To those who actually haven’t googled the term, Wikipedia defines freethought as:

“a philosophical viewpoint that holds that opinions should be formed on the basis of science, logic, and reason, and should not be influenced by authority, tradition, or any other dogma. The cognitive application of freethought is known as freethinking, and practitioners of freethought are known as freethinkers.”

In the FF forum and Facebook page, every once in a while someone oblivious to the standard definition butts in with the assumption that freethinking means setting the mind completely free – unrestrained even by reason, logic or reality. More commonly, people have assumed that freethought is synonymous to atheism.

It is important to note that the free in freethinking only means freedom from dogma imposed by “authority” but not from the rules of logic and the cold test of science. In fact, freethinking is actually a very strict discipline that keeps the mind on its toes, preventing it from jumping into convenient conclusions. Once an argument commits a single logical fallacy, all its conclusions are automatically void; long-held scientific theories are discarded like yesterday’s paper once contradicting evidence is found. (Scientific theory differs from the layman’s definition of theory in the sense that the latter is actually just a hypothesis.)

As such, freethought is a journey where one takes the road paved with science, logic and reason; atheism, agnosticism, deism, and even philosophical theism are just the destinations, none of them final. This may come as a surprise, but while the majority of the vocal Filipino Freethinkers are atheists, we do have some members who acknowledge the possibility and even the probability of God to a certain degree but are well aware that all they have are circumstantial evidence and logical arguments, not proof. There are no fundies in Filipino Freethinkers or even strong theists (#1 in Dawkins’ spectrum) who claim not just to believe, but to know that there is a God. Remarkably, there are also no strong atheists (#7 in Dawkins’ spectrum) in Filipino Freethinkers, or at least none have declared being so at the forums. More importantly, our beliefs (or non-belief) matter less than how we arrived at such beliefs (or non-belief). So you’ll never hear the words “because the Bible says so” from a freethinking theist or “because Richard Dawkins says so” from a freethinking atheist.

So what does it mean to be a freethinker? I guess it means being a truthseeker, relentlessly holding on to reason amid powerful forces telling society that blind faith is preferred. The Filipino Freethinkers are sometimes accused of being angry at religion. Well I can’t say that we aren’t, because religion, being very influential, pervading education and politics, has become the embodiment of ignorance and the eternal cause of poverty, overpopulation, and the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases while the churches continue to rake in the offerings. And yet they have the guts to say that we are the bad guys.

But how can freethinkers be the bad guys? We never ask people to give up anything - not their money, not their reason, not their freewill, not even their beliefs. Freethought is not telling anyone to believe in a certain freethought doctrine or creed; it is merely asking that we open our eyes and use our minds, to see for ourselves what is right, what is good, and what is true. How bad can that be?

When observing the complex beauty of the natural world and the diversity of plants and animals and how each species’ characteristics seem perfectly tailored for a particular lifestyle, it is not difficult to jump into conclusion that everything was designed.

I was staring at a small clover garden, admiring the structured leaf formation and how it uniformly blanketed the patch of ground when I realized that underneath the miniature canopy of clover crowns must be a thriving community of insects and other tiny creatures. And beneath the ground dozens of earthworms must be burrowing and ingesting dead matter and minute soil particles, aerating the earth and secreting humus and minerals needed by the clover plant to grow. At this point it makes sense to imagine that this nice little ecosystem must have been orchestrated by an intelligent and loving being.

However, also living underground are thousands of ants, and ants feed on earthworms. Anybody who has seen a live earthworm being attacked by red ants knows that it is a slow and very painful death, the worm writhing and rolling and curling in a feeble attempt to escape the tormenting mandibles that tear all over its soft flesh, each bite leaving behind a burning toxin. It must be one of the most excruciating deaths an animal can experience (although perhaps not as agonizingly slow as that of a caterpillar whose body is being leisurely devoured from the inside by a growing wasp larva). Even if one believes that earthworms have souls that will be eternally rewarded in Earthworm Heaven for all their sufferings under the earth, it is absurd to conceive of an intelligent designer.

