The Catholic Church is at it again

The catholic church is at it again. The thing that annoys me the most about these people is not only the concept of morality through orthodoxy but the fact that they insist on having things their way. Again no one is forcing these theists to do anything . They trespass into our rights and lives. They can't defend their position rationally but they still push for bans on practices that they do not consider moral.

Repost from BBC News :

Manila women fight contraception ban

By Philippa Fogarty BBC News

Twenty of Manila's poorest residents have filed a legal challenge against what they say is a ban on contraception.

The group - 16 women and four of their husbands - are fighting a policy which they say denies them access to condoms, to the pill and other effective forms of family planning.

This has had a devastating effect on their lives, they argue, causing unwanted pregnancies, pushing them further into poverty and harming their health and wellbeing.

The case has sparked debate in the Philippines where, says Professor Michael Tan, chair of the anthropology department at the University of the Philippines, there is no national policy on family planning.

More than 80% of Filipinos are Roman Catholics and the Church is hugely influential. Abortion is banned and President Gloria Arroyo openly backs the Church's anti-contraception stance.

Previous attempts to pass laws requiring government funding for services like family planning and Aids prevention have been blocked by conservatives, Mr Tan says.

This has left crucial decisions in the hands of local officials and resulted in a very mixed picture nationwide - so this case is very significant.

"People recognise that the courts must decide once and for all whether local government officials can unilaterally ban family planning services," he said.

'Culture of life

The policy at the centre of the controversy was introduced in February 2000 by former Manila City Mayor Jose Atienza, a staunch Catholic.

He backed "natural" family planning - an unreliable method which involves couples not having sex when the woman is at her most fertile - and called the use of alternative contraceptives "a very, very destructive practice which ruins Filipino values".

Mr Atienza passed Executive Order 003, which "upholds natural family planning not just as a method but as a way of self-awareness in promoting the culture of life while discouraging the use of artificial methods of contraception".

Although carefully worded to avoid an outright prohibition on "artificial" contraception, it was interpreted as such by city health officials, campaigners say.

Condoms and pills - which had been free - disappeared from local health centres. Hospitals turned down requests for sterilization operations. Many health workers stopped providing any information whatsoever on contraception.

Some family planning services did remain available at government-run hospitals or in other districts of the sprawling capital which did not fall under Mr Atienza.

But these services came at a price, people had to travel to get them and many simply did not know where to go. NGOs who tried to fill the gap reported harassment by city officials.

Unwanted pregnancies

Lawyers for the group - from Philippine-based rights organisations LIKHAAN and Reprocen, and the US-based Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) - argue that EO 003 has caused "serious and lingering damage" to residents.

The policy has hit poorest people the hardest, they say, forcing people to choose between a packet of pills or food for their families.

Several of the petitioners have had many more children than they wanted - some at the expense of their health - because they could not afford to pay for contraception.

The policy also exposed women to violence from husbands who did not want to abstain from sex, the rights groups found in an earlier report, and meant more women were resorting to illegal and unsafe abortions.

Mr Atienza is no longer mayor - he is now secretary for the Department of Environment - and his replacement Alfredo Lim is currently looking at the issue.

But EO 003 remains in place and there are no plans to start providing free contraceptives again - not even condoms for sex workers.

"The city will not use funds for the procurement of contraceptives - not when we have a budget deficit of more than 1bn pesos," said Dr Gina Pardilla of Manila City health department.

"We need the money for other social and health needs."

'Held hostage'

The plaintiffs argue that EO 003 violates the constitution - which gives couples the right to plan a family in accordance with their beliefs - as well as several international conventions to which the Philippines is a signatory.

Similar orders have been enacted in two other areas, which is why Elizabeth Pangalangan, Reprocen director and a lawyer for the petitioners, says it is important that the case sets a legal precedent.

"We want to say that this cannot be done in Manila or anywhere else," she said.

The group will take their case to international courts if necessary.

Success in the courts would be welcomed by a silent majority, Professor Tan said, citing surveys which show most Filipinos want access to family planning.

"Demand is very clear, but the problem is that the Catholic Church works on the supply side, getting to politicians like Mayor Atienza and threatening them with the so-called Catholic vote."

