Hypatia

Here’s Hypatia – one of the greatest woman who ever lived - as described by Carl Sagan in his book Cosmos:
“The last scientist who worked in the Library (Alexandria) was a mathematician, astronomer, physicist and head of the Neoplatonic school of philosophy – an extraordinary range if accomplishments for any individual in any age. Her name was Hypatia. She was born in Alexandria in 370. At a time when women had few options and were treated as property, Hypatia moved freely and unselfconsciously through traditional male domains. By all accounts she was a great beauty. She had many suitors but rejected all offers of marriage. The Alexandria of Hypatia’s time – by then long under Roman rule – was a city under grave strain. Slavery had sapped classical civilization of its vitality. The growing Christian church was consolidating its power and attempting to eradicate pagan influence and culture. Hypatia stood at the epicenter of these mighty social forces. Cyril, the Archbishop of Alexandria, despised her because of her close friendship with the Roman governor, and because she was a symbol of learning and science, which were largely identified by the early Church with paganism. In great personal danger, she continued to teach and publish, until, in the year 415, on her way to work she was set upon by a fanatical mob of Cyril’s parishioners. They dragged her from her chariot, tore off her clothes, and, armed with abalone shells, flayed her flesh from her bones. Her remains were burned, her works obliterated, her name forgotten. Cyril was made a saint.” Poch Suzara

Giordano Bruno ( 1548 – 1600 )

A Roman Catholic scholar, an astronomer, and philosopher – for suggesting that there exists an infinity of worlds and that many are inhabited – and for reading forbidden books, Bruno was charged with heresy, and even unjustly accused of murder. An ordained priest – he abandoned the Dominican Order in 1578 - challenged papal authority. Bruno was hunted down from land to land, until he turned on his pursuers with fearful invectives - for this he was entrapped at Venice - imprisoned for 6 years in the dungeon of the Inquisition at Rome - then burned alive, his ashes scattered to the winds. For always talking and talking about his ideas and beliefs, Bruno was gagged to prevent him from speaking while being burned alive at the stake. Those personally responsible for Bruno’s death were Pope Clement VIII and his personal theologian Cardinal Robert Bellarmine who was canonized a saint.
Here’s the way biographer Michael White described Bruno’s death in his book: - THE POPE AND THE HERETIC:
On the morning of his execution Giordano Bruno was visited by members of the Brotherhood of Pity of St. John the Beheaded, a group who ministered to any heretic they could in an effort to do what the Inquisition had failed to do: lead the meekly back to the one true faith. From the records of the Brotherhood we learn that, “At the second hour of the night, information came that justice would be done on an impenitent friar in the morning. Hence, at the sixth hour of the night, the Comforters and the chaplain assembled at St. Ursula and went on to the prison in the Tower of Nona, entered the chapel, and offered up the winter prayers. To them was consigned the man, Giordano Bruno, son of Gioan Bruno, an apostate friar of Nola in the kingdom, an impenitent. He was exhorted by our brothers in all love, and two Fathers of the Order of St. Dominic, two of the Order of Jesus, two of the new church and one of St. Jerome were called in. These with all loving zeal and much learning, showed him his error, yet he stood firm throughout and to the end in his accursed obstinacy, setting his brain and mind to a thousand errors and vain-gloryings.
What must Bruno have thought during those final hours? Did he despair, finally? Did he reach the conclusion that he has been wrong all along? Or did he feel vindicated, confident that his thoughts would survive the flames? Did he perhaps wonder if, far away on the alien worlds he imagined, other creatures burned their dreamers too?
At 5.30 a.m. on 19 February, a Thursday and a feast day in Rome, Bruno was led in chains from San. Ursula. He was dressed in a white, ankle-length robe illuminated with the cross of St. Andrew and dotted with painted devils holding their long, barbed tails against a backdrop of crudely daubed crimson flames. The route was crowded with the virtuous and the curious. Much has been made of this burning. A primitive form of newsletter, avvisi e ricordi, had even been printed to inform people of the occasion: “An entertaining judicial burning was expected,” it declared. According to this tabloid of the day, “Bruno has declared he will die a willing martyr and that his soul will rise with the smoke to paradise.” Copies of the newsletter had been passed throughout the excited crowd and trampled upon along the wet road. As the parade moved on Bruno became animated and excited. He reacted to the mocking crowds, responding to their yells with quotes from his books and the sayings of the ancients. His comforters, the Brotherhood of St. John, tried to quiet the exchange, to protect Bruno from yet further pain and indignity, but he ignored them. And so, after a few minutes the procession was halted by the Servants of Justice. A gaoler was brought forward and another two held Bruno’s head rigid. A long metal spike was thrust through Bruno’s left cheek pinning his tongue and emerging through the right cheek. Then another spike was rammed vertically through his lips. Together, the spikes formed a cross. Great sprays of blood erupted onto his gown and splashed the faces of the Brotherhood close by. Bruno spoke no more.
A few minutes later the procession arrived at the site of the execution, campo di fiori, the Field of Flowers where, in one corner, opposite the theatre of Pompeii, the stake had been prepared. The guards led Bruno to the thick wooden post, shoved him up against it and wrapped a thick rope around him, across his shoulders, his chest, his waist and his legs. The faggots ( about which Bruno has once joked ) were piled up to the condemned man’s chin and the torch placed between his feet. The flames caught quickly in the light morning breeze. It has been claimed that many victims of the stake were saved a slow death by arranging a payment to the executioner who would surreptitiously snap their necks as they were tied to the post. We know this did not happened to Bruno for as the fire began to grip, the Brothers of the Pity of St. John the Beheaded tried one last time to save the man’s soul. Risking the flames, one of them leaned into the fire with a crucifix, but Bruno merely turned his head away. Seconds later, the fire caught his robe and seared his body, and above the hissing and crackling of the flames could be heard the man’s muffled agony. After the fire had subsided, what remained of Bruno’s body was smashed to powder with hammers and the ashes were cast to the wind so that no one could save anything of the heretic as a relic. As far as the Inquisition was concerned, they had obliterated Bruno, destroyed his body, banished his memory, his ideas, his writings, his very thought, and he had been consigned to Hell.
The Pope saw nothing that Bruno wrote in prison and the two men never met in private as Bruno had hoped. As Giordano burned that festive Thursday, 19 February 1600, the crowd cheered and waved their banners, children ran as close to the flames as they dared and frightened mothers pulled them back. And when the spectacle was over and the world cleansed of another heretic, Bruno’s ashes settled on ledges and in nearby fields. There the rain carried into the soil molecules that has once composed parts of his body. Over time, the molecules were broken open, their atoms absorbed by plants. The plants were eaten by animals and some found their way to the tables of Rome and beyond. Other elements of Bruno fell into water and were recycled to splash upon the faces of bathers and into drinking goblets. And so, perhaps, on an atomic level at least, the Pope himself was conjoined with the heretic after all.” As Bruno would have it: the universe is infinite, and as one. We are all each other. Everything is everything else.” Poch Suzara