A lot of people especially those living comfortably in civilized societies are not aware of this life and death struggle among the lower animals.  Most have not even considered that the burgers they’re munching came from a once-living cow whose throat was slit with a very sharp industrial blade, causing it to stumble and thrash around as its air sacs get filled with its own blood, flooding its lungs and simulating a slow drowning effect that would last several minutes until the cow finally expires. Or that the drumstick they’re nibbling came from a chicken who endured its entire short life in cramped captivity, injected with chemicals to speed up growth for early slaughter.

When you’re on top of the food chain (and blissfully oblivious to the great inconvenience you are causing those below), it is easy to be overwhelmed by a feeling of gratefulness, and there even seems to be an almost instinctive need to seek an object of gratitude. But imagine if we happened to be the cow or the chicken, or the earthworm for that matter. I wonder if gratefulness would come as naturally.

If there was an intelligent designer, animals wouldn’t have to feed on one another. Every creature would be responsible for its own photosynthesis and capable of absorbing moisture and minerals from the air. Predation and parasitism would be totally unnecessary. All animals would also be able to fly, swim, run and burrow, freely frolicking across the bounds of the earth, fully enjoying the planet’s blessings.

And maybe this is why a lot of people believe (or would like to believe) that we have a soul. Perhaps unconsciously we think of the spirit as the perfect form of existence, totally free and having no need for transport, shelter, clothing, air, water, or food. And no need for food means no need for other animals to die just so we can live. The earth would be a true paradise where no creature has to walk through the valley of the shadow of death. If there was an intelligent designer, existence wouldn’t be as cruel, and the struggle for life wouldn’t be as bloodthirsty.

Last week there was this short-lived but hilarious Facebook phenomenon called the Movement To Stop Filipino Freethinkers. It was a fan page announcing that the Filipino Freethinkers, while claiming to promote reason, are actually attacking Christianity.

For some reason a lot of FF members jumped in to become fans and quickly dominated and hijacked the page, quoting disagreeable Bible verses and posting status messages using extreme fundie talk. Not surprisingly, some people actually thought they were serious, and the comments ranged from “Thank you sir, let us continue to spread Christianity” to “You are stupid and ignorant people. There is no evidence of your god”. And I guess that proves Poe’s Law, which states:

Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won’t mistake for the real thing.

It was crazy, with freethinkers besting each other’s satire. But I guess all good things must come to an end, and after about two days, the page was removed. Well, it was fun while it lasted.

Whoever was behind the Movement certainly did not expect this to happen. I’m sure they had noble intentions of doing God’s work in saving lost souls. However, they were dead wrong in their strategy, because religion only works when information is controlled by those in authority, where valid questions are conveniently silenced by “our minds are too finite to grasp God’s infinite wisdom”.

But once a religious group challenges freethinkers, it must be prepared to make arguments based on reason and science because dogma and doctrine are not recognized as authority.

Now some theists might say that freethinkers also appeal to authority like Wikipedia as if it was an infallible doctrine. But the truth is, scientific authority differs from religious authority in the sense that it is “willing to be challenged, although normally we would not go around challenging every one all the time. It is the willingness to be challenged that is important”. Moreover, Wikipedia gives sufficient notice when an article lacks citations or references, meaning its content might be questionable.

Are the religious authorities willing to be challenged as well, or will they be reverting to “we are not in a position to question God” when confronted with contradictions between certain Bible passages and reality and even between Bible passages themselves?

Long-held scientific theories are quickly discarded like yesterday’s paper as soon as contradicting evidence is found. However, the same cannot be said about religious ‘truths’ (remember Galileo?).

