Darwin's Priest

A brief review of history will easily reveal that religious conservatism has always been anti-progress, anti-justice, anti-equality and anti-rational thought -- from the issue of slavery to racial segregation, from women’s suffrage to women’s reproductive health. Although morality and traditional values might be invoked, religious conservatism was never about morality but mainly about bigotry and backward mindset invoking the ‘god-said-it-so’ argument and the so-called appeal to absolute truth.



Same thing can be said about the current opposition of the religious conservatives against same-sex marriage. It is as if God will again bring down his capricious wrath upon the earth much in the same way that Sodom and Gomorrah were allegedly consumed by fire from the sky -- well, assuming that the story was not a mere myth.



Conflicting views



It should be pointed out that not all religious people are religiously conservatives. Some are actually liberal-minded and emphasize compassion rather than condemnation. Some Christian sects such as the Christian Catholic Church of Switzerland and the Metropolitan Community Church of Metro Baguio (Philippines) conduct special blessings of homosexual unions.



However, majority of these church-sanctioned wedding ceremonies and blessings for homosexual partners are still not legally binding in many countries and considered as taboo. This is especially true here in the Philippines where the mere suggestion of possible legislation in favor of LGBT rights to marry is preemptively rejected by the righteous and respectable lawmakers.



Fundamentalism



It can be argued that religious conservatism is closely related and corollary to fundamentalism. This brand of conservatism is particularly common in the three major categories of monotheistic, Abrahamic religions, namely, Judaism, Christianity (with its several thousands of sects and cults), and Islam.



Religious conservatives, in their self-righteous splendor, will unapologetically and pontifically declare that homosexuality is an abomination and a great sin. Of course, the rants of homophobic religiots (i.e., religious idiots) will not be complete without quoting some scriptural passages.



Some of the favorite biblical passages that are fondly quoted by Christian fundamentalists include Leviticus 18:22 and Romans 1:26-27. Islamic fundamentalists, on the other hand, are fond of quoting Qur’an 029.028-29 and some specific hadiths or sayings attributed to Prophet Muhammad.



One hadith impliedly prohibits homosexuality or at least the temptation towards homosexuality:



“Narrated AbuSa'id al-Khudri: The Prophet said: A man should not look at the private parts of another man, and a woman should not look at the private parts of another woman. A man should not lie with another man without wearing lower garment under one cover; and a woman should not lie with another woman without wearing lower garment under one cover.” -- Book 31, Number 4007, Sunan Abu Dawood



Spirit of the law



One should not be surprised why some Islamic teachings on homosexuality seem to correspond with the teachings of the Torah of Judaism and the Apostolic Epistles of Christianity. The historical and theological origins of Islam can be traced back to Judaism and Christianity. In fact, some passages in the Qur’an are either paraphrased or quoted from the Old Testament.



Despite of the apparent homophobic teachings of the three great Abrahamic religions, the interpretations and applications of these teachings are still dependent on the mindset of the adherents. Unfortunately, religious conservatives and fundamentalists emphasize hatred instead of compassion. They are keen on blindly following the letters of the law rather than trying to understand the spirit of the law. In their dirty minds, they confuse love from mere carnal lust. They arrogantly assume that heterosexual domestic partnership is the only valid and natural form of love that deserves to be legally protected under a supposedly secular government.


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Posted By Blogger to Much ado about nothing at 5/16/2012 05:24:00 AM

1.) You completely agree that teenage girls in bikinis who post their photos on Facebook should be expelled from school and not be allowed to attend graduation, thereby ruining their future.



2.) You think that celibacy and pedophilia are compatible or at least the latter is forgivable if committed by a ‘man of the cloth’.



3.) You believe that the opinions of ‘virgins’ are authoritative when it comes to sexuality and family planning.



4.) You believe that old men wearing pointy hats have far greater wisdom when it comes to running a secular government. Hence, they should rule.



5.) You are absolutely convinced that there is a special ‘warm’ but utterly uncomfortable place for all those who do not agree with your beliefs.



6.) You have special fetish for pain and suffering.