Questions for the theologians

Who are we in time? Where are we in space? These theological questions are ignored in the bible. Here, however, are answers from an atheist-humanist-scientist, the late Carl Sagan: “We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost between two spiral arms in the outskirts of a galaxy which is a member of a sparse cluster of galaxies, tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are more galaxies than people.” Poch Suzara

Man - The Credulous Animal

“Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.” Bertrand Russell... However, due not from intelligent education, but precisely owing to silly indoctrination in schools, colleges, and universities - places where we learn to be insane morally and to be even more insane spirituality, instead of embracing the power of thinking, most men would rather have faith by sick believing... Poch Suzara Twitter# Facebook# Google#

Religious Fantasy

In the History of Western Philosophy, Bertrand Russell wrote: “Owing to their miraculous powers, priests could determine whether a man should spend eternity in heaven or in hell. If he died while excommunicate, he went to hell; if he died after the priests had performed all the proper ceremonies, he would ultimately go to heaven provided he had duly repented and confessed. Before going to heaven, however, he would have to spend some time – perhaps a very long time – suffering the pains in purgatory. Priests could shorten this time by saying mass for his soul, which they were willing to do for a suitable money payment.”
To think that this business arrangement has been going on for centuries but there are millions upon millions of religious believers today who still believe in this priestly religious fantasy. Poch Suzara

Science in the Bible

In astronomy – the sun rotates round the earth. In geology – the earth is not round, but flat with four corners. In Biology – a human is created by a superhuman. In zoology – a snake can talk. In medicine – diseases are caused by the devil. Unfortunately, science in the bible is not science. It is psuedo-science written by ignorant and unlearned inspired authors of God who Himself did not know what he was doind. Poch Suzara

