Mike’s note: while watching “Harapan” on ABS-CBN last night and surveying the faces in the anti-RH crowd, I spotted someone I used to work for. He left a significant impact on my life, though perhaps for very different reasons than he might like. Anyway, I’d like to share this personal reflection I wrote and posted on my blog some time ago.

This is what an officemate asked me one evening, in all innocence. The words aren’t exactly what was said, but you’ll get the drift:

“So, since you don’t believe in God anymore, you can go and fuck around, and that would be OK, right, won’t be a problem for you?”

In fairness, my officemate’s been a churchgoer his whole life, as was I until about five years ago: I understand the Christian perception of a Godless life as necessarily an immoral one, or at least one without any moral guardrails.

I pondered that point, as I ripped my officemate’s tongue from his head. Read the full story

[Continued from Do objective moral values exist?]

The Christian apologist William Lane Craig says that certain actions like rape and torture are not just socially unacceptable behavior but moral abominations. He also argues that the Holocaust would still be wrong even if the Nazis had won World War II and succeeded in exterminating or brainwashing everybody who disagreed with them. And I agree with him on both counts. However, the term “moral abomination” does not necessarily mean objectively wrong since we have no way of finding out if our list of moral abominations would still be the same had we evolved in a different way, and I would also argue that we’re only able to make such judgment on the Holocaust precisely because we haven’t been exterminated or brainwashed by the Nazis and, more importantly, because evolution has “taught” us that genocide is not a very good way of perpetuating our species. The moral values that evolution has conditioned into our minds may not be objective since they cannot exist independently of our minds, but they are definitely more than just moral fads.

Not surprisingly, Craig expresses skepticism with evolution-based morality:

…there’s no good evidence that our perception of moral and aesthetic values has been programmed by evolution. Darwinists are extremely imaginative and creative in coming up with what are called “just so” stories in order to explain things via evolution for which there is no empirical evidence. Indeed, these stories are almost endlessly adaptable, so that they become almost irrefutable and, hence, unfalsifiable.

I admit that Craig has a good point, and I admire his skepticism. Unfortunately he doesn’t seem to apply the same skepticism when it comes to the existence of objective moral values:

Why should I think that objective moral values exist rather than that evolution has made me believe in the illusion that there are objective moral values? Because I clearly apprehend objective moral values and have no good reason to deny what I clearly perceive.

This is the same answer we give to the sceptic who says, “How do you know you’re not just a body lying in the Matrix and that all that you see and experience is an illusory, virtual reality?” We have no way to get outside our five senses and prove that they’re veridical. Rather I clearly apprehend a world of people and trees and houses about me, and I have no good reason to doubt what I clearly perceive. Sure, it’s possible that I’m a body in the Matrix. But possibilities come cheap. The mere possibility provides no warrant for denying what I clearly grasp.

I think the key difference between moral values and the physical world lies not in the perception but in the applicability. The physical world applies to everyone and everything regardless of their sense capabilities and even whether they are sentient or not. For example, a blind zebra and a deaf bat will both hit a tree standing in their paths, and even the unconscious wind will have to blow around that tree. Lack of perception does not exempt anyone or anything from the reality of the physical world.

Moral values, however, apply only to the acts of those who are able to perceive moral values in the first place. Non-human animals do not commit murder when they kill other sentient beings, and even young children and mentally disabled adults are often excused from certain moral duties. It is only the mentally-fit humans who perceive moral values, and it is only the mentally-fit humans to whom these values apply, making moral values doubly dependent on perception. How then, can we call such values objective with the same confidence that we say that the physical world is objective?

Now without objective moral values, what are we left with? It seems that no matter how we try to get some purchase for our morality, there is an is-ought gap we just can’t quite cross. Just what is it in life, or the flourishing of life, that makes us ought to act in certain ways?

“If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist,” says an apologist. This will soon be followed by the contention that objective moral values do exist, leading to the inevitable conclusion that, well, God exists.

From my discussions with the resident theists in the FF Forum, I have come to understand moral values as the rightness/wrongness of certain human actions, while Collins English Dictionary defines objective as ”existing independently of perception or an individual’s conceptions.”

The famous Christian apologist William Lane Craig defines it even more narrowly:

“To say that there are objective moral values is to say that something is right or wrong independently of whether anybody believes it to be so. It is to say, for example, that Nazi anti-Semitism was morally wrong, even though the Nazis who carried out the Holocaust thought that it was good; and it would still be wrong even if the Nazis had won World War II and succeeded in exterminating or brainwashing everybody who disagreed with them.“

I think the fallacy of Craig’s argument lies in his use of the word objective. Craig says that objective moral values exist whether anyone believes them or not, and by anyone, that should include God, otherwise it would be special pleading. However, moral values themselves do not exist inherently with human actions; moral values exist only when someone judges the actions and establishes moral values on them. If moral values are established by God, they are only objective as far as man is concerned but they are actually subjective from the point of view of God.

And that’s why I don’t think it’s right to call the moral values allegedly established by God as objective moral values since they cannot exist independently of God’s perception or judgment. They should be called divine moral values instead, but I think I know why Craig would refuse to call them as such. That’s because his moral argument would turn into something like this:

1. If God does not exist, divine moral values do not exist

2. Divine moral values exist

3. Therefore, God exists

But the problem with the new Premise 2 is that it’s easier to refute than the original “objective moral values exist” because skeptics would then demand a list of moral values unmistakably coming from God, and I’m sure the Bible would fail miserably. (As for the existence of objective moral values, however, Craig doesn’t seem to offer much support apart from saying that the Holocaust would still be wrong even if the Nazis had won World War II and that we intuitively perceive certain acts like rape and torture to be wrong, but instead challenged skeptics that they could not prove that physical reality exists either and that even as one could only rely on his own sense perception to perceive reality, no one in his right mind would deny that objective reality exists, so it should follow that no one in his right mind would also deny that objective moral values exist even if he only had his own moral perception to rely on.)

I posted this objection on the FF Forum along with the Euthyphro dilemma (does God command something because it’s good or is something good because God commands it?) and got very interesting answers from our resident theists who call themselves Miguel and XIII. What they are practically saying is that God does not command the good nor likes the good but that God is the good, and being good, he cannot command something that is not good. I took the liberty of refining their argument to make it more relevant to objective moral values (Miguel and XIII, if you think I did not give justice to your views you may rebuke me at the comments section):

1. Objective moral values are moral values that exist whether anyone – including God – perceives them or not.

2. God is inherently good, so he cannot perceive something evil as good and vice-versa.

3. So even if moral values are directly dependent on God’s perception, such perception is not subjective because it is anchored on God’s goodness, which cannot be separated from him, and therefore the moral values established by God are ultimately grounded on his objective goodness.

While the conclusion seems logical, I’m going to try to refute Premise 2, that God cannot perceive something evil as good. In the Old Testament, God established extremely negative moral values on homosexuality, working on the Sabbath, and losing one’s virginity before marriage - and positive moral values on killing homosexuals, Sabbath workers and non-virgin brides. And in both the Old and New Testaments, God/Jesus never established a negative moral value on slavery but actually condoned it. So in order to honestly say that “God is the good,” one would have to agree with the above moral values established by God.

Otherwise, the moral argument will be gored by the second horn of the Euthyphro dilemma (something is good because God commands it, making the good arbitrary), refuting the premise that if God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist, because objective moral values are supposed to exist even if everyone – including God – does not agree with them. And that’s why I believe that not only do objective moral values not exist but the term “objective moral values” itself is an oxymoron, because moral values will always be subjective to the mind (whether man’s or God’s) that perceives them.

[Continued on The closest thing to objective moral values]

A hundred years after the first International Women’s Day, Filipinas still do not have power over events only women face—risks to life and health in pregnancy and childbirth.

Eleven women die each day from maternal complications. Most do not even want to get pregnant; those who do certainly have no wish to die while giving life.

Contraception can stop the deaths of women who have unplanned pregnancies. Women who do want a child can be saved through skilled attendance at birth by midwives, doctors or nurses; and prompt action during complications by health facilities with emergency obstetric care. Young women can protect themselves from sexual coercion and abuse and early pregnancies through accurate and positive sexuality education integrated in the formal school system. All of these measures are key parts of the reproductive health (RH) bill which, after ten years, is still stuck in Congress, obstructed by religious arguments raised by religious forces.

If those who have power routinely die from pregnancy and childbirth, would debates over a legislative policy last a decade? Would there even be reasons for debates?

