Is religion stupid?

MANILA, Philippines - The Black Nazarene celebrations, with their brutal amount of trash, traffic and tragedy, never fail to invite disturbing criticisms. There are people who call the practice primitive and unintelligent. The great Karl Marx would have called it the “opium of the masses.”

Because it’s true: the phenomenon can’t be purely divine. With politicians electioneering and corporations capitalizing on the occasion, you’re free to throw in the it-can’t-be-divine-with-all-its-earthliness argument right in the skeptic gene pool. And with nine million devotees pushing and shoving for the slightest touch of the Black Nazarene, or the rope that pulls its float, it’s easy to brand the activity as mass hysteria.

Mass hysteria is a condition affecting a group of persons characterized by surges of emotions, either of extreme excitement or depression, or both. It is explained by sociologists as a need to manifest some sort of connection with the idolized by taking part in various levels of crowd participation. In simpler terms, think Beatlemania with a little bit of Ishmael Bernal’s Himala. It happens — and nobody calling themselves educated would credit it to the almighty.

‘I’m a catholic, but…’

Now, these days, it’s unfashionable to say you believe in God, that you’re a practicing Catholic, and that you go to Holy Mass (and even take Holy Communion). When asked what your religion is, disclaimers usually follow as if there’s a need to defend your religion — whichever it may be — but most especially if you’re Catholic. “I’m a Catholic but I don’t attend Mass and I don’t believe in what the priests say,” or “I’m a Catholic only because my parents had me baptized.”

 Perhaps it’s because in this era of social media, it’s unpopular to say you believe in something or someone other than yourself. Like a Disney movie, postmodern life’s caption reads: Believe in yourself, for the capabilities and capacities of the human mind and heart are infinite!

Our generation of Filipinos is experiencing a belated Renaissance, the aftermath of globalization, where humanism and utter disbelief in the Church’s teachings are believed to be primary to progress. This pervading belief says that freedom, for all it’s worth, is best served without religion. Also, the priests who come with it are only humans — just like you and me.

But I’m a proud Catholic, I believe in God, I listen to homilies, I go to Holy Mass, and yes, I even take Communion. Does that mean I’m stupid?

Bigger than myself

If believing in someone bigger than myself means I’m stupid, then call me stupid. Because humans aren’t omniscient — we can never do or know everything. We can never be so sure of what is and what’s next. We can’t be God. And that inadequacy, somehow, gives me hope.

I believe that in being human, there is always a need to believe in something or someone greater and more enduring than your self, simply because there is more to living. I’m not at all amazed by the much-lauded “human capacity” — for at times we are weak, cruel to one another, and ultimately useless. But I believe that once, God became man, and He was beyond us. The least we can do now is to aspire.

In this world of unbelief, little use is seen in having faith. It neither puts food on the table nor does it dispose our country of its ruling dynasties. But faith puts us in our place: It asks us to fight when we’re being oppressed; it asks us to persevere when we’re struggling; it asks us to believe during these times of disbelief. Having faith is not just believing in an Almighty. Faith can be as down-to-earth as hoping for change in times of incredulity.

Dr. Reynaldo Ileto’s book, Pasyon and Revolution, examines how Filipinos in the time of the Revolution used the pasyon, not just to recount Christ’s passion and death on the cross, but as a battle cry — they paralleled Christ’s suffering with theirs. It was the necessary truth that they leaned on to that made them feel invulnerable. They believed they fought beside the suffering Christ.

They didn’t become invincible, of course. But their belief called them to action.

Perhaps, with all the earthly criticism we have of the Black Nazarene, that’s what we fail to see: There are nine million Filipinos who see in the blackened Christ the same suffering as theirs. And together, they aspire for better days.

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Tweet the author @sarhentosilly.