God Loves Man

God loves man? Why does God allow man to suffer? Against dreadful diseases, deadly insects, vicious beasts, poisonous reptiles, not to mention hurricanes, blizzards, droughts, floods, tidal waves, tornadoes, volcanoes, and earthquakes? And to add insult
to injury, God sent his only begotten Son to earth who preached something like: “But those mine enemies which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them for me.” Luke 19:27. Well, to add more insult to more injury, God above says of his son below: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Matt. 3:17 And to think the Son of God had a human mother who was already married woman to Joseph. Poch Suzara

Only A Fool

Only a fool says there is no God? On the contrary, the motto of a fool is: “Let me trust God even if he has always fooled me in the past.” Poch Suzara

God-inspired Authors

How could God-inspired authors write anything false in the bible? In the Old Testament, for example, it is written: “The world also is established, and it cannot be moved.” Psalms 93:1. In the New Testament, it is written: “Then he called his twelve disciples, and gave them power and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases.” Matt. 10: 1-8. Well, the earth not only rotates on its own axis daily, it also orbits around the sun yearly. Diseases have not been cured. They are still as deadly today as they were yesterday thanks to the miracles subject to expiration date from Jesus. Poch Suzara

Religious People

Religious people hate to talk about religion because it exposes their fear and ignorance. In order to justify a mindless spirituality, however, religious people must hide behind mediocrity and to hell with the beauty of veracity. Poch Suzara

Insanity

Among the rich and the poor are the insane. Among the young and the old are the insane. Among the politicians and the theologians are the insane. Among the powerful and the powerless are the insane. Among the Americans, the Arabs, the Chinese, and the Filipinos are the insane. Indeed, it is really difficult to say who amongst us is not as insane as the rest of us. Poch Suzara

Two Great Bible Characters

Consider the two great bible characters as the highest models of moral excellence, David in the Old Testament, and Paul in the New Testament. David, the man after God’s heart was a murderer, a thief, a plunderer, a polygamist with a harem of wives and concubines, a drunken debauchee, dancing half-naked before the maids in his household, a lecherous old libertine, abducting and ravishing the wife of a faithful soldier. On the other hand, Paul was a religious fanatic: first a Jew and later a Christian convert. As a Jew, in the name of Jehovah, he persecuted Christians; as a Christian, in the name of Christ, he persecuted Jews. And to think we are told that the bible is written by inspired authors of a holy God. I think it's time for us to entertain a new definition for the word "holy." Poch Suzara.

The Holy Trinity

“Christ, according to the faith, is the second person of the Trinity, the Father being the first, and the Holy Ghost the third. Each of these three persons is God. Christ is his own father and his own son. The Holy Ghost is neither father nor son, but both. The son was begotten by the father, but existed before he was begotten – just the same before as after. Christ is just as old as his father, and the father is just as young as his son. The Holy Ghost proceeded, from the Father and Son, but was equal to the Father and Son before he proceeded, that is say, before he existed, but he is of the same age as the other two. So it is declared that the Father is God and the son is God, and Holy Ghost God and that these three Gods make one God. According to the celestial multiplication table once one is three, and three times one is one, and according to heavenly subtraction if we take two from three, three are left. The addition is equally peculiar, if we add two to one we have but one. Each is equal to himself as the other two. Nothing ever was, nothing can ever be more perfectly idiotic and absurd than the dogma of the Trinity.” The above was written by the famous American agnostic Robert Green Ingersoll. The comments that follow are my holy baloney response: Indeed, moral bankruptcy plus spiritual poverty plus political stupidity equals social insanity. It is the sum total of the results of our sacred belief in the holy trinity. I am told that God has neither a beginning nor an end. This means that God has been in existence for more than 80,000,000 years and will continue to exist for another 80,000,000. Well, if we live to be 80 years, this means that the span of human life is but a split of a second, a wink of an eye, or a flash in the pan in comparison to God’s vast and endless existence. Now the dumbstruck morons who call themselves “theologians” claim that you and I are able to offend God with sin? Really, instead of being ashamed, we should be most proud of such an achievement. Moreover, such a God deserves neither love nor respect for having such a childish vanity. Imagine us powerless human beings, able to grab lightning away from God’s hand and we are able to hurt him at the same time. Wow! What an idiotic belief! Imagine a God getting offended with human activities on this piece of dust called earth lost in the vastness of space and time in which there are far more galaxies than there are people. Imagine a million (1,000,000) planets the size of earth can fit inside the sun. And our sun is not that gigantic either as 500 of our suns can be swallowed up by a bigger star called “Betelgeuse” in one small gulp. In the meantime, there are hundreds of billions of galaxies existing out there called the Cosmos. Where is the Holy Trinity in space and in time? How come he’s always only hiding out there but never to be found down here? And even if he reveals himself down here, according to the dumbstruck theologians, the holy trinity is still sacred mystery. Poch Suzara