“The State condemns discrimination against women in all its forms,”proclaims the Magna Carta of Women. This law says that discrimination occurs if “women, more than men, are shown to have suffered the greater adverse effects” of measures or practices.

Obstructing RH services and letting 11 women die each day is discrimination pushed to the extreme. That 90 or so bishops of the CBCP^[1] have louder voices than four million women users of contraception and millions more who lack RH services emphasize the gross injustice of it all—a few powerful ultraconservative men imposing their religious beliefs on all women.

In its lengthy pastoral letter on RH, the CBCP said that the “proposed bill in all its versions calls us to make a moral choice: to choose life or to choose death.“ Completely oblivious of the real life-and-death situation women face during each pregnancy and childbirth, not a word was mentioned about deaths from maternal complications.

Reproduction and the moral choices that women make are things that bishops will never experience. Daily and routinely, women balance the risks, the joys and hopes of having a child, and the realities of being responsible for another human life. The bishops’ insistence on the moral superiority of their beliefs based on their claim that they can “rightly guide” women’s conscience on reproductive matters reeks of nothing but male arrogance.

March 8 is Women’s Day. Sadly, 11 more women will die today, not because we lack the resources, knowledge or means to save them, but mainly because those in power have not yet deemed women’s lives as important enough to save.

We have had enough. We affirm the morality of choices women make over their reproductive lives. We condemn the tyranny and discrimination that CBCP and its allies wish to impose on women, and we hold them responsible for the 11 women who die each day.

- statement of RHAN & RH Ipasa Na! campaign on Women’s Day

_______________________

[1] Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines

Last Thursday, Garrick and I gave a lecture at DLSU, (one of) the best Catholic universities in the country. The lecture was for students of the Great Works classes, who were reading The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake, No Exit by Jean Paul Sartre, and Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. Although we weren’t experts on any of these books, we were very familiar with their themes: damnation and eternal life; reward and punishment; heaven and hell; good and evil; and the meaning of life.

Natty Manauat, one of the philosophy professors who organized the forum, invited us to give a freethinker’s take on these themes. This is our second time lecturing in DLSU. Last year, Natty invited us to the philosophy department’s Darwin Day celebration. We served as panelists in a discussion of the film, Creation, and I gave a talk titled “Darwin, the Freethinker,” in which I argued that instead of being a dispassionate scientist, Darwin was actually a passionate advocate of reason and human equality. We don’t have a recording of that lecture, but we were prepared for this one.

In my part of the lecture, I showed how Christian morality has progressed from Biblical times to this day, and how history has shown that when it comes to telling good from evil, the Roman Catholic Church is incompetent. After I showed that a better framework for morality is badly needed, Garrick argued for a more scientific understanding of morality, one that’s grounded on human well-being instead of divine dogma, theological tradition, and arbitrary authority.

In spite of the unusually cold air-conditioning, only a few students fell asleep — most of them were engaged throughout the lecture, and some even told us that we gave an awesome lecture. The professors were also happy, and over coffee we were invited to give another lecture in April, this time on the life of Alan Turing. We’re equally excited about that, but for now, we hope you enjoy the videos below.

Ryan Tani on The Problem of Evil

Garrick Bercero on Morality Without God

One of the issues being debated by freethinkers is the source of our morality. Some atheists postulate that morality is just the product of evolution while agnostics point out that there are cases of altruistic human behavior that have nothing to do with propagating one’s genes, and theists claim that our moral values must have therefore come from a Moral Lawgiver.

While some moral standards can be attributed directly to evolution (for example, a species or race composed mostly of murderers will soon kill itself into extinction, hence, murder is generally judged as morally wrong), some say that evolution cannot account for every act of apparent selflessness such as helping the poor, the sick and the old especially those to whom the giver has no blood relations.

While part of me wants to prove them wrong by explaining how evolution has given us the brains to continuously define moral standards with increasing sophistication, what I want to show in this article is that we are not as “moral” – at least in the altruistic sense – as we like to think we are.

Webster defines altruism as “unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others“. The operative word is unselfish, and it is precisely because of this qualifier that I daresay that most acts of caring and sharing cannot be considered altruistic because they are not unselfish but rather selfish, albeit with a very long-term view in mind.

In this way, I believe there are relatively few cases of altruism; what we often see is reciprocal altruism, defined as “a behaviour whereby an organism acts in a manner that temporarily reduces its fitness while increasing another organism’s fitness, with the expectation that the other organism will act in a similar manner at a later time.”

Since life is not a zero-sum game, meaning whatever the strong/rich gives to the weak/poor has a relatively lower value to the former than to the latter, it is easy to explain reciprocal altruism. The loss experienced by the giver is less than the gain enjoyed by receiver, and when the giver becomes the receiver in the future, the investment will have paid off handsomely.

What is hard to explain, at least in terms of evolution, is true altruism – pure, selfless concern for the welfare of others at one’s own expense – particularly among those who do not even expect a heavenly reward. And the most altruistic people I can think of are the vegans and animal rights advocates. Helping other people, even those to whom we are not related, always carries the conscious or unconscious expectation that such gesture will be reciprocated in the future, not necessarily by the same people we helped. But caring about the lower animals and granting them equal rights, knowing full well that they have no capacity to repay us for our compassion and sacrifice (a vegan diet is expensive, not to mention not as satisfying, at least at the start), that is simply way beyond reciprocity.

But I will make no attempt to explain such behavior. Why? Because I don’t have to, if only to debunk the theists’ claim that our morality must have come from God. Vegans are the minor exception, not the rule, so instead trying to account their moral advocacy to evolution, I will simply say that humans in general do not have such morality, at least not as of this point in our history.

So to those who say that we are a moral race because we condemn murder, rape, and robbery and even made laws against them, think about the animals that we not only slaughter for food (and leather and fur!) but systematically raise in the most cost-effective way, crowding as many animals as possible in tight spaces to minimize cost without regard for their welfare (overcrowding causes stress, heatstroke and injuries – that’s why we cut off the beaks of chicks [without anesthesia!] so they don’t peck each other and damage the meat). And for as long as we buy and eat farmed chicken, pork, and beef, we are guilty of perpetuating their suffering. Is this something a species supposedly getting their morals from a loving Creator would do?

As Michael Shermer said:

Morals do not exist in nature and thus cannot be discovered. In nature there are just actions – physical actions, biological actions, and human actions. Human actors act to increase their happiness, however they personally define it. Their actions become moral or immoral when someone else judges them as such. Thus, morality is a strictly human creation, subject to all the cultural influences and social constructions as other such human creations.

Does this mean that all human actions are morally equal? No…We create standards of what we like and dislike, desire or not, and make judgments against these standards. But the standards are themselves human creations and not discovered in nature…one group prefers patriarchal dominance, and so judges male privileges to be morally honorable…Thus, male ownership of females was once moral and is now immoral, not because we have discovered it as such, but because our society has realized that women also seek greater happiness and that they can achieve this more easily without being in bondage to males.

Will our race one day realize that animals also seek greater happiness and that they can achieve this more easily without being raised in cramped, cruel captivity all their short miserable lives? More importantly, are we willing to set them free at the expense of losing a reliable food source? Until then, there is no point in bragging about our so-called morality, and especially in arguing that our moral standards must be more than just a product of evolution.

* * * * *

The following is a comment from our resident vegan, Nancy, posted several days after this article was published. I’m featuring it here because it sheds light to the vegans’ supposed altruism:

Thank you for including nonhuman animals in your consciousness and in this post  That said, if the definition of altruism includes no benefit to the individual, no one would be truly altruisitc. When one chooses to do good, one finds peace within and it could be argued that it is a selfish motivation to do what is aligned to one’s beliefs. This is also true for vegans. After I made the connection between violence and animal use, I became vegan because not doing so would make me intensely uncomfortable (to say the least). It would benefit my emotional well-being more to be a vegan than to continue to consume animals.

I am not more moral than non-vegans. I just happened to make the connection. Other people seem to have an intrinsic sense about this, kids who at a very young age realize that meat comes from animals and just refuse to eat them, even without anyone having to explain factory farming or environmental degradation. Others need exposure and information to sift through the many years of unquestioned beliefs and get it, like me. Whereas others are still brainwashed by the messages sent out by animal agriculture companies (“milk=calcium” when in reality broccoli has more calcium, “it’s tradition”, etc.) and need more time to make the connection. BTW a vegan diet is not expensive. It actually saves you money from medicine and hospital bills so it’s again self-serving if you look at it that way. It is also satisfying as your taste buds begin to appreciate the natural tastes. Regarding reliable food source, we stand more to gain if the world lived on a vegan diet. There will be more food since production will be more efficient. Again, this can be considered self-serving. Not destroying the only planet we live in, I suppose, would be self-serving as well.

