Starting from a handful of people who (figuratively) killed sacred cows at (relatively) civilized Starbucks meetups, the Filipino Freethinkers have evolved into something far greater, but what that something was had yet to be pinned down. Thus, the First Filipino Freethinkers General Assembly was called last April 2 to address FF’s current state, what the group wanted it to become, and how the group would steer it in the right direction.

Our registration booth!

We were pleasantly surprised to find several newbies and second-timers in attendance, such as Angeli, Brian, Tim, Christina, Vin and Coli, whose fresh perspectives certainly helped the old fogeys amongst us see the group in a clearer light.

One misconception they brought up was that FF was composed solely of atheists; in truth, FF is a really mixed bag, composed of different people with varying beliefs. What truly brings our motley crew together is a shared passion for reason, science, and secularism.

Second-timer Angeli flanked by (German-trained early bird) Brian, and Tim

Cristina flanked by Direk Pepe and Papa Red

Red recapping the FF’s milestones

FF President Red pointed out how far the group had come since the very first meetup in February 2009. When before meetup turnouts blew hot and cold, we now have a solid 30-40 members per session, which always includes a number of first-timers. Our online presence has been growing stronger and stronger as well; our Facebook members, for instance, have tripled in number in just one year.

The group watches a video clip from FF’s Women’s Day performance

Most importantly, FF has become exponentially busy outside of coffee shops and cyberspace. From the Manila Cathedral “exorcism,” to the Excommunication Party, to the LGBT Pride March, the group has taken a more active stand for freethought, and has found like-minded individuals and organizations to collaborate with in a variety of projects.

Ken displays the illustrated plans for the Women’s Day performance

Recently, FF has been particularly occupied in the fight to pass the RH Bill, especially in tandem with fellow groups in the Reproductive Health Advocates Network (RHAN). In just the past few months, the group has taken part in several pro-RH endeavors, such as the Memorial March for Mothers, the aforementioned Women’s Day March, and the demonstration during the Ayala Alabang ordinance hearing; and has also attended pertinent hearings at the House of Representatives.

Members from the FF university chapters

The group itself has also been branching out into university and provincial chapters. FF-UP Diliman is an official organization on campus, and FF-UP Manila is gunning for accreditation as well. Freethinkers from other universities are also making efforts to band together, and members in Davao and other provinces have also been holding their own meetups.

Outgoing FF-UP Diliman President Garrick, and his sticky-eyed successor, Cy

Direk Pepe (auteur of high-brow cinema), giving his two cents

Once everyone was up to speed, the strategy planning commenced, with members discussing what they would like FF to become, and what the group needed to do to achieve these goals. In the end, the group’s objectives remained the same–to be purveyors of reason, science, and secularism; to strive for a society where freethought is a normal, accepted, and widely practiced notion–while its means to do so have become more pro-active than ever before. While discourse is still an intrinsic aspect of the group, honest-to-goodness action and advocacy now holds immense importance as well, and hopefully, FF will be able to make a greater impact on its environment in the near future.

Ken, whiteboard fetishist, shows off the day’s notes

Comments? Suggestions?

Attendees scribbled thoughts and suggestions down throughout the assembly, and also signed up for committees for particular causes such as LGBT rights, the RH Bill’s passage, and better education.

Members chow down on chips post-assembly (with plenty of Marty’s to go around for the vegans and pescies)

The assembly was adjourned soon after, and members got into the requisite mingling and getting annihilated by Red and Tin on Wii Tetris.

Liz, Coli, Reighben, and Wes

Global News Network’s Buddy Cunanan (3rd from left) chats with FF’s online kahuna Jeiel

All in all, the first Filipino Freethinkers General Assembly generated plenty of valuable ideas and riled members up for the group’s future. FF has achieved quite a lot in a short amount of time, and it is up to all of us to ride on this momentum and steer the group towards bigger, more awesome opportunities for freethought in the Philippines.

They first ask, “So anong ginagawa niyo sa Filipino Freethinkers?” (“What do you do in Filipino Freethinkers?”) The second most-asked question is, “What is a freethinker?”

A lot of my friends have actually been getting curious ever since last year’s disadventures got substantial media attention and a fair share of ‘likes’ on Facebook. While the second question may be answered by a quick trip to Wikipedia, the first question is not so easy. It’s what most people ask me first when they hear about my affiliation with FF, and I’m not always sure how to answer them.

I could describe the bimonthly meetups, with the debates and the ethics and the nerdiness and the general debauchery that follows. I also eventually have to disclose that FF is made up of atheists, agnostics, skeptics, and progressive theists. Responses have been pretty accepting and non-violent so far, but sometimes I hold my breath for a tiny fraction of a second, bracing for a torrent of hate and condemnation for my lack of belief. Other times I feel naughty for saying it, as if I had just uttered the name of an indie band that nobody should ever know about, except me. I guess I like the idea of atheists being so rare in this country, it’s doubtful that they exist at all. Maybe I just like being compared to unicorns and dragons.