7.) You are incapable of distinguishing dogmas from reality.



8.) You are offended by this post.



Definition



KATOLIBAN – This is a derogatory term that originated from social networking sites and online forums referring to Catholics who are religious fanatics and behaving/thinking like Islamic Talibans in terms of narrow-mindedness and backwardness. Hence, the term is derived from two words, namely, Katoliko (Filipino spelling) and Taliban. Katolibans are always trying to bring civilizations back to the glorious days of the Dark Ages.



http://opinion.inquirer.net/26129/intellectual-impunity-vs-the-right-to-bikini-photos


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Posted By Blogger to Much ado about nothing at 4/03/2012 11:52:00 PM

An hour for Gaia may not matter much

After all, continental drift is just a few minutes in her watch



If you think that sunrise takes too long

You have not yet tried waiting for mountains to form

Only to be eroded by wind and storm



An hour for Gaia may seem irrelevant



To her who has gathered

the oceans from millennia of rainfall

To her who has watched

the rearrangement of constellations

To her who has written

her records in sediments and stones

And waited for radioactive isotopes to decay in eons



To Gaia, the ancient one

You gave birth to life from primordial ponds

In the recesses of volcanic vents

Where organic molecules abound



From the first self-replicating microbes

To the self-conscious beings pondering the divine

Gaia, you sustain both the lowly and the sublime



An hour for you Gaia may not matter much

Merely symbolic and ritualistic it may seem

But we offer you this homage with our hopes and dreams

Please forgive us for our excesses and extremes



http://www.wwf.org.ph/earthhour/




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Posted By Blogger to Much ado about nothing at 3/23/2012 07:36:00 AM

I find it odd when theistic philosophers try to prove the existence of God using logic and mathematics. It seems to me that these philosophers treat God as some sort of mere abstract concept that can be manipulated by human thought and can be reduced into logical semantics, syntax, symbols and equations. In my opinion, the purported grandeur and inscrutable mystery of the Supreme Being as seen in the eyes of faith are somewhat diminished in this manner.



Just examine this symbolic ontological argument formulated by the German mathematician Kurt Friedrich Gödel to appreciate what I mean:







Tadah! God’s existence was proven as a logical theorem!



This is actually just one of the many versions of the ontological argument for the existence of God. One of the earliest and most famous formulations of this argument was posited by St. Anselm of Canterbury. The argument is attempts in establishing a priori proof by using reason and intuition. It is more akin to argument by definition. St. Anselm’s formulation of the argument can be paraphrased in this manner:

“A being which nothing greater than can be conceived cannot possibly exist only in the mind. If it exist only in the mind, then it is not really a being which nothing greater can be conceived because perfection implies existence. A being that exist both in the mind in reality is a far more perfect being than a merely imagined one. Hence, God exist in reality because he is the being which nothing greater than can be conceived.”

At first glance, Anselm’s ontological argument seems irrefutable and self-evident. It is like a tautology or stating the obvious. It would be like saying that a triangle has three sides that intersect on a plane, forming three angles and vertices. In terms of Euclidian geometry, a triangle is basically described as such. All seems to be airtight and reasonable that even simple-minded people could intuitively understand what St. Anselm meant.



However, if the ontological argument is closely examined, the fallacy could be revealed. One does not need to be an atheist or an analytic philosopher to realize the errors of Anselm’s argument. In fact, the very first critic of this argument was not an atheist but a Benedictine monk by the name of Gaunilo. To demonstrate his point, Gaunilo used the analogy of a lost island applying the same line of Anselm’s reasoning. His counter-argument can be summarized thus:



1. The Lost Island is that than which no greater can be conceived.

2. It is greater to exist in reality than merely as an idea.

3. If the Lost Island does not exist, one can conceive of an even greater island, i.e., one that does exist.

4. Therefore, the Lost Island exists in reality.



The objection Gaunilo was not really a direct refutation of Anselm’s argument but a mere demonstration of absurdity if the same line of reasoning would be applied to other concepts or things. This is called the “overload objection.” It is called as such because if the argument is correct, then the world would be overloaded with all perfect things or beings that we could conceive, such as perfect islands, perfect circles, perfect humans, etc.



