AS ATHEISTS

As atheists, we have made our point clear. Our outrage is not directed against this or that war-like nation, Jews or Gentile, Muslim or Christian, but is aimed at the psycho-neurosis called religion, the most harmful idea ever conceived by the superstitious crackpots of the ancient world. Religion is an evil responsible for more deaths than all the plagues combined. As atheists, our clearly expressed outrage is against that superstition that has brought man nothing but fear, suffering, death, turmoil including the whole gang of raving lunatics such as the Robertsons and the Grahams and the burning Bushes of this world. Poch Suzara

Jerry Lewis

I met Jerry Lewis at his home in Beverly Hills, California in l967. He had already heard about me from my sister. Especially about my activism having been primarily responsible for setting up the Philippine branch of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation in l964. We were then struggling against the Vietnam War in particular; and, against the concept of war as a way of settling international disputes in general.
Jerry’s greeting words to me: “Hi there, Poch – you poverty-stricken Filipino!” I retorted: “Hi there, Jerry – you rich-stricken Jew!” Jerry looked at my sister, laughingly said: “I like this brother of yours.” Jerry indeed, is a great comedian and, I must add, on and off the stage - a great man.
I salivated with envy as I was particularly impressed with him not because he was such a world famous Hollywood celebrity, but because of his huge personal library of great books. A few he himself had authored.
His son Gary of the Playboys, an equally famous singer and rock drummer ( I am a jazz drummer myself ) married my sister - Jinky. Sadly, it did not turn out to be a happy matrimony. After three years, it ended in a divorce. Both, however, have an only daughter – Sara. She is married now with two children – the first two great-grandkids of Jerry Lewis
Since 1966, every Labor Day, the Jerry Lewis Telethon has already raised more than a BILLION DOLLARS to fight and to find the cure for Muscular Dystrophy – a disorder of the skeletal muscles characterized by weakness.
Despite the existence of the American Medical Association, and the Food and Drug Administration, and its partner in business – the American Pharmaceutical industry that’s dearly protected by the Federal Trade Commission - there are more cases of Muscular Dystrophy victims in America today than ever before. Hopefully, the cure is just around the corner.
For my part, though I have neither the ability nor the popularity to raise billions, I too, have been fighting, in my own little ways, to find a cure of a disease of the worst kind. It continues to infect a great many people worldwide. It is called religion – born of fear and ignorance and superstition. Indeed, religion is what is keeping our world poor spiritually and backward scientifically. In America, a billion dollars can be raised for healing, but trillions of dollars are readily available for killing. Thanks to religion and its ability to spread more fear, ignorance, and superstition everywhere throughout our world.
In the meantime, Jerry Lewis continues his own fight to help financially find the cure for muscular dystrophy in America one day. I ardently wish him more power and success in his humanitarian works and dedication. Poch Suzara

A Word Missing

There is one last word missing in God’s 5th command - Thou shalt not kill. At the rate the human heart has been more proned to hate than to love in this world since the beginning, the one last word missing in God’s 5th command is the word: - HATE. Poch Suzara

The Supernatural

The problem with the existence of the supernatural is that it exists only outside the human brain! How could we possibly believe in the existence of the supernatural that does not even exist inside our brain? How come, on the day we arrived on this earth, none of us had brain to know anything about the existence of the supernatural? Poch Suzara

Women in the Bible

Woman as written in the bible is depicted as the main cause of the Fall of Man, and why men are corrupt and depraved. This is obvious in the Old and in the New Testament. When Jesus, however, said, love one another, he was referring to men, not to women. Poch Suzara

Stephen Hawking

Is a brilliant scientist on a wheelchair who writes books with his brilliant mind even as his body fails him. In his Brief History of Time, Hawking wrote: “Throughout the 70s I had been mainly studying black holes, but in 1981 my interest in questions about the origin of and fate of the universe was reawakened when I attended a conference on cosmology organized by the Jesuits in the Vatican. The Catholic Church had made a bad mistake with Galileo when it tried to lay down the law on the question of science, declaring that the sun went round the earth. Now centuries later, it has decided to invite a number of experts to advise it on cosmology. At the end of the conference the participants were granted an audience with the pope. He told us that it was all right to study the evolution of the universe after the big bang, but we should not inquire into the big bang itself because that was the moment of Creation and therefore the work of God. I was glad then that he did not know the subject of the talk I had just given at the conference – the possibility that space-time was infinite but had no boundary, which means that it had no beginning, no moment of Creation.”
In this world, we have, no doubt, monuments to human mediocrity; but we certainly do also have men of science like a Stephen Hawking who is a monument to the human spirit. Poch Suzara

God and Allah

One would think that after all these past centuries of conflict and misunderstanding, God and Allah would have already smoked the peace pipe to enjoy peace and goodwill with each other. Both should have already inspired their respective followers – the Christians and the Muslims to stop the hate and the killing of each other for the glory of the either. But no! These supernatural brats apparently want to remain like a couple of supernatural brats for the rest of eternity.
I beg of you Christians and Muslims – why don’t you dump your respective beliefs and stop emulating supernatural childishness? Neither God nor Allah is worth loving or dying for. Let’s all live in peace together and have faith in each other for the sake of global sanity. Let's all enjoy peace on earth and goodwill to all men for the sake of our human family. Poch Suzara

Only in the Philippines

We start everything with a prayer. We end everything with a prayer. Indeed, in this only Christian country in Asia, when all else fail, we only say more prayers. After all, what is important to us is our faith in divinity. Never mind the failure of our values or the success of social insanity in this Asia's only Christian country. Poch Suzara

There is Nothing Wrong

There is nothing wrong with either the admission or the belief that something exists beyond our understanding. What is ludicrous, however, is when we love, worship, and adore that something, specially if everyone else knows absolutely nothing about that something. Poch Suzara

National Catholic Almanac

According to the National Catholic Almanac, “God” is defined as “Almighty, Eternal, Holy, Immortal, Immense, Immutable, Ineffable, Infinite, Invisible, Just, Loving, Merciful, Most High, Most Wise, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent, Patient, Perfect, Provident, Supreme, and Incomprehensible.
I ask: If God were incomprehensible, how did any one come to know about the twenty-two other supernatural qualities of God. Poch Suzara

A Logical Unity

“A logical unity,” wrote Bertrand Russell, “is at once a strength and a weakness. It is a strength because it insures that whoever accepts one stage of the argument must accept all later stages. It is a weakness because whoever rejects any of the later stages must also reject some, at least, of the earlier stages.”
For my part, I reject the earlier stages of what’s written in the Old Testament, and I therefore cannot accept the later stages of what's written in the New Testament. It is as simple as that. Poch Suzara

Generosity

Giving away things you might need in the future is the true measure of generosity. Otherwise, giving away things you want discarded is not generosity. It is a mockery of charity. It is a form of religious vulgarity. Poch Suzara