So I seem to have opened up a can of worms when I tried to point out the absence of empirical evidence support on accounting morality to evolution propelled by natural selection at the Filipino Freethinkers site. One good thing out of allowing such a topic to be published in the Filipino Freethinkers site is that it brings opportunity to show the reading public that the site is not just an atheist or a militant atheist site. One bad thing about it is having “fans” or “stalkers” (depending on whether the person is good-looking or not). My understanding of evolution (and perhaps even science itself) may be frowned upon by some of my atheist friends and acquaintances there but that’s okay with me. If they think that I do not know anything about science or that my understanding of evolution and science is plagued with so “many errors” or “stupidity”, because uhm… well… my articles do not fit a certain framework of what they think science and evolution ought to be then there’s nothing I can do about such a sentiment. I certainly do not feel the necessity to prove to any “scientists” or “science teachers” there my science background. Besides, scientific grandstanding in order to bolster credibility when it comes to discussions touching on science is just so… well… not my style.

Anyway, marching onward…

I’ve encountered a few self-professed atheists in the past who account morality to evolution. For these folks, at least the ones I encountered, they do not subscribe to universal values and truth. Also for them, there is no objective truth. I guess it is perfectly understandable for the atheist position to reject objective truth. Bertrand Russell, author of the “Why I Am Not a Christian”, although known for his “philosophical agnosticism and practical atheism”, also contended that with God out of the picture, no other objective standard for morality (which he called “The Good”) could be found. J.L.Mackie, one of the greatest minds of atheism in recent times also admitted, in his book “Miracle of Theism”, that moral value is most unlikely without a God to ground it. He wrote that if there really is objective value, it would make God’s existence more probable than if there weren’t. He said this is a defensible argument from morality to the existence of God. Mackie rejected the notion of a universal value because as an atheist, well… he had to. He adopted the evolution-based morality model and believed that we all have the feeling, the sense, that there is objective value but that this is only a feeling developed over a long evolutionary process.

Perhaps there is more to evolution-based ethics than meets the eye. Let’s assess, shall we? However, before my atheist “fans” or “stalkers” go ballistic on me again for seemingly going against the choir, let me first state that this article does not intend to make any claims on the existence of an objective truth or value or even universal truth. It does, however, present some arguments against some questions we may have in mind. It also intends to incite critical thinking and assessments on what we may already adhere to and some ideas that the readers may consider under an open mind.

In our assessment, I would like to touch on something that I feel is important to the subject matter. Is there such a thing as a “universal value/morality/truth”?

I was once told that:

“Man has evolved in such a way that he relies less on his instincts (which have gone subterranean) and almost fully on his consciousness (his most fallible organ, if I may say so). Values are important for the enhancement of human life and culture, for creativity and creation. They are important for the enrichment of human life, that is why value-creation is one of mankind’s most wonderful activities and experiments.”

So our moral sense was basically a result of our value creation stemming from our evolutionary process for the enhancement of our lives. So if that is the case, does this make truth a creation of the mind? If we accept this, as well as the notion that truth is merely passed on from one generation of human beings to another, one could say that this truth must be nothing more than a human invention. It originated from humans and could have been thought up differently from the way it is. Like the idea that a red light means stop and a green light means go; humans invented that and could easily have reversed that if it was favored by the human mind. However, not all things we have learned from humans (e.g. our parents and ancestors) are human inventions that could have been different from what they are. There are some things that we learn from others that are not human inventions; humans teach them but we don’t necessarily invent them. They could not be different from what they are. Take for example, basic logical truths such as “a whole is greater than any of its parts” or “a thing cannot both exist and not exist in the same sense at the same time”. We learned these from our schools, our parents, other people; but it doesn’t follow that these people (or the people before them) invented these or that they could be different from what they are. We only recognize them as truths that exist apart from us and pass them along to other people.

The next question I have is: Is truth relative?

Before we get into this, I think it is important to distinguish two types of truths I have in mind. There is the objective/absolute truth and the subjective/relative truth. I think it is a mistake to think of truth as a case of “either/or”. Anyway, looking at relative truth, please have a look at Theodore Schick Jr.’s “Is Morality a Matter of Taste?” ( http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/schick_18_4.html )

Other types of Relativism can be seen in:  http://www.iep.utm.edu/c/cog-rel.htm

Now regarding absolutism, there are various kinds of absolutism as well. Most commonly, absolutism refers to the view that says, for example, that the government or the head of that government has complete rights and powers over the citizens. Absolutism also commonly refers to the belief that there are moral absolutes that are valid universally, and in the case of various denominations of Christianity, for example, that God is the ultimate moral authority. Thus, some or a good number of Christians, and Muslims I presume, are ethical absolutists, but may or may not be absolutists in other aspects.

Prof. LaFave offers several other types of absolutisms in http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/melchert.html

Anyway, I do not support the notion of absolute relativism that says there is no “objective reality”. I do, however, support the existence of both objective and subjective realities.

Examples of objective realities are “Airplanes exist in the world”, “I have used a computer in my life”, and “I am a human being”.

There are also subjective truths such as who is more beautiful–Ms. X or Ms. Y. These are value judgments, which depend upon the perceiver/interpreter. Such “truths” are more or less relative to the subject.

As for absolutist vs relativistic ethics I recommend you check the link below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_pluralism

As you will read, rather than just opt for either relativistic or absolutist ethics, the link shows an alternative—value (ethical) pluralism.

Now we may ask: What about the different moral practices in the world? Doesn’t this prove ethical relativism?

I do agree that we see different moral practices by different cultures at different places. However, different moral practices do not necessarily contradict the notion of a universal truth. Anyway, given the differences in moral practices that we see in different societies, what is remarkable is not really how different these are but how similar they are. In fact what we do find are fundamental value systems around the world. But before anyone goes ballistic on me with that statement, I will try to explain what I mean.

If we take the UN Declaration of Human Rights that was drawn in 1948, as an example, we would recognize the demonstration of this fundamental similarity in value systems around the world. Human freedom, dignity, life, liberty, security, and many other things are said to be morally good. Racial and gender discrimination, slavery, arbitrary arrest, torture, all forms of degrading treatment and other acts are condemned. Some may say that the UN Declaration is relatively modern and it may have evolved through preceding generations. But as the English writer, C.S. Lewis’ compilation of a list of ancient moral codes, we see a highlight of fundamental similarities between them. The moral imperative against murder or cruel treatment of other human beings is found in the moral codes of the ancient Egyptians, Jews, Babylonians, Hindus, and Chinese. The command to honor and respect others is found in the moral codes of the ancient Hindus, Babylonians, Greeks, Jews, Egyptians, and Chinese. Values such as honesty, mercy and care are likewise found in a wide spectrum of ancient codes. I guess the point here is that despite the radically different conditions and situations we find people in, it is not the difference in moral practices that are remarkable, but the similarities.

Now, one may surely ask, “Ok, if there is indeed a universal truth (or value, if you will), and if people are truly guided by this set of objective and common moral principles, then how can different moral practices still exist?”

Well, it is one thing to recognize or know about an objective and universal moral standard, it is quite another to follow it. It is possible that when we find certain people who do things we condemn, they are acting in violation of moral standards that they recognize. But what about the societies that, without any remorse or any thought of wrongdoing, carry out practices that we condemn? A good example would be the classic case of the Eskimo societies recorded by anthropologists, as discussed in our Philosophy 101 courses. Anthropologists have found that in the past, infanticide was quite common amongst the Eskimos. They would leave their infant children out, to freeze to death. This was permitted by the parents and no social stigma was attached to it, yet we condemn this practice.

In assessing these kinds of things, I think it isn’t enough to ask what practices people do but also why they do it. We have to realize that a difference in moral practice may not always be because of a difference in moral principles held by the people. Different practices may be due to a difference in a group’s circumstances or conditions in life.

Considering the Eskimo example above on infanticide practice, people who hear of this practice may be quick to judge that Eskimos do not love their children as much as we do or that they do not have the same level of respect for human life as we do have. But if we ask the question why they did such things, we would see if they really love their children less than we do or whether they did have less respect for human life than we do. Perhaps this is just because they have different circumstances that forced them into such practice? Until we can answer that “why” question, we can’t really say for sure that they are following different moral values from ours.

The Eskimos in the anthropology study example lived in a harsh environment. Food was scarce in their region and mothers would often breastfeed their young much longer (up to 4 years). In addition, they were a nomadic people, unable to farm. They were always in a move to search for food. Infants had to be carried, and a mother could only carry one in her parka. In other words, these people lived on the margin of existence.

