AgustinongPinoy turns nine years old today. Apart from the increased exposure of our pages to search engines and subscribers, we had the opportunity this year to make a contribution to the Department of Science and Technology's book on Information and Communication Technology and Arts, Culture and Religion. This year was especially fruitful for the biblical apostolate through the pages of Res Biblica. With our parish's cell groups beginning to make use of the tutorials at the Bible Workshop the mission of AgustinongPinoy is taking on a more "pastoral" color.
Part of the mission of AgustinongPinoy has been to help internet users in two ways: first, to show them that the internet is not just a place for entertainment and socialization and second, to enable them to make use of the internet as a resource for personal development. The first has been difficult to do because the main obstacle has been the kind of internet introduced in the Philippines. Now that there are more Filipinos who are learning that there are non-pornographic areas in the web and the present explosion of Catholic websites, it has become easier to encourage older people to use the internet. The technical aspect of AgustinongPinoy's apostolate -- that of enabling people to make use of the facilities of the internet -- follows the first one. With more people tapping into the multifaceted and cheap (nay, free!) resources of the web, more will also wish to learn how to use them. With the blurring of the desktop and the web, thanks to innovative online technologies, more people -- including priests and religious -- will no longer think it strange if people would use the web for personal development.
The above cannot be realized, of course, unless there are people on the web who promote human dignity. For Catholics, this is not as simple as putting up a website with the slogans about human dignity. The current state of pluralism has distorted the idea of "humanity" to such a point that it has become human to protect endangered animals but not the unborn human. The key point in the promotion of human dignity through the web is to make a stand for the transcendental dimension of human life. What I said at the DOST Book-launching is going to be valid while there are web-users who continue to think that human existence is limited only to what goes on between birth and death. The web must become "spiritual" so that we can truly promote the dignity of men and women. This, I think, is what John Paul II meant when he invited Catholics to make the face of Christ shine through the many lights of the this new agora called the World Wide Web.
The work of making the web "spiritual" and conducive to a more "humane" appreciation of technology was not begun by religious. I have already in the past pointed to the existence of "spiritual" areas in the web created by programmers who do not consider themselves spiritual or religious at all. These areas appear as patches in the World Wide Web, either product websites maintained by one programmer (like this one) or small communities of programmers and their product-users who celebrate knowledge, creativity and beauty (this one for example). At present, these "spiritual" areas have become larger with the presence of educators (this one not included) who use their academic freedom to promote the "spiritualization" of the web. AgustinongPinoy puts itself within this stream even if it is still small and narrow and will continue its work from within it. These nine years of presence on the web has been quite a ride. We hope to continue this presence as long as we are able (despite fingers that are becoming arthritic and eyesight that is beginning to blur). To those who have been helping me with webspace and bandwidth costs -- you know who you are -- thank you very much!
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