If we only Knew

If we only knew for certain that there is life after death, and that death is more superior than life, then suicide should be a happy remedy out of human misery. We fear death, however, because we know absolutely nothing of its aftermath, if any. At any rate, how can the dead human body decomposing and rotting recognize and enjoy at same time the lively experience of life after death?
For my part, instead of contemplating on death, I would rather try and substantiate the words of a famous atheist – Bertrand Russell: “I consider old age a time to struggle for human decency – like any other.” Poch Suzara

The Theologian versus the Philosopher

The philosopher values the life of the mind. The theologian, on the other hand, values the life of the soul. Unfortunately for the theologian, the soul cannot be understood without the power of the intellect. The philosopher therefore is a far more superior thinker than the theologian can ever hope to be. Poch Suzara

The Creative Mind

In the material sense, a man may be worth something. But if he remains thoughtless to the good life – one inspired by love and guided by knowledge, his life in the end will be worth nothing. It is not worldly possessions, but the creative mind that is clearly the major aspect of who or what we are that matters. Francis Bacon admonished: “Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied, or its loss will not be felt.” Poch Suzara

Passport to the Next Life

It’s easy to apply for a passport issued by the church to travel to the next life. All that’s required is baptism in holy water. What’s hard to acquire, however, is the visa to go to heaven. It requires a lifetime of fear, ignorance, pain, suffering, misery, poverty, stupidity, and indeed, insanity. And to think that everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. Poch Suzara

The Greatest Failures in Life

The greatest failures in life are those who live with the right answers to wrong questions. The greatest success, however, are those who question everything as the answers, with few exceptions, in time, become obsolete. Only the few have the courage to question what has always been taken for granted. The many, always living in fear, question nothing. Indeed, they hate the power of a question. What they love is faith. Faith has the power to make people timid comfortably, if not lazy mentally. In the Philippines, however, faith has even been quite a success as the engine generating the failure of our values that is promoting the success of what makes us the Sick Man of Asia. Poch Suzara

Notice

Ever notice how God is never around each time he is needed or wanted. Even his son Jesus, who took on a human form, after a few years on this earth, some two thousand years ago, decided to disappear out of sight away from everybody!
In the meantime, churches are empty on Sundays in European countries. It is the same situation in the United States. The ones who still go to church, however, are the Filipinos. They do not believe that God is everywhere. We have been taught to believe that God can be found, somehow, only inside a church or a cathedral. Poch Suzara

On Being Negative

Those who fought to abolish slavery were considered “negative” by the slave traders. Indeed, slavery was eventually abolished by those who were negative toward the evil business of slave trading. For my part, I am known to be “negative” too in my fight to abolish religious teachings in our schools, colleges, and universities. I would rather be “negative” in the eyes of the religious morons spreading silly faith in the supernatural that's keeping us selfish, greedy, stupid, and insane as a sick and a corrupt society as ever. Poch Suzara

Knowledge is Power

Knowledge is power; but that’s only half true. The other half that is true is when knowledge is put into effect. It then becomes a real power which is defined as the production of desired effects. Poch Suzara

A Strong Leader for the Philippines?

It is highly recommended that Jesus Christ be the one and only strong leader for Filipinos. As if Jesus Christ, who was not born in the Philippines, should have anything to do with Filipino values and beliefs.
Jesus Christ was born in Israel that today is not even a Christian country. It is a Jewish State. If Jesus Christ, who was himself a Jew, was never a leader in his own country, how and why should he be a leader in the Philippines? As a matter of fact, where is Jesus Christ? He is not even in Israel today? Nobody knows where Jesus is! Even the Filipino bishops do not know his whereabouts!
What we need in this country is not a strong leader but a strong system of education that gives birth to a strong people and, indeed, a strong nation. Unfortunately, our system of education has nothing to do with science developing the human intelligence. Learning in our schools, colleges, and universities is mostly about religion: - the preparation for the next life; or, worst, about the preparation for the coming of the Lord who will solve all our troubles and problems in this life. Poch Suzara

Family Planning Bill 3773

It is not surprising that there are many who find nothing but the devil’s work in the Family Planning Bill 3773. These are the same fellow-Filipinos who remain obedient to God’s command, especially the 4th: - Honor thy mother and father. Even if millions of the nation’s children exist filthy poor and malnourished in the streets of our major cities.
As if strength of high moral character or even a high I.Q. is a requirement to bring forth children into this world. Consider the physical position that a man and a woman must assume in order to multiply and replenish the earth: It has got to be one of the most contorted positions mindlessly designed by would-be mothers and fathers.
Honor is not something freely given. It is deserved as it is earned with dignity.
In the meantime, it is not a crime in the Philippines to let children live off garbage in the streets of our sick society. But if these poor children somehow survive and grow to up to be rebellious citizens embracing anti-democratic or even anti-religious values, it is not a crime to have them killed or salvaged by the military as that is “war” in defense of freedom and democracy.
As a people, we have yet to get beyond the so-called sanctity of life, and begin to understand and appreciate the quality of human life in the Philippines.
Forget the promises of those allies in the sky. Let’s start paying attention to needs of humanity. Where is our sense for common human decency? Must we really be all that perpetually serious promoting the success of our social insanity? Poch Suzara

The five senses

The five senses – feeling, seeing, tasting, smelling, and hearing - basic in man as taught to us in school during our formative childhood years have turned out to be not scientific at all. There are more.
Notice how not every one has a sense of rhythm or a sense of melody or a sense of harmony to become a musician; or possessed with a sense of power like most of the corrupt politicians in government? Or the sense of clarity in a philosophical pursuit. Or the sense of symmetry on a dance floor? Notice as well one’s sense of intellectual balance to become not a fanatic. Scientists discovered these additional senses in man. The original five senses were purely the conclusion of the obsolete theology based upon the virtues of religious mediocrity and not based upon the pursuit of veracity. Poch Suzara

Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell considered religion as a disease born of fear and a source of untold misery to the human race.
To think that the atheists in the United States today are frightened by the theists. So much so that American Atheists no longer want to identify themselves as atheists, but as “rational.” They do not want to hurt the feelings of the superstitious leaders, specially those in charge of the US government. What’s happened to America? Is it still the land of the free and the home of the brave? Poch Suzara

The Failure of our Values

If what is happening in our sick society were due to the will of divinity, it follows that as the Sick Man of Asia, we must be just as sick as the angels in heaven we all love; and, we are also just as sick as the demons in hell we all fear. Religion, indeed, is a disease born of fear and ignorance and has certainly been the main cause of the failure of values generating the success of political stupidity, cultural depravity, and social insanity in the Philippines. Poch Suzara

My Greatest Achievement in Life

I was able to engineer my own expulsion out of high school. It paved the way clear for me to seek not only the answers to my own questions, but precisely to formulate for myself better kinds of questions that my mediocre teachers in school ignored, if not disparaged, or even, at times, ridiculed. Imagine the power of education not as a matter of learning the right answer to stupid questions but simply to learn as a lifetime adventure - how to always ask intelligent questions! Poch Suzara

Filipino Progress

Filipino progress can only be born of questions and doubts. Barren of questions and other inquiries the TREE OF FILIPINO PROGRESS will never grow.
In this only Christian country in Asia, we are, indeed, a grace in the rat-race for salvation. We should be more of a grace in the race for civilization. Poch Suzara

Curiosity

Curiosity killed the cat. At least, before the animal died, it had a sense of curiosity. Most humans are killed, especially in war, not to satisfy their sense of curiosity, but to die in battle to promote political stupidity, if not to generate religious insanity. Poch Suzara

A Simple Truth

If God never listens to the Pope’s prayer to deal with the existence of the devil, why should God listen to your silly prayers to deal with existence of a Poch Suzara?

