from each other when the State is supposed to strengthen the family’s solidarity and actively promote its total development? How can a family develop when the spouses are living apart? It seems more likely that Bacani is wrong.

Legal separation may be granted on certain grounds like physical violence and grossly abusive conduct (see Art. 55 of the Family Code for the complete list), and most of these grounds look very much like symptoms that the marriage has already broken down and that there is no longer any “foundation of the family” to protect; what is left to protect is the offended spouse and children, and this can be done not by forcing the so-called “family” to stay together but by keeping them safely apart.

The proposed divorce bill uses exactly the same grounds but with the following provision:

In addition, a petition for divorce may be filed upon showing that there is an irremediable breakdown of the marriage relationship due to irreconcilable marital differences. Said petition must specifically allege the grounds which destroy the legitimate ends of the marriage relationship and prevent any reasonable expectations of reconciliation.

It is clear that as far as this bill is concerned, divorce does not destroy the marriage which the State is supposed to protect; rather, it merely acknowledges that the marriage has already been essentially destroyed and has now become a hollow shell that obstinately binds two people at least one of which is already hurting from such bondage and wishing for nothing more than to be set free. Article 68 of the Family Code states that “the husband and wife are obliged to live together, observe mutual love, respect and fidelity, and render mutual help and support.” If love and respect are irredeemably lost and it is no longer possible for the spouses to live together, much less to support each other, what marriage is there to save?

Just like with the RH Bill, it seems that the true objections against divorce are actually religious in nature and that these constitutionality issues are just rationalizations to support an underlying conviction that “what God has joined together, let not man put asunder.” Well, aside from accepting the fact that our Constitution guarantees that “no law shall be made respecting an establishment of religion,” when a marriage turns into a living hell, one must ponder, did God really join them together, or did they perhaps just use the name of God in vain?

(Mike Alquinto/NPPA Images)

With millions of Filipinos living below poverty line and children dying of malnutrition and disease, it’s shocking to read news stories like this:

Lay Catholic group raises P2.7 million to buy vehicles for bishops

MANILA, Philippines –  A lay Catholic group led by former Manila mayor Lito Atienza and election lawyer Romulo Macalintal yesterday said they have already raised P2.7 million and have donated utility vehicles to at least three Catholic bishops.

CBCPNews, the official news service provider of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), said Macalintal revealed that the money was used to purchase four Foton pickup trucks.

Television host Willie Revillame has also donated P100,000 with a van and another pickup truck.

The Diocese of Butuan under Bishop Juan de Dios Pueblos, who was highly criticized for asking former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for a car for his birthday, received the van from Revillame.

Other personalities who gave money to the fund drive were Senators Vicente Sotto III (P200,000), Francis Escudero (P100,000), and Bong Revilla and his wife, Cavite Rep. Lani Mercado-Revilla, (P200,000).  [Source: Philstar.com]

This reminds me of the song “Everything’s Alright” from the musical Jesus Christ Superstar. The scene is based on John 12:3-8 where Mary Magdalene used her expensive perfume on Jesus’ feet. Judas was indignant:

Woman your fine ointment, brand new and expensive 
Should have been saved for the poor. 
Why has it been wasted? We could have raised maybe 
Three hundred silver pieces or more. 
People who are hungry, people who are starving 
Matter more than your feet and hair!

But then Jesus tried to justify Mary’s extravagance:

Surely you’re not saying we have the resources 
To save the poor from their lot? 
There will be poor always, pathetically struggling 
Look at the good things you’ve got 
Think while you still have me! 
Move while you still see me! 
You’ll be lost, and you’ll be so sorry when I’m gone.

Could this be how Macalintal and Atienza as well as Willie Revillame, Tito Sotto, Chiz Escudero and Bong Revilla rationalize the fund-raising campaign to match the amount donated by the PCSO for the purchase of the vehicles which were eventually returned? Do the bishops’ comfort and luxury matter more than the people who are hungry and starving? Are they completely oblivious to the fact that various Catholic entities in the Philippines have literally billions in assets that could buy all the SUVs the bishops want and actually save the poor from their lot—or at least feed all the severely hungry Filipinos for almost a year?

There will always be poor people indeed and charity can only do so much to help them, but do the bishops deserve to be treated and pampered like Jesus? Should we be grateful that we still have them? Will we be lost and sorry when they’re gone?

Macalintal and Atienza seem to think so because when the bishops were stripped of their rides they scrambled to raise money for the replacement of such vehicles. They’re almost like Mary Magdalene singing to Jesus:

Try not to get worried, try not to turn on to 
Problems that upset you, oh. 
Don’t you know 
Everything’s alright, yes, everything’s fine.

Yes, everything’s alright. We’ll give you another fleet of brand-new cars so don’t be upset about returning those vehicles to the PCSO.