A court decision might also embolden government officials to implement nationwide policies, he said.

"The Department of Health is currently held hostage to the views of Arroyo - officials fear that they will lose their jobs if they promote family planning."

"A court decision would free people by taking away the Sword of Damocles hanging over them."

All About me :

It used to disrupt me
That I wasn't like those around me
the weight of 22 summers pulls on me
I already feel my years upon me
Sorrow splits dreams of a happy me
From the thoughts of the real me
and with that stark reminder to me
I welcome every dawn with a frown on me
Waking to the thoughts within me
I Curse the heavens above me
Those things i cannot bear haunt me
they seem to be all around me
is peace accepting the emptiness inside me
Evidence that some hidden part of me
Still cares what happens around me
The rage rips right through me
The pain of my memories remind me
That there's still a pulse within me
Oh Yes , how lucky me

Blind Holy See?

It should be apparent to anyone with an eye on the facts as they are now accepted by scientific opinion that religion no longer has any fact claims (a sad truism often overlooked). While there are many questions that we have in the past had religious “answers” to that we have since replaced with empirical science the river flows one way (1). What do we now have a religious answer to that in the past we held an empirical scientific position on?

It seems to me that most religion has for decades floated over the gaps in human knowledge. Few assertions are made to prove that there is a god, instead the theist asks unanswerable questions; confident that his maker secularly hovers in the ever shrinking gaps of human conception. The argument from evidence has either been settled or is as we speak being researched. Nevertheless, there persists a flavor of human credulity that advocates an argument from morality. This argument dogmatically sweeps away the blatant immorality that consistently colors their founding scripture and asserts human morality as evidence of the divine, a donation to an unworthy creation .The gap in this argument announces itself like a church bell on a Sunday afternoon. They assume an unproven entity to do the giving then use the presumption as evidence for that same entity. To further the argument I want to assume that it is proven that there is a creator and that human morality as defined by the torah, the New Testament or Koran is his gift to us. It leaves me personally wanting more, needing more; it lacks development (Which I guess is the role of theology, making religion more compatible and acceptable to the times) and universality .Our best ideas, the ones that make our imperfect world a bit better, wholly come from human reasoning and philosophy. A concern for human suffering and happiness is the basis for our most noble and cherished ideas.

Take if you might as an example of this hubris, this recent statement from the Vatican. Pope Benedict the XVI urged for a more moral media in statement on world catholic communications day (2).

From his infallible pen the statement read:

"When communication loses its ethical underpinning and eludes society's control, it ends up no longer taking into account the centrality and inviolable dignity of the human being.”. He continued to add that the media “in order to attract listeners and increase the size of audiences, “...“does not hesitate at times to have recourse to vulgarity and violence, and to overstep the mark" .

It seems so insulting to me that an organization soaked in as much blood ,grief and guilt as the Vatican feels it can direct human artistic expression to a more “moral” place .We know so little about the civilizations of the “New World” chiefly because the catholic conquistadors under the infallible guidance and direction of the Vatican burned countless historical manuscripts in between bouts of murdering , raping and pillaging the continents native inhabitants (Something to do with souls and how only whites have them ….).Then there's the cross Atlantic slave trade which it appears the Vatican endorsed as recently as 1866, asserting that "Slavery itself…is not at all contrary to the natural and divine law…".There are also the poor Cathars(3)who’s faith flourished in the Languedoc region of France between the 11th and the 13th centuries . In response to this growth our Iron-Age minded center for moral progress and human dignity declared the Albigensian Crusade. The killing went on for two decades, between 1209 and 1229, and claimed an estimated 1 000,000 “heretics”, deaths that were caused by and sometimes commissioned by the Vatican. The pope granted the people that participated in the crusade against Catharism, the same absolution of all sin that was granted the holy land crusaders. Worse still than the massacres, was the callous attitude to human life, to quote Arnaud Amaury, the Pope's official in charge of the crusade, when asked how to tell a heretic from one of the faith he replied:: 'Kill them all, God will know his own’. This is the tradition that our moral guidance wishes to come from.