I am Told

I am told to fear not the future because God is already there. But if God has not been here in the present nor there in the past, why should God be anywhere in the future? To play more Hide and Seek games? Poch Suzara

How to Read

I loved the Christian Brothers at De la Salle University. They taught me HOW to read. Then I hated them. They dictated to me WHAT to read. And to think that these teachers were the same religious crackpots who also frightened me to believe that God gifted man with a free will. Poch Suzara

According to Christian Beliefs

According to Christian belief humans are depraved and corrupt. If this were true, why would God have a depraved human for a Mother and have a corrupt human for a Son? But then again, If Jesus and Mary were such exceptionally decent people, why didn’t God create them in the beginning? Why create a depraved Adam and a corrupt Eve to turn out guilty of the original sin? And to think that both Adam and Eve were never taught of the Lord’s Prayer: “Give us this day our daily bread, and lead us not into temptation.” Poch Suzara

I love Atheism

Atheism is not the rejection of natural morality. It is the rejection of supernatural morality as concocted by silly deviltry begat by theology. Poch Suzara

If God does not Exists

If it were proved that God does not exist – would it be still necessary to be an atheist? Oh yes, it would still be necessary to be an atheist. Look how the Christians and the Muslims have been cutting each other’s throats? Only because one tells the other: Thou shalt have no other gods before me! If we were all atheists – there will be peace on earth and goodwill to all men. Atheists do not kill other atheists to prove to each other that God does not exist. In fact, in all of man's
history, there never was a war declared by the atheists against the theists. It was always the other way round - killing atheists by the theists always pleased the good God. What a bunch of barbaric morons!
Poch Suzara

Death In Religious War

In a religious war, dead Christians is God’s plan to populate Christians in Heaven; and, dead Muslims is Allah’s plan to populate Muslims in Paradise.
As an atheist, I hope both God and Allah will grow up sooner and learn to stop playing deadly games against each other. Both supernatural beings are achieving nothing lively or even anything healthy. It is just plain terrestrial insanity. Poch Suzara

Bertrand Russell

A great many Christians believed Bertrand Russell was an evil man devoid of gratitude with God who created him.
Indeed, Bertrand Russell did not waste his life having faith in mediocrity or praying daily to a divinity. He had no taste for theology as he was a great man of logic, mathematics, and philosophy.
Russell devoted 70 years of his life in the search of the truth. He was honest and frank to admit his failure in not having found the truth. He said others might find if we can all continue to search for the truth. As for the rest of his life, since he died at the age of 98, he devoted much of his days struggling for world peace. Russell hated the nuclear bomb. He organized the “ban the bomb” international movement. He was always on the side of humanity. He was never prepared to meet universal death to prove the stupidity behind global insanity. Poch Suzara

Mental Torture

The most painful kind of mental torture a thoughtless man can experience in life is to think that he could himself do a little thinking. Poch Suzara

The Irony of a Stupid Man

The irony of a stupid man is that he actually has the intelligent impression that everybody else is just as stupid as he is. Poch Suzara

Genesis

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void: and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. “
I ask: where was the inspired author located while he was actually reporting creation then going on? Did he actually see or hear God said, Let there be Light? Poch Suzara

Cathedral

A cathedral is grand work of art with great building materials erected with engineering skills. But isn’t God already everywhere on this planet and already present in the billions upon billions of galaxies. Why would the Supreme Being need
a House of God established on this tiny atom called earth? Isn't a cathedral a monument to human stupidity? Poch Suzara

Theology

Theology has been in a bankrupt state of affairs during the last many decades that the most the theologians can do these days is to brag that it was they were the first who discovered the power of science. What a pathetic and a dishonest group of liars these theologians are! Ever since the birth of science, the theologians have not ceased envying, hating, fighting, opposing, threatening, imprisoning, torturing, burning at the stake, hanging, and executing men of science. In the Philippines, our own national hero - Jose Rizal was indeed executed by the Spanish theologians.
Bertrand Russell wrote it simply: “Science, while it diminishes our cosmic pretensions, enormously increases our terrestrial comfort. This is why, in spite of the hs of the theologians, science has on the whole been tolerated.” Poch Suzara

Religion

It is the greatest evil that continues to keep our world in the dark. Religion has crippled the minds of children, distorted the minds of men, and twisted the hearts of women. No doubt, religion teaches one to be good; unfortunately, to be good for nothing. Look where faith has taken the human race since God knows when? In this 21st century, the majority of people still need to have faith in a lot superstition nonsense in order to feel that life has meaning. Poch Suzara

The new name is "Rational"says Marshall Brain

The new name is "Rational" says Marshall Brain:

It is time for us to recognize as a society that there is no such thing as an atheist. Let me help you understand why this is the case.

Do you believe in Leprechauns? Probably not, because Leprechauns are imaginary. Yes, there are lots of books, movies and fairy tales dealing with Leprechauns. People talk about Leprechauns all the time. Leprechauns even have a popular brand of breakfast cereal. But that does not mean that Leprechauns exist.

We know that Leprechauns are imaginary. Why? Because there is noevidence for their existence. Despite all the publicity Leprechauns get, normal people dismiss storybook creatures like Leprechauns as myths, and rightly so.

If you do not believe in Leprechauns, what are you? Are you an aleprechaunist? Of course not. You are normal. People who do not believe in Leprechauns are completely normal.The new name is "Rational"

In just the same way that we don't use the word aleprechaunist to describe the people who do not believe in Leprechauns, we should not need the word atheist. We should be able to say, "I am a normal person" and be done with it.

The problem is that, in America today, if you say, "I am a normal person," what everyone assumes is that you mean, "I am a Christian." Currently we are a minority, and as long as we are a minority we need a name.

It is time to choose a new name for those of us who know that all human gods are imaginary. There are two good reasons for picking a new name. First, the word atheist is overloaded with extraneous meaning right now, most of it negative. Second, there is no reason to define ourselves as the opposite of theists.

