Free Trip

Life on earth may be expensive, but it includes a free trip around the sun once a year. Poch Suzara

Free Will

My parents and grandparents were threatened with hell-fire if they neglected to have me, as a child, baptized in a Catholic church. Obviously, my parents and grandparents had not the free will to ignore the sacrament of baptism? But more to the point: where in hell was my own free will to choose which religion I should have wished to embrace for myself? Free will is a dirty joke.

In La Salle grade school, I was also threatened with eternal damnation forever in hell if I refused to believe that God gifted me with a free will. Of course, whether I wanted to believe or not to believe in free will, I had to believe it whether I liked it or not. I had NO OTHER CHOICE but to believe in free will! Poch Suzara

Self-respect

I am not who you say I am. I am who I say I am. That is the call for self-respect and dignity. Poch Suzara

Failures and Losers

There are a great many failures and losers comprising our sick society. The most popular, however, are those who are always making grand excuses for and in behalf of God who is always sleeping on the job. In the meantime, only those who are strong can afford to doubt. Nothing is so thrilling nevertheless exhausting. Poch Suzara

It’s sad

It’s sad to see grown-up Christians holding on to their most cherished beliefs that are based on fear and ignorance; especially the mask of fear as faith in God and the mask of ignorance as knowledge of God. It is sadder, however, to see grown-up Christians addressed their prayers to God that are similar in form and content to letters children write to Santa Claus. Poch Suzara

Bravo for Women

It may yet be woman’s greatest achievement: to brag that not one of them contributed a chapter, a paragraph, a verse, a sentence, or even a single word written in the holy bible as inspired authors of God. Congratulations! I love you all. Poch Suzara

Faith

Faith has consequences, and stupid faith, naturally, has stupid consequences. Poch Suzara

Atheism and Death

I too will die one day; but I am grateful for having discovered the case against God called “atheism.” Indeed, owing and thanks to atheism, I no longer fear facing my own precious thought about the end of my own precious life one day. Poch Suzara

What’s to Become of Morality

What’s to become of morality if we do not believe in God? What a silly question often asked by those who embrace blind faith. Look at the Christians and Muslims and the Jews in world history: because of their sense of morality via faith in God, they have not ceased hating and killing each other in God’s name. Look at the Anglican Protestants and the Irish Roman Catholics hating and killing each other for God’s glory in Northern Ireland. The religious carnage based upon morality has been going for centuries. Poch Suzara

More Respect

I have respect for General Douglas McArthur. He was a truthful man. During the Second World War, he promised to return with a bigger army to assist fellow soldiers fighting the Japanese in the Philippines. He simply said: - “I shall return” - he did so in two years time. When Jesus, the Son of God, the miracle worker, the Savior of Filipinos, promised that he will return, he has yet to deliver that promise he made some two thousand years ago. But then again, I have more respect for Jose Rizal. When he died for his country, he stayed dead. When Jesus died on the cross to destroy the devil, he did not stay dead. He resurrected on the 3rd day presumably to try to find some other ways and means to destroy the stupid devil for good. Poch Suzara

Ripley and Jesus

I have more respect for Ripley than for Jesus. To the best of my knowledge, Ripley has never, not even once, threatened me with eternal punishment if I did not believe in any of his BELIEVE IT OR NOT proposals. Poch Suzara

What If, as an Atheist, I am Wrong?

What if, as an atheist, I will turn out to be completely wrong? That there is, after all, a God? Well, I am not worried because what if it also turns out that God too never had faith nor trust nor confidence in any of man’s great religions! Really, if God exists, I find it incredible to believe that such a God is a Christian or a Muslim or a Jew or a Hindu or a Buddhist or, for that matter, according to the silly Catholic theologians - God is almighty, eternal, truthful, immutable, infinite, just, incomprehensible, loving, most wise, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, patient, perfect, provident, supreme, and all good and kind but "incomprehensible." Hijos de tootie-frootie y patooties - how can any one have the gall to believe, love, respect, worship, and adore such a incomprehensible supernatural monster? What a waste of precious life, energy, time, and space - the little of it that we have on this earth as a gift from nature! Poch Suzara

Alms-giving

The Church is pleased with our giving to charity whether it comes from prosperity or even from poverty. But the Church is even more pleased with any kind of giving, especially if it comes from blind faith as inspired by religious insanity. Next only to the US government, the Catholic Church is the richest religious organization in the world today. Poch Suzara

Science

If science comes from God, how come there is not one scientist who was canonized a saint? How come the theologians are frightened of the scientific way of thinking? And how come religion has always been upset, if not always embarrassed with the findings of science correcting the errors cherished by religion? Indeed, if religion comes from God, how come there is not one word mentioned in the bible in praise of human intelligence or the power of science? Poch Suzara

Where is Jesus

It is only after death that Filipinos look forward to meeting Jesus in heaven. As Jesus, however, promised to return some two thousand years ago, I am about the one and only exceptional Filipino who is looking forward to meeting Jesus in person right here and now. Indeed, I hope and pray that Jesus will return soon. In this way, he can begin to straighten out the mess caused by Christian values and beliefs keeping the Filipino poor as a people and the Philippines backward as a nation. As the only Christian country in Asia, what has been the result for the Philippines? Hate and fear and ignorance and poverty pretty much characterize the Filipino way of life. It is, indeed, not only damnable daily, but God-damnable yearly! Poch Suzara

The Poor for the Rich

Jesus said: “If thou be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give it to the poor.” The Church got to be one of the richest organizations in the world as both the rich and the poor sold everything cheap to the Church. And to add insult to injury, valuable assets were confiscated by the Church in God’s name. Look at the prime properties and big corporations own by the Church in the Philippines. As part of religious contributions, the tax free Catholic Church is even able to remit millions of dollars each and every year direct to the Vatican. Poch Suzara

FILIPINO IDENTITY

It turned out that we Filipinos do indeed have a national identity: We are notoriously identified throughout the world as the Sick Man of Asia. In the modern world, instead of seriously considering the power of science and technology to elevate our standard of living and thinking, like lost children, we would rather maintain our Christian way of life to elevate our standard of kneeling and praying. Thus, with deep faith we Filipinos are still waiting that one of these days, by some miracle from heaven – God will finally provide for the Philippines. Poch Suzara

PRAYER

As a devout Catholic years ago, I found myself often times praying with these words: “Oh God, please forgive me. I did not mean to question sacred knowledge today.” After years of this kind of sacred nothing, I decided to throw my prayers out the window and began to question everything. It turned out that the questioning of everything is not only the basis for discovering and maintaining mental health, but it is also the very foundation of spiritual wealth. Poch Suzara

With God

Yes, with God, everything is possible. He could even impregnate a Jewish Virgin Mary with a child in Bethlehem. Unfortunately, God seems to find it impossible to impregnate the millions of virgins with dignity in the Philippines so that they could enjoy social sanity enough not to be too reckless contributing to the insane population explosion that pleases more than anyone else - the Catholic Bishops – the symbol of religious mediocrity, if not social insanity in the Philippines. Poch Suzara

Who Knows

How can any one know anything about God when theology is ignorance of natural causes reduced to a system? When it is the attempt to prove the incredible by an appeal to the unintelligible? Theology is the subject of nothing as it is the study of the unknowable by means of the not worth knowing. Indeed, theology is not what we know about the supernatural; but what we do not know about the natural. Thus, even among the theologians, it is but natural to be incomprehensible specially to other theologians. Poch Suzara