Other scholastic and theistic philosophers criticized Anselm’s argument by pointing out the fundamental flaws. For example, St. Thomas Aquinas argued that God’s existence is his essence and the ontological argument can only be meaningful to God himself because he is the only one who completely knows his ‘ontology’ or essence of being.



On the other hand, Immanuel Kant refuted the argument by stating that existence is not a predicate. He distinguished between the analytic and synthetic forms of judgments. In the first type of judgment, the ‘predicate’ merely states something that is already implied or associated with a particular concept. Hence, it would only be a repetition like saying “God exists, therefore he exists.” There is nothing new that can be concluded from the statement. On the other hand, synthetic judgment involves deriving new knowledge or conclusion from the premises or assumption. Anselm’s argument is merely relies on tautology. It could also be considered as a ‘bare assertion fallacy’ because the conclusion is already contained in the premise.



St. Anselm’s Ontological Argument was a failed attempt in providing a ‘proof’ simply because it was unable to conclusively establish the actual existence of God as necessary being beyond conceptual definition. Simply put, one cannot prove something to exist by defining that it exists.


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Posted By Blogger to Much ado about nothing at 9/05/2011 01:28:00 PM

This anonymous verses were shared by a fellow atheist on Facebook. I am reposting it here:

Atheism offers nothing to me

It never has and it never will

It doesn’t make me feel good or comforts me

It’s not there for me when I’m sick or ill

It can’t intervene in my times of need

It won’t protect me from hate and lies

It doesn’t care if I fail or succeed

And it won’t wipe the tears from my eyes

It does nothing when I’ve got nowhere to run

It won’t give me wise words or advise

It has no teachings for me to learn

It can’t show me what’s bad or nice

It has never inspired or incited anyone

It won’t help me fulfill all my goals

It won’t tell me to stop when I’m having fun

It has never saved one single soul

It doesn’t take credit for everything I achieved

It won’t make me get down on bended knee

It doesn’t demand that I have to believe

It won’t torture me for eternity

It won’t teach me to hate or despise others

It can’t tell me what’s right or wrong

It won’t tell anybody that they can’t be lovers

It has told nobody that they don’t belong

It won’t make you think that life is worth living

It has nothing to offer me

That is true



But the reason that atheism offers me nothing is because I’ve never asked It to

Atheism offers nothing because it doesn’t need to

Religion promises everything because you want It to

You don’t NEED a religion or to have faith

You just WANT it because you need to feel safe

I want to feel REALITY and nothing more

So atheism offers me everything

That religion has stolen from me before



~anonymous

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Posted By Blogger to Much ado about nothing at 6/04/2011 08:20:00 PM

Auto-redirecting is a simple technique of automatically sending visitors of a website to another website or web page that has a different URL address without the need to click a link. There may be some delay of a few seconds or it can be instantaneous, depending on the codes you are going to use.

continue reading...

Generally speaking, religion can be defined as a set of beliefs, rituals, ethics or mores that often involves deep devotion to god or gods or higher plane of existence; it also emphasises the concept of transcendent or supernatural reality that is supposedly beyond the grasp of understanding or reason. Religion purports to explain existence and the meaning of life or afterlife for that matter. Religion can be very formal, organised and dogmatic, such as in the case of the Roman Catholic Church. On the other hand, religion can also be highly individualistic in nature or may claim to be not religion at all but purport to be “personal relationship” with the divine.

please continue reading...
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Posted By homar murillo to Much ado about nothing at 8/01/2010 10:31:00 AM

You are probably already familiar with Google Adsense if you are a blogger. Although some "purist" bloggers prefer to make their blogs free from the distraction of ads, some bloggers want to earn through their blogs. >>Continue reading>>
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Posted By homar murillo to Web Basics at 7/02/2010 11:56:00 AM

The United States of America is the most powerful country in the world. This power is largely dependent on its military might. However, it is ironic that many of those who gallantly fought for American ideals are deprived of the basic necessities of life. It is estimated that more than 200,000 veterans are homeless. Many of them were injured and became disabled, both physically and psychologically. As a consequence, many of them are unable to get other source of livelihood when they left the military service. Although most of them may have received government pensions, many have already spent their lump-sum benefits in therapy and hospitalization. On the other hand, (continue reading...)