As such, any attempt to proselytize the Filipino Freethinkers will only be a waste of time, which would be better spent praying for divine enlightenment.  If there is an omnipotent deity, he doesn’t need second-rate evangelists spewing out pseudo-reason in order for humanity to hear and accept his word. But to the theist who truly attempts to embrace reason, you are very much welcome to discuss with us. We respect your right to your dogma-based belief for as long as you don’t try to shove it down our throats. And if you are willing to play by the rules of logic, we shall answer your questions as truthfully as we can. Try us, and it will be a great learning experience if what you are seeking for is the truth.

I stumbled upon this article and found this:

There are three truths which must be accepted at the beginning of any investigation into the problem of knowledge and truth:

• The First Fact: The fact of our existence. “I exist.”
• The First Principle: The principle of contradiction. “A thing cannot be and not-be at the same time in the same respect.”
• The First Condition: The essential capability of the mind to know truth. “My intellect can reason and discover truth.”

These primary truths cannot be “proved” by a positive demonstration because they are presupposed and involved in every demonstration. They are so evident that any attempt to doubt or deny them would already mean they have been affirmed and accepted. They are, therefore, fully grounded in reason and no reasonable person can dispute them consistently.

To some it might sound like circular reasoning, but these truths are indeed self-evident in any logical discussion. Let’s see:

• The First Fact: The fact of our existence. “I exist.”

The fact that we are able to read this proves the first fact. Now what more proof do we need in order to know that we are reading this indeed? Is that circular reasoning?

• The First Principle: The principle of contradiction. “A thing cannot be and not-be at the same time in the same respect.”

Of course. Otherwise, something can be both true and false at the same time in the same respect. If that’s the case, then there is no longer any point in logical discussions because anything can be right and wrong at the same time, so everybody is just wasting time. And this goes hand in hand with:

• The First Condition: The essential capability of the mind to know truth. “My intellect can reason and discover truth.”

And that’s why we are here at Filipino Freethinkers, to discover truth through Reason. (We appreciate theists who check their dogmas upon entering the site, because doctrine and ‘authority’ have no influence here. But those who don’t believe in reason are wasting their time here and it would be better spent praying for divine enlightenment.)

On the other hand, religion only subscribes to the First Fact (our existence), but not to the First Principle (contradiction) and the First Condition (intellect’s ability to discover truth). Religious dogmas have so many contradictions that are conveniently answered by “our minds are too finite to grasp God’s infinite wisdom”.

As freethinkers, we know that belief is no longer a matter of choice, but of conclusion; no matter how the religious (including our parents) try to proselytize, as long as what they preach is unscientific, illogical, or irrational, they cannot force us to believe. Well the most they could do is to make us (falsely) claim belief. We do not choose to be atheists, agnostics, or deists; we just become, most likely as a result of freethinking.

Now the question is, do we choose to become freethinkers? Is it a matter of choice when we base our beliefs on science, logic, and reason instead of authority, tradition, or dogma? Or is it a matter of conclusion (same with becoming atheists, agnostics, or deists)? I think it’s the latter, when we realize that science, logic, and reason are more reliable in terms of finding the truth than authority, tradition, or dogma, but I would like to hear other points of view. How do people become freethinkers in the first place?

And with this we invite everyone to write. We’ve been coming up with fewer articles lately but that’s probably because of the film fest, after which there will be a lot to write about.

The agnostic does not simply say, “l do not know.” He goes another step, and he says, with great emphasis, that you do not know. He insists that you are trading on the ignorance of others, and on the fear of others. He is not satisfied with saying that you do not know, — he demonstrates that you do not know, and he drives you from the field of fact — he drives you from the realm of reason — he drives you from the light, into the darkness of conjecture — into the world of dreams and shadows, and he compels you to say, at last, that your faith has no foundation in fact.

– Robert Green Ingersoll

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 . . .

