SOMEBODY forwarded to me a YouTube of Obama’s speech on religion. My computer didn’t have the audio when I viewed it, but it was dubbed in Spanish. So I read it more than heard it, which was actually better for me.
My immediate reaction was one of concern. I considered his views as having the marks of what is known as agnosticism, with elements of irenicism and yoism, a kind of religion that is open-sourced and consensual, a man-made religion rather than faith-based.
In our increasingly complicated times, we need to speed up in gaining literacy not only in technical matters, but also in the spiritual and religious issues. Like it or not, we navigate in these waters. We just have to learn how to cruise properly.
That’s why, the idea of really giving due attention to our doctrinal and religious formation has become more relevant and more urgent, in fact. We need to be savvy too in issues related to faith and religion.
We cannot afford anymore to be a babe in the woods in this regard, stuck in the infantile stage or the unstable, adolescent mindset and ways. A lot of precious things are at stake. As much as possible, we have to be adult and mature, as well as truly scientific and professional, not superstitious and amateur.
After going through that Obama speech, I thought that the phenomenon is also quite understandable. His views echo those of a great mass of people who simply cannot deny the need for religion, and try to have some semblance of it, but who have not mastered it past its pedestrian level.
What Obama said was equivalent to saying that the question of God, faith and religion is better left not taken seriously. It can be at best a purely personal, individual affair, with hardly any social manifestation, and much less, political consequences. This is a typically agnostic position.
Agnosticism means that though there may be a God, knowing him for sure is not possible. It’s an attitude that diminishes the role of supernatural faith, given to us as a gift, and relies more on our reasoning, our consensual and cultural understanding of things.
It goes beyond distinguishing faith and reason, the natural and supernatural orders, and puts them in conflict. With it, reason enjoys the upper hand, making it the primary guiding principle, since faith can be divisive. It is averse to anything mysterious and very vulnerable to anything that appears practical.
Practicality, in fact, becomes the be-all and end-all of this religious aberration. Thus, agnosticism with its stress on practicality can be overwhelmingly seductive to politicians, who usually are pressured, sometimes at all costs, to come out with practical solutions to social problems.
That Obama professes it should not be completely surprising. In fact, we have to credit him for that, since he admits it openly, unlike many other politicians who publicly do not say so, but practice and live it 24/7 and, worse, try to appear as good Christians.
Of course, now we really have to be more scientific in handling this challenge. Agnosticism is actually not a radical form of religious mentality. It can be only a stage to something extreme, a clever cover to hypocrisy and spiritual lukewarmness, or worse, to atheism. It’s like marijuana vis-à-vis shabu.
One logical consequence of agnosticism is irenicism. This is mixing things together for practical purposes regardless of their incompatibilities in their essences and religious origins.
It’s a notoriously promiscuous attitude that does not respect any absolute laws. It can play around with anything. Everything is relative. Its guiding motive is practical self-interest. It lends itself easily to deceit, to Machiavellian tactics, etc., much like what we see nowadays with all the massive financial scams we have here and abroad.
We have to be wary of these hidden forces played on us at present. The Reproductive Health Bill and the Magna Carta for Women now deliberated upon in Congress are good examples of this phenomenon.
I read recently that their authors were challenging the bishops to point out which provisions there are anti-God, anti-family, anti-life. Of course, the bills would not openly say these things.
But all the dots are there, and it only needs a kid to draw the line linking those dots, and what we’ll see is agnosticism reigning supreme together with its bizarre company.
No comments:
Post a Comment