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PRO-Life Philippines and the Reproductive Health Bill August 25, 2008

Posted by Martin in : General Rants, Relevant Reading, Religion/Atheism , 3comments

Apparently, stupidity proliferates much more freely than I anticipated.

Read this, and its related links.

It’s fascinating how the writer(s) of the article claim to be rationally destroying the bill using some frankly bullshit, sorry excuses for arguments. Notice how they abuse the powers of capitalization, and how they insult the opposition, sometimes relentlessly.

“To the unscientific and statistically ignorant…”

“HB3773 is a TOTALITARIAN / DRACONIAN IMPOSITION of CONTRACEPTIVE IDEOLOGY”

” Amend the bill and keep its CORE LIES.”

So, here are the purported Pro-Life counter-arguments, minus the exessive virtual shouting. (edit) Taking out the shouting is too cumbersome of a job. Nvm.

Very rational, see.

No.

Argument one fails on account of assuming that the bill requires people to undergo such procedures, and that abortion will be legalized. The bill seeks to give widespread freedom to Filipinos in their efforts to advance family planning; sadly, abortion will not be legalized. Also, the assertion that all such procedures are inherently dangerous is patently false. Arguably, under medically controlled conditions, such procedures are both generally accepted and perfectly safe. The only reason why post-abortion complications are so rampant in the Philippines is the unsafe environment in which it is done, since it is illegal.

Argument two fails on account of assuming that the usable, habitable land area of the Philippines is equal to or greater than that of similarly-sized Asian countries such as Japan. The concept of overpopulation extends beyond the simple equation of number of people divided by total land area. One needs to determine how much of the land area is usable, habitable, and conducive to modern life, which includes job opportunities. Indeed, would you have the population of the Philippines equally distributed throughout its various mountains, crop fields, and jungles? No.

Argument three fails on account of assuming that the uncontrollable breeding of Filipinos is actually an assumption of the bill. It’s not, really. The bill seeks to address continued population growth that the economy and our resources simply cannot sustain. And where the hell did that graph come from, anyway?

Argument four fails similarly by assuming that the stupidity of Filipinos is an assumption. The bill seeks to spread correct information concerning contraceptive methods and reproductive health; it seeks to correct disinformation spread by various nefarious authorities such as the Catholic Church, which once spread the blatant lie that condoms had small holes in them through which the HIV virus can pass through. Again, the bill does not make the assumption that a lowered birth rate would equal instant riches. It seeks to address the problem of sustainable growth and development. At present, there are already too many people, with the state having not enough resources to effectively cater to them all. One way to help the state is to lessen the influx of more people by generally acceptable and moral means, i.e. not abortion. Thus, this buys the state some time to regroup and consolidate its resources in the interest of the entire nation.

Well, at least they weren’t religious counter-arguments, but they were as self-righteous and dogmatic nonetheless.

Lulz at NSTP Processing Session #1 August 15, 2008

Posted by Martin in : General Rants, Religion/Atheism , add a comment

Our very first NSTP processing session took place last Wednesday at a variety of venues, since no room was officially reserved for us. Adventurous, no?

For those who don’t know, NSTP stands for National Service Training Program; this was formulated to apparently stimulate a more holistic development of civilian nationalism that the ROTC program was only partly successful in instilling.

Now, the lulz. The facilitator mandated that opening and closing prayers be led by randomly chosen students every session. Sure, no problem there. The Ateneo, after all, is a Catholic institution. But then she blurts out that:

sana naman walang atheist dito, diba?

I lol’d.

She’s in for a surprise.

Theology Class June 21, 2008

Posted by Martin in : General Rants, Religion/Atheism , 1 comment so far

A few high school classmates of mine were talking about their respective theology classes one day, and one of their stories rather piqued my interest.

He asked the professor if the existence of god can be proven, and if possible, how. The professor was then taken aback for a moment, but s/he managed to muster the powerful argument from grades.

If you haven’t figured that out by the end of the semester, you’ll fail this class.

Talk about motivation. My curriculum dictates that theology be deferred for one semester in favor of a Philosophy 100 class, so I haven’t had the luxury of being so exquisitely threatened. I’m looking forward to theology class. Intellectual sparring, ho!

Proposal: Start Something April 2, 2008

Posted by Martin in : Relevant Reading, Religion/Atheism , 3comments

Comrade Gab Madrid and I have a proposal. We ought to start something.

This is an Imperial Repost from the Empire-operated Spoliarium.

I’ve recently found out that they have come up with an official symbol/logo for atheism and freethought. If the xtians have a cross, we have this.

That’s from http://www.atheist-symbol.info and according to that,

Atheists Alliance International is an umbrella
organization for a large number of atheist,
humanist, freethought groups around the world.
At their 2007 conference, attendees were asked
to vote for their favorite atheist symbol from
among 6 choices which had been determined
by a committee.

The winner is the symbol above.

This symbol is not the symbol of AAI or of any of
its member organizations. It is meant to be a
generic symbol of freethought for the world.

I’ve thought of a way spread this symbol and the idea entailed with it by creating stickers mostly with atheist URLs attached so that awareness about atheism is spread more widely somehow.

For hi-res and individual images, please click here. http://lagim214.multiply.com/photos/album/142

Please pass this article on, and maybe we could start something.

Indeed, I am passing this article on in the hopes of starting something.

Divine Mercy Sunday March 31, 2008

Posted by Martin in : Religion/Atheism , 2comments

I’ve received an unusually large number of junk mail over the past few days. Perhaps it is God’s will that believers send out large amounts of propaganda in the hope that the poor bastards from that other religion will buy it. But whatever.

Upon inspection, however, I found that all of the junk contained the same message concerning this Divine Mercy Sunday.

Apparently, all other days aren’t as merciful.

Divine Mercy Sunday

Hello all do you know that this Sunday after Easter is Divine Mercy
What this means is that whoever goes to confession and receives
communion on that day will have complete forgiveness of sin and
punishment; as if you’ve been baptized again!

Technically you may go to confession in some earlier time like
tommorow,as long as you know that you’ve not committed mortal
sin after. Anyway this is a great way to totally renew our
relationship with God and make it better than before. And all we have
to do is sincerely confess our sins, take communion, and if possible,
venerate the Divine Mercy image that Sunday. AND of course we should
also do acts of mercy.

 

So please spread the word about this wonderful Feast. For more
information you may want to see:
http://www.divinemercysunday.com/mercy_sunday.htm

 

Thank You and God bless!

 

Dear God.

And then Sunday came to pass. I thought this little affair was over, but no. Everyone deserves a second chance.

 

 

Hey Good news! If you weren’t able to fulfill the requirement for
Divine Mercy Sunday, you can still gain a plenary indulgence if you do
practically the same thing. That is, if in about twenty days after the
feast, you go to confession sincerely, take Communion, pray for the
Pope’s intentions and pray the Our Father and the Apostle’s Creed
adding any devout prayer of your own to Jesus the Divine Mercy in any
place where the Blessed Sacrament is (ie. the church or adoration
room). As with all plenary indulgences, you should do this act
contritely with a spirit detached with any affection for sin, even
venial ones. But don’t worry it’s not as hard as it sounds =).

Anyway, for more information you can check:

 

http://www.ewtn.com/devotionals/mercy/indulgence.htm

 

Ugh. I strongly detest bullshit spam messages. Especially those of the religious nature. What, do they think that five hundred repetitions of the same argument will make it more truthful than one repetition of the said argument?

 

Keep your beliefs to yourself, please.