Okay guys, this is, among other things, a work/list in progress, so please feel free to suggest others I might have missed/forgotten. I’ve very limited time but I managed to draw these out of the top of my head. In no particular order, here they are:

“John Connor gave me a picture of you once. I didn’t know why at the time. It was very old – torn, faded. You were young like you are now. You seemed just a little sad. I used to always wonder what you were thinking at that moment. I memorized every line, every curve. I came across time for you Sarah. I love you; I always have”

-Kyle Reese, father of John Connor, talking to Sarah Connor in the movie Terminator (1984) while hiding form the terminator. Aaww. That is so romantic,  moving across time (and space) to be with the one you love. 

Mulder’s email to Scully:

I’ve resisted contacting you for reasons I know you continue to appreciate. But, to be honest, some unexpected dimensions of my new life are eating away at any resolve I have left. I’m lonely, Dana, uncertain of my ability to live like this. I want to come home. To you, and to William.

Scully’s reply to Mulder’s email afterwards:

I hold no hope you can respond to this. Or that it reaches you. I only hope that you are alive.

I cannot help believing that you jumped off that train because you knew what I now know – that these “super-soldiers,” if that’s what they are, can in fact be destroyed. That the key to their destruction lies in the iron compound at that quarry.

I am scared for you, Mulder. And for William. The forces against us are unrelenting. But so is my determination. To see you again. To regain the comfort and safety we shared for so brief a time.

Until then, I remain forever yours… Dana

- In ‘The X-Files’ season 9 episode, ‘Trust No 1″. Mulder is separated for a time from Scully and their son, because if he hadn’t, he would be putting Scully and their son in danger. Aaww. Sniff sniff. 

Just remember…no matter what happens…I’ll always love you. ALWAYS.

- Superman to Lois Lane, before finally dying at the hands of the monster Doomsday, in Superman #75  (1993). The line really isn’t something new, but the situation and the overall atmosphere made it really special in my opinion.

So there you go sci-fi buffs, geeks, and nerds. Happy Valentine’s day. 

by Ramon Garcia

A reflection on that Valentine’s Day evening when everything began to fall into place for me…. at the time I was an agnostic attempting to rediscover Christianity in a more practical way….but I would soon realize it was pointless…here’s the first installment.

Valentine’s Day 1998

When Patsy told me point blank at dinner that she didn’t believe there was anything after death, my first impulse was to agree with her. Having been an agnostic for so long, I reverted to what seemed a natural response for me.

But it then occurred to me that I was a Christian now, and that I should have a more hopeful answer. As I groped for something to say…it hit me full in the face— I knew right then, with no doubt whatsoever, that she was right!!! I sat silent for a moment, dragging on a cigarette.

How ironic it all was. I had been praying for her conversion for years. That she would gradually become more open to coming to church regularly. That she would grow into our little community at Holy Trinity. But in the blink of an eye, her confession brought my whole pietistic edifice tumbling down like a tower of mahjong tiles.

It was as if I had known all along… even through the two years I’d been with Holy Trinity, that I had only wanted to believe in the Christian myth.

The next evening we talked some more. She was despondent–“there isn’t anything more than this. I’ll never see my father again… nor my brothers. When you’re dead, you’re just dead…It’s so sad. There isn’t a God who can help us.” None of this was new to me. I had been there before. But my anguish had grown numb…like a dull, nagging headache. A cobweb of memory from some distant Ash Wednesday service played back in my head—“dust you are, to dust you shall return…”

And yet the implications of such an insight had never struck me with such magnitude. Even during my days of agnosticism, a shadow of my childhood faith had always stalked me. For instance, I would find that I would revert to a habit of prayer (of silently talking to God during difficulties in my life). My worldview, though consciously agnostic, was subconsciously religious.