My response:

This is about more frightened childish nonsense. Leprechauns hold no power over schools, colleges, universities, including governments, especially the US government today. Leprechauns hold no power over the minds of men and the hearts of women as the belief in A SUPERNATURAL BEING does. We atheist must fight evil no matter how religious evil is. Atheists should stop hiding inside the rational closet. Come and out and fight the evil that is perpetually keeping our world in hate and in war - this belief in the existence of a good God. We atheists must never be ruled by the theists. To begin with, we must never shy away from the word ATHEIST. For my part, I thank God I am an ATHEIST. Poch Suzara

Gearing Towards Economic Recovery

In his piece published in the Philippine Star today, Vicente G. Roxas wrote: “Efforts should be geared towards the satisfactory solution of the current economic crisis through an increase in productive capacity and productivity which will generate our overall production in the three sectors: the Agro-industry, the Agro-Business and Technical Vocational Education and Training Program. To attain the objective, the following policy guidelines or measures may prove helpful: “Love yourself and country next to God. It is quite unfortunate that a good number of our fellow countrymen do not put this into practice. Apparently, what they do believe is love GOD next to yourself or to your country, obviously for self-aggrandizement.”
I ask Mr. Roxas: have you heard of Filipinos who got filthy rich for believing that God is bad? And yet, millions upon millions of Filipinos are filthy poor for believing that God is good! Perhaps, as an expert economist, Mr. Roxas can further expound why our stupid economy should have any connection with our stupid theology? Poch Suzara

Top Filipino Economists

Top Filipino economists are still insisting, as a matter of fantasy, that the biggest problem confronting the nation today is how to pay our external old debt of $65 billion dollars.
These economists are not even ashamed of themselves. As a matter of reality, our biggest problem is how to catch and put in jail those corrupt officials in government that made such loans not to benefit the nation, but to deposit into their personal bank accounts such foreign loans. Well, more loans are needed for the nation and, as we are acquiring more loans, how come the nation is getting poorer and sinking deeper into the economic quagmire?
As a matter of reality, however,, the biggest problem of the nation is the population explosion. Two million babies are born every year in the Philippines. Whatever economic productivity, if any, we may achieve, it will be just eaten up by more mouths to feed. Thus, instead of the higher, only the lower standard of living.
The trouble with our God-fearing, college-educated and faith-soaked economists is that they feel so blessed by God. Specially when they see Filipinos smiling and proud of their lower standard of thinking. As if with our poverty as a people and bankruptcy as a nation God will continue to bless this Pearl of the Orient Seas – the only Christian country in Asia.
It is all about the same stupid economy in cahoots with stupid theology year in and year out: the religious insanity ever playing the major role to keep up with the economic insanity of this God-forsaken country. After all, according to our Christian values and beliefs, the more we suffer, the more sacrifices we make for the Lord, the chances are better for the Philippnes to remain forever famous as the only Christian country in Asia. Poch Suzara

A Thinking Filipino

For a great many years, I prayed daily on my bended knees but received no response. Then I started to think daily with my head.
It got me into more responsible thinking. As a grown-up man, I no longer bother with childish prayers. I gave up trying to change the mind of God. God, after all, is immutable. Poch Suzara

Faith

Religions in general and Christianity in particular have always been an impediment to our growth as a people and to our development as a nation. Consider faith: how it has crippled the Filipino mind. Faith has subverted our natural ability to question, to learn, to discover, and indeed even to love one another and to love our country. In fact, due to faith, we have never ceased praying to Mary, the Mother of God, to pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death, amen. For my part, I think it's unfair that in the eyes of Mary, the mother of God, she has not ceased looking at Filipinos as having no purpose in life other than just be sinners in the Philippines. Poch Suzara

The Immortal Soul

God in heaven will judge the immortal human soul that all this time apparently could see, hear, taste, feel, and smell. But if that were the case, why would the immortal soul need a mortal human body on earth to begin with? More to the point: if God created heaven for happiness and created earth for unhappiness, why bother to create earth for unhappiness to begin with? Poch Suzara

Hereafter and Herebefore

I never worry about the hereafter because I never worry about the herebefore. I do not recall existing before I was born. If I never existed before birth, why should I worry about not existing after death? Immortality of my personality is neither a feasibility nor a possibility. It is, in fact, a ridiculosity. Poch Suzara

Free Will

If God gifted man with a Free Will, why would his first command be – Thou Shalt have no other gods before me? Who are those other gods? Where did they come from? Who created them? Were they not gifted with Free Will as well? As the song goes . . . what's going on? Poch Suzara

Dangerous to Society

“It is not disbelief that is dangerous to our society; it is belief.” George Bernard Shaw. This is right on target. May I, however, add: especially if we respect such beliefs that are baseless, aimless, rudderless, reckless, and thoughtless. Poch Suzara

As An Atheist

As an atheist, I do not retreat in the face of threats or punishments dispensed by theocratic terrorists. They are only more interested in protecting their own power and glory indulging in their vanity. Theocratic terrorists do not care to promote humanitarian ideals for the happiness of the human community in the here and the there nor in the hear and the now. Poch Suzara

Jesus and Education

And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. Matt. 18:2-3 It is obvious that Jesus did not give a hoot about the value education.
For my part, I have no wish to go to heaven. I do not wish to enjoy happiness in the company of little children happy with immaturity for the rest of eternity.
On this earth, however, I would rather listen to Bertrand Russell: Most children wish to know until they go to school; in many cases it is bad teaching that make them stupid and uninquiring.
In the meantime, the bible totally contradicts Jesus: “My friends, stop thinking like children. Think like mature people.”
( 1 Corinthians 14:19 ). Poch Suzara

Reality and Fantasy

As an atheist, by merely being in touch with reality, I appear like a lost damned soul in the eyes of my God-fearing friends and relatives, specially as they are in closed touch daily with fantasy. Poch Suzara

All Religions

All religions of the world came from only one source:- God; unfortunately, God does not exist. Otherwise, if there is a God, there would only be one intelligent religion. There would be no need for the existence of many stupid religions that’s keeping our world wracked in mutual hatred. Poch Suzara

Honor Mother and Father

The 4th commandment: honor thy mother and father. I ask: how exactly could a son or a daughter obey this commandment of God if his or her father were a politician and mother is just one of the many wives of the politician who has also sired some other 27 illegitimate step-brothers and step-sisters? Oh yes, God’s 4th commandment - Honor thy Father and Mother- is a sick and an insane commandment. On the contrary, it is mothers and fathers who should love and honor each other as decent parents. In this way, no millions of street children need live like sick animals in the sick streets in our poor country – the only Christian country in Asia since 500 years ago. - Poch Suzara Google# Twitter# Facebook#

Why

Why something rather than nothing? Precisely. That something is the entire universe itself of which, as basic energy, we are all part of. As energy can neither be created nor destroyed, we will always be a part of that something.There is nothing outside the universe. We will always be a part of the universe, whether we like it or not. Forget nothing! It does not exist. Poch uzara