Left: The Unicorn is in Captivity and No Longer Dead. From The Hunt of the Unicorn, 1494 – 1505. Right: Chinese Azure dragon.

But we do exist. I think it’s time other people realize that too, especially in UP Diliman. While there are a variety of student organizations in UP catering to almost every major belief system, there isn’t one for those without beliefs.

FF-UP Diliman is barely a year old, but we’ve already co-organized a film festival; put up posters both tasteful and incendiary around campus; guested on the Psych O’clock Habit radio show on DZUP; and marched at the Lantern Parade as, well, Green Lanterns.

This year we’re giving a shout out to our fellow freethinkers lurking around in UP.

Modeled after the 2008 billboard campaign of American Humanist Association and Freethought Action.

FF-UPD’s February membership drive is for those who’ve felt a little lonely in their non-belief. It’s also for those who have been scoffed at, laughed at, sneered at, and wide-eyed-mouth-agape stared at. For those who have lost their friends as a result of losing their faith, and miss the fellowship. Or for those just looking for a group of like-minded people to hang out with.

You are not alone. You can hang out with us!

What’s that? You were asking where the posters are in UP? How can you miss the huge tarps at the University Avenue and near Vinzons Hall?

Wait. That’s right, they’re not there anymore. Probably stolen – happens a lot, apparently.

Oble welcoming a sunset, or wringing his hands at what happened. (Photo by dyordz @ Flickr)

Don’t worry, iskolars. We will not be silenced! We’ll put up new ones soon. Meanwhile, you can check out our Facebook group for the latest news and updates. See you around campus!

Meanwhile, I can only wish the people who stole the tarp for use in their makeshift homes give it a long, hard look. They could also be feeling a little lonely.

Editor’s Note: Thanks to Twin-Skies for finding the what looks to be the original petition, which looks even more disingenuous than the forwarded email below. Commenters who claim to be from University of the Philippines Student Catholic Action (UPSCA) have come forward to disavow the petition. We would like to clarify that the Filipino Freethinkers site has not made any claim that the petition originated from UPSCA, only that it was forwarded by a UPSCA member. We recognize that some commenters have connected UPSCA to the petition but we do not exercise editorial control on comments.

Author’s Note: The author claims full personal responsibility for the confusion regarding the origin of this petition. Although the author knew well that the petition was not an initiative of UPSCA, he failed nonetheless in correcting other members of the Forum when they made the mistake of attributing it to the said campus organization. As a result, the author removed the name of the aforementioned organization in the introductory part of this article.

“As faculty members, students and alumni of the University of the Philippines, we state here the bases of our objection to the Reproductive Health bills (HB 96 and its related bills) that are being deliberated under your supervision.

Given the secular background of UP education, we put forward arguments from reason, to wit:

1. Population is not an obstacle to development. The bills assume that a nation’s population hinders its development that is why it pushes for the promotion of a two-children policy, massive distribution of contraceptives, sex education (to acquaint young people of contraception), and sterilization, all of which using taxpayers’ money.  However, as early as 1966, Nobel Prize winner Simon Kuznets’ research has shown that there is insignificant empirical association between population growth rates and output per capita (economic growth). Rather, it is the rate at which technology grows and the ability of the population to employ these new technologies efficiently and widely that permit economic progress. Kuznets saw that the basic obstacles to economic growth arise from the limited capabilities of the institutions (political, social, legal, cultural, economic) to adjust.  He argued instead that a more rapid population growth, if properly managed, will promote economic development through a positive impact on the society’s state of knowledge. His findings have been confirmed by similar studies by the US National Research Council (1986), the UN Population Fund Consultative Meeting of Economists (1992), Eric Hanusek and Ludger Wömmann (2007), among others.
2. The government has to channel limited funds to jobs creation and education. The latest report of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) entitled Key Indicators for Asia and the Pacific 2010 notes that the “middle class has increased rapidly in size and purchasing power as strong economic growth in the past two decades has helped reduce poverty significantly and lift previously poor households into the middle class.”  Two factors were reported to drive the creation and sustenance of a middle class: a) stable, secure, well-paid jobs with good benefits, and b) higher education. And so, why not create more bills that will strengthen these two factors instead of channeling our limited funds to contraception and sex education?
3. Fertility rates in the Philippines are progressively decreasing. Our Total Fertility Rate (TFR) has declined by more than 50% in less than 50 years: from an average rate of 7 in 1960 to an average rate of 3.1 in 2008.  Our TFR is expected to reach the replacement level of 2.1 in 2025 without massive government intervention like the passing of a population control or RH bill. The passing of an RH bill will only accelerate this.  The latest November issue of The Economist entitled “Japan’s burden” spells out the effects of an aging population and it would be foolhardy for us as a nation to push ourselves deliberately towards that direction. In 2004, Joseph Chamie, Director of the UN Population Division, reported that 60 countries have TFR below 2.1 which means that they will eventually experience decline and aging.  He asserted that the efforts of these countries to raise fertility rates will not be enough to bring them back to replacement levels. Many of these countries are now asking their people to have more children. Why then are our legislators thinking of cutting down our best asset, our people? Should this push through, future generations of Filipinos will be forced to pay for the mistake of government’s intervention to manipulate a decrease in our population and suffer its ill effects as already experienced by other countries.
4. The government has to channel limited resources to address the leading causes of death. In the latest available Mortality Country Fact Sheet (2006) of the World Health Organization on the Philippines, the following were listed as the main causes of death: lower respiratory tract infections, ischaemic heart disease, tuberculosis, hypertensive heart disease, perinatal conditions, cerebrovascular disease, violence, diarrhoeal diseases, diabetes mellitus and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.  Can we not channel our limited resources towards curbing these diseases—and violence—instead of using them for contraception and sterilization?
5. Condoms are not a wise investment. We have the lowest incidence of HIV cases after Bangladesh in the ADB report mentioned above, whereas Thailand, which has been regarded as the model in condom promotion, has the highest. European epidemiologist Dr. Jokin de Irala refer to “risk-compensation” as the reason for higher HIV-AIDS incidences when condoms are promoted.  Moreover, human papillomavirus (HPV), by far the most common STD and a risk factor for cervical cancer among other diseases, is not prevented by condoms. HPV spreads through skin to skin contact, unlike AIDS, and condoms cannot cover all possible infected skin—a fact that is not commonly known. Why spend millions to buy condoms when they are shown to increase incidences of STDs? A government-sponsored nationwide condom distribution will only fatten the pockets of condom manufacturers.
6. Oral Contraceptive Pills (OCPs) have been classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as Group 1 carcinogens. OCP use has been associated with an increased risk of premenopausal breast cancer in general (an increment of 19%) and across various patterns of OCP use, with the highest risk observed among those who use OCPs for 4 or more years before their first pregnancy (an increment of 52%), according to a 2006 meta-analysis of over 34 studies dating back to the 1980s.  Corroborating these data was the landmark 2002 randomized controlled trial by the Women Health’s Initiative which pointed to a 26% higher risk of breast cancer for post-menopausal women who had received hormone treatment in addition to 41% more risk of cerebrovascular disease, 29% more risk of myocardial infarction, and 112% more risk of pulmonary embolism. Another study by Moreno et al. in Lancet also points to an increased risk of cervical cancer with OCP use. And lastly, OCPs have also been shown to increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases, especially venous thrombosis and ischemic stroke. Will our government legislate a bill that will use taxpayers’ money to further expose women to all these risks?

Our main argument boils down to this: that it is the State’s duty to order society by promoting the well-being of its citizens. Thus, it is a disservice to legislate what constitutes harm to its people. We pointed but a few of the studies showing the harmful effects of contraception to society, the family, the youth and women’s health.  While it is true that the State cannot stop people from using contraception, since they may personally choose to expose themselves to its risks, it is not the State’s job to facilitate access to what is harmful.

What the state should do is to craft laws that prevent people from harming themselves or more positively phrased, help them develop themselves and society.  We submit that legislators have to dump the contentious and flawed Reproductive Health bills and to pass more bills strengthening the Filipino family, protecting its citizens against the risks of contraception, defending the scientific fact that conception begins at fertilization, providing essential medicines for the main causes of death, making quality education more accessible to Filipinos, and providing more jobs.

For the love of our country,

If you are a graduate or student of any of the campuses of the UP System and would like to join us in forwarding the good cause of our nation as what we have always learned from our alma mater, kindly provide the following data and send them to <up.rhresearch@gmail.com>.

For teachers and alumni:

Full Name

Course/s Finished in UP (Year of Graduation), College, UP Campus
For those with degrees from other schools, please indicate degree, school, address of school

Sample:
Juan de la Cruz
BS Political Science (1975), CSSP, UP Diliman
PhD in Rocket Science (1990), MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts

For students:

Full Name
Course and Year (in Roman Numeral, e.g., BS Biology IV), College, UP Campus

Sample:
Juana de la Torre
BA Psychology III, CAS, UPLB

Please don’t forget to send your information at <up.rhresearch@gmail.com> and ask all your other friends from UP to do the same. Should you need more data about the position paper, please send a request through the same email address.

Feel free to pass this position paper to all your friends who are students or alumni of any of the UP campuses.”