Goodwill to all Unbelievers

Peace on earth and goodwill to all men can become a reality. If only the Christians can learn to reject God and his bible; if only the Muslims can learn to reject Allah and his Quran; and if only the Jews can learn to reject Yahweh and his Torah. Indeed, conflicting religious beliefs have always inspired the Christians, the Muslims, and the Jews to participate faithfully in man’s inhumanity to man in the name of an insane divinity. For my part, as an atheist, I say to all Christians, Muslims, and Jews: enough is enough. Your respective deity is not worth killing fellow humans. If we must live, let us live in the name of humanity; and if we must kill, let us kill the ideas and beliefs that encourages hate and war and other forms of rigid, if not obsolete, nay, childish mentality. Let us assume human responsibility for our local community and for global health and sanitation and international sanity. Poch Suzara.

Questioning Everything

Never belittle the power of questioning everything. It is not only the main source, but the very foundation of spiritual wealth. For example: what right does God have to tell us how to raise our children when he himself drowned his own during the days of Noah? And to think that those people killed were our distant relatives. But then again, why should we care about such relatives of the distant past? Under the Christian values taught to us to believe in our Christian schools, Jesus in the bible admonished: “if any man come to me, and hate not his father, mother, wife, children, brethren, sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” Luke 14:26. Poch Suzara

The Souls of Men, if any

To believe that the souls of men, if any, will be happy or unhappy after the death of the body, is to pretend that dead men, dead women, and dead children will be able to see without eyes, to hear without ears, to taste without a palate, to smell without a nose, to feel without hands, to feel the pleasures of love without sex organs, and to think without brains. In the Philippines, as the only Christians country in Asia, we Filipinos believe ourselves very enlightened and potentially saved for the kingdom of God as we adopt faithfully such sick garbage as the foundation of our social and moral values. In the meantime, if it does not bother me one bit to realize that for millions of years before my birth I was existing as a NOTHING, Why should it now bother me to realize as well that for millions of years after my death, I shall again be existing as a NOTHING. Poch Suzara

Theology Defined

If theology were a science, it is the science of contradictions. Every religion is but a system imagined for the purpose of reconciling conflicting ideas against other irreconcilable ideas. Indeed, theology is but ignorance of natural causes reduced to a system. It is not what we know about divinity; it is what we do not know about humanity. Theology is the hope to understand, if not to justify, the mysteries of our faith. Those deeply impressed with theological claims, sad to say, are the frightened faithfools who prefer the unknown, the concealed, the fabulous, the incredible, even the terrible to that which is clear, concise, true, melodic, and realistic. In the meantime, if the theologians do not comprehend other theologians, why then is it expected of me that I should, for myself, comprehend the subject of theology - the study of the incomprehensible? Poch Suzara

Surviving Schizophrenia

According to SURVIVING SCHIZOPHRENIA, a manual for Families, Consumers and Providers, published in 1995 by Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, M.D., the distribution of the 1.8 million persons with schizophrenia in the U.S. are as follows: “100,000 are in Hospitals; 180,000 are in Nursing homes; 100,000 are in Jails & Prisons; 100,000 are in Shelters and Streets; 300,000 are Supervised living in Group Homes; 500,000 are living with family members; 550,000 are living independently.” What it fails to include, however, are those homicidal maniacs installed in the White House by the democratic process called “general election.” Poch Suzara

Pope Paul 11

"Don't you think that the irresponsible behaviour of men is caused by women?“ Pope John Paul II. I ask: how come no one blames the devil anymore? The same devil that God gifted with free will far more superior than man’s inferior free will? And to think the women of Poland today are freely inspired by the devil to celebrate the plan of Pope Benedict XVI to canonize Pope John Paul 11 a saint. How wonderful of Catholic Popes to canonize each other as saints of God. Poch Suzara

