How to reason with unreason
The various factions of the Catholic Church in the Philippines are battling each other…on our phones. How did they get our numbers, did the angels cough them up? All last week we woke up to messages from the “silent clergy” urging the House of Representatives to pass the Reproductive Health bill. Today we got a text from the un-silent side promising eternal damnation to the 114 congressmen who said yes to the RH bill. Thunderbolts and lighting, very very frightening!
But we are dealing with an institution whose chief weapon is fear. Fear and ignorance. Whose two chief weapons are fear, ignorance, and credulity. Whose three chief weapons are fear, ignorance, credulity…How do you reason with something built on unreason? With Monty Python’s Meaning of Life.
Given Twilight-level lack of irony, expect to hear this song at an anti-RH protest.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
December 14th, 2012 at 19:02
I posted this video in Facebook about a year ago when the RH Bill was still largely ignored. My aunt, who is a nun in Canada, replied with something about “old people being euthanized” and “how would I feel if it was my lola/lolo.” The rest of the family, in unison, asked her “huh?”
December 15th, 2012 at 18:05
So even cell phones aren’t immune to spam. Spam spam spam spam…
December 15th, 2012 at 18:57
i guess i will never be able to reason with unreason in this aspect, i am a devout catholic; (practicing and all), i was schooled from elementary up to college under the catholic upbringing, but i am not ignorant. this afternoon i attended the mass with my mother and disappointingly the priest who celebrated the mass during the sermon was attacking the so called “catholic” who supports the rh bill, labeling them as “kampon ni satanas” and “not the true christians” the whole time i was just.. i dont know.. hay. haha
December 16th, 2012 at 10:57
I’m here with nikko17 on this one. (Didn’t go to Catholic school, but I still pray and go to Mass; the best way to describe me would be a “lapsed Charismatic.”) The bishop’s letter we heard last night condemning the RH bill had a lot of terrible, misguided things to say about women’s rights and pleasurable sex – excuse me, pleasurable sex *between husband and wife* (weh?) – which would have gotten my BP up if I wasn’t already on cold meds.
Our family is pro-RH, and very active in the parish. I have yet to see anyone argue with my parents on that matter, if only because both of them are PhDs in Economics who have worked with aid organizations long enough to scare anyone who tries to point out the so-called fallacies of Malthusian philosophy to them.
(Incidentally, after last night’s Mass, I had this very interesting conversation with them about spermaticide and the manufacturing integrity of condoms. I believe that my parents are quite sure now that I am more than just, ahem, “well read” about these sorts of things.)