Questioning One's Faith is ACTUALLY a Good Thing
The MTRCB (the Philippine agency which rates movies for showing) has so far, for me, done a good job with regards to handling the controversy raised by the showing of "The Da Vinci Code" in the Philippines. The said movie premiered in the Philippines last May 18, two days after I arrived here. I've been looking forward to seeing the movie with my best buds here.
I am a Catholic, and proud to be one. I studied for 15 years in two Catholic schools - from kindergarten to senior year in college. My two preschool years were also in two Catholic institutions. I went through First Communion, Confirmation, the seven gifts and twelve fruits of the Holy Spirit, the different books of the Bible, regular mass attendance, First Friday Mass, exegetical studies of the Bible, philosophy of religion, among others, as part of my religious upbringing. I felt extremely sad when the late Pope John Paul II passed away last year. Our family, as they say, is "cerrado catolico" (closed catholic). The last year has in fact been only my first year studying in a non-Catholic institution. Blah blah blah. Yadda yadda yadda. Blabber blabber blabber. Yeah, sometimes it takes me years to make my point. But there, I've made it. But lest this be misinterpreted as bragging (really!!??), allow me to say that being a good Catholic is not measured by the amount of religious education you've had (note that I never said I was a good Catholic). I think I was, until I turned 13. Hahaha.
I am also a person of science, or so I'd like to think. I completely buy the inherent value of a rational way of thinking. I believe that our society is largely dependent on the advances brought upon by our collective scientific talent. We should never take things at face value, without questioning their validity. Our rationality is an aspect of our humanity that we must continuously use, since it is one of the things that define us.
When I was around 20 years old, I stopped believing. To be accurate, I did not really turn into an atheist. I became an agnostic. The way I understand it, an atheist completely believes that God does not exist, that we are alone in this universe, while an agnostic believes that we can never be sure whether God exists or not. Then a few years back, I cannot pinpoint exactly when, I went back to being a believer, not for reasons of inconvenience definitely (it's actually so much more convenient to be in-between). I was looking for a reason to believe, but I realized that faith is sometimes completely outside the realm of reason. You believe, not because of anything. You just believe. And so I made that jump.
Pardon me for that long detour. I guess I just wanted to say where I'm coming from, so that I can clearly make my point.
ARE YOU STILL THERE?
Good. Please bear with me.
Bottomline is: I DON'T WANT ANYBODY TO FUCKIN' TELL ME WHAT I CAN OR CANNOT WATCH. I am completely capable of making up my own mind, you see. I have every right to watch "The Da Vinci Code" in the same way that I have the right not to watch "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" -- I'm not sure I made much sense there, but it felt good saying that.
What are some of the reasons I've heard/received/read on why the movie should be banned in the Philippines? Here are some of them.
LIPA Archbishop Ramon Arguelles has urged Philippine film censors to ban in local theaters the Hollywood film “The Da Vince Code,” dismissing it as blasphemous."In a predominantly Christian country like the Philippines, making publicly available such film is sinfully condoning blasphemy and undermining the very limits of the people's value and religious foundation," Arguelles wrote in his May 8 letter to Movie, Television, Review, and Classification Board chair Marissa Laguardia.
Prelate asks film censors to ban 'Da Vinci Code'
Philippine Daily Inquirer, 9 May 2006
I'm so frustrated by this comment that the only reaction you'll see from me regarding this is: NO SHIT! ARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH. OOOMMMMPPP (sound you make when slamming your head on the wall). OOOMMMMPPP. OOOMMMMPPP. aaaarrrrkkkkkggggghhh (sound you make when gasping for breath).
Now, I've seen the movie. I've seen it twice. So what is my pseudo-expert and self-serving opinion on the matter?
PEOPLE, WHAT WAS THAT FUSS ALL ABOUT!!?? You radical Christians, there was nothing to be worried about! We should be more afraid of some of the crappy television fare we as a society feed our kids. Low production standards that don't inspire us to strive for the very best. Illogical plotlines that just don't make sense even if you suspend your disbelief by a long stretch. These could be more easily ingrained in young impressionable minds, and the danger here is that the attack is subtle.
Something unrelated: My friend and I were talking about Prof. Langdon's (played by Tom Hanks) presentation at the start of the movie. Hah! There was no way a know-it-all professor like him could have done that! Not even if he had good, hardworking, dedicated graduate/teaching assistants! Graduate assistants would already be hard-pressed to balance their workload as students with their workload as slaves. It seems, for my friend and me, that the only way Prof. Langdon could have come up with such a presentation is if he hired professionals to do it for him.
posted by ubermensch14 @ 6:30 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Check out this quote: "Give man some science and it will turn him away from God. Give man a lot of science and it will take it back to Him." What do you think?
Yeah, makes sense to me.
Men who know "some" science, and thus, don't really understand what science is all about, could veer away from religiosity because they might view religion as a universal panacea. Something along the lines of "I don't understand why this volcano is erupting, so let's offer a virgin and drop her in the fiery pits, as we hope that this assuages whatever is causing this."