Let’s ask ourselves these questions:

1. What if I had more children than I could support?

2. What if I knew one was going to die because there simply was no way to keep that child alive?

3. What if neither I nor my community had the means to care for all my children?

4. What would we do in such situations?

Would we not search for the most painless way to bring about a child’s death because we do love our children? I think we might. That is what the Eskimos did, freezing to death, for them, is a relatively painless way to die. The child falls into a deep sleep and then dies in its sleep.

My main point is not that such practice is morally good but that it does not necessarily prove that the Eskimos held different moral values from what we hold. In other words, if we find ourselves in the same kind of situation as them, we would probably do the same. What we can learn from this is that infanticide did not signal a fundamentally different attitude toward children. Instead, we recognize that it was because of their love for their children and their respect for human life that they looked for the most painless way for them to die. So the question of “what” in differences in moral practices isn’t always sufficient, we also have to dig deeper and ask the “why” question.

Using another example, there are cultures in the world where it is believed that it is wrong to eat cows. This belief is held despite the hunger its people are suffering from. Such a society where killing cows is always wrong would appear to have different moral values from ours. It would appear that they have a greater respect for animal life than human life.

With a case like this, a person’s belief about reality makes a lot of difference. These people believe that after death, the souls of humans inhabit the bodies of cows. So a cow that we see may be our grandpa. But with this, can we really say that their moral values are really different from ours? No. The difference lies elsewhere. It is in our belief systems, not in our values. We both agree that we shouldn’t eat grandpa; we simply disagree whether or not the cow is or could be grandpa. The status of whether or not the cow is grandpa or could be grandpa does not have anything to do with morality.

So going back to the previous question on whether values such as moral values were invented for the enhancement of human life; if our moral convictions really do stem from the need to do whatever to promote the enhancement of human life, then shouldn’t we have the moral conviction to exterminate the sick, the aged, and the handicapped? I mean it may be said that these people do not really enhance one’s life. They can even be quite burdensome; they use up resources we need to survive. I don’t know up to what level these people contribute to the enhancement of our life but I’m guessing it may be minimal. So if we, as humans, are hard-wired to create values for the enhancement of our lives, then shouldn’t we then have a moral sense or sense of duty to get rid of anyone who hinders the enhancement of our lives? Shouldn’t we prohibit the (mentally) handicapped people from reproducing?

But we have not and do not regard these as our moral duty. In fact we have the opposite convictions. We would condemn anyone who did those and even thought about those things. If our evolution carried with our value creation activities for the enhancement of life, it doesn’t seem to support the human compassion for the sick, the aged, and the handicapped.

Now, we may also entertain the notion that morality is a necessity for the weak, that the compassion shown and given towards the weak makes life more pleasant for the weak and it would be nice for us all to know that we would receive that kindness too if we were in that position. However, this is not necessary if we go by the purpose of morality as an enhancement for human living. If it were only for human life enhancement, we’re actually better off without that kind of compassion. All those resources, funds, and energy would be freed up for use by the healthy ones. But as indicated before, this is not our attitude. We actually regard it as good to use resources to care for the weak. We do this even when the people concerned would not contribute to the enhancement of our lives; such as the comatose, the mentally handicapped, and others. And even if we decide to let the person die rather than prolong his or her life through extraordinary means, we do this with great reluctance and a deep “soul-searching”. There seems to be nothing in the evolutionary explanation which can explain these strong moral sentiments.

Now, let’s set aside the previous questions and grant that the evolution model is the most plausible explanation for morality. The question now is: “Can we condemn anything via evolutionary morality?”

Suppose aliens from Planet X came to Earth one day and interacted with us, would rape be wrong for them? Suppose that the aliens have an entirely different evolutionary history from ours, wouldn’t it be conceivable that rape would not necessarily be wrong for them? If rape is wrong for us humans, we cannot just say that rape must be wrong for the aliens as well if they have a different evolutionary history. On the evolutionary model, we cannot assume that the aliens’ morality would be like ours. It would depend on how their evolutionary process went.

Suppose that these aliens can have sex with us, how should they act towards us? Suppose they decide to begin raping humans at will and suppose we complain that rape is wrong and that they should stop, they would have a ready response to us by saying “Your morality is just a product of your evolutionary process. They are only like your other adaptations. Any other meaning is an illusion. It doesn’t affect us”.

If morality were strictly an evolutionary product, they would be correct. If morality is only an evolutionary product, then acts like rape would not really be wrong, we just have the conviction, the feeling, the emotion that say that it is wrong. So in the case of the alien rapists, they would be fully justified and we would have nothing to say to them. So with evolutionary morality, it appears that there is no basis for condemning such acts. On the evolutionary model, acts such as rape are no more wrong for us than they are for the aliens. The fact that we are humans does not make an act any more wrong in itself. It just means that we happen to have the feeling or emotion that it is wrong because of our evolutionary development.

Why shouldn’t we rape, and maim, and steal, and lie, and do anything else that we want to do? We may have a feeling that such acts are wrong but in the view of evolution, it is merely a biological adaptation passed onto us over millions of years. It’s a feeling, nothing more. There is no reason to regard any act as really right or wrong. In fact, on the evolutionary model, it may even be argued that rape is ethically good because it gives the rapist pleasure.

An evolution-based ethics, although interesting, I think has its share of flaws as well. It appears that there may be arguments worth considering that point towards universal values or truth. It appears that there may be arguments worth considering that point towards universal values or truths not necessarily having been invented or created by the human mind. Lastly, with an evolution-based ethics we may not be able to really condemn a morally reprehensible act because such an immoral act may be merely accounted to a feeling or emotion due to our evolutionary development. So if you’re abducted by aliens and sent to some alien prison out in galaxy XYZ… just make sure you don’t pick up the soap dropped by another alien inmate when you guys are in the shower.

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DISCLAIMER: Views expressed in this article represent the views of the author (hgamboa) and do not necessarily represent the editorial position of www.filipinofreethinkers.org.

Since my political commentaries aren’t always publishable here at the Filipino Freethinkers site, I decided to just focus on themes that seem to be prevalent here such as Religion and Science. In a non-religionist environment “Evolution” is quite a popular topic to discuss. While I do not intend to join a choir singing praises to evolution I also do not intend to throw a monkey wrench into it. The purpose of this article is to critically analyze the pitfall of reductionist thinking when it comes to Evolution.

Did you guys know that, Charles Darwin – the father of evolution, shares the same birthday with me? Wow! Isn’t that something? I used to think that my birthday was quite special because every birthday I celebrate the whole United States of America celebrates it (Lincoln’s birthday) too! Now it is even more special because not only do I have Americans celebrating on my birthday, I also have all the Darwinian atheists in the world celebrating, as well. Quite a big deal, huh?

So in one of the godless groups I used to frequent, Darwin’s birthday was always celebrated. Take note that I said Darwin’s birthday was celebrated, not mine. No one in that godless group cared enough to greet me on my birthday, but that’s alright. I certainly am not holding it against President Barack Obama for not giving me a birthday greeting, as well.

Anyway, it is just very much expected to find a discussion on evolution and Charles Darwin in an atheist forum or atheist group. Of course, in an atheist group evolution is treated as some sort of dogma. No one can question it… evolution explains everything in our lives! To question evolution and sometimes even Charles Darwin himself is a heresy! If you are stupid enough to question evolution and Charles Darwin in an atheist forum, you might end up being branded as some sort of an idiot mystic who cannot think freely outside the box of religious credulity.

So what is so special about Darwin and Darwin’s “evolution” that seems to trigger some sort of a Cognitive Dissonance amongst some “atheists”?

I came across an assertion by a self-professed atheist that said Charles Darwin’s Evolution through Natural Selection also answers the “why” questions in life. These “why” questions, he said, were once solely under the affairs of religion. Darwin has shattered religion’s monopoly for the “how” questions and now we are told that it has the “why” questions covered, as well.

I have no problems when it comes to Evolution trumping religion when it comes to the “how” questions. But I would like to take a pause for a moment and think about whether I can jump in the bandwagon with atheists on the claim for the “why” questions. So I pondered on the question whether Evolution based on Natural Selection can really answer some of the “why” questions or more abstract questions in life. Was Charles Darwin able to answer the question why humans have morals?

In the investigation, it is important to have a clearly defined scope. The empirical data needs to be within the scope of interest, which is Evolution through Natural Selection. In light of that, we need to establish a definition of terms – what is Evolution and what is Natural Selection?