Yes, I am a Pinoy

Indeed, I am proud to be a Pinoy. I am happy to be a citizen of the Philippines. I am also proud to have Spanish, American, and Filipino blood in me.
The shame, however, is that we Pinoys continue to love, worship, and adore anything foreign specially a foreign God called Jesus who was never a Filipino as he was born in the land of Israel that today is not even a Christian country, but a Jewish State.
We Pinoys should have our own local God. May I suggest the thinkers and philosophers amongst Filipinos? How about Jose Rizal – our national hero – why don’t we start studying seriously and learn from this courageous Filipino thinker who said that it is better to be truthful to each other than continue spreading mediocre, if not sanctimonious, - lies about ourselves. Indeed, to love our country and not to love that pie in the sky by and by.
It is time we Pinoys stop the business of easy believing; instead, we should begin to appreciate hard and serious thinking. We should stop having faith in a lot of sacred nonsense, and begin instead to think for ourselves. It is not the responsibility of foreigners to think for Filipinos or to think for the Philippines. Poch Suzara

We Filipinos

We Filipinos must extricate ourselves up and out of our ancient superstition that’s only giving us more faith in sacred illusions, if not some other biblical delusions. Such evils need not be placed at the foundation of our essential beliefs and other social values.
That there is power in prayer has got to be among the first sacred concept that must be thrown out the window. Otherwise, in the centuries to come, if we continue to believe in the power of prayer, we Filipinos will just continue to accomplish the same nothing as a people, and we will just continue to achieve the same nothing as a nation. Indeed, we will just continue to oppose each other not for the sake of developing or accomplishing something, but only for the purpose of recycling to death the same nothing. Poch Suzara

Unsolved Mysteries of the Universe

In recognizing the unsolved mysteries of the universe, the scientist does not kneel down to supernatural explanations. He stands up to the natural explanations, if any. Otherwise, he suspends his judgment and seeks not obscurity, but evidence for the sake of clarity. In his “Brief History of Time,” Stephen Hawking wrote: “Ever since the dawn of civilization, people have not been content to see events unconnected and inexplicable. They have craved an understanding of the underlying order in the world. Today, we still yearn to know why we are here and where we came from. Humanity’s deepest desire for knowledge is justification enough for our continuing quest. And our goal is nothing less than a complete description of the universe we live in.” In the same book, Hawking also wrote: “So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor an end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator? Poch Suzara

The Wealth of the Catholic Church

The wealth of the Catholic Church in the Philippines comes mostly from its priests who can determine who will go to heaven or who will go to hell. If a Filipino died in a state of mortal sin, he will go to hell. If he died after the priest gives him extreme unction, he will go to heaven. Before reaching heaven, however, he must spend years suffering pain in Purgatory. The situation in Purgatory can be diminished considerably by indulgences which is money paid to the priest for saying mass for the souls of the dead. Holy Mass can be purchased wholesale or retail. There are discounts offered and therefore big saving to be made buying it wholesale. Billions of pesos that are then remitted each and every month to the Vatican State. Poch Suzara

Jesus – The Man

“Concerning his son Jesus Christ our Lord, which is made of the seed of David according to the flesh” – Romans 1:3 – meaning Joseph was his father; moreover, “God sent forth his Son, made of a woman,” – Galatian 4:4 – meaning Jesus was human with no reference whatsoever to the miracle of a divine virgin birth. And to think that this is the same Jesus who proclaimed that: I am the way, the truth, and the life: No man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” John 14:6. Was Jesus really a miracle worker? Did he perform major or just minor miracles. Take his resurrection, a minor miracle. It could have been a major event had he not allow others to get him crucified dead on the cross. Remember, Jesus could even walk on water or raised back to life the dead. Take again, the Second Coming – a minor miracle. If His mission on earth were a major miracle during the First Coming, what need is there for a Second Coming? And to think this promise was made some 2,000 years ago and it has yet to be delivered. Poch Suzara

MELCHISEDEC, King of Salem

“For this Melchisedec, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him. . . . Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God; abideth a priest continually.” Heb. 7:1. See also Genesis 14:18 Where is Melchisedec? How come no one has met or seen this fellow? Where on earth is he hiding? Why is he unwilling to share his fantastic experience in life with the rest of mankind? I, for one, would like to see Melchisedec reveal to us the Revealed Truth as written in the bible. Poch Suzara

My Former Classmates

My former classmates at De La Salle University laugh at me because I read a lot. I laugh because they only pray a lot. I read a lot to be rich in spirit. My former classmates pray a lot to be poor in spirit. In school, we have been taught to believe that to be poor in spirit is something of a grace from God.

Poverty of the mind is the worst kind of poverty. The greatest of wealth can only come from mental health. To be poor in spirit obviously means enjoying lies and deception and other forms of superstition. For my part, I enjoy searching for the truth. In the meantime, the success of social insanity in the Philippines is the exact reflection of what it means to be proud of one's so-called "education." Poch Suzara

1st AND 2nd WORLD WAR

The last two world wars were indeed fought by and among Christian nations: in the first, between England, France and the United States on one side, and Germany on the other. In the second, between Germany, Italy and (the only non-Christian) Japan on the other side and England, France, the United States and several other European countries on the other side. Yes, in these two world wars, the contending sides surely did pray to God for victory. The victorious then thanked God for listening to their prayers. The counties defeated prayed to God for vengeance.
Bertrand Russell wrote in his NEW HOPES FOR A CHANGING WORLD – that the painful thing “about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision.” Poch Suzara

ONLY IN THE PHILIPPINES

Steal small and you will end up in jail like a damned fool. Steal big, however, and you will be treated with respect and admiration. In fact, as a big-time thief, you immediately qualify to be a candidate for a high government position. And if you campaign by declaring yourself a man of deep faith in God, you have more chances to win in the elections by landslide. Poch Suzara

I AM AN ATHEIST

Yes, I am an atheist. I do not believe in the God of the Catholics; neither do I believe in the God of the Protestants. I also do not believe in the God of the Jews or the God of the Muslims or the God of the Hindus. I do not even believe in the God of the Americans – the Almighty DOLLAR. Consider the Millions of American families derailed and destroyed yearly due to the worship of this powerful American God. Poch Suzara

A GOOD TEST

“A good test of character: when we do wrong, who do we blame? Philippine Star, December 10, 2005.
Speaking for myself, I blame entirely the system of education. In school at De La Salle University, after having our minds twisted with fear and our hearts distorted with more fear, we were then taught to believe that God is always available at any time to forgive our sins and our crimes. As long as we do not miss going to confession regularly and not miss sunday Mass consistently where we can donate to the priesthood industry in the name of charity. Poch Suzara

A Critic Wrote

A critic wrote: God needs evil in this world in order to guarantee the freedom of man.
If this were true, I must assume that the devil too needs good in order to guarantee deviltry in this world. Is it any wonder that we all enjoy first class stupidity perpetually in the light of eternity? Poch Suzara