The so-called “position” of UP regarding the RH Bill debate is a blatant misrepresentation of the UP community’s stand on this issue. This uncalled for declaration of UP’s “stand” is unjustified to say the least and is even shamefully dishonest. For one, I am a UP alumnus, but I am a staunch supporter of the important legislation, and I know many UP alumni and teachers who support the bill. For us, this declaration of UP’s “stand” on the RH Bill is a disgusting misuse of the name of the University of the Philippines by those who are desperate to give credence to their cause.

Not even the UP President, the Board of Regents or any of its campus Chancellors can declare an “official position” for UP on this sensitive issue. If UP is an institution that values intellectual freedom, it must know that its faculty, students and alumni will take different and often conflicting sides on any issue. Hence, the University of the Philippine must never take an “official” stand on the RH Bill.

And I believe that it has not taken an official side, and that this petition containing UP’s so-called “position” on the RH Bill is a shameless misuse of the name of the University of the Philippines.

I personally find this misrepresentation insulting, for it excludes me from the UP community. I demand that the name of UP in the petition be removed and that members of the UP community who oppose the RH Bill must be clear that their stand is not the stand of “members, students and alumni of the University of the Philippines” but only the stand of some organizations within the UP community.

Pecier Carpena Decierdo

UP Diliman Alumnus, Student number 2005-55311

Graduate of BS Physics, Batch 2010

Filipino Freethinkers — UPD is co-presenting the Cinemalaya 2010 Entry Two Funerals with UP Cineastes’ Studio in partnership with UP Film Institute and in cooperation with Cultural Center of the Philippines and Cinemalaya Foundation, Inc. The screening will be on Tuesday, July 27, 2010, 7:30 PM, at the Cine Adarna at University of the Philippines Diliman (where the past FF Film Fest was held).

Two Funerals is a black comedy involving a mother trying to recover the remains of her daughter after a funeral parlor mix-up also sends her family a stranger’s corpse. It was directed by Gil M. Portes and stars Tessie Tomas, Xian Lim, Jeffrey Quizon, Robert Arevalo, Benjie Felipe, and Mon Confiado. Gil M. Portes won the Director’s Showcase in the Audience Choice portion of the Cinemalaya 2010 Awards. Two Funerals also won for Best Cinematography, Best Screenplay, Special Jury Prize, and for Best Director.

Two Funerals Trailer

Tickets are P80 each. Email ffupdiliman@gmail.com to reserve tickets and to arrange for picking the tickets up before or at the event itself. Tickets will also be sold at this next FF July 25 Meetup at Shangri-La.

See you at the movies!

Dave O'Brien and Hemant Mehta

Dave O'Brien and Maggie Ardiente

This morning, our friend and supporter, American atheist Dave O’Brien, sent us some good news:

This weekend I attended the American Humanist Association annual conference in San Jose –quite close to my home. Great conference with good speakers and about 300+ attendees.

Maggie Ardiente is the development director of AHA and her parents are Filipino but she was born in USA (San Diego) and never visited the Philippines. We had been in contact for a while and she is thinking of writing an article on Freethought in the Philippines so I gave her an update and a FF Tee shirt .

I met Hemant Mehta at the conference and gave him an update and Tee shirt and also got Hemant to sign a copy of his book and dedicate it to FF.

Last week Ayaan Hirsi Ali was in Palo Alto giving a talk and I got her to sign a copy of her new book (Nomad) to “filipino freethinker women.” She was quite interested in the concept of women being active in the movement over there.

Dave is sending us these two books (Hemant’s I Sold My Soul on Ebay and Ayaan’s Nomad — signed!) as well as other literature soon, and it’ll be here in a couple of months.

Maggie, Hemant, Ayaan, and of course, Dave — thanks for all your support!

The First Filipino Freethinkers Film Fest at Cine Adarna in UP Diliman (Photo by Beatriz Torre, FFUPD Member)

If you’re a University of the Philippines Diliman student looking for fellowship with other atheists, agnostics, deists, skeptics, and freethinkers in general, you are not alone!

The first Filipino Freethinkers campus chapter is setting up in UPD and we are looking for members.

Prospective founding members need to provide the following:

• scanned UP ID
• UP Webmail address (e.g. student@up.edu.ph)
• Personal Email address (e.g. student@yahoo.com)

Send these to ffupdiliman@gmail.com by 11:59 PM on Friday, June 11, 2010.

We need to give these to the UP Diliman Office of Student Affairs so we can get officially registered as a university organization, which makes conducting activities much easier.

If you are unable to provide a scanned UP ID via email, you may leave a hard copy at the security guard’s desk of the National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (Albert Hall) near the College of Fine Arts.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask us at ffupdiliman@gmail.com.

You can keep updated with our activities and future meetups at our Facebook group where you can also find out more about the organization.