The atrocities sanctified, and sometimes instigated by the Catholic Church are literally enough to write volumes on. This dark resume includes collusion with ethnic cleansers in Nazi Germany .The Vatican helped the National Socialist cause in an assortment of ways which include opening the Vatican’s genealogical records to identify Jewish family lines , the constant refusal of the Catholic church to excommunicate Hitler, and the underground missionary network which helped Nazi war criminals to flee trail. The Vatican was also not above providing machete wearing men of the cloth more than 40 years later in Rwanda, some of these holy men even provided enraged mobs with the machetes that they used to massacre their neighbors. This gruesome history of evil that we call the history of the Vatican church spans from the inquisition to the modern day sheltering protection of rapist pedophiles and beyond.

History confesses to their crimes. It shouts from its dusty archives, a reminder that the Vatican has significant pain to account for, and legions of “souls” to make amends to .Furthermore the Catholic Church represents a faith whose main pillars are at least suspect. The idea that through the suffering and pain of one man humanity becomes transcendent subtracts personal responsibility from the equation of human morality .This fantasy is further enhanced by the various traditions of confession that share the redemptive philosophy of privately confessing your misdeeds. The “sins” are confessed to a person whose only qualification is his training in receiving them, and his sworn oath never to reveal them. They bleach guilt and human responsibility, and the confession provided it’s done in the right way with the right person is enough to gain your absolution. They tell us that we are in a “fallen creation“ where any sin , any crime except blasphemy can be forgiven by often unaffected individuals .We are they assure us, fallen because we sought knowledge. Doomed by our free will .We are a clump of mud coughed on by the divine, far to inferior even to create the rules of our own conduct .In the 100000- 250000 years of human existence only in the last few thousand have we been given this gift .Ignored previously and left to our own muddy devices, our salvation they assure us lies in the acceptance of their word. For better or worse these are the pillars of catholic morality, and without apology I find them indefensible.

It seems to obvious to me that people like mother Teresa do help the poor , feed the hungry and generally ease human suffering . It’s equally obvious that this same humanitarian spent most of her time campaigning against abortion , contraception and divorce , issues while meriting discussion are far from the main sources of human suffering in the developed world .Orthodoxy is the aim while less human suffering is a by-product .Once a person accepts the contention that morality is predefined , that we live in a world colored in black and white ,altruistic motives disappear into good deeds done for greed and evil avoided through intimidation . A heavenly carrot balanced by a hellish stick.

The idea that religious morality is based on a concern for humanity and its suffering is a fantasy. Humanism is drawn aside by dogma and orthodoxy takes center stage .That’s why the Catholic Church knowing full well about the epidemic spread of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa can still preach against contraception to people who often have no other source for this information. This preaching is killing countless people as we speak! It is also why Muslims are so concerned with the veiling of women and the consumption of malt whiskey. Once you believe that you have access to the final edition of the book of human morality, the concept of moral reasoning becomes redundant. Right and wrong are predefined; all that remains is acceptance and/or submission. Obedience is assured by divine oversight and the universe is Orwell’s Big Brother state, god is brother and the church is the ever attentive thought police.

So by what right does the Vatican, whose morality is based in orthodoxy to dogma, whose history is tainted by misjudgments and questionable motive, claim to be speaking? By what reasoning do they see themselves as a moral authority? We know the answer of course; they are concerned chiefly with the orthodoxy of their creed. Our suffering and happiness, our rights and those of animal are all of them distant.

The popes own words sum up the ethos of my objections to religion - he‘s of course speaking of the media here - “While claiming to represent reality, it can tend to legitimize or impose distorted models of personal, family or social life.”, the man might be infallible after all. (4)

End Notes:

(1)Quoted from Sam Harris in the truth dig debate “Religion, Science and the end of the world .It was not referenced in the debate transcripts, I’m not sure if he said it or if he was quoting someone else.

(2) World Catholic communication day is on May 5^th I’m well aware of that, nevertheless he did make the statement and recently, I have no idea why it’s so early/late.

(3) Cathar the spelling in Wikipedia and Britannica online I’m not 100% sure it’s spelt that way.

