Insanity

Among the rich and the poor are the insane. Among the young and the old are the insane. Among the politicians and the theologians are the insane. Among the powerful and the powerless are the insane. Among the Americans, the Arabs, the Chinese, and the Filipinos are the insane. Indeed, it is really difficult to say who amongst us is not as insane as the rest of us. Poch Suzara

Two Great Bible Characters

Consider the two great bible characters as the highest models of moral excellence, David in the Old Testament, and Paul in the New Testament. David, the man after God’s heart was a murderer, a thief, a plunderer, a polygamist with a harem of wives and concubines, a drunken debauchee, dancing half-naked before the maids in his household, a lecherous old libertine, abducting and ravishing the wife of a faithful soldier. On the other hand, Paul was a religious fanatic: first a Jew and later a Christian convert. As a Jew, in the name of Jehovah, he persecuted Christians; as a Christian, in the name of Christ, he persecuted Jews. And to think we are told that the bible is written by inspired authors of a holy God. I think it's time for us to entertain a new definition for the word "holy." Poch Suzara.

The Holy Trinity

“Christ, according to the faith, is the second person of the Trinity, the Father being the first, and the Holy Ghost the third. Each of these three persons is God. Christ is his own father and his own son. The Holy Ghost is neither father nor son, but both. The son was begotten by the father, but existed before he was begotten – just the same before as after. Christ is just as old as his father, and the father is just as young as his son. The Holy Ghost proceeded, from the Father and Son, but was equal to the Father and Son before he proceeded, that is say, before he existed, but he is of the same age as the other two. So it is declared that the Father is God and the son is God, and Holy Ghost God and that these three Gods make one God. According to the celestial multiplication table once one is three, and three times one is one, and according to heavenly subtraction if we take two from three, three are left. The addition is equally peculiar, if we add two to one we have but one. Each is equal to himself as the other two. Nothing ever was, nothing can ever be more perfectly idiotic and absurd than the dogma of the Trinity.” The above was written by the famous American agnostic Robert Green Ingersoll. The comments that follow are my holy baloney response: Indeed, moral bankruptcy plus spiritual poverty plus political stupidity equals social insanity. It is the sum total of the results of our sacred belief in the holy trinity. I am told that God has neither a beginning nor an end. This means that God has been in existence for more than 80,000,000 years and will continue to exist for another 80,000,000. Well, if we live to be 80 years, this means that the span of human life is but a split of a second, a wink of an eye, or a flash in the pan in comparison to God’s vast and endless existence. Now the dumbstruck morons who call themselves “theologians” claim that you and I are able to offend God with sin? Really, instead of being ashamed, we should be most proud of such an achievement. Moreover, such a God deserves neither love nor respect for having such a childish vanity. Imagine us powerless human beings, able to grab lightning away from God’s hand and we are able to hurt him at the same time. Wow! What an idiotic belief! Imagine a God getting offended with human activities on this piece of dust called earth lost in the vastness of space and time in which there are far more galaxies than there are people. Imagine a million (1,000,000) planets the size of earth can fit inside the sun. And our sun is not that gigantic either as 500 of our suns can be swallowed up by a bigger star called “Betelgeuse” in one small gulp. In the meantime, there are hundreds of billions of galaxies existing out there called the Cosmos. Where is the Holy Trinity in space and in time? How come he’s always only hiding out there but never to be found down here? And even if he reveals himself down here, according to the dumbstruck theologians, the holy trinity is still sacred mystery. Poch Suzara

Goodwill to all Unbelievers

Peace on earth and goodwill to all men can become a reality. If only the Christians can learn to reject God and his bible; if only the Muslims can learn to reject Allah and his Quran; and if only the Jews can learn to reject Yahweh and his Torah. Indeed, conflicting religious beliefs have always inspired the Christians, the Muslims, and the Jews to participate faithfully in man’s inhumanity to man in the name of an insane divinity. For my part, as an atheist, I say to all Christians, Muslims, and Jews: enough is enough. Your respective deity is not worth killing fellow humans. If we must live, let us live in the name of humanity; and if we must kill, let us kill the ideas and beliefs that encourages hate and war and other forms of rigid, if not obsolete, nay, childish mentality. Let us assume human responsibility for our local community and for global health and sanitation and international sanity. Poch Suzara.