You can help our org get going by sharing t-shirt design ideas related to freethinking, fundraising activity ideas, ACLE ideas, ideas for guest speakers to invite, ideas for movies to screen at the 2nd Annual Filipino Freethinkers Film Festival, ideas for meet-up (General Assembly) discussion topics, and more ideas!

Help make UP Diliman a nicer place for freethinkers!

For the last time, Maria Ozawa isn’t a member. Nor do we have an equally eloquent expert on sex harassment. Those recent posts are entries in our June writing contest. Interested?

Just write an essay on any of the following themes:

• political correctness
• science vs. superstition
• loneliness and isolation

You may write on a combination of themes (like Ms. Ozawa did) but there’s no bonus if you do. (Except if you manage to allude to bukake.)

Two awesome prizes will be given during our second July meetup:

1. Reader’s choice prize: awesome certificate and any Starbucks beverage.
2. Writer’s choice prize: awesome certificate and the privilege to choose any freethought-related book worth P1,000 (the winner doesn’t have to pay anything, unless they want to get something more expensive.) Although the winner doesn’t get to own it — the book is added to the FF library — they get two months to finish reading the book before having to lend it to someone else. The winner must also post a short review of the book on our blog.

Joining is easy:

1. Register for a contributor account.
2. Compose your post (500-800 words) and tag it with “writing contest.”
3. Submit your post before July 1. Submissions of nonregular contributors will be reviewed before publishing.

Mechanics for voting and judging will be posted before the contest deadline. In the meantime, start writing!

I’ve recently learned about the plagiarism in a recent post and think that some sanctions are necessary. Therefore, together with our stakeholders and board of directors, we, the official leaders of FF, have decided to suspend Karlo from his post as official FF writer indefinitely until he edits his post and publicly apologizes and says ten Hail Marys.

But seriously.

First of all, the FF is an informal group. Although we’ve been trying to get organized, herding cats is close to impossible. Nor would freethinkers want to be herded anyway. I’d thought that we — the original members of FF — made this clear from the beginning, but apparently we haven’t, and for the benefit of nonmembers and new members here it is again:

The Filipino Freethinkers is not a formal group with an official, homogeneous stand on anything.

We do not have an official stance on gods — although many are atheists, we have agnostics, deists, pantheists, panentheists, apatheists, etc. We even have several theists — Catholics, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Spirituals, and yes, even a Satanist.

We do not have an official stance on politics — although most prefer democracy and capitalism, we have all sorts of socialists, anarchists, and even one fascist (that I know of).

We do not have an official stance on anything. I thought this was unnecessary, but maybe each post on our blog should be introduced by a disclaimer: The views on this post are my own, and do not reflect those of any other member of FF.

What we do have is a common language that we do try to speak: freethinking. You are freethinking when you try to use reason and evidence to figure something out for yourself. At least that’s my definition. Others may have their own definitions, which is why our members are so varied. And that’s a good thing.

What we — the original members — tried to achieve with FF when we started it was not a WE (a group of people with the same thoughts on everything) but a WHERE. You could compare FF to a room where anybody could come in and talk to each other about whatever. The only thing is, the people in the room speak in the language of reason and Science, and your enjoyment in that room would depend on your fluency at freethinking (our lingua franca).

Obviously, people define Reason and Science in different ways, from the absolutist definitions of Objectivism to the relativist definitions of Postmodernism. But even with the wide range of interpretations, I believe we can all agree on some things:

One, that freedom to talk about things is a good thing, and that no idea is too sacred to justify its permanent status as Truth. In short, nothing is sacred, so there’s no such thing as blasphemy. Even Science does not grant such status to any theory. (Indeed, if it did, it would cease to be Science.)

Two, that assertions made without supporting arguments can be dismissed without any argument. That an argument is only as good as the reason (critical thought free from fallacies) and evidence (repeated and repeatable, peer-reviewed and scientifically valid) backing it up.

Three, although freely thinking (and talking) about something (One) in a way that is rational and evidence-based (Two) is the best way to arrive at conclusions, those conclusions may be different, especially with complex and complicated topics. And even when a group of people — however rational and scientific — somehow reaches the same conclusion, that conclusion does not gain the status of Absolute Truth (One).

Again, I hate to have to say this, but this is MY point of view and it may be different from those of the other FF members.

Now let me share some of my thoughts about this conflict with Objectivists, particularly VB and some of his friends. First of all, we have at least three members (that I know of) who are now Objectivists. Geri was once an Objectivist. I read enough Ayn Rand to understand her philosophy, and although I do not agree with all of her conclusions, I do think she deserves to be called a Philosopher (some FF members think otherwise) and as a writer I particularly value her thoughts on the writing process (I have both her books on the topic).