That Valentine’s Day, however, the sheer finality of it seared me all the way to my heart and stomach, penetrating my very spirit, my guts and pancreas–all within the time it took me to finish that cigarette. I tried to wash the sourness of it down with beer: there is no “other world”, no “heaven”, no “hell”, no after-life. There isn’t a personal God watching over us. But only a concept of a “God” that we’ve created in our own image—-of a super-human parent, with all the qualities of a perfect human being who possesses our most supreme values. Now I understand Byron when he said:

Sorrow is knowledge: they who know the most
Must mourn the deepest o’er the fatal truth,
The tree of knowledge is not that of life.

How do I relieve Patsy’s pain? In the Christian scriptures it is written: “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free (John 8:32).”

No, I’m afraid the truth does not set one free. It is a horrifying prospect for someone who once thought herself eternal –as a soul. I’m afraid that Nietzsche will ring truer to her ears than John: “In man’s awareness of the truth he has now seen, only the horror and absurdity of existence are evident to him.”

The abandonment of religious constructs means that we are left with no choice but to try and live life without the comfort of the illusion of a caring God. Having moved on from Valentine’s Day, the dark clouds of despair have dissipated. There doesn’t seem to have been any obvious effect on our day-to-day living. It’s been business as usual for Patsy and me. But crises will come. Nietzsche’s image, of a new journey on an infinite sea no longer defined by religion and conventional pre-suppositions, mirrors how I’ve been feeling, and articulates what I fear:

“We have left the land and have embarked! We have burned our bridges behind us— indeed, we have gone further and destroyed the land behind us! Now, little ship, look out! Beside you is the ocean: to be sure, it does not always roar, and at times it lies spread out like silk and gold and reveries of graciousness. But hours will come when you will realize that it is infinite and that there is nothing more awesome than infinity. Oh, the poor bird that felt free and now strikes the walls of this cage! Woe, when you feel homesick for the land as if it had offered more freedom— and there is no longer any ‘land’!”

Desperately, I find myself reaching again for dry land…for some sort of transcendental construct. To weather a storm, especially one of immense proportions, one requires a sturdy boat. In a Greek legend, it is told that Odysseus had himself bound to the mast of a ship in order to hear the song of the sirens without having to follow it to his own destruction. He dared to listen to the temptation of truth, but accepted the fetters of culture in a quest for self-preservation. The siren’s song is Patsy’s confession. Its peril is despair.

Perhaps out of an ultimate sense of unease, perhaps out of sheer horror, I find myself backing away from the abysmal call to atheism that tore open before me that Valentine’s evening.

I find myself venturing anew towards the concept of God that I held during my days as an agnostic– God as awesome reality, in all its quantum and astrophysical dimensions… God as a “bigness”, a “smallness”, a “one-ness”, a unity, even a multiplicity. Perhaps “God” is no longer the right word to use. It carries too much baggage.

But I can no longer, in all honesty, conceive of a super-consciousness, a supreme being with power over history… certainly not a “someone” who listens to our prayers, much less answers them.

Since Valentine’s Day, I continue to wonder what to do about Church. I’ve come to love our little community at Holy Trinity. I’ve come to love the Anglican liturgy, the hymns, and the solemnity of its high church tradition. I’d hate to leave it.

As I’ve pondered this over the past few of weeks, I’ve come to realize that the Christian myth might yet remain open for me as a doorway to the profound…as a way for contemplating transcendence—the bigness and the smallness of it all!

The Christ-myth that we celebrate with all of its stories and rites- Christmas and the Emmanuel (God-with-us), the Passion and the Resurrection, and most compelling of all, the Eucharist–all still speak to me as awesome metaphors and symbols of transcendent reality. Yes, and the liturgy, though laced with intercessional prayers, is a supreme movement in itself—much like a musical composition that uplifts one out of the ordinariness of daily life and propels one outward into that bigger, wider, deeper realm of “being-one-with…”, towards that “all-ness” which the pre-modern mind once called divinity. Prayer has become for me an act of connecting with “it all” rather than communication with a super-human helper and fixer of things.