Questioning Everything

Never belittle the power of questioning everything. It is not only the main source, but the very foundation of spiritual wealth. For example: what right does God have to tell us how to raise our children when he himself drowned his own during the days of Noah? And to think that those people killed were our distant relatives. But then again, why should we care about such relatives of the distant past? Under the Christian values taught to us to believe in our Christian schools, Jesus in the bible admonished: “if any man come to me, and hate not his father, mother, wife, children, brethren, sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” Luke 14:26. Poch Suzara

The Souls of Men, if any

To believe that the souls of men, if any, will be happy or unhappy after the death of the body, is to pretend that dead men, dead women, and dead children will be able to see without eyes, to hear without ears, to taste without a palate, to smell without a nose, to feel without hands, to feel the pleasures of love without sex organs, and to think without brains. In the Philippines, as the only Christians country in Asia, we Filipinos believe ourselves very enlightened and potentially saved for the kingdom of God as we adopt faithfully such sick garbage as the foundation of our social and moral values. In the meantime, if it does not bother me one bit to realize that for millions of years before my birth I was existing as a NOTHING, Why should it now bother me to realize as well that for millions of years after my death, I shall again be existing as a NOTHING. Poch Suzara

Theology Defined

If theology were a science, it is the science of contradictions. Every religion is but a system imagined for the purpose of reconciling conflicting ideas against other irreconcilable ideas. Indeed, theology is but ignorance of natural causes reduced to a system. It is not what we know about divinity; it is what we do not know about humanity. Theology is the hope to understand, if not to justify, the mysteries of our faith. Those deeply impressed with theological claims, sad to say, are the frightened faithfools who prefer the unknown, the concealed, the fabulous, the incredible, even the terrible to that which is clear, concise, true, melodic, and realistic. In the meantime, if the theologians do not comprehend other theologians, why then is it expected of me that I should, for myself, comprehend the subject of theology - the study of the incomprehensible? Poch Suzara

Surviving Schizophrenia

According to SURVIVING SCHIZOPHRENIA, a manual for Families, Consumers and Providers, published in 1995 by Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, M.D., the distribution of the 1.8 million persons with schizophrenia in the U.S. are as follows: “100,000 are in Hospitals; 180,000 are in Nursing homes; 100,000 are in Jails & Prisons; 100,000 are in Shelters and Streets; 300,000 are Supervised living in Group Homes; 500,000 are living with family members; 550,000 are living independently.” What it fails to include, however, are those homicidal maniacs installed in the White House by the democratic process called “general election.” Poch Suzara

Pope Paul 11

"Don't you think that the irresponsible behaviour of men is caused by women?“ Pope John Paul II. I ask: how come no one blames the devil anymore? The same devil that God gifted with free will far more superior than man’s inferior free will? And to think the women of Poland today are freely inspired by the devil to celebrate the plan of Pope Benedict XVI to canonize Pope John Paul 11 a saint. How wonderful of Catholic Popes to canonize each other as saints of God. Poch Suzara