THE WORDS OF A SCIENTIST

Listen to the words of a scientist, a chemist, physicist, crystallographer, molecular biologist, and medical researcher, and atheist – the famous Linus Pauling: I had made many discoveries in chemistry and other fields of science and had even made some contributions to medicine, although it was not clear that these contributions would have much effect in decreasing the amount of suffering caused by disease. Now, I thought, I have learned about something that can decrease somewhat the amount of suffering for tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of people, something that had been noticed by other scientists and by some physicians but for some reason had been ignored. Linus Pauling – How to Live Longer and Feel Better.
Is there a match anywhere in the history of the church
when a theologian uttered the same sentiments? Poch Suzara

It is Incredible

It is incredible how the birth anniversary of Christ is highly celebrated in the Philippines, but not celebrated in Israel – the place where Christ was born.
It is more incredible, however, to see how the birth of our national hero Rizal not as equally celebrated in the Philippines – the place where Rizal was born. This is the same Rizal who was executed by the Catholic friars because he wrote books on the evils of the Church teaching the Filipino to love not the Philippines, neither the things that are in the Philippines. If the Filipino love the Philippines, the love of God is not with him. ( See John 2:15 ) Poch Suzara

ATHEISM IS NOT A RELIGION

The word religion comes from the Latin, religare, which means “to tie back, to fasten or to bind.” Another word for religion is theism which holds that there is a super-thing existing outside of nature, that it proves itself by miracles – which is the breakthrough of natural laws, that this super-thing has agents which communicates its wishes to people, that there is communication with the super-thing and it rewards the believers and punishes the unbelievers. Atheism, however, embraces none of this superstitious nonsense. There is nothing of religion that is associated with Atheism. We have no dogmas, no rituals, no gods, no priests, no worship, no prayer, no holy places, no churches, temples, no synagogues, and no miracles. Any dictionary or encyclopedia will tell you that religion is a system of attitudes, practices, rites, ceremonies and beliefs by means of which individuals or the community put themselves in relation to a god or to a supernatural world, and from which the religious person derives a set of values by which to judge events in the natural world. As an atheist, I embrace not only the freedom of religion; but I embrace even more - the freedom FROM religion. As an atheist, I kneel to no one. In this connection, I do not care to identify myself as an agnostic, a rationalist, ethical culturist, humanist, freethinker, objectivist, secularist, iconoclast, and whatever other gutless nomenclature you can find in the dictionary. I am atheist. Period. My dear reader, If you find that word hard to accept, then that is your positive problem; not mine. In the ultimate analysis, I say what we need in life is not a religion, but a philosophy – where faith is replaced with reason, where holy paralysis is replaced with lively analysis, where our useful book is the book called the world right here in front of us, and a sick written by sick authors of a sick God who came to visit earth thousands of years ago. Poch Suzara Twitter# Facebook# Google#

THE TROUBLE WITH RELIGION

The trouble with religion is that it makes us believe in the existence of a supernatural papa who will readily forgive us of our sins and crimes. Who will also give us strength to pray daily to him to give us this day our daily bread, and indeed, to lead us not into temptation. More devastating, however, religion makes us believe that such a supernatural papa created us in his own image and likeness. Poch Suzara

THE PROMISES OF JESUS

If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer. [Matthew 21:21]
If you ask anything in my name, I will do it. [John 14:14]
Ask, and it will be given you. [Matthew 7:7]
Nothing will be impossible to you. [Matthew 17:20]
Believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. [Mark 11:24]
What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. (Mark 11:24
The handicapped children without arms or legs in this country have prayed hard to Jesus to restore their lost limbs. So how come they are still handicapped? Where is the result from the power of prayer? How come the promises of Jesus have not been delivered? Where is Jesus? Poch Suzara

The POWER OF UNIVERSAL STUPIDITY

In God’s kingdom is the power of love. In the devil’s kingdom is the power of hate. In man’s kingdom is the power of fear. Combine the three kingdoms inextricably together and they all add up to the power of universal stupidity at home with infinity. Poch Suzara

God – With a Poor Memory

God is depicted in the bible as being angry that “man has become one of us, in knowing good from evil.” I ask: did God have a poor supernatural memory in that he totally forgot to remember that he made man in his own image and likeness? See Genesis 3:22. Poch Suzara

Psychics Vs Psychotics

Psychics claim they can talk to the dead. Psychotics claim God can talk to them. Indeed, the psychics and the psychotics are able to talk to each other but only about a lot of childish nonsense. As for me, please excuse me. I would rather hold on to my self-respect and dignity as a skeptic. Poch Suzara

The Good versus the Bad life

“The good life,” wrote Bertrand Russell, “is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.” Does it not follow that the bad life is one inspired by hate and war and fear and ignorance? Such evils have always been behind the great religions that have contributed much to what is bad in this world. In the future, there is a big chance, that is, if we do not wake up soon enough, the great religions armed with nuclear weapons will reduce the planet earth into a lunar landscape. . . We atheists should work harder to convince the whole of mankind to start looking at atheism as the best and only road toward world peace and tranquility; indeed toward our sense of common humanity globally. Poch Suzara

Modern Education

Modern education has to do with pupils learning from the teacher, but more so, it is about the teacher learning from his pupils. Academic freedom means opportunity to develop one’s talents and abilities. This is where the teacher plays an important role – exploring or discovering the talents and abilities of his pupils as great gifts from nature. Modern education does not mean recruiting the young to become members of this or that political party or to become members of this or that church or synagogue or temple or mosque. That is not modern education. That is harmful indoctrination. Poch Suzara

Too Complex

We can see the micro universe better and brighter with a microscope, and we can see the macro universe better and brighter with a telescope. It is sad, however, to meet college-educated men and women insisting that they see better and brighter both the world in the small and the world in the large with blessed by God horoscope. Poch Suzara Twitter# Facebook# Google#

STAYING and LEAVING

One in three Filipinos have hopes of moving to another country. That’s about 29 million Filipinos. At one million Filipinos migrating per year, it would take 29 years to move them all out. Of course, after 29 years, at 2.3 per cent growth per year, our population then will have reached more than 150 million Filipinos.
What can be expected of ourselves as a people who, during childhood days at home, we were taught to believe that God will provide? And in school, we were taught to believe not in the power of reason and science, but only to have faith in the power of prayer as among the best way to solve real problems and troubles in life?
In this 21st century, even our high officials in government have high hopes that the best answer to all of our problems is not via efficient and honest government, but only by searching for the revealed truths in the Old or the New Testament.
I remember my grandfather asking: “Where is the government of the Filipino, by the Filipino, and for the Filipino?” to think this was some 50 years ago. Today, as a grandfather myself, I find asking: What government?” Poch Suzara