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Posted By homar murillo to Much ado about nothing at 6/29/2010 12:04:00 AM

According to the latest demographic estimate, there are now more than 92 million Filipinos. In a country where 40% of its citizens are living below poverty line with less than 100 pesos (2 USD) of income per day, over-population can really result to serious and multi-faceted problems. Health, education, food production, the environment, employment and shelter are all affected because of over-population. Although Philippine population is only about one-third of US population, Philippine population density is ten times greater with more than 300 persons per square kilometer. On the other hand, the per capita income of Filipinos is only one-twenty-sixth compared to Americans. This is about $1,745 per Filipino per year. This statistic, however, is misleading because the actual spread is not evenly distributed. It is comparable to a cake where only a few eat big slices while the rest eat the crumbs.


Continue reading...


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Posted By homar murillo to Much ado about nothing at 6/27/2010 09:18:00 AM

You may think that you are already too sophisticated to become a victim of scams. Well, if there are suckers born every minute, you may find it difficult to keep your guard. No matter how intelligent or educated you may be, there might be one equally intelligent and educated scammer who can make a fool of you and run with your money, or worst, your identity! There are many forms of con or confidence tricks out there and it may take several volumes of books or dissertations to document and classify them all. 

The development and popularity of the mobile cellular phones has made the landline phone almost obsolete. Fewer homes and individuals here in the Philippines can afford a landline phone subscription but many Filipinos can afford and desire to have the latest model of cellular phones. Some Filipinos even save or borrow money from loan sharks just to buy the latest mobile phone model. Some opt for original brands while others prefer cheaper cloned brands, such as the China-made touchscreen phones.



The popularity of cellular phones units is not only because of their affordability and high-tech features. More importantly, mobile phone use are widespread because of the convenient and affordable prepaid subscription options. For as low as two pesos, pasa-load, a mobile phone can already be used to send SMS. For a time, the landline phone companies simply could not compete with the mobile phone service providers.



However, all of these changed with the introduction of the wireless landline phone services. At present, there are two major telephone companies providing wireless landline phone subscriptions. PLDT is the dominant provider of wireless landline services in Metro Manila while Bayantel dominates the provinces with its Bayantel Span phones.



For as low as 499 pesos subscription fee per month, a subscriber can already have a landline with unlimited local calling time. Pre-paid subscriptions are also offered by both PLDT and Bayantel. Both also now have SIM cards for their phone units. The phone units are available in two main designs, namely, the desktop types and the mobile types. The desktop types can be used to connect to the internet but additional fees are required.



The main advantage of the PLDT wireless landline service is that buying a phone unit is not necessary. You can simply buy a PLDT landline SIM card for 100 pesos and you can use it in any open-line GSM cellular phone. You can also use the SMS features even if you are already outside the coverage area for the call services. Just like regular wired landline phones the wireless landline phones are limited to certain areas, usually within a province.




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Posted By homar murillo to Web Basics at 6/26/2010 12:12:00 AM

Last year when my computer became infected with multiple viruses and worms, I decided to have it reformatted because it was already too slow and some programs were not anymore working properly. My former operating system was Windows XP. The computer technician convinced me that I should try Windows 7 Ultimate. Here in the Philippines, there are five versions of Windows 7, namely, Windows 7 Starter, Windows 7 Home Basic, Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate. At first I was satisfied with its performance because there were fewer crashes and glitches. My computer also performed faster and somewhat became less vulnerable to viruses.
5.) There is a problem with the Windows Live Photo Gallery. When you click a hyperlink that leads to an audio or video file, Windows Media Player sometimes does not start and the browser may return an error message.