But I think one bishop will be upset, and that is Bishop Juan de Dios Pueblos of Butuan. His Mistubushi Montero was replaced with a van, when he specifically asked for “a brand-new car, possibly a 4×4” from GMA for his birthday.

One of the principles of secularism is doing good for goodness’ sake: “Whether there be other good or not, the good of the present life is good, and it is good to seek that good.” The English secularist George Jacob Holyoake, who coined the word “secularism” in the mid-19th century, asserted, “Individual good attained by methods conducive to the good of others, is the highest aim of man, whether regard be had to human welfare in this life or personal fitness for another. Precedence is therefore given to the duties of this life.”

Since this utilitarian ethical principle is not grounded on the moral dictates of a transcendent being, i.e., God, it is not surprising that theists are quick to criticize it as lacking an ontological foundation, meaning there is no basis for conceptualizing such moral system in the first place. They then proceed to cite David Hume’s is-ought problem and G.E. Moore’s naturalistic fallacy, insisting that it is impossible to derive an “ought” from an “is” or to infer moral obligations from mere observations of nature, and that what is naturally pleasant or desired is not necessarily “good”.

While Hume wrote in A Treatise of Human Nature that it surprised him to find an ought instead of an is, there seems to be nothing in the book expressing the impossibility of bridging the is-ought gap. Hume only said that “’tis necessary that it should be observed and explained; and at the same time that a reason should be given; for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.”

Moreover, the rules apply to both theists and nontheists, and if the requirements for bridging the gap are set to go beyond common sense and into ontological obsession, I doubt that even Divine Command Theory can bridge it. Someone claiming that God exists and has laid down certain rules (an is statement) is also expected to explain why we ought to act accordingly, and after all the rationalizations have been exposed and eliminated, it all boils down to one thing: we ought to obey and please God for the welfare of our souls.

While the secularist does not necessarily rule out the possibility of a life after death since it’s unprovable either way, he gives priority to his welfare in this life: “For a future state Secularism proposes the wise use of this, as he who fails in this “duty nearest hand” has no moral fitness for any other.” And since claims of divine revelation are all hearsay and our common sense dictates that the Bible is a dangerous guide to morality, secularism “offers the guidance of observation, investigation, and experience. Instead of taking authority for truth, it takes truth for authority.”

The word ought was originally used to express duty or obligation (and this is probably how Hume intended to use it), but modern usage has expanded its meaning to also indicate advisability or desirability. Since the secularist believes in the improvement of this life by material means and that science is the available Providence of man, if he wants to be happy then he knows what he ought –  what he is well advised – to do, and that is to seek happiness in ways that are conducive to the happiness of others so as to encourage mutual effort in perpetuating everybody’s happiness.

As for the naturalistic fallacy, while it is true that “pleasant” is not necessarily tantamount to “good,” it seems that all of mankind’s conscious acts are ultimately motivated by pleasure. The blogger Philosophy Bro put it succinctly:

As for the theists who define “good” as something that God commands or desires, the is-ought problem is thrown back at them: why do we ought to do good and obey God? And if they are honest enough they will admit that it’s because they want to have a pleasant eternal life in Heaven and avoid perpetual torment in Hell.

And so it seems that for the theist and nontheist alike, morality, or at least the standard by which a person judges actions with either approval or disapproval, is ultimately rooted in the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. In Of Vice and Virtue, Hume wrote, “For granting that morality had no foundation in nature, it must still be allowed, that vice and virtue, either from self-interest or the prejudices of education, produce in us a real pain and pleasure.” An article in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy paraphrases Hume: “[I]t is because we are the kinds of creatures we are, with the dispositions we have for pain and pleasure, the kinds of familial and friendly interdependence that make up our life together, and our approvals and disapprovals of these, that we are bound by moral requirements at all.”

And while the secularist does not concern himself with ultimate or eternal scenarios of pleasure and pain as much as the immediate and foreseeable consequences of his actions, it does not mean that his morality is inferior. In The Science of Good and Evil, Michael Shermer explained that “like everyone else, I face judges that are in their own ways transcendent and powerful: family and friends, colleagues and peers, mentors and teachers, and society at large. My judges may be lowercased and occasionally deceivable, but they are transcendent of me as an individual, even if they are not transcendent of nature…real people whose lives are directly affected by my actions, and whose actions directly affect my life.”

The secularist’s judges may not be as fearsome as a deity capable of sentencing people to eternal torture, but he nevertheless respects them deeply and holds himself accountable to them. That’s because in this life, which is the only life we really know exists, these human judges influence our welfare and happiness in ways that we can clearly see and foresee. As such, we are accountable to them because we are ultimately accountable to ourselves.