Happy New What

December 31, 2013 Dear Friends and Relatives: At the end of each year, we all greet each other: - HAPPY NEW YEAR! Never, do we ever, greet each other with:- HAPPY NEW IDEAS or HAPPY NEW THOUGHTS or HAPPY NEW VALUES and or HAPPY NEW BELIEFS! Thus, every new year, it is the same old corruption around us everywhere. The same old corruption in our government, and in our churches, and in our other institutions, and indeed the same old corruption via education in our schools, colleges, and universities yearly producing college-educated men and women proud of corruption as a way of life in the Philippines. To each of you, for 2014, I greet you: HAVE A HAPPY NEW PHILIPPINES! I love you all. Poch Suzara

Our Asian Neighbors

The secret why other Asian countries are economically ahead of the Philippines is no secret at all. Our Asian neighbors have been substantiating to the fullest extent possible what Jose Rizal, the nation’s chief hero, was precisely saying to fellow-Filipinos more than a hundred years ago: “Wake up! Embrace science! Utilize the scientific way of thinking! Start to emulate the freethinkers! Knowledge is the heritage of mankind, but only the courageous inherit it! We can only serve our country by telling the naked truth. However bitter it may be!”
Indeed, in this center of Catholicism in Asia, we would rather have more beliefs in the power of prayer and theology than we should have more knowledge in the power of science and technology. Poch Suzara

Rizal’s Revolution of the Mind

Unlike the rest of our national heroes, Rizal was the first and only Filipino revolutionary of the mind. He was the first Filipino who thought that human dignity and intellectual integrity should be solid as the foundation of Filipino culture. Owing to the successful retraction lies, however, Filipinos today believe Rizal not as a great humanist or a great freethinker, not even as a great man of intellectual capacity, but only as a faithful silly servant of the priesthood industry. Poch Suzara

Rizal’s Biographer

Rizal’s biographer – Leon M. Guerrero, clearly notes that Rizal returned to the Church of his youth in extremes of self-abasement, frenziedly in childlike fashion, spending the remaining hours of earning indulgences from purgatory by confessing four times, and obsequiously attending to Fr. Balaguer and Villaclara’s wishes. In brief, according to this biographer, Rizal died as a timid coward. Indeed, according to this official government commissioned biographer, our national hero in the end turned out to be a turncoat.
But then again, four years before his death, Rizal in 1882 wrote a letter to Gregorio Aglipay: “In all parts of the world where an honest man tries to achieve reform he is crucified on Golgotha. Christ had nowhere to lay his head, when Pilate governed. It is probable that I will be executed – then they will try to bring along my moral death by covering my memory with slander.” Poch Suzara

The Shame in Rizal’s Life

The shame in Rizal’s life is not the retraction of his deeds, writings or personal conduct. Such retraction was only a frailocratic figment of the imagination. The real shame comes from the Filipino historians and other Catholic writers who believed not in Rizal’s power of intellect, but believed instead his enemies – the friars – who invented sacred lies about this great man. Via the control of the system of education in the Philippines, these friars have and still are blocking, expediently and consistently, Rizal’s qualified and legitimate entry into the world stage as one of mankind’s greatest thinkers. But then again how can the world learn of Rizal’s intellectual power if the Filipinos themselves know so little of the health and wealth of this great 19th century Filipino scientists and thinker and writer? Poch Suzara

Santo Thomas University and Ateneo

Rizal was a product of Ateneo and Santo Thomas; yet both Catholic universities continue to assassinate the character of this great humanist thinker. Rizal had learned on his own initiative, outside academic wall, to think deeply and to embrace intellectual honesty courageously. Indeed, to this day, all Catholic universities still teach that during his last day on this earth, just hours before he was executed for his principles, noble values, and rational beliefs, Rizal retracted and went back to have faith in the teachings of the Catholic Church. What brazen lies! It is no less than a tall story. Otherwise, after his death, he would have been given a Catholic burial and his bodily remains not just put inside a dirty old sack and then thrown in the Paco Cemetery in the corner where executed heretics are stashed away like dead animals. Poch Suzara

Rizal Versus Jesus

Rizal was involved not only with the cultivation of the mind but also with the development of the human knowledge. The exact opposite of what Jesus Christ stood for – infantile emotions, sentimental illusions, and proverbial delusions. Consider Jesus: he never uttered a word against slavery or against tyrannical oppression. Jesus appealed not to the intellectual power of man, only to his childish hopes and dreams. And to think that most Filipinos have more love and respect for Jesus who was born in a foreign country some 2000 years ago, than they care to study and learn seriously from a great Filipino thinker born in the Philippines some 150 year ago. Poch Suzara

Rizal and Education

Jose Rizal pointed out that evolution in education, ( not reliance on foreign investments ) is the best hope for our nation to enjoy the highest standard of living and thinking. The system of education for the Filipino must be based on science and technology, and not upon prayers and theology. Indeed, according to Rizal, a free nation can rise no higher than the standard of beliefs and values set in its schools, colleges, and universities. In there hope for the Philippines? Yes, there is! But first its system of education must be radically revamped. No more silly prayers to support a stupid theology. Only more science and more technology via more scientific method of thinking. Poch Suzara

Rizal – the Humanist

Rizal struggled not only against Spanish authority, but against superstition. He fought not in the battlefield, but in the minds of men and in the hearts of women. Rizal was Asia’s first scientific-humanist thinker put to death a century ago by musketry as imposed by theocracy. The same Catholic theocracy today that is keeping the Filipino youth via education to fear new and fresh ideas; indeed, to keep away from the free market of ideas, and to hate, at the same time, the freethinkers. “Blotting out their brains,” Rizal wrote, “in faith, prayers, masses, novenas, superimposed these onto native superstition.” Poch Suzara

A century after Rizal’s Death

After a hundred years, how influential has Jose Rizal been on the Filipino as a people? Millions today would readily give credence by listening to the words of a Mike Velarde of El Shaddai preaching pastoral nonsense derived from the bible – a book written not by Filipinos but by foreigners. Only a handful of scholars would care to read and understand the real Rizal and carry out his principles and ideals for the achievement of pride, dignity, intellectual and scientific honesty for the Filipino as a nation. And to think, the Jews, the Chosen People of God, never considered the bible as a holy book at any time in their history. In fact, the Jews live in a Jewish State. They do not live in a Christian country – the land where Jesus Christ was born. Poch Suzara

Rizal’s Enemies

Rizal’s enemies were the theologians who gave themselves fancy titles: soothsayers, seers, charmers, prophets, enchanters, sorcerers, wizards, astrologers – all more popularly known as the Spanish friars. In brief, Rizal’s enemies were fear, ignorance, and superstition as embodied in the Catholic Church that felt threatened by Rizal’s writings. Rizal indeed aimed first at redeeming the Filipino mind damaged by indoctrination, as well as redeeming the Filipino heart impoverished by revelation. Rizal was a heretic in the eyes of the theologians – the power behind the Spanish Catholic authority. It is said by millions of Filipinos today that it does not matter whether Rizal retracted or not. This is so stupid; for, if Rizal indeed had retracted why was he still executed and then not even given a Catholic burial? Poch Suzara