As I understand it, Evolution is a gradual process in which something changes into a different and usually more complex or better form. Natural Selection is the mechanism behind evolution and it is a theory of local adaptation to changing environments. Local environments change consistently. The Earth has become hotter and colder throughout time. Environments have become wetter and drier; grassy, more forested, more arid… etc. The empirical data we have certainly shows how different species have adopted to the changing environments. The evolutionary history of the elephant family gives a good insight for how natural selection worked. (Please see: http://elephant.elehost.com/About_Elephants/Stories/Evolution/evolution.html )

So in essence, evolution by natural selection tracks changing environments by differential preservation of organisms better designed to live in them.

Now, does Darwin have any empirical data that shows how the changing temperature throughout the planet’s history, for instance, has changed morality? Or why morality emerged from the change in our planet’s historical climate? Can fossils of Australopithecus afarensis and Homo habilis and Homo erectus and Homo sapiens sapiens be correlated to the changing climates from their respective periods for us to see why morality is what it is today? Does Darwin have empirical data to show that morality is directly proportional to natural selection from changing local environments?

Darwin indeed offered evidence that suggests Natural Selection as the basis for humans’ morality. In his book, “The Descent of Man”, Darwin discussed in chapter 5 of that book, the “Development of the Intellectual and Moral Faculties during Primeval and Civilised Times”. Here is the link to that chapter:

http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-descent-of-man/chapter-05.html

I do not see anywhere from the link above any empirical evidence to support Darwin’s claim of Natural Selection accounting for morality. The chapter, however, offers explanations and rationalizations, but no empirical data is presented.

As he described somewhere in the beginning of chapter 5, the lower animals must have their bodily structure modified in order to survive under greatly changed conditions. This certainly fits well within the scope of natural selection (which is the mechanism behind evolution and the theory of local adaptation to changing environments). This can be shown through fossil records. We have empirical data to support such claims by looking at the difference in skeletal structure of similar organisms from different places with different climates/conditions. That is fine and dandy. However, when it comes to morality, we do not see any data from him that shows how, say the change in climate, has triggered the formation or even refined our moral sense. Instead, he offers anthropological data to support his theory. But the anthropological data presented merely builds up his inferences. Testing the inferences is another story.

I am not suggesting that anthropological studies are worthless. However, I would caution about depending on mere anthropological data to readily conclude on something abstract. We see the value in taking a pause in making conclusions right away with critiques to Ruth Benedict’s Ethical Relativism defense using anthropological data. Our Philo 101 course has taught that lesson already.

Anyway, around the seventh paragraph, he avers to natural selection as “survival of the fittest”. He intimates that “survival of the fittest” points to reproductive success or success in the increase in population.

“Therefore, it hardly seems probable that the number of men gifted with such virtues, or that the standard of their excellence, could be increased through natural selection, that is, by the survival of the fittest; for we are not here speaking of one tribe being victorious over another.”

But how does Darwin define “fitness”? In the way he described it from his writing, it seems that he defines “fitness” in terms of survival success. So… the survival success of those who survive? Isn’t that a tautology? Sure, we can probably grant that tautologies sometimes are used for statement definitions ( e.g. “My father is a man.” ), but not as testable scientific statements – there can be nothing to test in a statement true by definition.

In the same book (The Descent of Man), Darwin also expressed his racism and sexism. Darwin argues that the male is an intrinsically more dominant figure than the woman. Darwin argues that because of the woman’s maternal instincts, women are more tender and selfless. But he also adds:

“It is generally admitted that with woman the powers of intuition, of rapid perception, and perhaps of imitation, are more strongly marked than in man; but some, at least, of these faculties are characteristic of lower races, and therefore of a past and lower state of civilization. The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shewn by man’s attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than can woman – whether requiring deep thought, reason, or imagination, or merely the use of the senses and hands.” ( The Descent of Man, p. 576)

Does Darwin have available empirical evidence using natural selection (featuring changing environments) to support his claim of why men attain a higher eminence in pretty much everything… including intellectual powers?

I do not see anything that gives empirical and objective data to support Darwin’s conclusions. What we can see are mere rationalization that tries to fit all observable human behavior to the Natural Selection framework. Was Darwin able to rationalize how morals could cohesively fit into the Natural Selection framework? Perhaps. Was he able to empirically and objectively test it? Well… there appears to be no evidence for it (at least not in the link provided).

Sure, we may grant that Darwin, from his “The Descent of Man”, concluded that man’s morality stems from the development of social instincts through natural selection. Sure we may grant that Darwin suggested that men are superior over women from the same book. Sure we may also grant that Darwin did write that the characteristic advantages of women are characteristic of “lower races” and “lower state of civilization”. We may even grant his explanations to be plausible. But his empirical data to support his conclusions is another story. I don’t think Darwin’s words ought to be treated as inerrant nor sacred. But then again who the hell am I, huh? For “freethinking atheists”, I’m just a stupid idiot sophist mystic who cannot think freely outside the box of religious credulity.

If that’s not the case, I guess we can just think that we just need more empirical data to support Darwinian claims on abstract questions such as questions regarding morality. With this, I guess the quest for the “missing link” continues.

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DISCLAIMER: Views expressed in this article represent the views of the author (hgamboa) and do not necessarily represent the editorial position of www.filipinofreethinkers.org.

Secondary oocyte during in vitro fertilization Credit: Spike Walker. Wellcome Images 2002 Published: - Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc-nd 2.0 UK

At the risk of disagreeing with FF UP Diliman Senior Faculty Adviser Dr. Sylvia Estrada-Claudio, I do think that the issue of when life begins is not only answerable by science, it has already been answered.

Microbe-like fossil records show that the oldest organisms appeared on earth about 3.5 billion years ago¹. One of the most compelling theories on the origin of life is that the first things that could be called “lifeforms” were RNA molecules². They are like DNA, except that they are single stranded and that their molecular constituents are slightly different. These RNA molecules were composed of sequences of the letters A, U, C, and G in chemical alphabet. These patterns of letters could make copies of themselves and the pattern that was most able to produce “offspring” dominated the primordial soup.

Throughout the eons, there has been an uninterrupted passing of genetic code from our microscopic antecedents to our piscine forebears to our simian ancestors. Each step of this chain of life from microbial cell to ape embryo involved something alive and this fact implicates the sperms and the eggs, which must also be alive in order to be viable for fertilization.

The claim that life begins at fertilization is not only provably false, it cheapens the breathtaking reality of nature. Without exception, we are all from lineages of winners—entirely composed of successful parents, none of whom died young. They all were able to copulate and produce offspring who themselves became successful parents. Whatever the first replicating unit was, we know that 3.5 billion years ago was the beginning of life… and life hasn’t stopped since.

I must admit at this point that I wasn’t really disagreeing with Dr. Claudio. But what I really wanted to show was that this whole debate about when life begins is a shameless distraction set up by social conservatives to derail any real productive argument about policies.

So, are embryos alive? Yes. But so are sperm cells and egg cells. Are we going to prosecute masturbators for genocide now? The point is, this distinction of life/non-life is useless. What the anti-choice advocates seem to mean when they say that “life begins at fertilization” is that our moral duty to them also begins there. But what they try to sweep under the rug is that moral concern is not based on “life” but on the capacity of brains for consciousness and cognition (which, incidentally, concerns also non-human animals). Even the Church itself allows for the harvesting of the organs of brain dead people³. If the Church really cared about being consistent with its moral prescriptions, they should either reserve their concerns for organisms that possess functioning brains that are able to suffer or deny that consciousness and brains have any factor in the moral calculus of actions.

This “life begins at fertilization” argument is arbitrary and based on no science whatsoever. There’s not even a single moment of fertilization. From the chemical transformation of the egg coat upon sperm contact to the fusion of chromosomal payloads, fertilization is a complex interplay of molecules that involves a series of chemical interactions⁴, none of which can simply be declared as the beginning of life or personhood. Neither does the possession of 46 chromosomes mean that one is a person since human genetic diseases such as Down and Turner syndromes involve additional or missing chromosomes. And even if fertilization were instantaneous, what about chimeras, which are two (or more) fertilized embryos that have fused? Was there a loss of life? Or, once the chimeric child is born, is he actually two individual living beings in one body? The fact of the matter is, personhood, organismal development, and molecular biology, are complex bodies of knowledge that have never been improved by dogma or religion.

