Another question about my belief:

Facebook friend:

so you believe in relativism? but what if all people applies that principle, kung may masamang tao na magsasabing “okay lang na mura-murahin ko yung nanay ko. yun yung tama para sakin eh. at wala naman sa batas na bumabawal na gawin ko yun okay lang sayo yung ganun?(if there’s a person who’ll say that “I’ll disrespect my mother because that’s what I think is right. And there’s no law stating that I cant.” is that ok with you?)

the concept of hell speaks about the concept of justice. saying you hate hell is like saying you hate the system for putting criminals in prison. people should be punished for all the wrong they’ve done. yun yung mageeven out ng pagiging unfair ng mundo. (that’ll even out the unfairness in the world.)

hindi ko rin gets kung bakit mo nasabing dapat i-follow yung beatitudes. (I also dont get how you said that people should follow the beatitudes.) because it’s more like a description of what will happen to certain people rather than a commandment. and ten commandments, vague? how? parang napalinaw naman niya para saken. (for me, its very clear).

but i do agree with you na maraming irrational na kautusan yung catholics (but I do agree with you that catholics has many rules), all religions in fact. all religions are made by imperfect human beings. at para saken ang isang imperfect na entity ay hindi kayang gumawa ng isang “perfect” na bagay, lalo na kung mas malaki sa kanya. (and for me an imperfect entity cannot make a perfect idea, especially if it something more bigger than him.)

that’s why we shouldn’t rely on any man made ideologies. personally, i don’t fully believe in science. for me it takes the same faith to believe in science as with any other religions, especially on things that aren’t empirical and cant be proed by man’s reasoning.

pero naniniwala ako sa Bible, at kay Jesus. hindi naprove ng reason yung existence at pagiging infallible Nila. pero may experience ako na naging reason ng paniniwala ko, at yun yung pinanghahawakan ng belief ko. and take note, wala akong sinabing may pinaniniwalaan akong relihiyon. (but I do believe in The Bible and Jesus. Their existence is not proved by reason. I had an experience that became a reason for my belief. and take note that I am not saying that I do believe in any religion.)

Me:

You said it yourself. All religions are made by imperfect human beings. If it is man-made, how is it divine? How do we know that something is divine? Man made religion to serve as a kind of instructional guide to living. But not all of it are true, and not all of it may apply to every person. The example that you gave for relativism, of course that’s not right. It’s a simple sense of morality. Even animals have a sense of empathy and respect. They don’t have religion, do they?

What bothers me sa concept of hell is that people are using it to scare people. Why not, if you do good then you’ll be rewarded to be in peace with yourself, rather than if you screw up then you’ll be eternally punished. I also don’t think it’s right to compare it to being in prison. People still have to think for the wrong things they’ve done, and they still have a chance to change and to serve as a lesson and inspiration to others. In hell, you don’t deserve another chance. And why did god created hell? If you had a child, and that child continues to disobey, if you really love him, would you damn him? This may come from my optimism but, mas people would work best if they’re presented with a reward rather than fear. There’s a sense of accomplishment instead of feeling like you’re just forcing yourself to do things just because you don’t want to hell, rather than doing good things because you want to.

It’s not that I’m saying that the Bible is wrong, even Jesus, of course. I was a born-again Christian my self. If people are more willing to live by his wisdom truthfully then society would work better since most people are Christians. It’s the people who are looking at it and using it the wrong way. Like saying that gays shouldn’t be able to marry because marriage is supposed to be only between a man and a woman, that’s what makes me sick. Hmm.. In a way, maybe I’m still a Christian, because I’m still kind of following the words of Christ. We can also follow Gautama, Lao Tzu and Confucius since they almost have the same wisdom. If not, then put all their words together and that should be enough to live your life.

Science… It should never be compared to religion. I like science because I’m presented with logical and concrete facts and it is more evident. I believe in it because it is there. But I don’t use it as a tool for attaining spiritual enlightenment. They’re in completely different areas. Attaining spiritual enlightenment is more on seeing the world like no one else sees it, seeing the beauty of it but also thinking about the bad things that is happening to society and thinking of ways of you could help, knowing that you’re doing the best you could do to be of good service for Earth, and being in peace with yourself. I like science because I know more about the world in physical terms.

It’s his response to this.

lmpressions asked: I know you've written about this before, but I'm not sure if this has been answered yet. You make quite a strong emphasis on your agnosticism, but why have you made the choice of agnosticism towards christianity. It's like you're saying that only christianity has the possibility of perhaps being true. Surely once you introduce doubt into the religion you must acknowledge the same probability that other religions may be correct? I may have missed the point here, but I was just curious :)

I just don’t think that religion is of great importance for me. Other people may believe so, and that’s okay with me. As long as ethics is being applied to my day-to-day life, I don’t need religion to tell me what’s wrong and what’s right. Although, each religion has some good points in them, and if you look closely, those points are the same. Like The Beatitudes and The Noble Eightfold Path. As for Christianity, I don’t like the idea of Hell. Living your life and abiding rules because of the fear of going into damnation isn’t really living. Also, I think it’s better if Christians follow The Beatitudes. The Ten Commandments is too vague. Catholics, especially. They have too strict rituals that don’t really make sense to me, like The Seven Sacraments. That’s the thing that I hate in particular, and I hate that they push you to do it, “or else you’ll go to hell *scary voice*”.

How ironic that it’s Sunday morning and I’m reblogging these.