But eventually, we begin to understand more and more of this physical world, and so some of the answers we have attributed to God/gods, we realize, are answers we could have come up with on our own. And so, our God/gods become irrelevant.
As for the second part, I'm not sure if we're on the same wavelength here, but this is how I understand it. The more people see how big the universe is, the more they understand this physical reality, then the more questions crop up. It is then possible to have an epiphany, a feeling of wonderment and awe, as we see an aspect of beauty in our universe. We then see that the universe is good. We feel nice and mushy and warm all around (just go on and you'll find the Carebears joining you in this sentiment). All these can take us back to Him.
My only problem with this second part is I can't help but feel that this brings us back to the first dilemma of making religion the panacea - a universal cure-it-all - to all the questions we can't answer.
So this is how I WOULD apply the quote to my personal experience. The more we appreciate our rationality and intellect, then the less we need to turn to God for answers, and so we "turn away from God." But the more that we understand science (and religion, actually), then we should begin to realize that religion differs from science, as the former is based on FAITH, which is independent from evidence and other physically observable phenomena. Then, we begin to see that religion and science need not be mutually exclusive. They don't have to cancel each other out. It then becomes possible to believe in something bigger than ourselves, without letting go of our ability to reason and find answers to a lot of questions on our own.
Most interesting analogy, you have delivered. I posted you that quote because it seems as if you’re on a stage wherein your binary pairs are in a collision course (as with everyone in our situation, I guess).
Anyhow, this is my two cents: what I think about that quote is that with some atheists, they use science as a form of the penultimate contradiction to religion – the deux ex-machina to what they consider a useless exercise. They go on blabbing about evolution, the certainty of amino acids producing peptide bonds and all that stuff. As a Biologist, I live with this mantra: “The more I know, the more I don’t know”. Isn’t it funny that with certain advances in knowledge that mankind was able to synthesize in the past few years; the more dramatic questions have been posted? I work with molecular biology and I am in awe on how certain tiny details like pH, active sites, or just a single missing amino acid can actually affect change in our phenotypes. With that, there seems to be a question: Could it be really coincidence that made these entire puzzle pieces fit in together ever so perfectly? This made me think that there might be a trigger for these to happen. Would it be God? I don’t know. But isn’t it just too perfect to ignore the possibility of?
I personally wouldn’t put it along the lines of the volcano and the virgin because it comes off rather pragmatic and religion and science in one sentence is anything but. And looking back to your post, we are really in different wavelengths. I hope you can absorb mine. Damn it. I hate words. They trick. They’re dead anyways so there’s no point in murdering it.
You have elevated the idea of faith. I’m going to go to the idea of binary pairs with this. With faith, we can have lack of faith. But what do we get from lack of faith? Nothing. So why do it? I’m guessing to have a transient feeling of irrelevance? Maybe for forced humility? I do not know. I think I’d be better of to believe. I’d like to think that I exist because I’m important. Faith towards something bigger leads to faith to oneself. I’d rather not be depressed.
Funny that about 90% of the people that I’ve given that quote has kept on serving the idea that religion and science should be independent. It is possible, but isn’t it a form of ignoring the rhetoric? We exist to ask questions, and if we ignore the most basic ones, how will we ever deal with the bigger picture? I personally think that science and religion can be dependent (even if their leaders think this isn’t so). I’d like to think of God as the ultimate Biologist. He cultivates and researches and does countless of trial runs to get things right. I actually find that pretty cool.
I am not the most religious person. In fact, I am very sinful. But what can I do? I am only human and I only can do my best to be as humane as I can. I’m not trying to imply anything here. I’d just like to express a different point of view. It makes life a little bit more exciting.
Thanks guys for the comments.
I kinda see it as being part of the natural flow of things, that the more we understand things, then the more that questions are asked.
With regards to puzzle pieces fitting in together perfectly, we see that everything seems just so right. You ask, could it be God? It could be Him. Although personally, this is already a matter of personal faith.
For the volcano and virgin analogy, yeah, that was a bit crude... no, waay too crude actually, haha.
Yeah, science and religion can be dependent, because we both rely on them. I guess what I'm saying is that, there is a link, and that link is US. Am I making sense here? We make our decisions and we live our lives based on the sum total of everything that we believe in. While we argue and reason, our faith still guides us in things that we do, so yes, there is that "dependence." I guess the independence lies in the fact that you cannot justify religion using the principles and methodology of science, and vice versa.
You're not a religious person? SHAME ON YOU, dude! Hahaha. Kidding. Me too. Especially at this age? It's soooo easy to sin. But yes, we just try our best to do good when the opportunity presents itself.
Hey kapitang kiko, hope to see more of your blog entries in the future, hahaha!
I love that cathartic thing you just said: we are the link between religion and science.
And, yeah. At the end of the day, it's all about faith. Rather believe in something because you believe in it than believing in something because of habit.
Good stuff.
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