Catholic Exceptionalism

Jason Baguia wrote this screed titled Freedom in the time of practical atheism which is so full of stupidity I don't even know how to begin debunking it.  He begins by defining freedom which he defines as self determination and then enumerates the civil liberties we enjoy today as Filipinos which are "speech, of the press, of expression, of abode, to private property and others".

Then he goes off tangent with the crazy.

"Yet these same freedoms give us room to point out the many ways we are not yet free.

Many of us are still in the grip of poverty. A lot of politicians are still addicted to power and wealth. They perpetuate a culture of corruption and power plays that put ordinary people at a disadvantage. Cultural icons still adopt without qualms what is trendy yet harmful—like immodesty, rebelliousness and nihilism—in the West. Youngsters break through the fences of home only to get holed up in the labyrinth of the Internet.

These situations persist because many of us easily forget or take for granted that most valuable of all freedoms, a freedom that the priest Zechariah, father of Saint John the Baptist, sang of the day he named his son: The freedom to worship God “without fear, holy and righteous in his sight, all the days of our life.” (Luke 1:74-75)

The belittling of the freedom of religion has taken many forms but is seen today in the contraceptive promotion and divorce bills pending in Congress.

For all their talk about the separation of the Church and State, it’s ironic how few libertarians are standing up and exposing these bills for what they are: meddling of the State in matters of faith and morals, interference of the State in affairs of the family—the domestic church.

I will never be able to understand what is so democratic and healthful about promoting artificial means of contraception. Research shows that the use of condoms does not erase the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases. Countries where condoms are freely distributed actually end up with a higher number of HIV-AIDS patients."

What he is saying is that if the Philippines does not adopt the dogma of the catholic church, then there is no freedom.  How self absorbed is he that he cannot even conceive of the fact that not all Filipinos are catholic?  That not all of us want to follow catholic faith?  That precisely imposing catholic dogma on the rest of Filipinos who does not want to follow them makes us less free.

To him freedom of religion is freedom to impose his religion on all of us,  and he has the gall to invoke the memory of Dr. Jose Rizal.  The Dr. Jose Rizal who was executed by the catholic church as a heretic for going against catholic dogma.

Freedom, he keeps using that word,  I don't think it means what he think it means.