Life as More Precious than Death

Frightened believers tell me that they believe in God because it "gives meaning to their lives." Well, during my youthful years, I too believed in God. However, I hardly felt life's meaning; on the contrary, I felt the burden of guilt that crippled my mind and heart. The terror made me live uselessly like a frightened subservient moron. I only loved divinity up there. I did not give a hoot for humanity nor had I any kind of love for my country down here. Under the influence of great fear, like a good soldier, I had the courage to die gallantly in battle; but I had no courage at all to question what it was really that I will die for. In brief, RELIGION as the most important of all subjects - I was educated to never think for myself. In fact, I was warned to read not the bible. Well, as a teenager, I did. I began to see slowly and learned gradually the lies and deceptions - the illusion, confusion, and delusion that characterize our spiritual poverty as the Sick Man of Asia in the Philippines. In the ultimate analysis, I managed, somehow, to save my precious mind and heart; NOT my silly soul. Indeed, at the age of 14 I slowly began to appreciate not only the sanity, but also the beauty and the dignity of enjoying not freedom OF religion, but freedom FROM religion. We humans live in a world of extreme poverty, hunger, and preventable diseases. Today, in this already 21st century, more than TWO BILLION people are still without access to safe drinking water, without sanitation facilities. And to think that the bible says proudly that "God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have life everlasting." John 3:16. And that in the meantime, we must only wait, like crippled faithfools, for the Second Coming of the Son of God Jesus who will remedy the ills of our historicaly blessed by God society? Poch Suzara