Dear Father Roy Cimagala

With great interest, I read your article: WE NEED TO STUDY THEOLOGY published in BusinessWorld ( May 11, 2005 ). You mentioned and I quite agree that there are lots of people who are real giants in the fields of modern technology and other sciences. Regrettably however, I am unable to agree with you that such scientists and technologists are ‘like babies or pygmies with clearly stunted growth in matters of faith and religion.” For my part, I am neither a scientist nor a philosopher. In fact, I am a high-school dropout. But as you are an expert in theology, perhaps you might be of great assistance in answering for my own enlightenment, the following theological questions: If God were the Designer of nature, how come He had to design 23,000 different kinds of beetles? What went wrong with the first beetle design? Or, if the human body were God’s design, how come there exist about 2 billion kinds of virus, germs, and bacteria living inside our body that will eventually self-destruct whether we have free will or not? If God created everything, including space and time, where was God located before he created space, and when was it before he created time? In fact, if everything needs a creator, who or what created God? The sun is a giant star that it can take one million ( 1,000,000 ) planets the size of earth and fit them all inside it. The sun, however, may be large but it is not the largest star in the sky. According to the science of astronomy, there is an even bigger star called Betelgeuse. It is 500 times larger than our sun. Comparatively, therefore, we humans are like the size of tiny parasites living on this grain of sand called “planet earth.” In this connection, what was God’s size when he created man in His own image and likeness? How could Adam and Eve be guilty of anything original, such as the Original Sin, since before everything else there was, first and foremost, - the Original Creator? God’s first Commandment: “Thou shalt have no other Gods before me.” Can you explain where those “other Gods” came from? Who created them? God was often personally involved in human affairs during the days of biblical antiquity. How come he is no longer personally involved in human affairs in any shape or form in these days of scientific modernity? If moral values were universally planted by God, then all people would believe the same things. There could never be disagreements over right and wrong. There would be no need for laws, courts, and battlefields. Can you explain why the history of the world has been a history of conflicts between moral values in God’s name? According to the National Catholic Almanac, God is “almighty, eternal. Holy, immortal, immense, immutable, incomprehensible, ineffable, infinite, invisible, just, loving, merciful, most high, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, patient, perfect, provident, supreme, true.” Can you explain: how was it possible for theologians to have declared God’s incomprehensibility and simultaneously list twenty-two additional attributes? If God cannot be comprehended, what’s the latest findings from the study of theology? Indeed, what’s new with God? If God were immutable and therefore cannot change the past, the present, and the future as God saw it, doesn’t that make our prayers utterly worthless because when we pray, we are asking God to change his mind? If God so loved the world, why does he tolerate the devil to inspire the believers of the same religion hate each other like we all do as a matter of survival in this only Christian country in Asia? Christ said that if someone smite thee on the right cheek, turn the left cheek also. What is so noble about turning the other cheek, if one knows that each time he does so, he piling up greater rewards in heaven, while the one who strikes is earning his rewards in hell? If Christ died on the cross to destroy the devil, how come the devil is still alive and quite a success inspiring the Filipino to grace not the growth of human civilization but only to be a disgrace in the rat race for eternal salvation? Theology is not what we know about divinity. It is what we do not know about humanity. As theology, however, is still at the very foundation of our system of education, is it any wonder that we come out of our schools not as fruitful thinkers in love with our country, but only as fruitless believers in love with divinity? Yours Faithfully, Poch Suzara

All in Heaven For What?

If Jesus and his apostles, Mohammed, Buddha, Brahma, Yahweh, Confucius, the writers of the bible, Quoran, Torah, Upanishads, Bhagavad Cita, Pope Paul 11, the saints of God, St. Francis of Asissi, Martin Luther, the disciples of Allah, including Hindu followers, Emperor Hirohito of japan, Hitler, Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt, Truman, Nixon and Reagan, not to mention Marcos of the Philippines, etc. were all already in heaven with God up there, why are we all still hating and at war against each other for the sake of the devil in hell down here? Poch Suzara Twitter# Facebook# Google#

What If I am Wrong

What if it turned out that I am wrong all along and that God will meet with me after I am dead, what then? Well, I will immediately ask God to forgive me for having wasted my youth as a dumbstruck catholic when I was in grade school and high school at De La Salle University. But I will ask God: weren’t you such a dumbstruck of a God yourself for having created the silly devil gifted with a free will too? Poch Suzara