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Posted By homar murillo to Web Basics at 6/25/2010 12:52:00 AM

Perhaps you want to be anonymous or you want to have backup email. Whatever your reason might be, an email forwarding option can be very helpful. It will allow you to receive emails in another email address. For instance, you can set up a decoy or anonymous email address and let the emails sent to this address be forwarded to your personal email address. You may think that it is somewhat redundant and in-efficient. Well, the main advantage is that you can effectively manage emails in this manner. You can create multiple decoy email addresses and read emails by opening your personal or regular email address. You do not anymore need to log-in to multiple accounts.


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Posted By homar murillo to Web Basics at 6/24/2010 12:16:00 AM

Before the development of Web 2.0 technology that allowed user-based modifications, people need to know HTML coding, CSS, JavaScript, Perl, CGI programming and other web-based programming languages to effectively design and maintain a website. It is either you learn these languages or you hire a website designer. You will also need a dedicated server to store and manage the data on your website. One way of making a website more interactive is to include forms on your website. You can collect information from visitors or customers through these forms.STEP 2: Create new form by choosing "form" from the drop-down menu as shown in the illustration below.STEP 5: Save and get the codes and paste it on the appropriate page of your website or blogsite.


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Posted By homar murillo to Web Basics at 6/21/2010 08:15:00 PM

More than a year and half passed since I last wrote an entry for this blog. I have been quite busy with work. Well, I actually had to juggle several works, from HTML encoding to website managing, from copy writing to copy-editing, from search engine optimization to email marketing. Although many were only part time and short-term contracts, I sometimes had to work more than twelve hours a day when projects and deadlines piled up. I also had (and still have) one full time work. Since I was retrenched from my regular job two years ago, most of the opportunities that followed were online freelance jobs. With the separation pay that I received from being retrenched, I was able to buy a laptop computer and was also able to have an internet connection. The first freelance job that I did was article writing for only two dollars per 550-word article. Although the pay was very low, I had to do it because I could not afford to lose income and let my family go hungry.


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Posted By homar murillo to Web Basics at 6/20/2010 08:23:00 AM

Religion is superstitious wishful thinking. Religious people have not outgrown their childish beliefs in fairy tales, legends, and myths. This immature way of thinking is expressed in prayers. Supposedly prayers are means of communicating with the divine but it seems to be that the communication is only one-way. Shouting inside a cave is better than praying because at least you will get an immediate response.


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Posted By homar murillo to Much ado about nothing at 7/28/2009 07:41:00 AM

http://philippineaffairs.com/index.php/2009/07/27/sona-2009-boasting-lying-and-lashing/

http://philippineaffairs.com/index.php/2009/07/08/david-vs-gloriath/

[Republished from: http://philippineaffairs.com/]

The last time Michael Jackson was in the Philippines was in December of 1996. It was a two-day concert that was part of a historic world tour. It was the third and last world concert tour of Michael Jackson as a solo artist. That was almost 13 years ago. He was only 37 years old then. He might not had been in the apex of his career that year but he was still well-enthroned as the undisputed King of Pop Music.

Although the issues of child sexual abuse were already hounding him in 1996, these issues were not enough to discourage some 50,000 Filipinos to attend his concert. In spite of the dizzying prices of the concert tickets, many Filipino fans waited for more than 8 hours at the entrance of the Asianworld concert site in Parañaque just to make sure that they would have the best vantage view to watch the performance. The social elites, celebrities such as Garry Valenciano (a Michael Jackson imitator), politicians, and ordinary Filipinos were among the audience.

After 13 years, 13 Grammy Awards, and more than 750 million albums sold, Michael Jackson now entered the pantheon of celebrity gods and goddesses. He will be forever immortalized as a cultural icon of his era and one of the greatest music performers of the 20th century.

The Filipinos are one with the world in mourning the loss of a great man. In spite of his eccentricities and controversial lifestyle, Michael Jackson was a consummate genius in his own right.

Michael died on Thursday at around 2126 GMT (5:26 a.m, Friday, Philippine time). It was presumed that he suffered from cardiac arrest.




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Posted By homar murillo to Much ado about nothing at 6/26/2009 05:46:00 AM