blackshama's commentary on Philippine issues

The conviction of Carlos Celdran on the Philippines Revised Penal Code article 133 “Crimes against religious worship” for "offending religious feelings” has led to some asking if there is such a thing as “offending secular feelings” . The answer is both a “yes” and a “no” depending on what angle you look at it. It is a qualified “yes” if the secularists (and the Freethinkers) say their position is based on faith and therefore is under the constitutional provisions on religious liberty. The answer is a qualified “no” if the secularists insist theirs is not a religious position and so they should have a thicker skin with respect to offensive ideas since much of the perceived offence is in the secular sphere , considered as protected speech (unless it incites to violence) and the laws on defamation and libel should offer enough redress of grievance and protection. Like in Roman Catholicism or any other religious tradition for that matter, there are adherents with a di...

Whoever thought an answer to a Ms Universe question would make Pinoys ask about what they think of their religious beliefs and to what extent will they give them up? Ms Philippines, Shamcey Supsup's answer to juror Viveca Fox's question "If I had to change my religious beliefs, I would not marry the person that I love because the first person that I love is God who created me and I have my faith and my principles and this is what makes  me who I am. And if that person loves me, he should love my God too." Anyway, at least on Facebook or Twitter, Pinoys have as expected, discussed what this answer is all about. Some consider the answer to have shot down Shamcey's chances of winning the crown (she got the 3rd Runner up plaudit), which fell on Ms Angola, another woman who would not change what she was for something else! ABS-CBN was the first to start the trend by asking Shamcey's dad what he thought about his daughter's answer. Dad replied that he ra...

If I were a rationalist, I would die laughing not because God doesn't exist or He/She does, but because a Western parody of Freethinking has been transplanted in a comedic way in Intramuros. And I have nothing to blame but Carlos Celdran! 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 j ust 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 ov...

President Barack Hussein Obama was reported by the US media to support the establishment of a mosque two blocks from Ground Zero in lower Manhattan, New York City. He cites the religious liberty rights of Americans. The construction of a mosque near Ground Zero [not ON Ground Zero as thought by some] has generated much heated debate. Some Christians have likened this to a conquering Islamic army establishing Mosques as a sign of victory. Surely such imagery does not help a dispassionate discussion of the matter. While the 9/11 attacks were instigated by Islamic militants, this should not be made to disparage the rest of the world's Muslims who sincerely follow the call of their faith to peace. The problem with tacking any denominational religious meaning to the Ground Zero site is that not only Christians were killed there. There were Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, non-believers, believers of smaller faith traditions and Muslims too. No religious tradition can appropriate the site which...

It may surprise the reader that scientists are spiritual creatures too. The Roman Church recognizes sainthood (by canonization) of pious people who can be exemplars for the faithful to live lives of holiness. The Catholic Church being in the fullest sense, catholic, has saints for almost every calling in life ir life's problems. And Catholics call these people as "patron saints". Lawyers have St Thomas More. Doctors have St Luke. Even the Internet has its own patron saint, St Isidore of Seville, who 1000 years before the World Wide Web was invented, wrote 20 volumes of the Etymologiae documenting the knowledge of his time. It is said that the work is like a relational database. Countries and other geographic entities have their saints too. You may get the hives because of a hairy caterpillar. You then call on St Magnus of Fussen (Who is he?! Where is Fussen?) Saints also carry national identities even if they never lived in the country were they are patrons. For example ...

I would agree that atheism may not be a religion since it has none of the usual stuff theists consider such as eschatology for instance. But I also would agree that atheism is a religion for it posits a belief taken not on empirical evidence that God doesn't exist. To accept that principle on a matter of faith is a key element in subscribing to a religion. Conversely the same principle can be used to characterize theists except that they remove the "doesn't" from the earlier statement. Also both theists and atheists would support their position on their experiences. And lately we can see "religious" organization on the part of atheists, with them preaching from Dawkins' "Delusion" and Hitchen's "Not Great". Is this some sort of selective forces that is needed for coexistence in a human population whose majority are theists? But as an atheist complains to folks that lump his worldview with that of the theists "if atheism is a...

Britain's Wiccans have formally asked their government for an apology and pardon for the judicial murder of witches. The witch burnings happened from the medieval period to the 17th century. When European society became more enlightned starting from the Renaissance, these executions ceased. This would be a judicial hot potato in Britain and the European Union. After all, Wicca is a recognised faith in Britain. If witches are pardoned, then Catholics and other non-conformist Protestants would also demand apology and pardon. Their co-religionists suffered the same "burn at the stake" penalty. While Wiccans will have to prove that they are the real heirs of the medieval witches, Catholics would have an easier time. The legal history of their Church is well established. Britain's Roman Catholic Church can easily sue for damages for burning their saints. Protestants can easily do the same for theirs. These are some things the British establishment have to think about these...

