Freethinkers Forum 2/28/2009

To: Freethinkers Forum Feb. 28, 2009
Fr: Poch Suzara, chairman, Bertrand
Russell Society, Philippines
Subject: Message

We were all taught to believe that in this country there exists the so-called “Communion of Saints” for the glory of a savior.

Well, I ask: couldn’t we also establish for ourselves the “Communion of Freethinkers” for the glory of sane and a healthy society?
Yes, we can. But first, let us always consistently recognize that in a democracy reason and science will always be our greatest allies.

Our enemy is not each other. Our enemy is precisely the reptilian, and not the mammalian side of the human brain. In this connection therefore, there is no use disparaging each other’s work. Instead of being “detractors,” let us play more positive roles as “baloney detectors” of our sick society. These are the evils we must always struggle against as they act in our schools, colleges, universities, and indeed active in our corrupt churches and entrenched in our corrupt government.

Bertrand Russell wrote: “The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.” As freethinkers, let us live the good life.

Let’s work harder and think deeper together. May our tribe increase with more power – the production of intended results. Let us see to it that the Philippines will one day become more famous as a nation of matured and courageous freethinkers, and famous no more as the only Christian country in Asia populated by childish, and indeed, frightened believers.

To those of you who have emerged openly for public scrutiny as the freethinkers of our society - I congratulate you. I am on your side always. Especially as we continue to struggle in putting lively beauty into our society than there is deadly insanity.

Imagine – for Gina Lopez

The Pasig River is 26 kilometers long, 50 meters wide, and an average of four to six meters deep. The river basin includes: Pasig City, City of Manila, Pateros, Caloocan City, Marikina City, Pasay City, Taguig, Quezon City, San Juan city, Mandaluyong City, and Makati City. The Pasig River basin area is 570 sq. km.

Imagine what it would mean to Filipinos working off the wealth of the Pasig River. Filipinos as the commercial breeders of fishes, shellfishes, crabs, shrimps, and prawns farmed in the Pasig River. Food for local consumption. Food for global exportation. Imagine the thousands of jobs created for Filipinos nourishing the life and beauty of the Pasig River. Indeed, imagine the Pasig River flowing not with vulgarism submerged in barbarism, but overflowing, instead, with tourism!

But then again, our traditional way of life tells us to never imagine such things; especially the good life – one inspired by love and guided by knowledge. What we must only follow is what is written in the holy bible such as: “love not this 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. So why, for heaven’s sake, should we Filipinos give a hoot about the existence of the Pasig River?

Oh yes, the life we live as a people is the life we conceive for ourselves as a products of education. We Filipinos, however, have yet to grasp the reality of what it truly means to be the healthy masters of learning, not the sick victims of it. Indeed, to be the masters of education that’s not about love of a divinity or a mystery; but more about enhancing the reality of social sanity under love of country!

In the late 1980s, I was employed as the special assistant to Doris Ho, president of the Tourist Belt and Businessmen Association of Ermita, Malate. (TBBA). We tried planning and working to rehabilitate the Pasig River with all the possible technology available from Holland to do the job. The wife of President Fidel Ramos, Lady Amelita “Ming” Ramos also tried hard to clean up in order to resurrect the dead Pasig River. Nothing happened except that the Pasig River is still very much dead in filth and dirt – the exact reflection of our so-called “sacred beliefs and traditional values.”

Gina, I ardently hope you will succeed where others failed. Yours is a rare opportunity. I am rooting for you. If I could be of any help, I offer my services free of charge. In the meantime, I urge you to seriously look into the Filipino consciousness. It is mostly derived from our corrupt system of education. Indeed, the kind of education that makes us ignore filth and corruption here, filth and corruption there, and filth and corruption everywhere in our sick society. Nay more, it also makes us proud to “take no thought for tomorrow” since we are told that there is a better world to come after death. We Filipinos may not be among the “Chosen People of God,” but we are certainly the “Saved Sick Children of Asia.”

In the meantime, we simply cannot keep the Pasig River clean and vital by collecting garbage thrown into it. The sources of that filth and dirt come from our schools, colleges, and universities. The sick institution that must first be treated. Our Asian neighbors like Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, etc. have done it. China is doing it now. It all begins not so much with the power of money, but simply with the power of love - love of country.