Reason and Faith

Can faith and reason be friends and work harmoniously together? Let’s see: Can you have faith that man has one rib less than a woman because reason tells you that God, according to the bible, created woman by taking a rib off Adam’s body? Indeed, how can faith and reason ever reconcile when faith proceeds like a mind stuck on hinges; and reason proceeds like a mind moving on wheels? Even if we assume that faith can merge with reason, we must see faith first merging with other faiths before reason can begin to entertain the silly merger. Poch Suzara

If God Sees Everything

If God sees everything, how come he is able to remedy nothing? Otherwise, if God were good, why not be good for something? Why be good only like the theologians and the politicians who are good not for something, but only good for nothing? Poch Suzara

Poverty and Wealth

The worst kind of poverty is the poverty of the mind. Such poverty explains the faith behind theism based on the unknowable. The best kind of wealth is the wealth of the mind. Such wealth explains the reason behind atheism based on the knowable. Poch Suzara

Two Philippine Associations

I am most proud and happy to be the chairperson of two unique but closely related associations in the Philippines. However, I must confess that each time I feel like I am such a failure intellectually, I am most proud to identify myself as the chairman of the Bertrand Russell Society, Philippines; but then again, each time I feel like I am such a success intellectually, I am most happy to identify myself as the chairman of the High School Dropout Association of the Philippines. Poch Suzara

Two Saintly Popes

"Don't you think that the irresponsible behaviour of men is caused by women?“ Pope John Paul 11. I ask: how come the Pope blames not the devil whose God gifted free will is far more superior than man's inferior free will? And to think the women in Poland today are freely celebrating the plan of Pope Ratzinger to beatify Pope and eventualy canonized John Paul 11 a saint of God. Poch Suzara

The Secret of Christianity

The power of reason leaves Christianity untouched, because Christianity does not pretend to reason. Christianity is build on faith, and appeals to the senses and to the imagination rather than to the intellect. When sense and hope are satisfied, the mind remains at rest; that is the secret of Christianity. Sadly, however, the power of science has long established the fact that the mind at rest is akin to the mind that is no longer at its best – another secret the Christian has not ceased hiding. Poch Suzara

DO WE LOVE ONE ANOTHER

Do we love our rivers and lakes and beaches? Do we love our flowers, plants, and trees? Do we love our birds, butterflies, and other living creatures of the forest? Do we love law and order? Do we love our policemen in the streets and our lawyers and prosecutors and judges in the courts? Do we love our mayors, governors, congressmen, and senators? Is ours a lovable government of the lovable people, by the lovable people, and for the lovable people?

Developing countries in Asia today are the results of, if not due to, developed minds and cultivated hearts. Thanks to the power of education based upon science and technology. Thanks also to that simple yet powerful human sentiment that has always been a traditional reality: love of country and love of fellow-citizens. Among Filipinos, however, -- love of country is as yet a traditional fantasy.

In Asian countries developing today, teamwork means dividing the effort and multiplying the effects. With us Filipinos, however, it is the exact opposite: teamwork means praying to God for miracles and to forgive us of our historical defects.

But then again, in this only Christian country in Asia, if we are not praying to God to lead us not into temptation, our high government officials too are praying to the same God to lead us not into deeper economic degradation. The results thus far: graft and corruption, political confusion, social dislocation, and especially pollution and population explosion.

Are we ever going to wake up in this country? When are we going to stop kidding ourselves enjoying the sacred lies we tell each other each day of every year? Are we ever going to solve, intelligently, our problems as a people and our troubles as a nation? Must we continue with our stunted sense of humanity as inspired by our love for incomprehensible divinity?

There was a time when every single man, woman, and child believed in a loving God. It was a time when no one dared to question anything. It was a time of spiritual poverty and moral bankruptcy. Everybody also believed the world was not round, but flat. It was a time of fear and mental paralysis. Everybody held on to faith not in the human capacity but faith only in human stupidity. It lasted for a thousand years( 5th to the 15th century ). Historians refer to those centuries as the Dark Ages.

We Filipinos are still living in the Dark Ages. We carry superstition on our backs and we are crippled by its weight. We make no bones about God being a panacea – that all our social troubles and economical and political problems will vanish into thin air if only each and every one of us will kneel down and once more have deep faith in God.