Dear Father Roy Cimagala

With great interest, I read your article: WE NEED TO STUDY THEOLOGY published in BusinessWorld ( May 11, 2005 ). You mentioned and I quite agree that there are lots of people who are real giants in the fields of modern technology and other sciences. Regrettably however, I am unable to agree with you that such scientists and technologists are ‘like babies or pygmies with clearly stunted growth in matters of faith and religion.” For my part, I am neither a scientist nor a philosopher. In fact, I am a high-school dropout. But as you are an expert in theology, perhaps you might be of great assistance in answering for my own enlightenment, the following theological questions: If God were the Designer of nature, how come He had to design 23,000 different kinds of beetles? What went wrong with the first beetle design? Or, if the human body were God’s design, how come there exist about 2 billion kinds of virus, germs, and bacteria living inside our body that will eventually self-destruct whether we have free will or not? If God created everything, including space and time, where was God located before he created space, and when was it before he created time? In fact, if everything needs a creator, who or what created God? The sun is a giant star that it can take one million ( 1,000,000 ) planets the size of earth and fit them all inside it. The sun, however, may be large but it is not the largest star in the sky. According to the science of astronomy, there is an even bigger star called Betelgeuse. It is 500 times larger than our sun. Comparatively, therefore, we humans are like the size of tiny parasites living on this grain of sand called “planet earth.” In this connection, what was God’s size when he created man in His own image and likeness? How could Adam and Eve be guilty of anything original, such as the Original Sin, since before everything else there was, first and foremost, - the Original Creator? God’s first Commandment: “Thou shalt have no other Gods before me.” Can you explain where those “other Gods” came from? Who created them? God was often personally involved in human affairs during the days of biblical antiquity. How come he is no longer personally involved in human affairs in any shape or form in these days of scientific modernity? If moral values were universally planted by God, then all people would believe the same things. There could never be disagreements over right and wrong. There would be no need for laws, courts, and battlefields. Can you explain why the history of the world has been a history of conflicts between moral values in God’s name? According to the National Catholic Almanac, God is “almighty, eternal. Holy, immortal, immense, immutable, incomprehensible, ineffable, infinite, invisible, just, loving, merciful, most high, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, patient, perfect, provident, supreme, true.” Can you explain: how was it possible for theologians to have declared God’s incomprehensibility and simultaneously list twenty-two additional attributes? If God cannot be comprehended, what’s the latest findings from the study of theology? Indeed, what’s new with God? If God were immutable and therefore cannot change the past, the present, and the future as God saw it, doesn’t that make our prayers utterly worthless because when we pray, we are asking God to change his mind? If God so loved the world, why does he tolerate the devil to inspire the believers of the same religion hate each other like we all do as a matter of survival in this only Christian country in Asia? Christ said that if someone smite thee on the right cheek, turn the left cheek also. What is so noble about turning the other cheek, if one knows that each time he does so, he piling up greater rewards in heaven, while the one who strikes is earning his rewards in hell? If Christ died on the cross to destroy the devil, how come the devil is still alive and quite a success inspiring the Filipino to grace not the growth of human civilization but only to be a disgrace in the rat race for eternal salvation? Theology is not what we know about divinity. It is what we do not know about humanity. As theology, however, is still at the very foundation of our system of education, is it any wonder that we come out of our schools not as fruitful thinkers in love with our country, but only as fruitless believers in love with divinity? Yours Faithfully, Poch Suzara

All in Heaven For What?

If Jesus and his apostles, Mohammed, Buddha, Brahma, Yahweh, Confucius, the writers of the bible, Quoran, Torah, Upanishads, Bhagavad Cita, Pope Paul 11, the saints of God, St. Francis of Asissi, Martin Luther, the disciples of Allah, including Hindu followers, Emperor Hirohito of japan, Hitler, Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt, Truman, Nixon and Reagan, not to mention Marcos of the Philippines, etc. were all already in heaven with God up there, why are we all still hating and at war against each other for the sake of the devil in hell down here? Poch Suzara Twitter# Facebook# Google#

What If I am Wrong

What if it turned out that I am wrong all along and that God will meet with me after I am dead, what then? Well, I will immediately ask God to forgive me for having wasted my youth as a dumbstruck catholic when I was in grade school and high school at De La Salle University. But I will ask God: weren’t you such a dumbstruck of a God yourself for having created the silly devil gifted with a free will too? Poch Suzara

Reason and Faith

Can faith and reason be friends and work harmoniously together? Let’s see: Can you have faith that man has one rib less than a woman because reason tells you that God, according to the bible, created woman by taking a rib off Adam’s body? Indeed, how can faith and reason ever reconcile when faith proceeds like a mind stuck on hinges; and reason proceeds like a mind moving on wheels? Even if we assume that faith can merge with reason, we must see faith first merging with other faiths before reason can begin to entertain the silly merger. Poch Suzara

If God Sees Everything

If God sees everything, how come he is able to remedy nothing? Otherwise, if God were good, why not be good for something? Why be good only like the theologians and the politicians who are good not for something, but only good for nothing? Poch Suzara

Poverty and Wealth

The worst kind of poverty is the poverty of the mind. Such poverty explains the faith behind theism based on the unknowable. The best kind of wealth is the wealth of the mind. Such wealth explains the reason behind atheism based on the knowable. Poch Suzara

Two Philippine Associations

I am most proud and happy to be the chairperson of two unique but closely related associations in the Philippines. However, I must confess that each time I feel like I am such a failure intellectually, I am most proud to identify myself as the chairman of the Bertrand Russell Society, Philippines; but then again, each time I feel like I am such a success intellectually, I am most happy to identify myself as the chairman of the High School Dropout Association of the Philippines. Poch Suzara