The Spectator has the latest on a debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox at Oxford's Natural History Museum. Lennox an Oxford maths professor wrote the book "God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?"which according to some demolished Dawkins' "God Delusion" more thoroughly than John Cornwall's "Darwin's Angel" Dawkins caught off guard in the debate said "A serious case could be made for a deistic God." The video of the debate can be viewed here . Methinks Dawkins' statement is as significant as John Paul II's "more than a hypothesis" 1996 statement on evolution. A no nonsense take on science really can lead you to some interesting conclusions!

A senior Vatican prelate has said that "evolutionary theory is not incompatible with Catholic teaching" Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council of Culture made the declaration at a recent press con announcing next year's Church sponsored interdisciplinary conference on the 150th anniversary of Darwin's Origin of Species. The fact that the Roman Church has considered this anniversary an important event shows that it values reason and scientific inquiry and demonstrates evolutionary theory and science as important in world culture. The conference will be attended not only by evolutionary biologists, but theologians, philosophers, humanists and artists. Best of all, I believe this another broadside in Pope Benedict XVI's culture war against fundamentalism of all sorts. Benedict recently warned against literal interpretation of the Bible in a speech to academics and intellectuals in Paris. In stronger and more direct words than what his prede...

This is the ultimate test for the scientistic Richard Dawkins. The Telegraph's religious affairs blogger Damian Thompson reports that in the UK, Turkish anti-Darwinists (presumbably Muslims) have been " funding a huge campaign to import bogus "altases of Creation" into European schools." The Telegraph has reported on Dawkins' attack on Islamic fundamentalism. After years of attacking US Christian fundamentalists, Dawkins had finally done the politically incorrect thing. (Bashing Christians is politically correct in the EU!). In my opinion, this is a welcome development. As Thompson put it "Don't get me wrong: Christian Creationism is bogus science and deplorable. But Islamic Creationism is bogus science that it's "culturally inappropriate" to criticise. Which is more dangerous, do you think? " It exposes the double standard liberals have. Here in the Philippines, the establishment isn't immune from this! The Don of Regensburg...

Our pollies publicly calling some Pinoy Catholic bishops and their stand on the populationand reproductive health bill as "stupid" is a refreshing piece of news. The country's body politic is growing up and becoming mature. The country will have to debate issues on an informed platform without the threat of sanction if we are to face serious environmental problems head on. The politicians save for the incumbent Malacanang tenant have finally realized that there isn't a Catholic vote in this country. That the bishops have to resort to denial of Holy Communion instead of intelligent debate shows how ill equipped they are to respond to these challenges. Benedict XVI would not renounce any of Church's teachings (I support that!) but wouldn't just deny communion to anyone on mere perception and hype alone. That's why Benedict gave communion to an American politician at Mass in Washington DC. Catholic conservatives claimed that this politician was "anti-lif...

The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines's (CBCP) Committee on Bioethics chaired by the Bishop of Malolos Jose Oliveros has this statement expressing optimism that the Vatican will endorse genetically modified foods if just to help ensure global food security. The statement also says that unless the Vatican says otherwise the CBCP will remain opposed to genetically modified food! But that doesn't match with the Vatican's neutrality on the issue until scientific data says otherwise. The CBCP has ignored scientific findings and has taken on the politically noisy and media grabbing NGO environmentalist bandwagon! The Vatican has a much better sense of natural phenomenon and reality than the CBCP. Why can't we have a Pinoy bishop as razor sharp as Benedict XVI? Nonetheless the bishops and priests really need to enroll in this coming semester's Biology 10 class. Here they will learn that genetic modification is not a new thing and that nature has been doing ...

Galileo is the first modern experimental scientist. There is no one alive that can probably match him. One of the stylists for the modern Italian essay, he is one of the first writers in Italy to write in Italian not in Latin as was the practice among the learned. His decision to write science in the vernacular attracted condesension from the philosophers and the theologians. (Much earlier two famous Italians, Dante and Saint Francis of Assisi, wrote the founding works of Italian literature, the Divina Commedia and the Canticle of the Sun thereby establishing that Italian was capable of expressing the highest human ideals ). Galileo intellectualized Italian and spread scientific ideas wider by writing in that language. Galileo established that a vernacular can reasonably express Science. Galileo was no atheist. Unlike what the atheist Richard Dawkins had to endure, Galileo had to face the worst kind of peer review then available (The Holy Office with threats of rack and torture). In a ...

The Catholic Church is always in the business of moving with the times. The Green Pope,Benedict XVI has apparently given the go ahead to update the seven deadly sins to suit our times. Last Sunday, (on my birthday!) Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary has announced that the Church has listed seven new sins. These are 1) Environmental Pollution and all sorts of enviroment damage 2) Causing and abetting social injustice 3) Being filthy rich 4) Causing poverty 5) Genetic modification 6) Doing drugs 7) Experimenting on humans According to the Vatican, unlike the old Seven Sins,the postmodern Seven Sins reflect that we live in a globalized world. A personal sin becomes a global sin. The old sins,while still valid, is more individual orientated. The biggest new sin is destroying the environment. Come to think of it, I and the partygoers in my birthday party violated new sins 1 to 7! We didn't use recyclables (Sin # 1), partied with the knowledge that there is fo...

The Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn just launched his book entitled " Chance or Purpose " where he reflects on the relationship of science and religion. Schönborn caused controversy in 2005 when he wrote an op ed piece in the New York Times essentially saying that neo-Darwinian theory is not compatible with Catholic belief and that if one accepts the theory that presupposes that life's complexity is due to chance alone, that would presume that one had "abdicated his intelligence". Jesuit priest and former Vatican Astronomer George Coyne SJ criticised Cardinal Schönborn's opinion in an article published in the Tablet . Coyne essentially states that Schönborn muddles up science and theology by assuming science as not neutral with regards to faith. Thus the controversy exploded. Father Coyne (as most scientists) has no qualms with Intelligent Design if this is taught in theology. But when Schönborn begins to say that acceptance of the scienti...

The Bishop of Malolos the Most Reverend Jose Oliveros has complained that the healing masses of Father Fernando Suarez, a Canada based priest violated Vatican rules. The Manila Times reports on the issue. The bishop cites the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ruling instituted by no other than Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger who is now known as Pope Benedict XVI. Churches with an episcopal form of government give territorial authority to bishops. Anyone who wants to minister to congregations within a diocese has to get the go ahead from the bishop. But it seems that Suarez did not bother to ask Oliveros for permission. But Oliveros was quoted to have said "I cannot unfortunately say that [whether Suarez is a real healer], although some people claimed they were healed. It needs further study, maybe, on the part of us bishops,” Fine but Oliveros may have legit concerns according to canon law of whether Suarez has the right or not to dispense the sacraments in his diocese. If he h...

EWTN news reports that Pope Benedict XVI has cancelled a visit to Rome's La Sapienza University. La Sapienza is Rome's oldest public university having been founded in 1303 by Pope Boniface VIII. Students and professors at the university are protesting at the speech delivered by the then Cardinal Ratzinger in that he said "in Galileo's time the Church remained much more faithful to reason than Galileo himself. The trial against Galileo was reasonable and just". It seems that Ratzinger's earlier pronouncements are hounding him now that he is Pope. This is too bad. There is a difference between a Professor-Cardinal and a Professor-Pope. The Regensburg Don may propose a disputation to students and the students if unprepared would look and sound foolish. But as Pope, Ratzinger can no longer propose disputations with students or the academe without generating controversy. Papa Ratzi may just propose these to the theologians. His predecessor Pope John Paul II gener...

British media has had a field day reporting on ex British PM Tony Blair's reception into the Catholic Church. Blair isn't the only high profile Brit that left the Established Church of England for the Church of Rome. Several members of the Royal Family have converted for various reasons. They were required to get the permission of the Queen. She gave it without fuss as long as the converts give up their rights to the throne. After all, the succession laws of England prevent a Roman Catholic from ascending the throne. This is the last of the laws that discriminate against Catholics. There is no law that bars a Catholic from being Prime Minister although Britain has never had a Catholic PM. More Catholics now attend church than Anglicans in Britain. Catholics make up the fastest growing Christian denomination in the kingdom. The Anglican Communion is in the process of rupture after some of its member churches decided to ordain women and gay priests and bishops, something the co...

In Louisiana I shared an apartment with a Shiite Muslim from Iran. He was an Engineering student. People asked me what it was like living with a follower of Islam. Some people even thought I was dumb for doing so. They thought that I was living with "terrorists". The level of distrust between Christians and Muslims is still there though on the surface people try to look "tolerant". Tolerance is really in the heart. Let me share my experience. I learned from my Shiite friend that people in Iran are fond of beans and I got to taste how Iranians cook their beans and lamb. I also showed him what Filipinos eat. He liked "laing". We talk about the latest Hollywood flicks and of course Iranian and Filipino cinema. My friend was surprised that Iranian movies are shown in Manila. And when we talk about the Holy Quran and the Holy Bible, our discussion is really what is common to both Holy books without putting down the differences. And I learned why Muslims pray ...

In the latest issue of Scientific American two eminent scientists were asked to exchange their views on how scientists ought to approach religion and its followers. The two are Cosmologist Lawrence M Krauss and Evolutionary Biologist Richard Dawkins. While Krauss is amenable to concede that religion may have beneficial functions in human society he won't be hesitant to fight against fundamentalist religion if it teaches against what empirical evidence would say about nature. Dawkins on the other hand wouldn't concede any ground to religion. Dawkins has a scientistic philosophy. I have reviewed his "God Delusion" in past blog posts and I am of the opinion that this books is the WORST book Dawkins ever wrote (I have read all his books!) since he had ventured into Theology of which he is nothing but a mere writer of caricature (his philosophical discussion of purgatory is a comedy) as bad as any unsophisticated religious fundamentalist. Dawkins posits that the moral or ...