Freedom From Religion

"When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity.

When many people suffer from a delusion, it is called Religion.”

 -- cf. Robert M. Pirsig, author of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,"

quoted by Richard Dawkins in  “The God Delusion.”

A CONCERNED friend asked why I have lost my faith.

I said, no, it's not faith that I lost -- I still have it. I still have my sense of hope, my sense of faith. I have faith in my relatives and friends. I still have them -- or I hope I still have them. I have faith in them. They're just around. I see them whenever there's chance, whenever schedules permit. I have faith in them because they are here. And there.

'Faith'? Allow me to quote Sam Harris: "If you tell someone to have faith in himself, that is not to recommend delusional certainty, it is to recommend a positive attitude in the face of uncertainty... We should not confuse that kind of faith with the faith that really is the permission that religious people give one another to believe things strongly on bad evidence" or absence of evidence.

I have faith in the goodness of men/women -- and in the wisdom of a few. I have faith in science. Science explains and gives me a sense of relative certainty, with technology speedying and firming up that certainty degree. A mouse leads me to pages of information and knowledge that click with me. I can rely on this pitiful technological mouse. This mouse, trapped by my right hand, is here... with me.

What I have lost is faith in what is not here nor there. What I lost is the belief in the belief. Believing in the belief in what is evidently neither here nor there has for most of my life enslaved me, confused and frightened me -- and am sure is continually doing so to most people.

Now am free.

My friend asked why I, the prayerful 'altar boy', became an atheist.

Uhm... atheist I am not. Well... almost not.

I'm no Whitney Brown  who gave us this soundbyte: "I’m not an atheist. How can you not believe in something that does not exist?"  Uhm... how's that again?

I'm agnostic... really. Even Richard Dawkins, one of the most notable militant atheists today, considers himself a 6.9 agnostic (or atheist, depending on which end, or any point of the numbered onion skin thread that connects two extremes of opposite certainty you choose to hang on to), with "7," let's say, as representative of the strong uncompromising atheist. Professor Dawkins humbly puts himself in that category for the humble reason that he's a scientist. What science is and what a scientist does, feel free to google.

I'm nowhere near Dawkins' 6.9, although "69" conforms with uncompromising sexuality to which my sexth sense is also nowhere near. Brangelina, the couple, are agnostics/atheists, so is Daniel Radcliffe of the "Harry Potter" fame. (Dang! Why do I need to name-drop?)

Why I became not a "Brod Pitt" but instead a "Don't Taser Me, Bro... Prrrtt" is a long story that I could summarily trace back to the old old angelic rituals of Angelus days.

Anyone heard of "angelus"?

Well, it's when dusk slowly fell, and hi-fi radio sound went like this: Dong!... Dong!... Dong!... Ga...bi.. ng... lagim.... Oops! I mean: "Orasyon na naman... ganap na ika-anim ng gabi... oras ng pagmumuni-muni... blah blah blah...."

Surviving listeners and fans of the late radio announcer Johnny "Wow-wow" de Leon of the old DZXL can fill in the blanks. But I must confess that DeLeon's hi-fi angelus sound of the Angelus hour creeped into my pre-schooler bones and nerves -- it was like the "Twilight Zone."

For the little boy that I was during Johnny's wowowees, Angelus was a wall in our house adorned by crucifixes, icons, statues and portraits of saints that 6 children plus a mother faced, all of us on our knees, with memorized rosary script that we murmurred in unison. No adlibs and alibis allowed, or you'd get beat. Then ridiculed.

Unaware that I was learning not to like the wall and all, the church to me became an extension of the wall, literally perhaps, as the small village chapel was no more than a hundred steps away from the capizeed frontwindow of our house. So you see, if I was late for Sunday mass or refused to proceed for childish reasons such as fever and swollen tonsils, or missed one intentionally, which were rather rare, father was quick to brand me a mason, a moro, a komunista, a Gusto-mo-bang-mapunta-sa-Lulumboy? (do you want to end up in Lulumboy?) -- lost as to who or what 'Lulumboy' was. Oh, the dad might have figuratively or colloquially referred to the Boystown, a juvenile rehab located somewhere in, uhm... until now I can't figure where.

The kind of verbal scares and insults (not including yet the harsh physical beatings) that made the little boy downright confused and subconsciously believed that he was bad -- and maybe as "bad" as a good mason, a prayerful moro, or a productive komunista, while tearfully and painfully listening to the angry gospels according to his saintly child-beating father -- a father, who, like most fire-breathing priests and pastors, habitually make their listeners feel miserable by creating in them a sense of self-loathing and inordinate fear.

Lucky enough I wasn't named 'Lulumboy'.

Catholic grade school wasn't Lulumboy, alright, yet it was there that I got to swallow the teaching that, we, and even newborn babies are steeped in original sin, and thus, deserve to burn in hell.  Eventually, street-honed adolescence and youthful activism made me the wavering believer who coldly despised the wall and churchbell klengs and bangs but occassionally and quietly recited the rosary mysteries and other prayers anyways, that, looking back, were done impulsively out of stress, tension, nervousness and outriight fear.

I must admit that the rosary and some other Catholic rituals, in no small way, helped calm me down. Ala Diazepams they served to relatively clear the confusion in my head, the pounding on my chest, the sweating of my cheeks -- momentarily at best. But the tension and fear remained. Of what, I had no clear idea.

Until recently, by some clicks of the mouse, I came across Mother Theresa's Crisis of Faith, then read Dawkins' "The God Delusion"  and had a clear grasp of what the stress, tension, nervousness and fear was all about.

What diazepam? quietly I asked, smiling, while embedding this classic standup of funnyman  George Carlin: "Religion is Bullshit!"