As I assisted at Communion that first Sunday since Valentine’s Day…as I offered up the chalice and uttered the words, “the blood of Christ, cup of salvation”, I was overcome by the experience of that “thin place” between the everyday and the transcendent that has always spoken so powerfully to me through the liturgy…it gripped me forcefully…that cup with the wine conjured up an image of the dry land I had left behind… and more…with it also the infinite sea… and with it too the dreaded abyss…all converging in a transcendental experience I cannot put into words, but which was both horrifying and exalting at the same time!

I think I may be back at church again… though I fear I cannot in all honesty say I am a Christian… I do not subscribe to mainline doctrine… but I am gripped by the mystery of the cross, the beauty of the liturgy, the boldness of the glad tidings proclaimed, as it were, in the face of the siren song….

And yet, in my heart, I cannot help but feel that these Christian constructs, rooted in my childhood, are really nothing more than my own Odyssean tethers….

My post-Valentine experience has been a humbling one in that I find I am now essentially no different from a scapular-wearing Roman Catholic or a Bible-quoting fundamentalist– alas our pieties are similarly motivated by sanity-preserving instincts! There is one point of departure, however-—and that is on the question of honesty…

I am afraid that this queen of virtues will now linger on as the “thorn in my flesh”….Honesty– she cuts deeply, relentlessly… constantly beckoning towards the abyss that has remained open since that Valentine’s evening. Now, when we sing hymns at church, I cannot help but wonder whether I am not in fact offering up dirges as the madman once did who mourned the death of God…

(Image by Vintage Holiday Crafts)

I remember a Darwinian article in Time (Asia) Magazine’s special issue, The New Age of Discovery (January, 1998) because it tried to answer questions like why do we find certain human body figures sexy. It said that most men find a specific waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) of women sexy (now I won’t tell the exact figure to avoid causing unnecessary insecurities) because that ratio signals fertility. Men don’t consciously know this, but evolution somehow programmed it in our instincts to ensure the perpetuation of our genes.

In another article, I read about an experiment on human scent. It involved a certain number of men and an equal number of women. The men were made to shower using only unscented soap (no cologne or deodorant either) and sleep with a white shirt on. They would shower again on the second night but would wear the same shirt to bed. Then the shirts would be sniffed by the women, who would each try to determine which shirt smells the “sexiest”. After their genes were tested, it was found out that the sexiest scents for most of the women belonged to the men whose genes were very much dissimilar from theirs. Parents with diverse genes often bear stronger offspring, and once again evolution has hardwired this into our physiology to help us find a suitable mate – and perpetuate our genes.

But in this overpopulated modern society of ours, procreation is no longer the primarily purpose of sex. In one of our joint articles, a fellow freethinker wrote:

Sex may lead to pro-creation but the two are still two totally distinct acts, no matter how much some belief systems may insist that they’re one and the same. When you start a fire, you aren’t obligated to go cook something. Sometimes, it’s enough just to enjoy the warmth of a blazing fire on a cold night. The same goes for sex. It’s a social activity and a recreational sport as well. From a liberal point of view, it’s not even that different from a couple going dancing (that’s why it’s also called the horizontal tango).

Still, our instincts kick in when a genetically suitable specimen from the opposite gender walks by even if having kids is the last thing on our minds. But as we get to know a person, after a while we get attracted to non-physical traits like kindness and a sense of humor. Perhaps we instinctively know that certain personal attributes are preferable for long-term companionship, especially when it comes to the point when procreation and even sex are no longer possible.

But the beauty of these personal qualities is that they can be enjoyed now as much as in the future. Being the most highly evolved among all creatures, humans interact in ways beyond touching and smelling. A nice conversation connects us more profoundly than two chimps grooming each other. Although touching is nice, it is often meaningless unless coupled with an emotional bond. And so while evolution already dictated what we should find physically attractive, it is our longing for a deeper connection that needs to be satisfied if we are to truly enjoy being human.

Happy Valentines everyone!