So I have nothing against Objectivism. In fact, several times I’ve invited Josh Lipana, and through him, VB, to attend our meetups and even to write about Objectivism on our blog. (Both invitations are still open, by the way.)

This was before all the free farter talk on VB’s blog. Personally I do not appreciate personal attacks used in rational discourse. And besides, it only weakens your argument — when you have to resort to it, it usually means you’ve run out of reason.

But things have been said and the discourse has devolved into name calling, unfortunately on both sides. And where there is some semblance of reason it has been quite irrational — again on both sides. Because of the support of some members (myself included) for the RH bill, all of our members have been called irrational, unscientific, and even a fellowship of death. As if the only proper way to be rational and scientific is to agree with Objectivism. And some FF members have called Objectivism a cult of Randroids, lumping together all Objectivists, even though there are those who do value the ideas without any reverence for Ayn Rand.

This has led to the ugly situation we have now. I’d rather we all move on and talk about something more relevant, say HIV/AIDS and the Vatican scandal, but that’s just me. If some members still want to wage an all out war with VB, that’s fine. But please, when you argue with someone, be it VB or anyone else, make it clear that you are arguing for yourself and as yourself — not as a representative of FF.

Sadly, any argument between VB and an FF member has been framed as a battle between Objectivism and FF. Please guys. Keep it between yourselves. The way you have been arguing you might as well have a Yo Mama contest.

Which brings us to the latest attack against Karlo for the plagiarism in his first article. This attack on Karlo is an attack manufactured by those who want to discredit the FF and can be compared to anti-semitism, the Holocaust, and the recent attacks on the Catholic Church.

But seriously. In case your bullshit detector wasn’t on in my first paragraph, we do not have stakeholders and directors and official leaders. We do not even have full-time editors, let alone fact-checkers. I say full-time because sometimes our volunteers fix mechanical errors — spelling, grammar, etc. — and even peer-review articles before posting. But these editorial fixes will remain a rarity until we get volunteers who can dedicate a lot of their time to the necessary work. Or until we get a lot of money (any takers?).

This bears repeating: We are a group of volunteers. We are not paid for what we do.

But still, I agree with the comments so far that Karlo should take responsibility for his actions. He has already replied and said that he will fix the plagiarism in his post. Do I think Karlo should be punished for what he did? Personally, not so much. But again, that’s just my opinion. If you think plagiarism, particularly what Karlo did, is a grave matter deserving of excommunication, do say so. Write a post about it if you like. You will not be censored. But please, try to stick to the issues and avoid the insults.

I’ve already passed the TL;DR point a couple of paragraphs ago, so let me end this rambling (sorry for any errors in spelling, grammar, or plagiarism) with this:

If FF is to be about something, it is not about shared conclusions but shared conversations. Once conclusions are reached conclusively the conversation is over, and a fellowship without conversation is a fellowship concluded. Peace!

I, Freethinker or I, Troll?

Freedom is always the freedom of dissenters. – Rosa Luxembourg

I’m often asked why I decided to get involved with the Filipino Freethinkers. Often in FF discussions, some people would find it weird that someone attacks Enlightenment assumptions in a fierce manner and not coming from the realm of faith. For some who worship Reason like a god, that would be anathema. For some, it can be just dismissed that I am a perpetual deviant.

To briefly introduce myself (a giveaway), apatheism by choice would be the best way to describe my irreligious convictions (I believe this should have been placed in forum introductions but I did it here nonetheless). I’m an apatheist because I don’t see any relevance whatsoever of belief or non-belief in deity/ies in general. I am more interested in discussing other issues that are of more relevance, like politics, economics, and others. “By choice” is because even if I don’t see its relevance, I can match anyone in FF in discussing philosophy of religion or participate actively in those endless “reason versus faith” or “existence of god” discussions (which are so very prominent in FF). I just don’t have the time and the passion for it.

Having said that, people would again ask, “what are you still doing here?”

The Problem of Evil, or Post-Evil, or Post-Problem

The spectacle presents itself as a vast inaccessible reality that can never be questioned. Its sole message is: “What appears is good; what is good appears.” The passive acceptance it demands is already effectively imposed by its monopoly of appearances, its manner of appearing without allowing any reply. – Guy Debord

The answer is simple, but first I will state these undeniable facts about Philippine society:

1. The Roman Catholic Church (RCC), represented by the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), as well as its allies is one if not THE most dangerous and dominant power center in Philippine society because the social agenda it promotes prevents the people from achieving the level of thinking for themselves, and acquiring the ability to understand freedom and autonomy;

2. The Philippine State, with pragmatic opportunist politicians and bureaucrats running it (with notable few exceptions of course), maintains its power through a “scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” relationship with the main organized religions. The Philippine State is operating as a theocracy, albeit an unofficial and less violent one; and

3. Religion, specifically Christianity has been so deeply ingrained in Philippine culture that it has become reality that can never be questioned. Its monopoly of images has obliterated other ideas, either in the form of marginalizing them as heretic and untrue, or assimilating them, thereby appropriating its symbols for its own.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand this, though in this case I don’t think rocket scientists would understand this (no offense to the rocket scientists). For the answer to the million dollar question, my apatheism as well as its peaceful coexistence with other faiths and un-faiths can only come forth in a secular society; and with the emergence of freethinkers as a recognized demographic in Philippine society, we would be able to do away (or start the path to that) with the three facts I have outlined above.

