Manny Almario on Rizal as an Atheist

You assert that there is no indication of Rizal being an atheist agnostic in his writings. Now here are quotes from his Fourth Letter to Father Pastells: "Well now my faith in God, if faith be the right word for the outcome of a reasoning process, is blind, blind inasmuch as it knows nothing. I neither believe nor disbelieve in the qualities which many attribute to god, and I can only smile at the definitions and elucubrations of theologians and philosophers, concerning this ineffable and instrutable being. I have this conviction that I stand before the Supreme Problem ... "I do not believe ... in any revelations which each religion claims to possess. [That should include Bible.] Upon impartial and careful study, one cannot but discern in these revelations the human imprint and the marks of the times in which they were written. No indeed. Man makes his own god according to his own image and then attributes to him his own works, much like the Polish magistrates who used to choose their king only to impose their will on him. .... "I believe in revelation, but in the living revelations of nature which surrounds us everywhere, in the voice speaking out through nature -- powerful, eternal, unceasing, incorruptible, clear, distinct, universal as the Being from which it comes." (Translation by Raul J. Bonoan, S.J.) To Rizal, therefore, nature and god are one. Each created the other. Nature created man and man created god. The above passage showed Rizal an agnostic, and therefore an atheist. Poch Suzara