Perhaps, after great success in rehabilitating the Pasig River, we can also begin cleaning up another mess far messier than the Pasig river: The messy streets of Metro Manila. Many of them are no longer streets. They are now the dirty factories for making babies. Three ( 3 ) babies are born every minute or 1.5 million babies are needlessly born every year in the Philippines. The same babies who will eventually enroll in our schools, colleges, and universities. There, to learn not how to love a meritorious earth down here, but only to love a mysterious heaven out there. Indeed, to learn how to play more important roles in the rat-race for eternal salvation. But hardly to learn to take advantage of the power of love and knowledge that pertains, especially, to the health, sanitation, growth, and development of Philippine civilization. Poch Suzara

Christianity

Christianity has quite effectively accomplished great things in the Philippines: Frightened the Filipino. Divided the Filipino. Controlled the Filipino. Deluded the Filipino. Misguided and corrupted the Filipino.

For the love of the next world out there, Christianity has effectively converted the Filipino to hate his world down here. Indeed, we Filipinos love saving our silly souls for the next life in heaven. We hate saving instead our precious minds and priceless hearts for the sake of creating a sane and a healthy society for ourselves here and now. Human love and compassion hardly exist in our sick society. Thanks to the teachings of Christianity, we fear and hate the existence of the beauty of nature all around us. Take a good look at the Pasig River. Even the angels of God in heaven, or the stupid devils of Satan in hell would not drink the deadly water from the Pasig River. Poch Suzara

The Cries of the Poor

God hears the cries of the poor. Well, if this is true, how come the poor are getting poorer and their cries are getting louder?

Indeed, how come those who are among the rich getting richer in this country are among the first to declare that God hears the cries of the poor?

The question is: which God hears the cries of the poor? The God who is always omni-absent, or the God who is never omni-present?

In the meantime, millions of Filipinos still do pray daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly to God to: “Give us this day our daily bread.”

Divine intervention? It has yet to fix the traditional troubles of the Filipino as a people. Thus far, what we enjoy year in and year out is theological illusion inextricably mixed with political confusion for the sake of our social delusion derived mostly from the bible as written by divine inspiration. Poch Suzara

Our Overseas workers

Our workers are better paid and indeed highly respected for the hard work they do in foreign countries.

In our own God-forsaken country, however, instead of giving our workers their due earnings and due respect, they only survive on more of the same hand to mouth existence. But we never stop asking God to bless them and we never stop thanking God for the hard work that they do for the rich. In the meantime, in our sick society, the filthy poor are getting poorer. The filthy rich are not only getting richer, they are also getting holier. Poch Suzara

Sick and Corrupt

The Sick Man of Asia is not only a patient inside our hospitals. He is not only a teacher or a professor inside our schools, colleges, and universities. He is not only preaching bombastic nonsense inside our television Sets. Indeed, he is also the college-educated man or women holding office inside our Judicial, Legislative, and Judiciary branches of government.

In our sick society, it does not matter whether we are coming or going. What counts is that we all love God up there even if we were all sick and corrupt down here. Poch Suzara

Guardian of Freedom

I regard myself as a guardian of freedom. Especially intellectual freedom. I refuse, however, to respect nor do I try to preserve the rights of people who are unable to tell the difference between beauty and vulgarity, between reality and fantasy, between fact and fiction, between lies and deceptions, or between truth and falsehood. After all, freedom should have nothing to do with the freedom to enjoy stupidity especially as it inspires social insanity. Freedom can certainly promote peace and social sanity if we all love, not hate, - this life in this world. Our world. Thus, the number one enemy of freedom has always been deadly religion. Especially the religion that teaches us to love not this world neither the things that are in the world because if any man love the world, the love of God is not in him. 1 John 2:15 I said it before, I say it again: far more precious than the freedom OF religion is the freedom FROM religion. Poch Suzara

God’s Will and Plan

If there is indeed such a thing as God’s will or God’s plan, why should we waste precious time and energy praying daily to Mary, the holy Mother of God, “to pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, amen?”

No doubt, we are all sinners and with prayer we shall all be saved. Too bad we also do not pray to God to save the greatest sinner of all time – the stupid devil? Poch Suzara

A Pinoy Prisoner

After 15 years in prison for the crime of murder, this Pinoy prisoner was released. He was pardoned by the President of the Republic. In an interview with a newspaper reporter this criminal disclosed that he “had learned a lot in prison. I met God there.”

Well, obviously God is not, after all, everywhere. God only makes himself known to murderers while they are in prison. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, however, if criminals were to meet with God minutes before they committed their stupid crimes? Poch Suzara

Troubled Life

We are told that if your life is in trouble, there is always God to fix it. We are not told, however, that everybody’s life is in trouble of some kind or the other. In fact, nobody’s life is free from trouble. Consider the day we are born: it is the day we also begin to live in a dying body.