However, secularism won’t come as a gift or magically sprout overnight. It is like any human achievement – we MUST work to get it.

A Force to Reckon With

“Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea…and ideas are bulletproof.” – Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

The idea that humans can think freely without the influence of tradition or dogma is very dangerous for those in power. And that is what the Filipino Freethinkers are doing – sowing the seeds of skepticism and inquiry. FF members are not anarchists (well, not all of them), but they surely are a threat to the status quo, which is built on the hegemony of a dominant religion.

I work with FF on the basis of the promotion of secularism. I believe that FF is the current hatchery of our new breed of secular activists. From the newbie Mutalisks, I would see secular Guardians and freethinking Devourers in the future.

However, I also think that ideas are not enough.

Direct Action Gets the Goods

“Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.” – Edward Abbey
Or for those without souls:
“Sentiment without action is a fake orgasm” – Ram Fernando

I often hear freethinkers say that the underlying problem is the stupidity and ignorance of the masses. It is true to a certain point. The masses are ignorant and stupid because they were made so (disclaimer: not created from clay, but two large bamboo trees cracked). To paraphrase Chomsky’s idea, the consent that they give to a dominant line of thinking is manufactured. Using this idea, the hegemony of religious thought is not inherent. The institutions that promote and maintain this hegemony are under their control. My question for you as a freethinker and secularist is what are you going to do about it?

A dangerous display of elitism actually manifests among some of us. Responses like “they won’t understand” or “it’s better to talk to like-minded people” or “harump” aren’t so uncommon.

In this light, I would invoke Chomsky’s concept of the “responsibility of intellectuals”. He argues that intellectuals should make themselves responsible for searching for the truth and exposition of lies. This isn’t hard to grasp. This is what you desire actually. What would you freethinkers jerk-off more than the exposition of the lies of organized religions and its divine imperative to dominate civil society?

With this, I would ask that you go beyond your comfort zones and start doing something. Go to the people that you wouldn’t normally talk to if needed. Build alliances with not so like-minded individuals and interest groups who you feel have common goals. Start your revolution at home by coming out and being proud about it. Know more by reading and continuously engaging anyone possible about what you have learned. Be an activist.

This will not solve our problems overnight, but it’s a start. A secularist’s work is never done.

Before you hold an official FF Meetup ™, you must follow a few guidelines.

First, request the necessary application forms from the Filipino Freethinkers secretariat. After filling up the necessary documents, have them notarized and sent to our official headquarters. Your meetup proposal will go through an approval process, which may take 1-2 months.

But seriously.

There are no official steps or prerequisites.

But there is one guideline — during the meetup, you must use Reason™ at all times. This means that anyone who promotes the RH bill or any other socialist propaganda is an irrational, illogical, unscientific mystic pirate promoting a culture of death. Farting is strictly prohibited.

OK, OK, now I’m serious. Just had to let that out of my system (freely).
Actually, there’s nothing special about meetups.

All you need is a venue and at least one other person. If you’re blessed enough to have more than two guests, you may want to set an agenda and assign a facilitator. We’ll get into these details in future posts, but if it’s your first meetup, just wing it. Introductions and the discussions that develop from them will take up most of your time anyway.

Now go to the forum and post a call for freethinkers in your area. Once you have enough participants who have agreed on a venue and schedule, let us know. We’ll post meetup announcements on all of our online channels.
And don’t forget to take pictures (especially a group picture toward the end). Ending a meetup without a photo op is bad luck.

Click to embiggen

click to embiggen

As you already know, we can’t fund ourselves the usual way because no corporate sponsor would want their brand associated with a bunch of baby eaters. So to fund projects like the film fest the rest of the year, we’ll ask you guys for donations. (No, we won’t sell you stuff, that’s cheap).

And in exchange for your donations (a minimum of P300 and a maximum of P200M), we’ll be giving each donor a plain white shirt with an FF logo on it. Wait, that doesn’t sound special enough. We’ll give each of our platinum donors an Official 2010 edition FF iShirt pro 3G — absolutely FREE! There.

Anyway, we’re having the shirts printed soon, but before we place the order, we need to know how many are interested and how many to make of each size. (Last year we forgot to take into consideration the fact that most of our male members are scrawny).