Rizal – a great Thinker

Rizal, indeed, was a great thinker. He clearly saw in his day what we vaguely see around us today: religion and diseases flourishing hand in hand under ignorance, filth, hate, and poverty. What irked the friars against Rizal was his refusal to continue to believe in Christianity; for, he learned to be on the side of humanity. For my part, if there’s life after death, it’s great thinkers like Rizal that I should wish to be with. Otherwise, if I will just find myself in the company of Filipino theologians, or among the Opus Dei gang – the kind of people who had Rizal put to death, please Lord spare me the sacred horror. I would rather be in hell. Poch Suzara

Rizal’s Spanish Friars

If the Spanish friars had only introduced the concept of humanism instead of establishing in the Philippines religious barbarism and other forms of supernaturalism, Filipino priests like Gomez, Burgos, and Zamora need not have been garroted to death for wanting reforms within the Catholic Church in their time. Moreover, great thinkers like Jose Rizal need not have been executed by firing squad for writing to promote common human decency amongst Filipino learning to enjoy throughout the land national pride and Asian dignity. Poch Suzara

Lies about Rizal

Rizal never said or wrote: “It was my pride that ruined me.” Those words were put into the mouth of Rizal by his official prize-winning biographer Leon Maria Guerrero who believed, as a Catholic, the Rizal retraction story as concocted by the sciolistic friars. Moreover, Rizal never “got rid of his political appetite, moral perplexities, and intellectual pride.” On the contrary, Rizal chose to die proudly. After the friars stripped him of his dignity, it was no longer possible for Rizal to go on living as a decent man and as a thinking Filipino. Poch Suzara

Rizal’s Killers

What kind of men needed to see Rizal dead, discarded and forgotten? Were they men of reason, logic, science or philosophy? Were they avid readers, critical thinkers, or scientific investigators? Were they men at home with civilized humanity? No! On the contrary, Rizal’s enemies were the friends of blind faith: - the superstitious primitives, the sanctimonious hypocrites, and those indeed who were selfish, greedy, stupid, and insane. Rizal now dead more than a hundred years ago, still have the same enemies alive today. They are the ones insisting that it makes no difference whether Rizal retracted from his religious, political and philosophical principles or not. What a silly conclusion to bestow upon the greatest of Filipino seminal thinker who died for the liberation of the Filipino mind and heart, and indeed, for all mankind. Poch Suzara

JOSE RIZAL – THE FIRST FILIPINO HUMANIST

Before he died at the age of 98, mathematician-logician-philosopher- humanist Bertrand Russell said, “If we must die, let us die sober, and not drunk with lies.”

To me, in my simplicity, as a great admirer of Jose Rizal, I believe he died sober; but those in power who had him executed at the age of 30, and those who concocted his retraction story, were the ones drunk with brazen lies.

I defy anyone who believes Jose Rizal, the first great humanist the Philippines has ever produced, died a coward engrossed in childish fairy tales.

And why do I say Rizal was a great humanist? What else do you call a man who was committed to the application of reason and science and to solving human problems of the here and the now?

What else do you call a man who deplored efforts to denigrate human intelligence, who did not seek to explain the world in supernatural terms, and who did not look outside nature for salvation? A man who wanted to leave this world one day a better place than he found it.

What else do you call a man who valued scientific discoveries that have contributed to the betterment of human existence? Who was concerned with securing justice and fairness by eliminating discrimination and intolerance in society?

What else do you call a man who attempted to transcend divisive parochial loyalties based on race, religion, gender, nationality, creed, class, sexual orientation, ethnicity and who worked for the spread of common human decency?

What else do you call a man who believed that developing his creative talents to the fullest constituted the greatest happiness in life for the here and the now?

What else do you call a man who believed in the cultivation of moral excellence, respected the rights of others, believe in human integrity, and was open to critical and rational way of thinking?

What else do you call man who was concerned with the moral education of children? Who wanted to nourish them with the passion for reason, love, and compassion?

What else do you call a man who rejected the theologies of despair, the ideologies of violence, and the sacraments of mediocrity?

And finally, what do you call a man who believe in optimism rather than pessimism, hope rather than despair, learning in place of dogma, truth instead of sacred lies, joy rather than guilt and sin, tolerance in place of fear, love instead of hate, compassion over selfishness, beauty instead of ugliness, and reason rather than blind faith?

Jose Rizal, indeed, believed in the fullest realization of the best and noblest that anyone is capable of as a human being, He was the greatest of Filipino humanists. And he died intellectually sober, not drunk with religious lies.

To Jose Rizal, wherever you are, more than all the angels in heaven, I have the greatest love you as a fellow human being, and I have the highest respect for you as a fellow Filipino. Poch Suzara

Sacred Absurdities

In his Science and Religion, Bertrand Russell wrote: “Now logical unity is at once a strength and a weakness. It is strength because it insures that whoever accepts one stage of the argument must accept all later stages; it is a weakness because whoever rejects any of the later stages must also reject some, at least, of the earliest stages. The Church, in its conflict with science, exhibited both the strength and weakness resulting from the logical coherence of its dogma.” The Church, however, got into deeper trouble not only with science, but with the opening remarks in her own silly bible. The first five words in the bible contain three supposition and a contradiction. Supposition one, there was a beginning. Supposition two, there was a creator. Supposition three, the creator was not created. Contradiction, there was a beginning, there was not a beginning. However the case may be, for the critical reader with a focused mind, the bible turned out to be nothing but a book for the superstitious primitives impressed with sacred absurdities. Poch Suzara

Worship

To worship the unknown is childish and to worship the unknowable is even more childish. In the Philippines, for the sake of our prayers and theology that’s based upon the unknown, we were taught in our schools to have faith in the supernatural that is based upon the unknowable. Poch Suzara

Function of a Teacher

Bertrand Russell wrote: “Men pass from birth to death, sometimes happy, sometimes unhappy; sometimes generous, sometimes grasping and petty; sometimes heroic, sometimes cowardly and servile. To the man who views the procession as a whole, certain things stands as worthy of admiration. Some men have been inspired by love of mankind; some by supreme intellect have helped us to understand the world in which we live; and some by exceptional sensitiveness have created beauty. These men have produced something of positive good to outweigh the long record of cruelty, oppression, and superstition. These men have done what lay in their power to make human life a better thing than the brief turbulence of savages. The civilized man, where he cannot admire, will aim rather at understanding than at reprobating. He will seek rather to discover and remove the impersonal causes of evil than hate the men who are in its grip. All this should be in the mind and heart of the teacher, and it if it in his mind and heart he will convey it in his teaching to the young who are in his care.”
For my part, if I had teachers like a Bertrand Russell at De La Salle University, I never would have been expelled out of high school. A teacher like Russell would never have taught me to believe in silly things under the threat of a silly damnation in hell-fire. Poch Suzara