Mission in Life - Dear FR. Shay Cullen, Preda

Dear Fr. Shay Cullen, Preda, I do not believe in the existence of a supreme Being. I do, however, believe in the existence of great men and women. Great individuals who had the courage to put beauty into this world, our world, where nature has put only horror. One such great man, the greatest as far as I am concerned was Bertrand Russel - mathematician, logician, philosopher, historian, pacifist, teacher, professor, lecturer, atheist, agnostic, humanist, author of some 98 published books, Nobel Prize Winner, freethinker, freedom-fighter, and one of the Fathers of the Computer Industry. Aside from teaching me how to commit myself to humane values, especially in the pursuit of the truth, Bertrand Russell also taught me how to love, respect, and admire another great man - the greatest of Filipino thinkers in Philippine history - Dr. Jose Rizal. By the power and authority of Christianity, Dr. Jose Rizal was arrested, incarcerated, and publicly executed by the same enemy of the Filipinos as a people then and now still existing keeping the Philippines frightened traditionally, damaged culturally, poor spiritually, bankrupt morally, and corrupt politically as a nation. Bertrand Russell wrote: "The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge." In his mission in life, here are the words he wrote in - WHAT I HAVE LIVED FOR "Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair. I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found. With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved. Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer. This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me." With all good wishes, Poch Suzara Twitter# Google# Atheist# Facebook#