Stream of Ry

I found this old Soc. Sci. 2 paper while I was cleaning up my room and thought that it could be worth posting.

On God And Men

“What is your religion?”

Such a question never fails to surface inside UP. Perhaps because the people in UP comes from all over the country, and though 85% of Filipinos are Christians, there is still the remaining 15%, majority of which are Muslims. Perhaps because it is folly to assume, specially on such a touchy subject, and people know better than to be tactless. In our discussion of great philosophical thinkers, the same question has been brought up as we make a transition from a political discussion to that which tackles religion, particularly of Christianity.

We took up the establishing and strengthening of the Christian Church by taking up Saint Augustine’s and Saint Aquinas’ philosophical thought whose foundation of principles were derived from Plato and Aristotle, respectively. Both Plato’s and Aristotle’s principles fundamentally states that happiness results from justice within the community. Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas simply stretched these principles with the introduction of a higher being, and consequently, a higher state of happiness beyond that which is temporal. Everything still boils down to the same argument, however — that happiness results from justice.

I do not like talking about religion because it is hard to talk about it when you know that you have a big chance of shaking someone’s faith or of invoking negative emotions. I know that Muslim people often get offended, or even ostracized, in a predominantly Christian community. Oftentimes, atheists and agnostics feel the same way, or even worse, in any religious community. Often regarded as evil or demons because they simply do not believe in the existence of higher beings partially or absolutely for agnostics and atheists, respectively.

How are different kinds of people capable of living harmoniously in a community despite these differences in belief? Justice and ethics, in my opinion, are religion-agnostic. Common principles, such as “Do unto others as you want others do unto you” or “Better to give than to receive”, shared between a vast majority of the religions attest to it.  These principles, if examined, principally deals with denying yourself personal happiness by giving to the community for the happiness of the majority, or as Plato and Aristotle put it, in order to attain justice.

The way I see it, religion is a useful accessory to attain the Platonic or Aristotelian sense of justice because inherently, it is easier for a person to devote oneself towards a singleton than towards a group. Whether or not there is eternal life after death or whether there exists a God or not, I do not think it is important because, in the first place, I am not able to know for sure. I choose to devote myself and my limited time to enrich that which is tangible and present. What if people are wrong about eternal life? Then all the time these people devoted in pursuit of eternal life — all the prayers, devotions, ceremonies — is wasted for naught. I choose to live a life that acts on what is present, for my own good and the good of other people. For me, time is too precious to be wasted on ceremonies and formalities because there is no life after death, there is only one life — this life.

When people ask me what my religion is, I silently reply: “Does it even matter?”