The holy bible is found in almost every Filipino home today. It is a book written not by Filipinos, but by foreigners. If, however, we wish to understand why love of country does not exist in the Philippines, please read the bible. It clearly states what we adhere to faithfully: “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not with him. “ John 2:15. Indeed, why should we love our country when the bible clearly tells us that if we do so, the love of God is not with us?

Now if we wish to understand why we do not love each other as a people please read again carefully what Jesus admonished in the bible: “If any man come to me and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” Luke 14:26. Is it any wonder why we all love God up there by hating one another down here?

In the meantime, hundreds of thousands of abandoned and hungry Filipino children struggle to exist in the streets of our major cities. Their bodies are rotting with malnourishment as they live off garbage and trash.

Well, millions of children too exist inside our school buildings. Their minds and hearts are rotting too. They are taught to believe that this world is depraved and sinful and corrupt and that this life is nothing but a transition to a better world to come after death with God in heaven. Indeed, these are the same millions of children who will become parents themselves one day. And like all of us parents and grandparents of today, they too will be the stupid victims of our so-called “ social, moral and religious values.”

We are born ignorant, not mindless. In the Philippines, we are made mindless with the power of education. Poch Suzara

FAITH

Faith is really a kind of convenient escape-hatch. Faith does not extricate any one away from contradictions and absurdities; it merely inspires one to believe and to have faith in spite of contradictions and absurdities. Indeed, faith is just another sacred word we often use to hide our irrationality, if not to justify our lazy mentality Poch Suzara

Super Qualities of God

According to the National Catholic Almanac, among the supernatural qualities of God is that he is incomprehensible. Obviously, if this were so, as God is therefore unknowable, it is utterly impossible to examine God’s other supernatural qualities. In the meantime, theology mutilates the human mentality. The theologians then present themselves as friends to those they have crippled intellectually. Happily, theology can never, not even by a long shot, reduce atheism to the same depths of insanity as the concept of silly divinity on the one side; and on the other side, the concept of silly deviltry. Poch Suzara

Favorite Saints of God

What is the difference between a first class moron and a third class moron? A first class moron reads the bible but does not understand it. The third class moron understands the bible but does not read it. Both, however, enjoy a similarity. They have equal chances down here to be canonized as favorite saints of God up there. Poch Suzara

A 16th century Catholic Cardinal

Cardinal Robert Bellarmine said: “To assert that earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to declare that Jesus was not born of a Virgin.” And to think that this famous Cardinal born not of a virgin himself, was canonized a saint of God. My dear Cardinal Bellarmine: I declare the earth revolves around the sun and I further declare that Jesus never existed. There is no such thing as a virgin birth. When Mary disclosed to her own relatives the scandalous nature of her miraculous pregnancy, they all said to her: “Go tell that story to the U.S. Marines.” Indeed, the same US Marines fighting today in Iraq to establish the truth behind Christian virginity to pave the way for American style of freedom and democracy. Poch Suzara

Gospel Writers

And set up over his head his accusation, written, THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS. Matt. And the superscription of his accusation was written over, THE KING OF THE JEWS. Mark 15:26 And a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek,and Latin, and Hebrew, THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS. Luke 23:38 And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS. John 19:19 The inspired Gospel writers were either blind with blind faith and could not see clearly, or they just thought that they could be poetic enough as 3 of them reported that Jesus was crucified in Golgotha and the other inspired poet reported that Jesus was crucified in Calvary. Again, there is a dispute as to whether Jesus was born in Bethlehem or in Nazareth, ( 60 miles apart) and the date of his birth has been placed anywhere from 4 b.c. to 7 a.d. Matthew says that Jesus was born “in the days of Herod”, while Luke says it was “When Cyrenius was governor of Syria.” Herod died in 4 b.c., while Cyrenius did not become governor of Syria until 7 a.d.. As so song goes - what’s going on? At any rate, what is most embarrassing for Christianity is that the theologians could easily explain how God could father a Jesus Christ via a virgin Mary, but the same theologians cannot explain how the place where Jesus Christ was born ( Israel ) some 2,000 years ago is today is not a Christian country, but a Jewish State! And to think that ancient Jewish literature have no mention whatsoever of a character named Jesus Christ. Anyway, all is not lost as there is a difference between an awestruck MORON and a dumbstruck MORON. The awestruck MORON understands the bible but does not read it; the dumbstruck MORON reads the bible but does not understand it. Fortunately, however, both have equal chances to be canonized as saints of God. Poch Suzara