It also exposed how unscientific some in our upper middle class and the elite could be! The verbal exchange on the evening telly is in a form of English I have heard somewhere. However I think discussing about the Devil is a waste of time! The poor don't refer to the Devil this way, not in that language. The Devil is all around them and we elect them every time! If we can just get rid of the Devil as William Roper once said to Thomas More, then we should be in Paradise. However Thomas More, who later lost his head and canonized by the Church of Rome, said we have to give the Devil the benefit of Law, for our own safety's sake!
I now shift into a thinking rational mind. The Filipino Freethinkers and the pro-life Catholics make fuss over TWO FICTIONAL CHARACTERS, one named DAMASO and the other SATAN! Now if one is truly rational both characters, one would know never existed but only in the mind of Dr Rizal and whoever wrote the Bible!
I would suggest that the Freethinkers step back and rethink (if they could) and the pro-lifers rethink and reflect on Papa Ratzinger's latest surprise rather than try to find Satan in another person! Leave that to the professionals (psychiatrists or exorcists!) Also will the two groups please have the decency to give each other the necessary space to think. It is daft and an example of not thinking to come in uninvited to a religious gathering. They can sit in and yack a hundred meters from the Cathedral for all we care. The police should keep these groups a safe distance from each other FOR OUR OWN SAFETY'S SAKE! Now any person should know what I think of these two groups if they do away for the elemental forms of decency and civility! The pro-lifers should also respect the Freethinkers when they have their gatherings. After all, OUR CONSTITUTION PROTECTS FREEDOM OF WORSHIP AND ASSOCIATION, DOESN'T IT?
And BTW, no one can be Catholic just by association with other Catholics, even if your parents are one. So the lady who is in tears in the TV interview because she got insulted by the "Satan" accusation since she claims to be a card carrying Catholic should think again. Being Catholic means assenting to every bit of teaching in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. If one can't assent, the only logical choice is not to be Catholic. She has to liberate herself from the belief that Catholicism in this country should be a culture-religion. Please spare us! We have to support the secular nature of the State and this dispenses with that idea of a culture-religion. We have secular culture and religion and they should exist amicably.
Similarly no one can be a Freethinker by just associating with Freethinkers. One has to assent to the philosophy of Freethinking.
Now anyone who has read about Evolutionary Psychology of Religion would know that the "Freethinking" stunt and the pro-Lifers' reference to the Devil is a product of the same selecting forces for altruism. However in a bad way, the altruism is directed to within the group and not for all the groups. The idea of a humanist secularism is for all the groups which does not marginalize anyone in terms of conscience . Now will everyone step back and think about this?
If the Freethinkers are offended by the pro-Lifers stance on the RH Bill and their reference to Satan. they can always invoke the Penal Code's provision of "offence to religious feelings". But they have to be as honest as the Catholics to declare that they are followers of a religion.
And I echo Saint Thomas More once more! (this is a lovely pun)
We have to give the Devil the benefit of Law for our own safety's sake!
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