Two Saintly Popes

"Don't you think that the irresponsible behaviour of men is caused by women?“ Pope John Paul 11. I ask: how come the Pope blames not the devil whose God gifted free will is far more superior than man's inferior free will? And to think the women in Poland today are freely celebrating the plan of Pope Ratzinger to beatify Pope and eventualy canonized John Paul 11 a saint of God. Poch Suzara

The Secret of Christianity

The power of reason leaves Christianity untouched, because Christianity does not pretend to reason. Christianity is build on faith, and appeals to the senses and to the imagination rather than to the intellect. When sense and hope are satisfied, the mind remains at rest; that is the secret of Christianity. Sadly, however, the power of science has long established the fact that the mind at rest is akin to the mind that is no longer at its best – another secret the Christian has not ceased hiding. Poch Suzara

DO WE LOVE ONE ANOTHER

Do we love our rivers and lakes and beaches? Do we love our flowers, plants, and trees? Do we love our birds, butterflies, and other living creatures of the forest? Do we love law and order? Do we love our policemen in the streets and our lawyers and prosecutors and judges in the courts? Do we love our mayors, governors, congressmen, and senators? Is ours a lovable government of the lovable people, by the lovable people, and for the lovable people?

Developing countries in Asia today are the results of, if not due to, developed minds and cultivated hearts. Thanks to the power of education based upon science and technology. Thanks also to that simple yet powerful human sentiment that has always been a traditional reality: love of country and love of fellow-citizens. Among Filipinos, however, -- love of country is as yet a traditional fantasy.

In Asian countries developing today, teamwork means dividing the effort and multiplying the effects. With us Filipinos, however, it is the exact opposite: teamwork means praying to God for miracles and to forgive us of our historical defects.

But then again, in this only Christian country in Asia, if we are not praying to God to lead us not into temptation, our high government officials too are praying to the same God to lead us not into deeper economic degradation. The results thus far: graft and corruption, political confusion, social dislocation, and especially pollution and population explosion.

Are we ever going to wake up in this country? When are we going to stop kidding ourselves enjoying the sacred lies we tell each other each day of every year? Are we ever going to solve, intelligently, our problems as a people and our troubles as a nation? Must we continue with our stunted sense of humanity as inspired by our love for incomprehensible divinity?

There was a time when every single man, woman, and child believed in a loving God. It was a time when no one dared to question anything. It was a time of spiritual poverty and moral bankruptcy. Everybody also believed the world was not round, but flat. It was a time of fear and mental paralysis. Everybody held on to faith not in the human capacity but faith only in human stupidity. It lasted for a thousand years( 5th to the 15th century ). Historians refer to those centuries as the Dark Ages.

We Filipinos are still living in the Dark Ages. We carry superstition on our backs and we are crippled by its weight. We make no bones about God being a panacea – that all our social troubles and economical and political problems will vanish into thin air if only each and every one of us will kneel down and once more have deep faith in God.

The holy bible is found in almost every Filipino home today. It is a book written not by Filipinos, but by foreigners. If, however, we wish to understand why love of country does not exist in the Philippines, please read the bible. It clearly states what we adhere to faithfully: “Love not the 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. Indeed, why should we love our country when the bible clearly tells us that if we do so, the love of God is not with us?

Now if we wish to understand why we do not love each other as a people please read again carefully what Jesus admonished in the bible: “If any man come to me and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” Luke 14:26. Is it any wonder why we all love God up there by hating one another down here?

In the meantime, hundreds of thousands of abandoned and hungry Filipino children struggle to exist in the streets of our major cities. Their bodies are rotting with malnourishment as they live off garbage and trash.

Well, millions of children too exist inside our school buildings. Their minds and hearts are rotting too. They are taught to believe that this world is depraved and sinful and corrupt and that this life is nothing but a transition to a better world to come after death with God in heaven. Indeed, these are the same millions of children who will become parents themselves one day. And like all of us parents and grandparents of today, they too will be the stupid victims of our so-called “ social, moral and religious values.”

We are born ignorant, not mindless. In the Philippines, we are made mindless with the power of education. Poch Suzara

FAITH

Faith is really a kind of convenient escape-hatch. Faith does not extricate any one away from contradictions and absurdities; it merely inspires one to believe and to have faith in spite of contradictions and absurdities. Indeed, faith is just another sacred word we often use to hide our irrationality, if not to justify our lazy mentality Poch Suzara