In terms of eternity our troubled life on this speck of dust called “earth” is but a split of a second long. What value is there in human life not long lasting enough for God to bother fixing?

As an atheist, I am not afraid to face the facts. I have no wish to distort such facts into an insane pattern. Indeed, just like everyone else, I too was born an atheist. Surely, one day, I shall die as an atheist. After all, for billions of years before my birth I existed as a thoughtless nothing; and for billions of years after my death – I will then be again existing as a thoughtless nothing. - Poch Suzara

Suffering

“Suffering can teach us about what we can’t learn in any other way.” Philippine Star, Feb. 18,2009

On the contrary, if I may borrow from Bertrand Russell: what we all need now is not only love but also greater knowledge about the nature of love, in all its complexity. A beauty one can hardly learn from any of the schools, colleges, and universities owned and managed by the Catholic church. Poch Suzara

Scientist Richard Dawkins

Scientist Richard Dawkins wrote In his great book THE GOD DELUSION: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sado-masochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” I entirely agree. I would like, however, to add that the God of the New Testament is even more unpleasant. In order to save the world away from sin, instead of getting the devil captured and crucified dead on the cross, He had, instead, his own Son Jesus arrested, abused, and nailed to a cross who, while nailed to a cross, cried cried out loud: “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me.” Really, I ask: are these the words of a Redeemer or a Savior? In the meantime, I do not consider it a threat or a chill, but rather a joy and a thrill to be identified as an atheist. I have no taste to be a man of faith, A man of faith is a drunkard who clings to a lamppost for support, not illumination. Poch Suzara

Two Billions Years Ago

“Two billion years ago,” wrote Carl Sagan, “our ancestors were microbes; half-billion years ago, fish; a hundred billion years ago, something like mice; ten million years ago, arboreal apes; and a million years ago, proto-humans puzzling out the taming of fire. Our evolutionary lineage is marked by the mastery of change. In our time, the pace is quickening.”

Oh my dear Carl, you are so right as you were always seldom quite wrong with your scientific attitude towards the pursuit of knowledge. It is truly pathetic, however, that most religious morons of this world belittled your findings. They actually believe that the earth is only some 6,000 years old created by God in the year 4004 B.C. in October at 9 a.m. according to a certain Bishop James Ussher – known to be a fine biblical scholar. Poch Suzara

Same Mysterious Hogwash

The “unknown” and the “supernatural” are one and the same mysterious hogwash. Explaining the unknown by means of the supernatural, or explaining the supernatural by means of the unknown is really more about explaining the existence of a mysterious hogwash.

Here’s one example of a hogwash that is always mysterious to me. Every time I have a question for God, it is never God who gives me the answer. It is always the religious morons that do. Poch Suzara

Strengthen Ties

Every time a high official is installed in the United States government or installed in the Philippine government – the first they do is to visit each other to renew commitment to strengthen RP-US Ties. As to the nature of what exactly those commitments are all about, nobody knows. The ties, however, are more about graft and corruption enjoyed mutually together by both governments to benefit the rich getting richer in the USA at expense of the poor getting poorer in the Philippines. Poch Suzara

Hate, not Love

We are more prone to hate than we are to love. Hate is more contagious than love. Even among the believers of the faith there is more hate than love for each other. Golly, even among the unbelievers - the atheists, agnostics, infidels, heretics, humanists, and the freethinkers of our sick society – they too hate each other. They hate each other’s intellectual capacity. The unbelievers pay less attention to the horrors of insanity behind the traditional belief in silly divinity that gives everyone a sense of false serenity.

Bertrand Russell had a healthier view: “No, the greatest men have not been “serene." They have had, it is true, an ultimate courage, a power of creating beauty where nature has put only horror, which may, to a petty mind, appear like serenity. But their courage has had to surpass that of common men, because they have seen deeper into the indifference of nature and the cruelty of man. To cover up these things with comfortable lies is the business of cowards; the business of great men is to see them with inflexible clarity, and yet to think and feel nobly. And in the degree in which we can all be great, this is the business of each one of us.”

For my part, I hate to mingle with either the believers or, as the case may be - with the unbelievers. Especially if either would inspire in me fear of this and fear of that or fear of what-not. I hate living a life of fear. Poch Suzara

Science and Christianity

Science has already proved itself triumphant in all of its respective fields of endeavor. Indeed, science based on reason, is what we know. Religion based on faith, is what we do not know.