(4)I’m of course aware of the logical inconsistency its poetic and not a miss-quote since I reported what his infallibleness was actually referring to.

As always Wikipedia, Britannica, Webster’s, Sohiel and BBC helped a lot.

Some Freethought Quotes!

Thomas Jefferson:
Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.

Roman Tombstone:
Do not pass by my epitaph, traveler.
But having stopped, listen and learn, then go your way.
There is no boat in Hades, no ferryman Charon,
No caretaker Aiakos, no dog Cerberus.
All we who are dead below
Have become bones and ashes, but nothing else.
I have spoken to you honestly, go on, traveler,
Lest even while dead I seem loquacious to you.

Noam Chomsky:
How do I define God? I don't.... People who find such conceptions important for themselves have every right to frame them as they like. Personally, I don't. That's why you haven't found my "thoughts on this [for you] criticaI question." I have none, because I see no need for them


Julius Caesar Quote
Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt - Men willingly believe what they wish to be true. A great freethought quote from Julius Caesar.


Charles Darwin
"For myself , I do not believe in any revelation. As for a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities."

Karl Marx
"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, & the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."

Samuel Clemens /Mark Twain
"Faith is believing something you know ain't true."
"'In God We Trust.' I don't believe it would sound any better if it were true."
"It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand."
"Religion consists in a set of things which the average man thinks he believes and wishes he was certain of."

Albert Einstein

"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."


Sigmund Freud
"It would be very nice if there were a God who created the world and was a benevolent providence, and if there were a moral order in the universe and an after-life; but it is a very striking fact that all this is exactly as we are bound to wish it to be."
"In the long run, nothing can withstand reason and experience, and the contradiction religion offers to both is palpable."
"The idea of God was not a lie but a device of the unconscious which needed to be decoded by psychology. A personal god was nothing more than an exalted father-figure: desire for such a deity sprang from infantile yearnings for a powerful, protective father, for justice and fairness and for life to go on forever. God is simply a projection of these desires, feared and worshipped by human beings out of an abiding sense of helplessness. Religion belonged to the infancy of the human race; it had been a necessary stage in the transition from childhood to maturity. It had promoted ethical values which were essential to society. Now that humanity had come of age, however, it should be left behind."

Thomas Edison
"I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious ideas of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God."

Friedrich Nietzsche
"Which is it, is man one of God's blunders or is God one of man's?"

Ernest Hemingway
"All thinking men are atheists."

Gene Roddenberry
"I condemn false prophets, I condemn the effort to take away the power of rational decision, to drain people of their free will--and a hell of a lot of money in the bargain. Religions vary in their degree of idiocy, but I reject them all. For most people, religion is nothing more than a substitute for a malfunctioning brain."

Galileo Galilei
"I do not think it is necessary to believe that the same God who has given us our senses, reason, and intelligence wished us to abandon their use, giving us by some other means the information that we could gain through them."

Stephen King
"The beauty of religious mania is that it has the power to explain everything. Once God (or Satan) is accepted as the first cause of everything which happens in the mortal world, nothing is left to chance...logic can be happily tossed out the window."

Edgar Allan Poe
"The pioneers and missionaries of religion have been the real cause of more trouble and war than all other classes of mankind."

Lisa Simpson (yeah this one is a joke )
“Religion, the Last refuge of the scoundrel .

Introduction .

This is a personal blog of a freethinker .Here I detail the issues of the day and how I feel about them . Why you ask ? I hate human contact I haven't always felt that way , there was a time when I loved people and I loved to be around them , but these days I’m so easily offended that I can't stand anyone . I know it's odd but I don't want to end up as the weirdo on the subway that talks about nukes and the CIA device wired to my brain (Trust me I’m headed that way) so I use this blog to publish my thoughts and hopefully given enough time I intend to use it as a way to track how my thoughts change over the years . As I've grown older my stance on a lot of issues has changed due to personal struggles , as I constantly change my perceptions I grow .I constantly try to grow as a human being as I better understand the world around me , but such understanding is worthless without a record of my enlightenment , a look back to measure my growth and understanding . Here I can be free to express my thoughts without worrying about anyone's feelings or being PC . Welcome to My world untapped.