Conservative Catholics need a cut and dry beginning of personhood because they have to insert the soul at some convenient and poetic point (the Church has changed its position on this throughout history, see: Ensoulment), preferably one that prevents others from enjoying themselves. Lacking the facts to back their claims up, they are left with nothing but to resort to claims about spirits, gods, and the speciesist superiority of human beings, and they do, as they invariably fall back to their dubious “moral” arguments.

Bibliography

1 Schopf, J. W., Kudryavtsev, A. B., Agresti, D. G., Wdowiak, T. J. & Czaja, A. D. Laser–Raman imagery of Earth’s earliest fossils. Nature 416, 73-76 (2002).

2 Dawkins, R. The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution.  (Free Press, 2009).

3 Wojtyła, K. J. Address of the Holy Father John Paul II to the 18th International Congress of the Transplantation Society, <http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/speeches/2000/jul-sep/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_20000829_transplants_en.html> (2000).

4 Gilbert, S. F. Developmental Biology.  (Sinauer Associates, 2000).

Conservative Catholics such as those that comprise the CBCP present liberal positions on matters such as sexuality as part of a continuing trend of social and moral decay. The problem with the social conservatives’ view on the current reproductive health issue is that this trend of “moral decay” that they are seeing is a lot more nefarious than they think. What they are actually seeing is growing skepticism and distrust of the last stronghold of religious authority—morality.

It used to be that the Church had a say in other spheres of thought such as cosmology and biology. With the embarrassment that is the Galileo affair (and the subsequent 1991 apology to the centuries dead astronomer), we can be thankful that no one seriously asks theologians for their say about string theory or the nature of the hydrogen bond (strangely, they are still asked about their views on developmental biology). Now, as our sciences have completely repudiated intelligent design and vitalist doctrines, the Church has lost all power of authority over descriptions of the universe and the mechanisms by which it functions, which is why they are fighting tooth and nail over the use of “morals” in discourse. But no matter how hard the Church tries to paddle us back to the more familiar shores of the 12^th century, the human race will journey on and move forward, as it always has. Our children will see the denial of equal rights to homosexuals as abhorrent as we now see slavery. The hysterics Eric Manalang and his cohorts use in harping against contraceptives are already as bizarre and as ridiculous as phrenology. It is only inevitable that the more general religious obsession over what naked people do with their bodies will become as quaint and as obtuse as the practice of blowing smoke up someone’s butt to revive them after drowning. It’s just a matter of time. But with lives in the balance, we cannot wait any longer.

The Church holds values that are explicitly divorced from facts found in the real world. They not only hold such views, they are proud of them. Blessed John Henry Newman encapsulates Catholic morality as this, “She [the Church] regards this world, and all that is in it, as a mere shadow, as dust and ashes, compared with the value of one single soul. She holds that, unless she can, in her own way, do good to souls, it is no use her doing anything; she holds that it were better for sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions who are upon it to die of starvation in extremest [sic] agony, so far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say, should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one wilful [sic] untruth, though it harmed no one, or steal one poor farthing without excuse.” While this distillation may set Catholic hearts ablaze with zeal, I find in this passage everything that is worthy of scorn and disdain in the Catholic Church. How can we build a lasting society where people can peacefully collaborate when this level of contempt for human solidarity and improvement of lives exists? It is from this doctrine-mandated disregard for the suffering of mankind that the vitriol of demagogues such as Manalang springs. This is the justification for the abject lies the Church uses to discredit the use of condoms to prevent AIDS despite its ravages—lies that the Vatican now must turn its back on as it accepts the impact of the recent words of its dear leader.

What conservative Catholics continue to call as “immoral” is the simple admission that human suffering is wrong and that we should do everything in our power to prevent it. It is far better for the Church that starving children are forced to peddle wares on the streets than to concede that planning pregnancies by more certain means can be used to prevent the anguish of more innocent children born into misfortune. The authority of God’s One True Church over sins is enough and any mere human attempt at alleviating affliction or delivering justice is heresy. This belief is why the Church squirrels away its rapist employees from real courts. This is irresponsible absurdity at full gallop. Despite its persistent assumption of it, the Church does not stand on the moral high ground. It is wallowing in its own valley of self-righteousness and blindness to human distress. How have we been swindled into thinking that the Church has anything useful or true to say about morals?

On the matter of the respect so fervently demanded by our friends across the aisle, it may perhaps be a shock to them that respect is earned. Respect, as with the moral high ground, is merited through the soundness of one’s positions despite dogged criticism. It is obtained not by steadfast dogmatism, but by an openness to changing one’s most cherished beliefs in the face of evidence. We show our respect for people of different views by arguing with them. This is because we believe that people are sensible and will listen to reason, lest we be guilty of the condescension of feigned deference and politeness, which passive-aggressively insinuates the unreasonableness of an adversary by keeping what you believe is true from them. We respect people enough to call them out when they are lying because we believe that they are not cynics and that they genuinely care about truth and the lives of the human beings their opinions affect.

The Church already recognizes some linkage between unplanned pregnancies and a life of hardship, albeit half-heartedly. Their promotion of the archaic and ineffective “natural family planning” betrays their hypocrisy. As HL Mencken notes, “It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics or chemistry.” They will eventually catch up with the modern ethics of sexuality and contraception, like it has with slavery and witch burning, give or take a few centuries. But until they do, their opinions on morality and human experience are as invalid and as retrograde as Pro-Life Philippines’ opinions on neuroscience and the effect of Satan on the prefrontal cortex.

Let me start things off by giving you a brief background on this penman. I won’t be too fancy in elaborating all of the things that I went through but let me do it comfortably casual. I’ll cut it to the chase: I finished up college in the city of the Durian fruit as they call it – Davao City, Philippines. I took up computer science and plodded through it a trimester longer than ideal. I had never been the computer geek that I was supposed to be. Instead, I’ve been akin to a frustrated philosopher/scientist who has got a computer-related bachelor’s degree. I’m currently working – well, probably the most common job in the country today – as a customer service associate. You might be wondering why I am talking about all these trifle details on my life. This is to give you an image of what I want to portray in my essay: a working-class dork that’s not too highbrow and not too lowbrow for you to relate to.

As a young child, I had always wondered on a variety of topics that people have been zealous with. It always puzzled me when grown-ups have distinctive opinions on a certain subject or idea. Moreover, I felt the conundrum of how a supreme being or plainly a God would have existed. I thought of how he foresaw all of the carnal and routine activities that we do. Despite being befogged, I chose to believe at the time.

As I grew more maturely as a Filipino citizen and essentially as a thinking human being, my thoughts had been more definite and rational rather than juvenile and undecided. I had been into what I call “a series of enlightenment” out of young adulthood’s distress – which actually helped me in the long run – to realize the ultimate reality. I’ve seen all these unsightly and troublesome issues on the world like genocide, famine, malnutrition, disease, disorder and so forth that dispelled the hugger-mugger out of me and dope out – are all of these mess permitted by an all-knowing, all-loving, and all-caring god?

I used to think that people who are religious enough to drive through a church every Sunday are dim (which I really kept to myself since my kinfolks are of that sort). Well, at least not all of them—they might just be going through the motions out of fear of eternal damnation. Yes, it’s true that a number of noticeably intelligent individuals believe in the teachings of Christianity and other organized religions – as their moral backbone but most of them haven’t really read all of the texts that would be relevant for their emancipation– taking into account that they are indeed intelligent.

Since I ought to opine on my views on humanity, here’s how I see it – it’s far more sophisticated than following some outdated guidelines on an outmoded book of moral codes and stories. In fact, what might have worked ages ago wouldn’t be applicable nowadays – albeit, there might be a legion of successful people who are religious but the truth is, it’s not the holy scriptures that made them who they are, it’s their work ethics, drive and a bit of luck that made them opulent in life and wealth – howsoever, this is the age of technological explosion, the age of over-the-top knowledge and we just don’t just go through the days without being bold enough to innovate and discover new ideas on our own – without some existing paradigm (as that principle applies to the heroes of science and technology).

There isn’t a sane human who would look down on the achievements of science, wouldn’t you agree? At the end of the day, like it or not, humanity will be better not by following some antiquated beliefs and practices but on the universal pragmatism brought by secular science and philosophy.

You might have noticed that I was alluding, generally to religious people here throughout this sound off on humanity. Utterly, those who are purged from their affiliations like what I’ve been through likely know most if not all of what I’ve been talking about – but you might as well want to know more, right? However, the genuinely religious are those who try so foolhardily to follow a life that leads them to the biblical gates one day. Otherwise, we can classify the group into two, the hypocritically believing and the truthfully faithful. Unfortunately in reality, only a few – if existent, are genuinely faithful. I mean, read through the verses of Judeo-Christianity books like the Bible and tell me – who among them followed all or at least most of the teachings? Even among the church leaders, friars, theologians and bible scholars can’t follow a Christ-like character as what they idealize to and they are obliged to according the books’ imperative commands. We don’t require them to and no one will since it’s natural for them to disobey that book – just like every one of us to commit their so-called sins and that’s what makes us human – doing the things that are normal to people since they’re not really “sins” if they didn’t label them that way – pride, greed, lust, anger, etc. – come on, are those innate feelings unnatural? Think it over.