So please fill up the form below, and thanks for your support.

*Cue choir music*

Lord, teach me to be generous / teach me to serve you as I should . . .

Hello fellow freethinkers! If you’re just lurking on the facebook page or just following the blog feed, you might not be aware of the the book sharing program that’s being organized in the forum. As people who treasure real knowledge of the world I’m sure quite a few of us have a small library of great books, be it non-fiction or fiction, that we find relevant for sharpening our minds and widening our breadth of knowledge, the very things that started us down the path of becoming freethinkers.

As books do tend to be quite expensive, it would be great if we could circulate these tomes of knowledge throughout the group instead of just sitting around on our bookshelves gathering dust. A great decentralized library of freethinking if you will. To me this would do two great things for the group:

1. Enrich the group as a whole intellectually and perhaps spiritually (in the secular sense!)
2. Build a greater sense of community and fellowship amongst the FF members.

To facilitate this, I’ve started a Filipino Freethinker’s community on the Unlibrary website. Unlibrary handles the logistics of collating the list of books that members have  and presenting it as a lending library as well as the requests for books between members of the community.

The Rough Rules of Sharing

As we’re just starting out on this, I’d like to keep the rules for the book sharing pretty loose. Here are  3 uncommandments of the FF unlibrary:

1. This goes without saying but take good care of the books. These are books someone is personally entrusting you with! It may be a good idea to exchange phone numbers so there’s a way to contact each other,  just in case.
2. The default pickup/drop-off for books are on the FF meetups – this gives a default book loan period of 2 weeks. Do feel free to make arrangements outside the FF meetups though if it’s more convenient.
3. As an indicator that you’re going to be at the meetups regularly (and thus able to return books), borrowers should have attended at least 3 other FF meetups on a roughly regular schedule.

If you have any other suggestions or refinements to these rules, please bring it up on the forum thread or the comments section.

Getting Involved in the Unlibrary

Make an account on Unlibrary and follow these steps! Unfortunately I can’t seem to link directly to the FF unlibrary community page so please bear with me:

Step 1:  Add your books to the library

1. On the left navigation bar, click on My Library then Add Books
2. Search for a book you want to add to the library by title, author or ISBN.
3. Hover over the book you own and click Add book to Library
4. Tag and rate the book and save
5. Repeat for other books you want to share!
6. You can now see your books by going to My Library and Bookshelf. While you’re over there you might want to add reviews of the books!

Step 2:  Join the FF community

1. Go to the left navigation bar, click on Communities and then Find new Ones
2. At the search box type “Filipino Freethinkers“
3. Click on Join on the right side of the search results

Step 3:  Browsing and borrowing

1. Click on Borrowing and then on Find Books
2. The books from the people you can borrow from should show up. Most likely this will only be books from the FF community.
3. To ask to borrow, look at the right side under the stars.
4. These are the people who have a copy of the book, click on their avatar to request to borrow from them.

Once again if you have any other questions about the book sharing, please feel free to ask away on the forum thread or in the comments section.

As of writing, the FF community library has 27 copies of 25 books ranging from intellectual pleasures such as Breaking the Spell (Daniel Dennet) and Uncommon Sense (Alan Cromer) to the intriguing stories that facts can tell such as Microtrends (E. Kinney Zalesne, Mark Penn) and Freakonomics (Stephen J. Dubner, Steven D. Levitt). Also, big thanks to Terrence for making the first loan to me on the January 24 meetup of What the Dog Saw!

_{Post photograph by Or Hiltch}

Sunday, January 24, 2010
1:00pm – 4:00pm
Starbucks (near cinemas) at Shangrila Mall

Agenda:

* FF Podcast 2010 Episode 1

* Brainstorming for new FF contest

* Coordination meeting

** FF Film Fest on Feb 27
** FF Anniversary Party on Feb 28
** FF UP chapter and other university/college orgs

Congratulations Igme, on winning our first ever Essay Writing Contest!

For those who were unable to attend the last meet-up, Igme was awarded for his article Children’s Choice. The decision was reached after factoring in the votes garnered, the original contest criteria and the fact that it was an actual essay (sorry, poets).

The prize, Dawkins’ The Greatest Show On Earth – The Evidence For Evolution, was awarded last Sunday, the 10th of January, in the year of His Noodliness, two thousand and ten.

Also handed out last Sunday was a surprise prize, for most valuable blogger, awarded to PinoyAtheist with 42 (forty two?!) posts! The purpose of this contest was to get members writing more about what it means to be a Filipino Freethinker, and for well after the contest period ended, John has been consistently writing about just that.

Two prizes awarded, two winners well deserved, one contest finally over. We can now start work on a second contest, in time for the first year anniversary of FF.

What contest would you join? What prize would you like to win?