Christianity, on the other hand, still refuses to abandon its appeal to faith. Devoid of faith, Christianity can have no more mysterious elements to frighten its believers never to take their eyes off heaven above. Indeed, due to faith everybody hopes to play a prominent part in the rat-race for eternal salvation.

In the meantime, to advocate that a belief devoid of reason must be accepted is to advocate that a belief devoid of proof or verification must be accepted. What is the difference, therefore, in believing in the existence of a Santa Claus and in believing in the existence of a Savior? Poch Suzara

Money

“It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely and nobly.” Bertrand Russell...It is, indeed, sad to see sons and daughters of wealthy families growing up to be occupied with nothing in life in except to make more money believing that all values must be measured in terms of money or that money is the ultimate test of success in this world... “This belief,” wrote Bertrand Russell, “is held in fact, if not in words, by multitudes of men and women, and yet it is not in harmony with human nature, since it ignores vital needs and the instinctive tendency towards some specific kind of growth. It makes men treat as unimportant those of their desires which run counter to the acquisition of money, and yet such desires are, as a rule, more important to well-being than any increase of income. It leads men to mutilate their own natures from a mistaken theory of what constitutes success, and to give admiration to enterprises which add nothing to human welfare. It promotes a dead uniformity of character and purpose, a diminution in the joy of life, and a stress and strain which leaves whole communities weary, discouraged, and disillusioned.” Poch Suzara

The Power of Knowledge

“Science,” wrote Bertrand Russell, “is at no moment quite right, but it is seldom quite wrong, and has, as a rule, a better chance of being right than the theories of the unscientific.”

Knowledge in general otherwise more known as science in particular has been the greatest tool man has discovered to change the ways of the world both for the better and for the future generations to come.
Science, however, put into the hands of bigots and fanatics to promote the power of dominant groups can even be far more destructive. Indeed, far more destructive than all the great religions combined that have dominated this world since only God knows when.

Bertrand Russell explained: “We were told that faith could remove mountains, but no one believed it; we are now told that the atomic bomb can remove mountains, and everyone believes it.” Poch Suzara

The Vatican and the USA

The Vatican State currently maintains bilateral diplomatic relations with 172 countries, which is actually one more than the United States Government. The Vatican State therefore is richer and more powerful than the United States government says religious historian John Peter Pham.

“The Vatican, where the Pope resides, is not just simply a spiritual power for Roman Catholics or a moral power for the non-Catholic world, it is a significant political presence," says Michael Higgins. "[If] you're talking in terms of influence, being an important player at the board when it comes to negotiations, being taken as a serious neutral voice on political and moral affairs, it's very difficult to be a serious competitor with the Vatican.”

In addition to that diplomatic network, the geopolitical significance of a community, a faith community of over a billion adherents around the globe serviced by a network of well over 4,000 bishops and 1,000,000 priests mean not only wealth and glory, but also world power.

Many world leaders still go out of their way to be seen with the Pope. Not just because he's a greater symbol, but because the Vatican is where the higher leaders of the world converge.

The Catholic church as the sole owner of the Vatican bank is the biggest financial power, wealth accumulator, and property owner in existence anywhere throughout the world today.

In the months ahead, let us all hope and pray that the Vatican financial power will help rescue the world economy from its financial woes! After all, the World Bank and the Vatican Bank are one and the same bank married together with children known as the IMF, the Federal Reserve Board of the USA, and indeed, the Bank of America. Poch Suzara

The Richer and the Poorer

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The bishops of the Catholic church, the Manalos of Iglesia Ni Cristo, Mike Velarde of El Shaddai, Eddie Villanueva of Jesus is Lord Movement, and Eli Soriano of Dating Daan, etc. couldn’t give a hoot about the poor getting poorer. This is due to the fact that these religious leaders are amongst the rich getting richer while the poor – their believers and followers - are the ones getting poorer. Poch Suzara

Belief

A belief cannot be true here but false there. If a belief were false anywhere, it is false everywhere.

Contradict yourself and you are sure to be wrong. Not giving importance for deadly contradiction is the same thing as not giving importance for serious communication that delivers lively confirmation.

We unbelievers know what we are talking about. The believers, however, do not even know what “knowing” means.