Taking into account all of these facts on life – do we really adhere to the religious side or the secular stance? As a caveat, let me state that I’m not favorable to any radical religious liberalism of some sort. You may just divert head-on into humanism for humanity’s cause – but wait:

Let’s chew over the present news that the current pope in Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI, had made a crucial comment on a subject that they’ve been erstwhile antagonistic to. His comments that condom use would be acceptable on certain cases created a contestation among the media, the pro and anti-contraceptive groups and significantly among secularists and religious circles. Does this action by the pontiff insinuate to an eventual liberalism or revolution of the Catholic Church? Be it or not, what had transpired gave me that impression. I don’t see any coherent argument that changes can be made to their rather stifled dogma that’s been adhered to for presumably thousands of years.

Here’s what I can suggest, why don’t these people who gave the pontiff credits for his remitment on a hitherto forbidden act reckon on having a new religion – if they’re really into being a part of a religious assembly – like Unitarian Universalism where they can still have their innate spiritual selves without being guilty of disaffiliating themselves in terms of belief. Hence, they don’t need to have a revolutionary Catholic religion by then, thinking that this just might be one of the popish leader’s tactics to gain more votaries to his flock. As posted on a New York Times page, an artwork that portrays – know your scumbags.

De novo let me tell you – like it or not, the truth is withstanding comprehensively against the religious (especially now, the Catholics). Apparently, I’m not here to proselytize the faithful if you really are, I’m here sounding off what is relevant to all of us and that is knowing that humanity’s progress is stalling on what was supposed to be on a breeze of betterment: AIDS research, population control for poverty’s sake, stem cell research and a ton more unspoken nuances on humanity’s advancement. These were all hindered by the world leaders’ half-hearted respect toward the preachers of antediluvian knowledge.

It’s a popular knowledge that of all the religions of the world – that’s having a huge impact on the political spectrum – it’s the Catholic Church that’s doing most of the damage. That’s an understatement, especially here in our native country where a particular congressional bill is currently pending to be acted upon smoothly because of the church’s influence on the government. When you come to think of this circumstance logically and rationally, it’s obviously ludicrous. Personally, I can’t fathom how long this senseless actuality would last. Will this kind of fatuity go on forever? Nevertheless, I smell something fishy here; do these priests impertinently object the Reproductive Health Bill to keep the population growing – selfishly, for them to double their already gigantic Catholic multitude? More church-goers means more profit for them, doesn’t it?

Unless if the masses stop on being feeble and subservient to the preachers of death – only a lucky few, not even a majority, will prosper. All we need to do is to make a stand. You may label yourself as a god-believer, a religious Christian, a non-religious Christian or otherwise but we all need to make a stand. You may be an avowed atheist or a freethinker or possibly even a Catholic but a closet non-conformist to the current political and religious system; you owe to make a stand. Folks, as long as we live, we’re all part of this gargantuan species that we call “humanity”. We are all making a stand for humanity, not just a certain congregation.

Image by CGPGrey

In the 17th Asia-Pacific Congress on Faith, Life and Family, Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales had the following to say in his homily for Mass Monday:

Faced with the possibility of the reproductive health RH) bill being passed into law, Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales reminded parents to mold their children’s conscience, saying laws “won’t make things moral.”

“If you fail, you will reap the kind of people that we have now in most of our institutions, including Congress,”

…

Any person who has been brought up properly would know what is right and wrong and would know how to make upright decisions even in the face of any law, Rosales said.

via newsinfo.inquirer.net

I generally agree with what the Archbishop is saying in the first paragraph, that parents should try to impart moral lessons onto their children and laws really do not make things moral. But when an Archbishop is talking… boy do you have to watch out for the bullshit that inevitably comes along. The moral system that Archbishop Rosales speaks of is based on dogma, on the easy answers that perpetuate the power of the church without regard for the cost in human suffering.

While I do think there are some things where a moral decision is very easy to make the good archbishop happily chooses to exclude the middle, sweeping under the carpet those murky moral decisions that are difficult to make. Things like the RH bill or abortion, moral decisions that require a certain amount of courage and thinking when a society first encounters it. Society is not served by a knee jerk retreat into dogma that feels safe. Far better to face these hard moral challenges head on rather than seeking reassurance from old fables.

Dogmatically clinging onto morals handed down to us from the dark ages means a society that does not progress ethically. It would mean a world stuck in the horrid pages of the old testament where slavery is allowed and the punishment for rape is unjust. It would mean a moral standard stranded in the new testament where women are not treated as equals of men.

So parents. Teach your children about their conscience, give them the tools they would need to navigate the fog of moral uncertainty. Instill within them critical thinking so that they may weed out the bad ideas that come their way. Show them the value of compassion, how it has allowed humanity to flourish and how vital it is for our collective future. Armed with these your children may rise above these men of cloth, they might find the courage to take on the awesome responsibility of morality.

If you fail, well… then you will reap the kind of people that we have now as leaders of the Catholic church.

I was intrigued by the quote that I saw in the Internet, something that was said by a certain T.B. Wakeman “The word moral does not occur in the Bible, not even the idea.”
What? How can that be?

I grew up as a Christian and believed that the Bible was the foundation of morality…well…I thought it was, but hey, we can find the Ten Commandments in its pages, right? There is also this Jesus fellow who taught me to be good. That can be counted, right?

Since the Bible was inspired by God and every Christians know that God is good they blame the decay of society and the lost of moral values as the result of the decline in Bible reading and the lack of God belief. Tim LaHaye, co-author of the Left Behind series and one of the founders of Moral Majority agrees and said, “…since moral conditions have become worse and worse in direct proportion to humanism’s influence, which has move our country from a biblically based society to an amoral “democratic” society. “
Ok…so let us talk about morality base in the Bible.

Since Christians all agree that God inspired the Bible, let us look at God’s morality first.

According to Christian claims, God is suppose to be a god of love (1 John 4:16; Psalms 145:15-16 and Matthew 5:9), a righteous judge (Genesis 18:25), fair (Ezekiel 18:25) and impartial (Roman 2:11).

However, reading the Bible will also give us a different personality.

1.) That this God is a jealous god.
A perfect, omnipotent being getting jealous?

• Exodus 20:5, 34:14
• Deuteronomy 4: 24, 5:9
• Psalms 79:5, 78:58
• Joshua 24: 19
• Ezekiel 16:38, 38:19
• Zechariah 8:2
• Nahum 1:2

2.) He orders plunder.
Exodus 3:22Deuteronomy 20:14, and Ezekiel 39:10

3.) He deceives.
“O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived….” (Jer. 20:7)

“If the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel” (Ezek. 14:9)

“Ah, Lord God! Surely thou hast greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, Ye shall have peace; whereas the sword reaches unto the soul” (Jer. 4:10).

“…God sends upon them a strong delusion, to make them believe what is false, so that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (2 Thess. 2:9-12).

2 Chron. 18:18-22, 1 Kings 22:20-23 and Jer. 15:18.

4.) He command killing (even innocent women and children).
“ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. And five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put 10,000 to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword” (Lev. 26:7-8).

“the Lord said to Moses, Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the Lord against the sun, that the fierce anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel. And Moses said to the judges of Israel. Slay every one his men that were joined to Baal” (Num. 25:4-5).

“Vex the Midianites and smite them” (Num. 25:17).

“But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breathes. But thou shalt utterly destroy them…as the Lord thy God has commanded thee” (Deut. 20:16-17).

“So Joshua smote all the country of the hills…he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded” (Joshua 10:40).

“As I listened, god said to the others, ‘Follow him through the city and kill, without showing pity or compassion. Slaughter old men, young men and maidens, women and children….” (Ezek. 9:5-6).

So I guess Thomas Jefferson was right about God when he said, “A being of terrific character – cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust.” In addition, Thomas Paine was correct when he said, “All our ideas of the justice and goodness of God revolt at the impious cruelty of the Bible. It is not a God, just and good, but a devil, under the name of God, that the Bible describes.”

Reflecting from Xenophanes’ quote…if an ancient culture creates a god, it will reflect their standard of morality, the same on how horses and lions will create their gods.

