Why Christopher Hitchens matters to me

When a bishop threatened a sitting President of excommunication, that can really piss people off. It didn’t take long for me to express my anger, as shown here in my Facebook post last September 30, 2010. The original Inquirer news has long been deleted for reasons I do not know. So incensed I was at the news that I was ready to exit the Catholic  Church as well. What I didn’t realized back then that this was the beginning of my journey toward nonbelief. This moment that set off my curiosity towards freethinking and atheism and eventually my awakening towards a life of humanism and secularism.

And my constant companion was Christopher Hitchens. His numerous Youtube videos of him debating theists on why religions like Islam, Christianity and Judaism are contributing to the persecution of women and stifling of free speech; the many CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and CSPAN interviews of him enlightening us to the evils of fundamentalism and the need to oppose absolutism; his BBC documentary explaining why Mother Teresa is a complete fanatic, fundamentalist and a fraud; his best-selling books including god is not Great explaining why religion poisons everything in our lives.

His arguments convinced me right away. Unlike dogma, his ideas let you think for yourself. For a 38 year old Filipino Catholic and former seminarian of eight years, that was a breath of fresh air, especially if I was told and taught for many years that God can be known through reason, faith seeking understading, which is a false premise since faith is a process of non-thinking, accepting something by abandoning reason. So there I was, soaking my mind in atheistic literature that was completely new to me. And I loved it!

The Hitch stood for free speech, empowerment of women, against dictatorship celestial or otherwise, defended homosexuality, and pleaded for us to use criticial thinking and not surrender our minds against the onslaught of mind-numbing conformity and impositions of religions.
               

“Faith is the surrender of the mind, it's the surrender of reason, it's the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other animals. It's our need to believe and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me. ... Out of all the virtues, all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated” – Christopher Hitchens

So I learned to be brave, to question everything, and to stand for the same virtues that Hitchens stood for. Hitchens of course hated the idea of emulating him and putting him in the pedestal; but I owe him, his contribution to humanity for unshackling my mind from the prison of religion and faith. Christopher Hitchens ideas are universal and accepted by fair minded individuals around the world. When Hitchens wrote why Orwell matters, he got his analysis right. In many ways, he educated us to always pay attention to society's leanings towards absolute rule and constant surveillance. With Hitchens, a torch has been passed, now we need to be aware, not just of fascist and totalitarian tendencies, but of the uncritical surrender of the mind, against the evils of religion. That is why Christopher Hitchens matters to me.

Likeable Senator Santiago’s remarkable example

It is safe to say that Sen. Miriam Santiago’s loyalty is to principles, first of all. Whether she is exposing political incompetence or corruption in Congress, or speaking against Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile on the issue of pork barrel, or defending women’s rights through the Reproductive Health Law; you can count on her to speak about equality, truth, justice and free speech. Agree with her or not, loath her or love her, it is impossible to dismiss her and quite difficult not to be influenced by her views and opinions. It is said that the current Philippine political and social scene is dominated by women. Without doubt, she is on the top of this list.

Santiago, figuratively speaking, has the balls to challenge anyone on jurisprudence. Named a judge of the International Criminal Court, Santiago’s firm grasp of the law makes her a formidable opponent in or out of the Senate. Santiago’s political wrangles with Enrile underscore her resolve to pursue justice and truth, more so because these issues affect everyone.

However, many Filipinos—especially those who are on society’s sidelines and who are abroad, those who are poor and those who are disgusted with wasteful public expenditures and with corruption—like her. On the other hand, those who conflate her confrontational approach with the issues she raises may be missing something valuable: “One of the beginnings of human emancipation is the ability to laugh at authority,”  a point made by another equally passionate fighter for free speech and truth, the prominent journalist Christopher Hitchens.

And questioning authority is what Santiago does. Nobody is exempt from her acrid tongue, not even priests. To her, no one is a sacred cow. Perhaps this is a good thing for democracy in the Philippines.

But what Santiago is actually teaching us is history—our history of fighting corrupt authority. We overthrew Spain’s absolute rule, we fought against the Americans and Japanese for independence; we overthrew the Marcos dictatorship, and now we have a fighting chance against corrupt leaders—again. Apparently many of us are still cowed by power-hungry politicians, those who are supposed to serve us. For example, I was furious when I learned that a local electricity cooperative failed to pay its electric supplier P713 million, thus plunging Iriga and five other Camarines Sur towns into darkness. This is the height of irresponsibility on the part of an authority.

The challenge for all Filipinos is this: If you happen to witness any case of injustice, or corruption or criminality in your town or barangay, just imagine how Santiago would respond to it.

Read more: http://opinion.inquirer.net/68267/likeable-senator-santiagos-remarkable-example#ixzz3ASpHJi5H