We unbelievers enjoy the flexibility of intellectuality. You believers are only stuck in the fixity of a falsity especially as you all believe that human stupidity has some connection with infinity as inspired by the mystery of a divinity always in cahoots with deviltry. Poch Suzara

Mankind’s Greatest Enemy

Religion, in Latin, means - “to tie back, to fasten or bind together.” No, mankind’s greatest enemy has never been religion, but superstition more known as Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Each proved that there is wealth, power, and glory to be achieved not by promoting peace on earth and goodwill for one another, but by propagating hate and war against each other for the glory of God. What could be more superstitious than that? Poch Suzara

No Happy Ending

In this life, there is no such thing as a happy ending. We all end up dead whether we like it or not. Unless of course resting in peace while being utterly dead is a form of happiness then there is such as thing as a happy ending. Of course we all know there is no such thing as life in the hereafter. That is why we invented life after death called “the Kingdom of God in heaven”.

In the meantime, the religious morons of this world are all so frightened of the realization that after death, there will be nothing in store for any of us. As if it bothers any of us to realize the fact that for millions of years before birth, – there was also nothing in store for any of us. In fact, there wasn’t even a store. Poch Suzara

Jesus and His Resurrection

If Jesus possessed the power to get himself resurrected from death back to life, what was all that dramatic rigmarole about getting himself crucified dead on a piece of wood for the sins of the world to begin with? Moreover, if Jesus possessed the power to resurrect Himself back to life from death, why should he cry out loud on the cross: MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAS THOU FORSAKEN ME? Poch Suzara

Jesus Born Perfect

If Jesus was born perfect, why was he born supot? The faith-healers of his days had to have him circumcised? Who disposed of his holy prepuce? The bible does not say as to what happened to it. Perhaps, the bible scholars can haunt for that bodily part of Jesus. After all, Jesus was the perfect Son of perfect God, wasn’t he? Poch Suzara

Jesus

Was Jesus a man of peace? Hardly. In fact, in the Gospels, Jesus displayed aggressive militarism quite contrary to his conventional image. Jesus announced that he came not to bring peace, but a sword.

In Luke 19:27, however, Jesus declares: “But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them for me.”

In Luke 22:36, Jesus “said unto them, but now, he that hath purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.” Such was Jesus – a man of war ready to die in battle, but not ready to question what it is that he willing to die for. Poch Suzara

Atheism

Atheism is not therapy but restored mental health. We atheists live in a world of reality, not fantasy. We do not hate to work, on the contrary, we love to work especially for the growth and maturity of human intelligence especially as it promotes human benevolence. If we do hate, however, we hate human stupidity, especially the kind that is the hidden agenda behind the ultimate purpose of education. The majority of our college educated men and women hate more learning. Thus, they hate more reading. Indeed, in our sick society, daily praying is always more respectable than daily reading. Bertrand Russell said: “If we must die, let us die sober, and not drunk with lies.” For my part, as I evolved to become an atheist, I have also ceased wasting my time and energy actively involved as a stupid participant in the rat race for salvation. Indeed, I care about this world. It is the only world we know and at the same time - have. Poch Suzara

Class-mates and School-mates

My La Salle class-mates and school-mates are shocked. They are horrified to hear what in recent years I have been publicly declaring, consistently, and fearlessly that: - I am no longer a Catholic. I have become an atheist. A devout heretic. Well, if they are shocked with me, I am even more shocked at them. These grown-up highly educated men are still pretty much active with the infantile prayer that every La Salle student uttered before and after every class during grade school, high school, and in college: “St. John Baptist De la Salle, pray for us.” “Live Jesus in our hearts, forever.” As I look into the hearts and minds of these college-educated men, what I sadly found there is not love of country; only love for divinity. Indeed, like a bunch of religious morons – they have more love for Jesus, the Son of God, and more love for Mary, the Mother of God than they do have love for their own mother, father, brothers, sisters, and yea, their own life also. I should know. I was once that kind of a religious sap myself when I was in grade school and eventually expelled out of La Salle high school. Poch Suzara

Couples For Christ

There are a variety of couples existing in our sick society. The most popular one is well known everywhere as The Couples for Christ in Divinity.

None, however, exist at all, known as the Couples for Social Sanity. Especially since the 16th century to help remedy nationally perpetual stupidity out of our God-forsaken only Christian country in this already 21st century. Poch Suzara

Jesus in History

If Jesus was a real historical character, how come the angels and demons who played important roles in the life of Jesus never got to be historical characters themselves?

The bible tells us that Jesus was born in a Jewish land as the Jewish Son of a Jewish God. Could any of you explain how we Filipinos born in the Philippines could have anything historical to do with the Jews as they are the Chosen People of a Jewish God?

In the meantime, what’s the big deal about God the Father is omni-present, but Jesus the Son of God is omni-absent? How holy is the holy Trinity if its members are seldom present together united on earth as it is in heaven? Poch Suzara