Now let us talk about God’s only begotten son, Jesus.

Many people, and unfortunately even some freethinkers and agnostics, think that Jesus was a great teacher. People like Thomas Paine calls Jesus as such and Robert Ingersoll who was very impress with the so-called “Sermon on the Mount”.

When I was still a Christian, I also thought that this Man-God excel not only as a teacher but also in regards to ethics. I was 12-years old at that time.

Bible believers say that Jesus’ morality is at its best in the Sermon in the Mount (AKA the Beatitudes). You can see it in Matthew 5:3-11. Well they may be admirable, but it has little value as a moral code. The Beatitudes are unrealistic. If we take away most of its supernatural rewards, what is left are a bunch of Consuelo de bobo (hollow consolations).

The reason behind this is obvious. Jesus is teaching ethics base on the promise of divine rewards and treats of supernatural punishments. He does not teach by the content of his moral code but on his conception of himself and his divinely appointed mission.

How about Jesus’ other moral precepts?

Most of his teachings we re-hashed from other teachers and some were lift from the pages of the Old Testament. The Golden Rule for example was advocated by Confucius (Doctrine of Mean 13) 500 years before Jesus and you can also find it in the Seven Rules of Hillel.

What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor that is the whole Torah … (b.Shabbat 31a)

Isocrates (436–338 BCE), the ancient Greek rhetorician have also said,”Do not do to others what would anger you if gone to you by others.”

Matthew 5:39 can also be found in Leviticus 19:18 and in the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu

I am good to people who are good.
I am also good to people who are not good.
Because Virtue is goodness.
I have faith in people who are faithful.
I also have faith in people who are not faithful.
Because Virtue is faithfulness (Tao Te Ching 49)

In addition, the same teaching is seen in Confucianism, the Buddhist’s Dhammapada and at the Indian Ramayana.

Someone said, “What do you say concerning the principle that injury should be recompensed with kindness?” The Master said, “With what will you then recompense kindness? Recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness with kindness.” (Confucianism. Analects 14.36)

Conquer the angry one by not getting angry (i.e., by loving-kindness); conquer the wicked by goodness; conquer the stingy by generosity, and the liar by speaking the truth. (Dhammapada 223)

A superior being does not render evil for evil; this is a maxim one should observe; the ornament of virtuous persons is their conduct. One should never harm the wicked or the good or even criminals meriting death. A noble soul will ever exercise compassion even towards those who enjoy injuring others or those of cruel deeds when they are actually committing them–for who is without fault? (Ramayana, Yuddha Kanda 115)

Christian apologist Norman Giesler insisted that Jesus ethics is an ethics of love, but American author Ruth Hurmence Green disagrees – “They told me the Bible was a book about love, but I studied every page of that Bible, and I couldn’t find enough love to fill a salt shaker.”

There are other Bible stories that saturated with obscenities, degeneracy and immorality. Some have questionable moral values and others even promote profanity and corruption.
Here are some samples:

Genesis 19:8
“Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.”

2 Samuel 13:11-14
11 But when she took it to him to eat, he grabbed her and said, “Come to bed with me, my sister.”
12 “Don’t, my brother!” she said to him. “Don’t force me. Such a thing should not be done in Israel! Don’t do this wicked thing. 13 What about me? Where could I get rid of my disgrace? And what about you? You would be like one of the wicked fools in Israel. Please speak to the king; he will not keep me from being married to you.” 14 But he refused to listen to her, and since he was stronger than she, he raped her.

Genesis 34, The defilement of Danah

Genesis 38, The narratives of Judah, Omar and Tamar

Genesis 30: 14-16
14 During wheat harvest, Reuben went out into the fields and found some mandrake plants, which he brought to his mother Leah. Rachel said to Leah, “Please give me some of your son’s mandrakes.”
15 But she said to her, “Wasn’t it enough that you took away my husband? Will you take my son’s mandrakes too?”
“Very well,” Rachel said, “he can sleep with you tonight in return for your son’s mandrakes.”
16 So when Jacob came in from the fields that evening, Leah went out to meet him. “You must sleep with me,” she said. “I have hired you with my son’s mandrakes.” So he slept with her that night.

Genesis 30: 3-6
3 Then she said, “Here is Bilhah, my maidservant. Sleep with her so that she can bear children for me and that through her I too can build a family.”
4 So she gave him her servant Bilhah as a wife. Jacob slept with her, 5 and she became pregnant and bore him a son. 6 Then Rachel said, “God has vindicated me; he has listened to my plea and given me a son.” Because of this she named him Dan.

Genesis 16, The story of Abraham and Sarah and the illicit intimacy with Hagar.

Genesis 30: 25-43, Jacob’s trick Laban.

[Visit The Bible Unmasked for more examples.]

When confronted by these issues, Christian apologists like William Arndt say, “When it speaks of sin, it describes it in its ugliness, so that disgust and horror enters the heart of the readers. Not once for a moment, does it leave the high moral level of stern opposition to unrighteousness in all its form.”
What moral value? Ah OK…Peter called Lot a “righteous man” (2 Peter 2:7) even when Lot was giving his daughter to be raped by a mob. What moral value does it show…that giving your daughter to be rape is a good thing to do…I don’t think so?

There are countries out there that have not even heard of this Christian Bible, and there are those who do not care about it, yet they even have a higher moral value compare to Bible-believing western nations. Japan for example, where honesty and honor are of the highest value, deems the Bible as 重要ではない. Most countries in Asia values cleanliness, respect to the elders and reverence to their parents yet they knew nothing of Yahweh, nor Moses, Jesus or Paul yet compare to the most pious Christian nation, their place are not riddled with crime, vices and corruption.

Ironic isn’t it?

Pinoy Atheist

It is the traditional teaching of the Roman Catholic church that the conscience is the final judge whether an action is in conformity with objective law or not.

According to Thomas Aquinas, conscience is connected to the rational faculty of man. Now, what if this rational faculty is corrupted? Remember, religious, philosophical and political beliefs, misguided idealism, malicious propaganda and poor education can corrupt a person’s rational faculty.

What happens then? Well, then conscience becomes unreliable. That is why Aquinas becomes the victim of his own theory when he defended the evils of the Inquisition “in good conscience.”

In nature…

Thomas Aquinas was a Dominican who was greatly influenced by the philosophy of Aristotle. Aristotle believes that human are by nature good. Benedict de Spinoza (1634-1677) also believed that men are not conditioned to live by reason alone, but by instinct. Greatly influenced by Spinoza, Giambattista Vico (1688-1744) believed that God’s law were immanent not transcendent. God places these laws in us by instinct. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) both believed that men are guided by natural law, but unlike Aquinas, they believed that reason (not conscience) is the sole arbiter of truth and falsehood, of good and evil. These ethical theories influenced Thomas Jefferson’s “inalienable rights” which were stated in the United States Declaration of Independence.

However, some believed that nature could not provide the norm and pattern for moral behavior. The Lisbon earthquake of 1747 brought out a moral dilemma regarding natural moral law. Voltaire (1694-1778) asked if nature is good, then there must be no evil. John Stuart Mill suggested that ethical naturalism is blind to the obvious darker side of nature, the side marked by physical disorder and calamities, the aberration of the human heart and the tragedy of history. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) stated that the natural condition of man is war. Since the main law of nature is self-preservation, it follows that men are obliged to confer all their power and strength upon one man or upon one assembly of men that will reduce all their wills to one will. There must be someone who has the power to enforce contracts and obligation.

Going through Hobbes, John Locke, (1632-1704), like Hobbes, believe that man by nature are equal (not good). But unlike Hobbes, he believe that civil society will prosper with reason. Therefore, instead of conscience, society must set up a known authority to which everyone may appeal and obey. However, this authority should be judge in each own case. Common good is now not based in instinct and nature, but is determined by standing laws, statutes that all are aware of and agreed to.

Natural moral law is definitely a double-edged sword. If a Christian would insist that morality in embedded in nature, what do I have to lose? If that is true, then we don’t need a God to discover morality. If Darwin was right about morality, that it (like cooperation and altruism) evolved to humans (through natural selection) then who needs God.

Speaking of morality, I prefer Mr. David Ramsay Steele’s explanation regarding this issue. His view is that the structure of moral theory is just as objective as the structure of, say, medical theory. Now, practicing morality, like practicing medicine, requires an input of subjective values. In the case of morality, these values derive from empathy from other conscious beings. This empathy is in fact, almost but not quite universal among humans. (Atheism Explained – From Folly to Philosophy p.289).